Satoru returned to his modest shack on the village outskirts, shrugged off the hated stone sack from his shoulders, washed off the sweat and dirt under streams of hot water, and collapsed exhausted onto the hard bed, immediately plunging into a deep, heavy sleep.
The transmigrator's consciousness slowly sank into a viscous fog; he couldn't tell where reality ended and the bizarre dream began.
Either way, without realizing it, Satoru found himself in some strange, whitish, endless space shrouded in thick mist. And then, right before him, an elderly white-bearded sage materialized from the fog.
"Young man, you're finally here," the old man said. He looked like a true celestial from ancient legends, but Satoru instinctively sensed this wasn't the Sage of Six Paths from this world.
"Grandpa, you... you were looking for me?" Satoru was taken aback and somewhat stunned by the sudden appearance.
"Exactly, my child. I've been waiting for you a very, very long time. Not bad, quite impressive... you have an exceptionally strong and resilient soul!" The white-bearded sage sized up his interlocutor with a careful gaze and seemed highly pleased with what he saw.
"Who the hell are you, old man? And why do you need me—what do you want from me?" the young man asked bluntly, with no desire to listen to long, boring old-man lectures.
"Ha! Don't rush so, young man," the old man chuckled, stroking his long white beard. "You're a transmigrator, right? By some incredible chance, by fate's whim, you ended up in the 'Naruto' world? And every day you feel drained and sluggish? Always short on energy, like someone's sucking it out, right?"
"Right... Exactly as you say," Satoru admitted, stunned. "But... how do you know all this? Don't tell me... it's because of you that I always feel powerless, like a squeezed lemon?"
From the moment of his translocation to this world, Satoru had tormented himself daily with monstrous workouts, sweating buckets, tempering not just his body but his will. Yet despite his titanic efforts, real progress was frustratingly slow. Especially his physical strength—it often inexplicably and suddenly deserted him, as if an invisible vampire drained his energy to the last drop.
"Spot on, kid! Consider yourself insanely, fantastically lucky!" The more ethereal, wise, and otherworldly the old man seemed, the more absurd and ridiculous the whole situation felt to Satoru.
"You old bastard! What a scoundrel you are!" the transmigrator exploded, forgetting all respect. "Tell me right now! What did you do to me, you old wizard?!" He was so furious he barely held back from lunging at the old man and grabbing his beard.
"Don't get so heated, young man, calm down," the white-haired sage said softly.
In that instant, his figure dissolved into the air, only to reappear a split second later completely unnoticed right behind the stunned young man.
The sage paternally placed a hand on his shoulder and continued:
"You subject your young body to such hellish, inhuman loads every day that it's long reached its limit—and surpassed it. Without me secretly and invisibly supporting and protecting your body, you'd have died ages ago from overexertion and exhaustion.
"Moreover," he went on in his calm, soothing voice, "I've only borrowed the tiniest, most insignificant drop of your spiritual power from you. And now I've appeared before you solely to thank you for that small token."
The white-haired one explained patiently and at length, and gradually the flame of anger in Satoru's soul began to subside.
"Thank me, you say?" he asked skeptically. "Then why keep quiet all this time, benefactor? Well, since that's the case, spill it—how exactly do you plan to compensate me for my suffering and inconvenience?" Satoru bored into the sage with a probing gaze, still feeling a rising wave of irritation for some reason.
The white-haired one just grinned crookedly in response:
"What a pragmatic and down-to-earth young man you are... Well then, I'll give you a System. How's that for an offer?"
"System? What System? Tell me more, don't keep me in suspense!" the young man's eyes lit up with keen interest. As an avid web-novel reader, he knew full well that many transmigrators made incredible leaps in growth thanks to a mysterious System's help, gaining unimaginable power. A System was like a legendary golden finger, a powerful cheat that multiplied growth and unlocked previously inaccessible possibilities.
"Give me a sec, let me find it... ah, here it is, don't rush... Take this—it's a System made just for you," the old man muttered, pulling a small gourd flask from behind his wide belt. He shook out a tiny, dimly glowing pill onto his palm and, taking advantage of Satoru's stunned open-mouthed stare, deftly popped it into his mouth.
As soon as Satoru swallowed the mysterious pill, he suddenly felt the entire world around him shift subtly but palpably, coming alive with new, previously unseen colors.
"Wh-what... what the hell did you just make me eat?!" the system bearer demanded, snapping out of it.
"This pill is nothing less than a miraculous, divine medicine that will help you break the invisible shackles of dimensions and unlock your true potential," the sage replied with a mysterious smile. "And now... wake up. When you do, you'll understand everything yourself..."
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan