The afternoon, Ninja Academy.

  “Good afternoon, Mizuki-sensei.”

  Link looked at Mizuki, who had "tally" appeared again, feeling both amused and exasperated.

  Did this guy not realize how obvious and suspicious his timing was?

  “Good afternoon,” Mizuki replied with a cheerful smile before quietly leaving.

  Watg Mizuki’s retreating figure, Link sighed silently. It seemed that standing out and showing unique abilities iably drew unwatention.

  Today was his first day at the academy, and… well, it felt rather underwhelming.

  After registration, all the udents were gathered into a . With only about a huudents iire school and 20–30 in his cohort, there was o split into csses. Even the cept of grade levels was vague.

  The teacher in charge of their cohort—who we’ll call the homeroom teacher for simplicity—spent the m introdug the students to physical training and assessing their fitness levels.

  Unfortunately, among his peers, Link’s physical abilities ranked below average. However, his perseveraood out; despite the disfort, he gritted his teeth and pleted the runni without giving up.

  Although the homeroom teacher didn’t directly evaluate each student, it was clear he was satisfied with Link’s determination.

  For ninjas who hadn’t yet reached a certain skill level, effort and persistence were highly valued traits.

  …

  After the fitness assessment, the first lesson was a lecture on the basics of chakra. It wasirely a regurgitation of the scrolls, but there wasn’t muew informatioher. Link had already learned most of it from his te father.

  After lunch, the students had their first cultural css—history.

  Or rather, it was more of a political indoation session, beginning with the Will of Fire.

  While it was inspiring for the children, it felt tedious and meanio the adult soul inside Link’s small body. heless, he put on an expression of being deeply moved.

  This pretense was important. The academy’s curriculum—separate from its grading system—was divided into six modules: theory, practice, physical training, refles, mi, and history.

  The fact that history was given its own module demonstrated how much importahe Konohagakure pced on it.

  Link wao rise through the ranks as a ninja. To do so, he couldn’t afford to seem too detached. Even if he acted mature, he couldn’t appear overly aware or clear-minded.

  Genius table, but a genius who pletely deviated from their enviro would raise suspis.

  The Konohagakure was a military anization, not a peacekeeping force. If someone seemed suspicious, they wouldn’t hesitate to act, ofteaining the person and reading their memories before determining guilt.

  …

  Returning to the topic of the academy, the school didn’t follow a gradual, step-by-step teag approach. From the very first semester, students were tested on taijutsu, ninjutsu, individual bat, team bat, and tactics. Only the first day was retively light.

  Starting tomorrow, the schedule would sist of m physical training, theoretical lessons, cultural csses iernoon, and simuted bat sessions afterward.

  The first semester didn’t include mental training.

  Mental training wasn’t about buildial resilie rather desensitizing students to killing, being killed, and witnessing the death of rades.

  (This was evident during the mission to retrieve Sasuke, where Chōji’s near-death surgery brought Shikamaru to tears, prompting Temari to ask why he hadn’t already been ditioned by mental training.)

  This desensitization was why even children as young as seven ht could bee ruthless killers otlefield.

  No matter how idealistic the Will of Fire sounded, it couldn’t ge the fact that the Konohagakure was a war mae. Mental training was essentially brainwashing, ensuring that children could accept taking the lives of others.

  The ninja profession was ily dark: espionage, sabotage, assassination, intelligehering, and war. cepts of justid evil had no p it.

  Ninjas were tools focused solely on pleting their missions, with nard for morality or emotions.

  Given this text, while the academy cimed to be a six-year program, that didn’t mean all six years were spent in education.

  The cultural and foundational knowledge portions of the curriculum were pleted within the first year. The remaining years focused increasingly on bat drills, tactical training, aal ditioning.

  The school didn’t require students to excel academically or achieve outstanding grades. Graduation was simple: when a stude ready, they could take the graduation exam. There was no mandatory enrollment period.

  In other words, if Link wao, he could take the graduation exam as early as year. The exam’s difficulty—randomly drawing an E-rank ninjutsu—was so low that anyone capable of enrolling could pass it.

  Only outliers like Uzumaki Naruto would fail the exam three times in a row.

  Most ninjas with even a modest background chose to plete the full six years of training, especially duriime, when early graduation was unnecessary.

  …

  Even after graduation, genin would still face evaluations from their joniors. As Kakashi Hatake once mentioned, only about ohird of genin were deemed fit to tinue, with the rest sent back to the academy for further training.

  But Link’s circumstances were different.

  He knew about the Konoha Crush Pn in three years, the Pain Invasion in seven years, and the Freat Ninja War i years.

  He couldn’t afford to stay in the academy and slowly grow stronger.

  Graduating quickly and finding ways to learn more ninjutsu was the only viable path. Chakra reserves were sedary.

  After refining chakra, a ninja’s physical fitness and chakra capacity would groidly for a time. The reason was straightforward:

  The people of the Naruto world had vastly more cells thahlings. Their trainihods, however, were surprisingly simir. When muscles were slightly torn during exercise, they repaired themselves by strengtheniing fibers and geing new muscle to adapt to the strain.

  Chakra refi, whied physical stamina, pushed the body to its limits, breaking down muscle fibers in a unique and prehensive way. The body naturally responded by repairing aructuring itself while building more muscle to meet the demands of chakra refi.

  When bined with proper physical training, this process stretched and deformed cells, increasing membrane permeability and boosting the avaibility of free amino acids within the cells. These amino acids provided the raw materials for protein synthesis, accelerating muscle growth.

  This twed approach made it nearly impossible for ninjas not to grow stronger quickly.

  However, the human body had its limits. Training produced diminishiurns over time. No matter how mue pushed themselves, progress was ultimately capped by ialent. Hard work could only bring someone closer to their natural limit—and might not even reaother person’s baseline.

  This was why cepts like chakra capacity were so important.

  Link’s chakra trol was excellent, allowing him to gauge his progress more accurately. But it also made him pessimistic. He khat if he maintained his current effort level, his rapid progress would pteau within six months. After that, he’d have to rely on natural growth as he aged to develop greater physical strength and rger chakra reserves.

  By then, it would be time to graduate early.

  His path to power would lie in mastering more ninjutsu.