After five days of uninterrupted classes, Ryo was found sitting in his usual quiet corner, reviewing the notes he made for chakra control in the library. In the past month, he tried to concentrate more chakra on his forehead but to no avail, thinking he was doing something wrong or that his 4-year-old body was simply too inexperienced to respond.
The possibilities were uncertain, so he began reread previous chakra control books and to read other books related to chakra for better understanding, believing he missed some vital context/info while skipping the flowery prose of the manuals.
So after countless readings, he understood that he went to the wrong starting point entirely.
Leaf Concentration is only a usable practice exercise if one has managed to feel chakra and manipulate it, and the way to do this was to be good at hand signs, which is an easier way to mold and manipulate chakra through hand signs; by following examples in the book, he managed to feel chakra at various parts of the body using various hand signs.
He never imagined it to be this simple in practice, where just putting his hands together to form a seal would be enough to feel and manipulate it.
Though feeling and manipulating them were different than casting jutsu, the manual clearly warned not to use hand signs in quick succession without practice that leads to accidental jutsu execution, as unintentional weaving would result in unexpected results. If you weave one hand sign wrong, it could lead to the wrong jutsu entirely or worse, it could erupt chakra in the region where it was focused, harming the user's internal network in that region.
They also warned never to memorize hand signs from enemies to copy in an attempt at their jutsu, especially from an expert who most probably simplified hand signs to which their body has adapted in order to execute, unlike the one who tries to mimic them.
'Truly fascinating,' he thought, gaining momentum to proceed with his study, changing his training and beginning to practice all 14 hand signs—the twelve standard zodiac signs plus the two basic concentration seals—to become proficient at it while making sure to do it in intervals to avoid accidentally using a jutsu. Just to be safe, he let Suzuki verify all 14 of his hand sign formations after the class, to be sure he was not performing them inaccurately the whole time or at least not continue doing so.
'Very good,' Suzuki told him with a smile, and even gave him a pointer on how to seamlessly weave from one hand sign to the next, giving him some simple coordination exercises to practice at home.
Ryo was not sure why he took a step further to help him but he did appreciate the gesture, even if his cynical side suspected it was just the instructor's way of encouraging another future 'meat piñata' for the village. After all, Ryo had lived enough in this world and understood that his wealth of experience in administration of his old life would not be enough to be in the upper ranks of Konoha; the place he now lives values power compared to his old world, where the power disparity is night and day; power will dictate the fate of his position in the society he is in, and to be truly free enough to do whatever he wants, he knows he needs to be strong.
And with his cheat, that increases his chakra every day by 0.1%, he knows that his strong suit will be jutsu with his ever increasing chakra reserve. So even though his physique, taijutsu, and kunai throwing were lacking, he did not worry too much.
Having few recollections of his old life, where he watched many worlds like Demon Slayer, JJK, Fairy Tail, etc., and fragments of character power application, he had a couple of ideas to address his weakness.
Of course, he will still practice kunai throwing, physique, and his taijutsu, as he believes he will get more access to new resources and better instructors in Class Honor, so he at least needs to meet their lowest requirement to be truly transferred into that class.
Since he was still inexperienced, he thought of seeing real spars to truly understand combat style in this world, as practice punches and kicks like Suzuki instructed seemed to be 'too' isolated and less engaging.
So after training hand signs for a long time, he left the library an hour earlier and asked the staff for directions to the training arenas, pointing him in directions he did not expect.
He just assumed the large in-door arena was only for the Chunin Exams, where orphanage children were invited to watch, not also a gathering place for shinobi who come here for spars.
Then again, he never went outside without the matron's side, so he never truly explored Konoha beyond other orphanages until after passing the academy admission test. Until then he only kept himself busy relearning basic knowledge such as how to speak, how to write, and how to read, making great progress the more his memories were returning.
Another reason is simply that Konoha was too large for him to explore. Even though Konoha was called a village, it was nowhere close to that, as Ryo estimated it to be at least a city due to how expansive it is, where it takes 6 hours to reach and return back from other orphanages in the periphery.
He felt lucky that the academy, his orphanage, and this place were in the center, so he can reach them relatively quickly, but it raised the same question that always comes to his mind: why was his orphanage at the center of the village while other orphanages were relegated to the periphery?
He never found the orphanage or the children there especially special compared to other orphanages, and looking at the ratio of students who went to the Class Honour and Green, it was somewhat evenly distributed.
The more he thought about it, the more he preferred not to think too much; he had too many plates to spin, so he would check about it later.