Chapter 23: Second Year Final Exam
Over this past year, the range of Kaito's Chakra Sensing Field had also grown considerably.
Its radius had expanded to 180 meters.
Without hand seals, it reached 162 meters, and while running at a normal pace, it could extend to 135 meters.
His chakra reserves had also grown exponentially. Physical training and meditation themselves provided a huge boost.
In addition, he practiced the Body Flicker Jutsu every day until exhaustion.
Over the past nine months, he had performed tens of thousands of Body Flicker exercises.
His chakra reserves now exceeded Senju Teru's.
Compared to the upperclassmen, he found his reserves far surpassed the average level of their class, very likely placing him in the top ten.
Only two students, likely from the Senju Clan, possessed significantly higher reserves than him.
Even so, he was confident that in another year, his chakra level would surpass theirs.
"I think it's time to consult the Hokage about the Shadow Clone Jutsu," he thought to himself.
He could see the improvement in his chakra level when he was finally able to burst rubber balls, which meant he was finally making progress in the second stage of Rasengan training.
However, he could only barely shatter them. He still needed more chakra to truly unleash the Rasengan.
His shuriken throwing skills had also improved significantly.
He could now hit target boards while running and also strike moving target boards.
To help students practice this skill, the Academy hung target boards from tree branches and made them swing.
They swung like pendulums.
However, when he himself ran and threw shuriken simultaneously, he still found it difficult to hit the moving target boards consistently.
Kaito decided that after he successfully mastered this, he would begin practicing attacking his shadow clones with shuriken, as this would better simulate actual combat scenarios.
During his training sessions in many of Konoha's small training forests, Kaito discovered some scattered shuriken and kunai left behind.
He collected a total of 23 shuriken and 11 kunai.
Seven of the shuriken and four of the kunai were severely damaged, leaving him with 16 usable shuriken and 7 kunai.
He carefully collected these weapons without directly touching any of them, in case they were poisoned.
"This is convenient. Although these are secondhand weapons, they're still useful. However, I need to clean them thoroughly to remove the scent of previous users and ensure there are no toxic substances remaining."
Despite spending so much time in these forests, he had found very few weapons.
Kaito guessed that most shinobi must retrieve their equipment after use, as they weren't cheap to replace.
Perhaps there were others like him who were also searching around and collecting discarded weapons.
He sighed softly.
"However, these should be enough for my practice needs."
Soon, it was time for the second-year final exams.
As Kaito expected, their class's grading system had been completely revamped.
He was curious if the same changes would happen in the elite classes of other grades.
For the comprehensive exam, the written test was worth 100 points, the Leaf Concentration exercise 20 points, the shuriken throwing competition 20 points, 10 points for each of the Three Basic Academy Jutsu, and the taijutsu tournament 30 points.
In the written test, he noticed it had five sections. Each one was progressively more difficult than the last.
While it wasn't too challenging for him, he had no doubt that an eight-year-old from his previous world would not be able to pass this examination.
Seeing how difficult the exam was, he deliberately answered two questions incorrectly, each worth 2 points.
For the Leaf Concentration test, the same grading system as the previous year was used.
Uchiha Rai and Hyuga Hodaka's leaves dropped at the 45-minute mark, Shimura Shin's at 56 minutes, and Senju Teru's at 59 minutes. Hyuga Hana surpassed the 1-hour mark and held on for another 4 minutes.
Knowing that this year's written test was considerably harder, Kaito didn't expect anyone to achieve a perfect score, so after 1 hour and 11 minutes, he deliberately let his leaf fall.
The shuriken test also had multiple difficulty levels, just like the written test.
The first round involved throwing 8 shuriken at a stationary target board.
The second round required alternately running right and left into a circle drawn on the ground and throwing shuriken while running from within the circle.
The third round involved hitting a target board suspended by rope and swinging like a pendulum. Each stage was worth 4 points.
The final round, worth 8 points, involved Instructor Genshu launching spinning metal plates into the air. The plates spun so rapidly that they couldn't follow a fixed trajectory and showed slight random deviations.
Uchiha Rai, Senju Teru, Kaito, Shimura Shin, and Hyuga Hodaka scored the highest in the first three rounds.
Hyuga Hana performed poorly in the second round but scored full marks in the first and third rounds.
But the fourth round proved extremely difficult.
Nineteen students didn't hit even a single target. Six people, including Hyuga Hana, managed to hit only one plate.
Kaito guessed that most of them had hit their targets by sheer luck.
Kaito had been carefully observing these spinning plates, trying to identify a pattern in their movement.
He found some patterns, but not enough to predict them reliably.
"Ah, if only I had a Sharingan!" he thought to himself with mild frustration.
Hyuga Hodaka and Kaito each hit only 2 targets. Shimura Shin successfully hit 3, Senju Teru successfully hit 4, and Uchiha Rai successfully struck 7 out of the 8 plates thrown by Genshu.
Kaito was genuinely impressed by Uchiha Rai's performance, especially considering he hadn't awakened his Sharingan yet.
After the competition concluded, Uchiha Rai returned to his usual smug demeanor.
In the ninjutsu examination, the Transformation Jutsu and Substitution Jutsu were both supervised and graded directly by Instructor Genshu.
For the Clone Jutsu, the score was determined based on the maximum number of acceptable clones a student could create simultaneously.
Senju Teru created five clones.
Kaito assessed his own chakra reserves and knew that no one could actually surpass him.
So he deliberately created only 4 clones.
Kaito concealed his true strength in this exam because he knew that Hyuga Hana wasn't very skilled at the Clone Jutsu, and besides her, no one else could come close to his score in the written test.
The taijutsu tournament was similar to last year's format. The only major differences were that the Inuzuka students performed much better, and Kaito's body was considerably stronger.
He could now maintain the Gravity Seal at 5.3% of its maximum pressure, which had greatly enhanced his physical abilities.
He defeated most of his opponents decisively. This time, he faced Senju Teru in the semifinals and successfully defeated him.
Hyuga Hodaka defeated his cousin Hyuga Hana in their match. Uchiha Rai defeated Shimura Shin for 5th place, and Senju Teru defeated Hyuga Hana for 3rd place.
Finally, the championship match against Hyuga Hodaka proved very intense. To Kaito's surprise, his physical advantage wasn't as overwhelming as he'd expected.
Ultimately, he still lost to Hyuga Hodaka in the final match.
Kaito wondered if Hodaka also used something like a Gravity Seal to enhance his body training.
Hyuga Hodaka's ninjutsu performance wasn't as impressive as his taijutsu skills, and looking at previous years' results, his written test performance was even weaker.
Kaito guessed that Hodaka might have focused his training almost entirely on taijutsu and the Gentle Fist style.
Meanwhile, Kaito's main focus had been on ninjutsu training. No wonder he couldn't defeat Hodaka in pure taijutsu.
After all the scores were compiled, the top 5 rankings were:
1st Place - Suzuki Kaito: 96 + 20 + 14 + 23 + 29 = 182 points
2nd Place - Senju Teru: 81 + 17 + 16 + 30 + 28 = 172 points
3rd Place - Shimura Shin: 86 + 16 + 15 + 28 + 25 = 170 points
4th Place - Hyuga Hana: 91 + 18 + 12 + 21 + 27 = 169 points
5th Place - Uchiha Rai: 79 + 14 + 19 + 28 + 26 = 166 points
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