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"Mister, do you know anywhere I can exchange gold for money?"
Stepping up to a middle-aged man carrying a wine flask, Goku asked politely.
The man's face was flushed from drink; just as he was about to kick away the youth who had grabbed him, he spotted the tail swaying behind the boy and instantly sobered up.
"Go straight along this road, then turn left; there's a money exchange house there."
With a tail growing from his backside, the youth before him was clearly no ordinary person—he was likely a ninja capable of using jutsu.
And ninjas were not the sort of people ordinary folk wanted to cross.
Although the Land of Fire had strict laws prohibiting even powerful ninjas from harming ordinary civilians, it would be foolish to offend a ninja simply by relying on the law.
Unless you were a noble or a wealthy merchant who could afford to hire a small army of bodyguards and rogue ninjas, who would know if you got your head cut off while walking alone at night?
That was why ordinary people tended to give ninjas a wide berth.
"Thanks, Mister!"
Goku bowed in thanks. Fighting back the drool constantly pooling in his mouth, he followed the man's directions and quickly found the town's only money exchange.
"I'd like to exchange this gold for money."
Not knowing the value of gold in this world, Goku walked into the money exchange and simply dumped a heap of gold bars out of the box, sending them clattering onto the floor.
This was merely a tiny fraction of the gold bars Mark had given him back in the Spirit Cage world.
Gasp!
Seeing the gold—weighing at least several hundred catties—piled up in front of Goku, both the counter clerk and the customers in the shop gasped in shock.
Where did this young tycoon come from? To think he possessed so much gold.
"Sir, please come with me; let's step into the back..."
The counter clerk darted instantly toward the innermost part of the shop. Soon, a portly shopkeeper came rushing out from the back, beaming with a smile.
"A customer! A big-time customer!"
Upon catching a glimpse of the gold bars on the ground, the fat shopkeeper's grin widened even further.
Less than ten minutes later, Goku walked out of the money exchange empty-handed.
The gold bars—weighing over eight hundred Kgs—had been exchanged for eighty million taels.
This sum consisted of over seven hundred high-denomination banknotes worth one hundred thousand taels each, with the remainder converted into smaller notes worth two hundred taels apiece.
Naturally, all the money had been tossed into the box; whenever he needed to use some, he could simply reach in and pull it out, without the hassle of carrying it in his hands.
And so, he proceeded to go on a voracious eating spree along the snack street.
Under the dumbfounded gazes of passersby, Goku quickly devoured the better part of the inventory from shop after shop.
It was only after finishing the very last grilled fish at the final shop that he asked the proprietor:
"Grandpa, do you know who the most powerful expert in this world is?"
"The most powerful expert? Why, that would be the Hokage of our Land of Fire, of course!"
Hearing Goku's question, the elderly grilled-fish vendor—who was over seventy years old—replied immediately, his face glowing with pride.
"Back in the day, I traveled through many lands myself; I even visited the Hidden Leaf Village and laid eyes on the Hokage..."
The mere mention of the Hokage stirred up memories of his youth, and the old man began to ramble on about his past experiences.
It was clear this wasn't the first time he had told these stories; he likely chatted with customers about them often.
After all, in an era where transportation was far from convenient, many townspeople might never leave their own hometowns in their entire lives.
Someone like him—who had traveled to many countries in his youth and actually survived to tell the tale—was a rarity.
He certainly had the credentials to boast and spin yarns.
Unlike the other townspeople who had long since grown weary of hearing these tales, Goku listened with genuine attentiveness, which only encouraged the old man to speak with even more... He was getting excited.
And through the old man's stories, Goku gradually began to understand this world.
It was a world comprising five superpowers—the Land of Fire, the Land of Wind, the Land of Water, the Land of Lightning, and the Land of Earth—along with many smaller nations like the Land of Rice Fields, the Land of Rain, and the Land of Rivers.
Many of these nations had their own "Hidden Villages," which served as their most powerful military forces.
The outcome of conflicts between nations depended primarily on the battles fought between these Hidden Villages.
And the outcome of those battles depended on the ninjas.
Ninjas—powerful beings capable of performing miraculous ninjutsu— possessed formidable strength.
Even the lowest-ranking Genin could sprint over ten meters in a single second.
They were on par with how Goku and Krillin had been when they first started training under Master Roshi.
Top-tier Jonin could even use ninjutsu to alter the landscape.
As for the "Kage"—the strongest ninja in a village—the old man didn't know the specifics, other than that they were incredibly, unimaginably powerful.
He held the Hokage in particularly high regard, having visited the Hidden Leaf Village (Konoha) in his youth.
He considered the Hokage to be the strongest ninja in the entire world.
Hearing this made Goku's eyes light up; he instantly found a new goal.
It wasn't that he had never heard of ninjas before; he had even encountered one.
Back at Muscle Tower—the Red Ribbon Army's northern base— he had met a ninja named Sergeant Purple on the fourth floor.
The guy claimed to know many ninjutsu techniques, but it was all a sham.
His so-called "Clone Technique" was just a trick involving four identical-looking brothers; his actual strength was mediocre.
But the ninjas in this world seemed different; they likely possessed genuine mastery of those ninjutsu techniques.
"Grandpa, do you know where the Hidden Leaf Village is?"
"Child, if you want to go to the Hidden Leaf Village, just leave this village and head north; it'll take about a month to get there.
But it's not safe outside the town, so you'd best find a merchant caravan to travel with." The old man did not hide the location of Konohagakure (the Village Hidden in the Leaves).
Although it was a "Hidden Village," Konoha accepted missions from across the country and even from abroad; anyone with a bit of knowledge knew where it was located.
As the most powerful ninja village in the world, Konoha had no need to conceal its location.
"Straight north—got it. Thanks, Grandpa!"
After paying, Goku used the Bukū-jutsu (Flight Technique) to shoot straight up into the air and fly rapidly toward the north.
Below, the old man who had just finished telling the story and the surrounding passersby were left dumbfounded as they watched Goku fly away.
Many had noticed the tail growing from Goku's backside and speculated that he might be a ninja.
However, seeing him take flight like that still came as a shock.
It wasn't that they had never seen ninjas before, but a ninja capable of flight was a rare sight indeed.
"Full speed ahead!"
High in the air, Goku pushed his flight technique to its absolute limit.
At this moment, his flying speed had already surpassed that of the Flying Nimbus.
While it would take an ordinary person a month of traveling north to reach Konoha, he could likely get there in less than a day using this technique.
Of course, to avoid overshooting his destination, he didn't fly too high and kept a constant watch on the terrain below.
After flying for about an hour, Goku suddenly stopped, a look of curiosity appearing on his face.
"Are those people fighting down there the ninjas of this world? They don't seem half bad, actually."
Directly beneath him—in a secluded complex of buildings hidden within a forest—two groups were engaged in a fierce battle.
One side wore green tactical vests, while the other wore long coats embroidered with red auspicious clouds; one of them was even wielding a bizarre scythe-like weapon.