Chapter 35: Three Students Pass the Graduation Exam
Three days passed, and overwhelming exhaustion finally set in.
The side effects of using soldier pills were quite severe. Fortunately, it was only temporary fatigue with no permanent long-term effects. He went straight to sleep without bothering to set an alarm.
When he woke up, he looked at the clock and thought:
"Oh, it's 8:10 AM. Wait, I went to sleep at 4:30 PM yesterday. So I slept for over 15 hours? Ugh, I was really that exhausted! And I'm absolutely starving now!"
After brushing his teeth and washing up, he grabbed several ration bars and quickly ate them.
Despite being three hours late for his usual routine, he still did his morning exercises before deciding to treat himself to Yakiniku Q for lunch.
He took the rest of the day off to recover and resumed his training the following day.
It took another three days for the amount of chakra density within his fists to double once again. He thought with anticipation:
"I wonder how strong my punches are now? I need to find a boulder to test this out properly."
He struck a large boulder with a chakra-enhanced punch, and numerous cracks spread across its surface, but Kaito was screaming internally:
"Holy crap! That hurt like hell!"
After waiting a moment for the pain to subside, he checked his fist and thought with relief:
"Wow, there are no visible injuries. Although it hurt tremendously, it didn't cause any bleeding or serious damage. Just some minor scrapes. It seems my physical conditioning has really improved significantly!"
Over the next 15 days, he increased both the amount of chakra he could channel into his kunai and made the chakra edge considerably sharper.
Although simply infusing Wind Release chakra into the weapon made it quite powerful, he also had to carefully shape the chakra into an extremely thin cutting edge, perfectly aligning it with the kunai's physical blade, to achieve maximum effectiveness.
By the end of summer vacation, his chakra-enhanced kunai could completely penetrate through three boulders each four meters wide and became embedded deeply in the fourth boulder.
And the effective attack range of his kunai increased by fifteen centimeters beyond the physical blade due to the chakra flow extension.
However, he noticed a concerning problem—once he was able to channel larger amounts of chakra into the kunai and sharpen it to this degree, the physical condition of his kunai began deteriorating rapidly.
Two days before vacation ended, the kunai he had been practicing with finally shattered completely.
He sighed and thought:
"Hmm, this was a kunai I picked up in the training forest, so it was already worn. I wonder if a brand new kunai would last considerably longer. I guess I'll need to buy some quality kunai soon. I should also check the prices of chakra-conductive weapons."
The day before school resumed, he went to Konoha's most reputable weapon shop to investigate chakra blades.
He didn't use a transformation disguise this time, simply entering as a curious weapon enthusiast.
The reason was that Kaito wanted to openly demonstrate his interest in specialized weapons, and the shop owner was a retired shinobi whose chakra reserves were nearly twice that of Genshu's.
However, the prices absolutely shocked him. He thought in dismay:
"What the hell? A small chakra tanto costs 2 million ryo? Ugh, why didn't Kakuzu steal Asuma's chakra blades when he had the chance! Although those were chakra trench knives rather than full blades, the price lists clearly state that even the cheapest chakra sword costs 7.5 million ryo!"
The weapon prices thoroughly discouraged him, and he thought frantically:
"Damn it, what should I do? The cost is far too high. If I focus exclusively on fuinjutsu and sell massive quantities of storage scrolls, maybe I could earn that much in a year or two, but it would attract enormous attention. Not to mention chakra weapons have to be custom-forged to order."
"So trying to acquire one through a random disguised identity definitely won't work. And such a substantial purchase would certainly attract the village's attention. If I wait until I can earn money through mission payments, I doubt I'll accumulate that much until I can complete A-rank missions regularly. And that's many years from now!"
He thought more carefully, and then a clever idea struck him:
"That's right! I can choose to request it from the Hokage as my exam reward. This year, I'll train extensively in dual-wielding sword techniques. I'll even practice openly and demonstrate how passionate I am about kenjutsu. And Genshu knows my affinity is Wind Release. So they'll definitely understand my intentions."
However, there were two significant problems. The first was that nearly everyone would know about such a valuable reward. The second was whether Hiruzen would actually grant Kaito something so expensive!
He contemplated the situation further:
"Oh well, I can bypass the first problem by having the Hokage hold onto my sword temporarily. I'll request to actually receive the weapon when I'm confident I can fight at jonin level."
"As for the second concern, if he refuses my request, then I'll ask for smaller chakra kunai or something more modest instead. Even though he constantly preaches about the Will of Fire, it would be quite interesting to see him refuse a dedicated student twice!"
"Unfortunately, I've cultivated a rather mature and slightly reserved image over the years. So even if he refuses me twice, I still can't throw a childish tantrum convincingly."
"However, if he says no twice despite my years of patiently enduring his propaganda speeches, I will definitely retaliate somehow. If he refuses, in the future I'll secretly fund Naruto's pranks, providing him with various sealing jutsu techniques. Then I can thoroughly enjoy watching the chaos he creates throughout Konoha Village."
Thinking of this future possibility, he laughed like a scheming villain. If Hiruzen knew Kaito's true thoughts, he would probably shiver with concern!
The next day, the fourth year of Academy began.
Since he hadn't paid attention to the graduation exam results and wanted to gather current information, he decided to arrive at school early.
He entered the classroom at 7:45 AM.
Upon arrival, he saw 24 students already present. There were also 3 completely unfamiliar new faces.
He looked around the classroom carefully and did not see Senju Teru, Uchiha Rai, or Shimura Shin among the students.
Then he walked over to Hyuga Hodaka, sat down beside him, and asked casually:
"Good morning, Hodaka. How did the graduation exam go?"
At first, Hodaka was in a somewhat sour mood because he hadn't passed the examination. But after processing the question, he looked at Kaito with genuine disbelief:
"You seriously don't know what happened?"
Kaito shook his head. Hyuga Hodaka continued incredulously:
"Have you been living isolated in the mountains or something?"
Kaito replied with a straight face:
"No, I live at the base of a mountain."
Hyuga Hodaka stared at him expressionlessly. Kaito asked again patiently:
"So are you actually going to tell me what happened, or not?"
Hyuga Hodaka showed a disappointed expression and replied:
"I didn't pass the exam. Only Senju Teru, Shimura Shin, and Uchiha Rai successfully passed and graduated."
Kaito had expected exactly this outcome and nodded without surprise.
Then he asked for more details about the examination. Hyuga Hodaka briefly recounted what had occurred during the graduation exam, including the impressive jutsu demonstrations.
Although Kaito had already anticipated this might happen, he still felt genuinely impressed that those three could already perform C-rank techniques. He thought to himself:
"Ah, there are still tremendous advantages to being born into an elite clan or having powerful backing supporting your training."
Kaito then asked if the three graduates had been assigned to a genin squad together. But Hyuga Hodaka replied:
"No, Senju Teru and Uchiha Rai were placed in a team with graduates from the class one year senior to ours. But I don't know where Shimura Shin was assigned—I haven't heard anything about him since the exam ended."
Kaito thought to himself knowingly:
"I see. I suspect Danzo recruited him directly into Root. But what surprises me is why Danzo didn't take Shimura Shin when he was only three or four years old like he usually does."
Then he asked about the new situation:
"What's the story with the three new transfer students?"
Hyuga Hodaka replied with obvious disdain:
"I have no idea, and I don't particularly care."
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