Just like school bullying in Japan in his previous life, the world of Naruto, a product of the Japanese 2D world, also had severe bullying.
In his previous life, even the Emperor's grandson was bullied, and the Naruto world was no different.
People who were mavericks, had withdrawn personalities, or were simply handsome with good grades—as long as they didn't fit in, they were easily bullied by classmates and older students.
Moreover, the unruly people of Konoha didn't care about your status at all.
Whether you were a commoner or a child of a ninja clan, they would bully you just the same.
Whether it was Uzumaki Kushina, who was destined to become the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, protected by Uzumaki Mito and Tsunade, and closely watched by the Third Hokage and Anbu; or Hyuga Hinata, the heiress of the Main House of the Hyuga Clan—the number one clan in Konoha and the Ninja World after the Uchiha Clan's demise in the future—both suffered bullying in the Academy.
Furthermore, their families, their backers, and the school would not intervene.
Similarly, when others were bullied, their families and the school would not step in either.
They even tacitly approved of and encouraged bullying!
In this time of war, once there was a shortage of manpower, even trainee ninjas a few years old would be sent to the battlefield. In this world, rather than dying at the hands of the enemy, it was better to be bullied by one's own people into dropping out and returning home to be an ordinary person.
If you didn't have the courage to resist, how could you handle bloodshed and assassination in the future?
What kind of ninja could a piece of trash be?
Gojo Yoru understood this less than a week after enrolling. Thus, he deliberately crafted a cold and aloof persona. He then got into a conflict with senior students, utilizing his mature psychological quality and the ninja basics he had mastered in advance to beat a student who had advanced to the sixth grade, achieving fame in a single battle.
In the eyes of the school teachers and certain individuals, Gojo Yoru was a civilian genius.
With both parents being Jonin and martyrs, his future was bright.
The only flaw was that he was unsociable.
This was likely caused by the trauma of losing both parents in childhood.
As long as this knot was untied, there was a high probability he would become a pillar of the village in the future.
To untie the knot in Gojo Yoru's heart, a trigger was needed.
So, would this trigger be a person or an event?
...
Walking into the classroom, Gojo Yoru sat at the second desk in the last row.
The desks in the Ninja Academy were three-seaters.
However, Gojo Yoru sat alone.
Of course, it wasn't that he had driven his desk mates away. Rather, after passing the entrance exam, the school had a probation period.
During this probation period, if students still couldn't refine Chakra, it meant that although their physical and spiritual energies met the standard, they lacked ninja aptitude and would be advised to quit.
Every first-grade class had such cases.
Class 1 had also lost three students, including Gojo Yoru's two desk mates.
Seeing Gojo Yoru enter, the originally somewhat noisy classroom immediately quieted down significantly.
At least the classmates around Gojo Yoru didn't dare to speak loudly, only whispering.
The students in the row in front of Gojo Yoru kept their heads down, not daring to say a word.
Only those female classmates who liked Gojo Yoru's face and strength were still secretly stealing glances at him, though they also dared not approach.
This was a good thing; at least no one came to bother him.
Gojo Yoru rested his chin on one hand and spun a pen with the other. On the surface, he seemed to be killing time, but in reality, he had habitually started thinking.
After awakening the space-time ability, Gojo Yoru had never updated his game strategy again and rarely entered the basement.
With this power, which was no less inferior to a Kekkei Mora, Gojo Yoru no longer needed to follow the original game strategy to turn himself into a patchwork monster.
Therefore, the vast majority of the strategies for obtaining power had been discarded by Gojo Yoru.
However, Gojo Yoru still kept some of the strategies.
Among them was the very beginning of the game strategy—Intercept Uzumaki Kushina!
In the original work, Namikaze Minato's rise, aside from his talent, was inseparable from two benefactors.
One was Jiraiya, who brought him connections and the Flying Thunder God Technique. The other was Uzumaki Kushina, who brought him Tsunade's support and the Sealing Jutsu of the Uzumaki Clan.
With the help of these two people, Namikaze Minato gained the approval of two of the Sannin and the Hokage. Once Uzumaki Kushina became the Perfect Jinchuriki, he had the strongest person in Konoha as his backing, making him so impeccable that even Shimura Danzo couldn't touch him.
It was just like in his previous life when someone married a good wife and immediately skyrocketed to success.
As long as he could intercept Uzumaki Kushina, Gojo Yoru, as a transmigrator, was fully confident that he could skyrocket as well.
If his talent wasn't good enough, if his background was poor, or if he wasn't the same age and in the same class as Namikaze Minato, Gojo Yoru wouldn't dare to have such thoughts.
But after discovering he was in the same class as Namikaze Minato, Gojo Yoru knew this was an opportunity to defy the heavens and change his fate.
For this reason, he dispelled the idea of getting along with his peers and becoming friends or best buddies with the children of ninja clans, instead creating the persona of an unsociable genius.
Only bonds could resolve his inner knot.
Uzumaki Kushina, whose clan had just been destroyed, was his kind. They were each other's antidote.
With such groundwork laid, Gojo Yoru believed that Sarutobi Hiruzen and Uzumaki Mito behind the scenes would absolutely not stop him from approaching Uzumaki Kushina, unless Namikaze Minato was Sarutobi Hiruzen's biological father and Uzumaki Kushina was sent by the latter to honor his father.
In that case, Gojo Yoru would accept it.
Otherwise, Gojo Yoru was determined to intercept Uzumaki Kushina!
Gojo Yoru's current weaknesses were very obvious: Chakra control and the amount of Space-Time Chakra.
As a transmigrator, he had actually mastered tree climbing and water walking long ago. His Chakra control was actually very strong, even better than a freshly graduated Genin.
However, this level of Chakra control was still insufficient to perform Ninjutsu using Space-Time Chakra.
The fact that Space-Time Chakra could manifest outside the body meant it could definitely be used for techniques, it was just extremely difficult.
How to further improve Chakra control?
Gojo Yoru had several methods.
First was training the Rasengan. This hand-seal-less A-rank Ninjutsu developed by Namikaze Minato was not only the pinnacle of shape transformation but also required very high-level Chakra control.
This was also the only Ninjutsu in the original work where the complete training method was published. Gojo Yoru remembered it vividly. Once he could move his hands and feet, he had immediately written down the training method.
If not for his Chakra capacity and control not meeting the standards yet, he would have started training long ago.
Second was training in Medical Ninjutsu. If he could master the Chakra Scalpel, not only would Gojo Yoru's Chakra control become stronger, but his hands might also be able to turn into Black Blades.
Third was Sealing Jutsu. This was the highest tier of Chakra control and, like space-time abilities, possessed absurdly high lower and upper limits.
Sealing Jutsu was unreasonable; even the Progenitor of Chakra fell victim to it.
Gojo Yoru was very curious: Could the Yin Seal solve the problem of his Space-Time Chakra amount being locked?
If it could, then Gojo Yoru would have an extra life-saving trump card.
This was a thought that occurred to Gojo Yoru immediately after discovering the "bottleneck" in his body.
Because of this, Gojo Yoru became even more determined in his idea to intercept Uzumaki Kushina.