Entering the arena, he was overwhelmed by the pressure of the environment.
Whether it was the vibration of clashing kunai, fist collisions in the air, or ninjutsu exchanges that sent ripples across the ground, the sensory overload caused him to trip.
'Damn it, I need to find a seat,' he expressed discomfort before standing up.
Since the seats close to the fight were occupied by Konoha shinobi wearing their headbands, he decided to sit in the corner where he could see shinobi who focused more on taijutsu, shurikenjutsu, and kenjutsu, using kunai as their blade.
Bringing his notepad and pen, he began to write down insights he found here.
'Good, I'm remembering more and more how I used to fight during my military days,' he noted down, of course omitting the military part.
He did not feel shinobi fights were too different from his old world; they fought similar to street fighters, except people were faster and would throw projectiles with bare hands rather than using guns.
With his combat memories flooding in slowly, he shifted his focus from the melee exchange to their shuriken exchange, seeing how they wielded shuriken and angled it.
"Just a tip, don't try this in academy; academy shurikens are lighter due to being wood, so won't work the way actual shuriken work," a golden-haired boy said who sat beside him without him noticing.
'I need to really brush up my environmental awareness,' he sighed before intently looking at the blonde kid, who seemed familiar.
He felt he'd seen him somewhere, but couldn't seem to point it out.
"Is there something in the face?" he asked while scratching his head, feeling awkward by the stare.
"No, I am sorry, I was seeing whether you are from Class Green which I am in."
"Since I cannot recognize you, then it must mean you must be Class Honor, right?" Ryo said, expertly lying away from what he was really thinking, still retaining veteran instinct to lie properly and seamlessly.
The boy, Minato Namikaze as he called himself, nodded, saying he got admitted a week ago and felt happy he got in.
Ryo began to probe him with casual conversation while watching the fight.
He did not know the gap between the best and worst performing student in Class Honor, but he could tell this guy was naturally talented, considering Minato's vision kept up with the fight quite easily while Ryo struggled to see motion, especially ones who were fast.
He only saw a blur while Minato tracked the movements comfortably.
He assumed Minato came from a clan, but Minato denied this, explaining that his parents were simple merchants.
After this, he was living with a nanny arranged by the village, saying she was quite nice with him.
It made Ryo feel odd since according to what he heard, any children at the age below twelve would be under orphanage care if they lost their trusted guardian (usually parents or older sibling/relatives), believing they were too young to manage themselves.
'It seems his circumstances were different enough for the village to make a different arrangement,' he mused, feeling the village's generosity towards him was questionable at best.
He decided to drop the topic, as he was well aware someone must be eavesdropping on their conversation thanks to his age-old experience, and diverted towards exchanging training notes.
Compared to his, Minato's seemed quite nonsensical as it basically said step-1: draw circle and step-2: do the rest of drawing.
But he did not voice it; rather, he was wondering whether he was an actual genius.
He'd seen plenty of geniuses in the military who were terrible at explaining their basics to him during training drills, yet executed them perfectly as if it were part of their instinct which they couldn't explain.
Or Minato might be a one-trick pony, where his perception is what he only excelled at.
Either way, he was fine being familiarized with one student of Class Honor before he transferred there.
The more they knew him, the less hostile they would be, excluding bullies he would eventually meet.
As fight become too unbearable to see, he stopped looking at the fight.
He understood what level of fight he can absorb: higher than this and he would just dancing air.
The bottleneck he can not solve alone.
"Also, do you know someone who trains in exchange for money? I am struggling in this area," Ryo expressed to Minato midway their conversation about egg prices, hoping he knew someone.
He can practise all day with himself, but if he unknowingly practise the wrong form, it would take a long time to fixed bad habit.
Better use his saving he collected from charity events to build a good foundational; better be safe than sorry.
"No... Usually shinobi rarely train someone and even if they did, it is usually restricted to their family or clan member."
"But, there is a green suit senior that walks on street 7A."
"He is very enthusiastic... and is very loud, but if you told him how you train, he will guide you," Minato advised before he left, saying it was already past his bed time and he needed to go before his nanny scolded him.
'Which one might he be talking about?' Ryo pondered before leaving it, as his memories were still too scrambled to pinpoint.