Chapter 263 Graduation Class Division

After graduation, the class assignments were not immediately distributed; the list would be announced four days later. During this period, it wasn’t completely idle; there were minor tasks, such as taking photos of the graduating students.

This wasn’t a group photo but a photo for Ninja profiles, essentially an ID photo.

It was a rare opportunity, and Obito wanted to look cool, perhaps wearing a white robe and a bamboo hat, but unfortunately, the photographer mercilessly rejected it. He could only wear something ordinary for the photo.

Besides this, students also took graduation photos with their teachers, though this wasn’t organized by the school but by each class individually.

For a teacher like Muzuki, who was popular with students, he appeared in almost every class photo, as he had trained the entire Fourth Grade during the special training.

Because Obito had a camera, he and his Ninja Academy friends took group photos this time. He also took the opportunity to take some photos with Rin Nohara, just him and Rin Nohara, without Kakashi.

After the photos were taken, there was basically nothing left to do at the Ninja Academy except to check the assignment list when it was released and collect their Ninja profiles.

Thus, Obito and the others resumed their normal training rhythm.

Knowing that they wouldn’t be able to train with Muzuki from morning till afternoon every day like before, they cherished this period especially.

It was only when Obito discovered that the new training involved solving problems that his mood subtly changed.

“Hit training: For every minute a Shadow Clone successfully evades, five problems are generated. If you hit it directly, the special training ends. The time limit is ten minutes,” Muzuki explained the penalty mechanism for the new training to Obito and Shisui.

“Huh? Why do we have to do problems now? We didn’t before,” Obito said, utterly bewildered.

He had just secretly rejoiced upon hearing it was new training, thinking it meant no more problems.

“Think back, I said you temporarily wouldn’t have to do problems,” Muzuki said with a chuckle.

“Before, I considered that you were close to graduation and wanted to make it easier for you. Now that you’ve completed the graduation exam, there’s no need to be so relaxed.”

“Or are you saying, Obito, that you think you should have an easier life as a Ninja than as a student?” Muzuki asked, looking into Obito’s eyes.

Obito:…

If he nodded, wouldn’t he become a complacent person? And Obito carefully recalled that Muzuki had indeed said ‘temporarily’ before, but he was too excited about not having to do problems and selectively ignored the ‘temporarily.’

“Of course not, it’s just that at the time, I only remembered half of what you said, Muzuki-sensei,” Obito said, scratching his head, a bit embarrassed.

“Five problems per minute, with a ten-minute limit, meaning if it’s like last time, we’ll have to do fifty problems,” Shisui felt a hint of pressure.

Muzuki’s problems, even though he had been doing them for some time, were still very difficult. They required a lot of thought and research.

“Begin!” Muzuki shouted after creating a Shadow Clone.

Swoosh swoosh!!

Shisui and Obito both burst with Chakra and charged towards the Shadow Clone.

On the way to the Shadow Clone, Shisui also activated his Sharingan. The battle only lasted ten minutes, so there was no need to conserve Chakra too much.

“I can’t blindly use Ninjutsu; I need to find the right moment,” Shisui thought silently.

According to his guess, if his Ninjutsu forced the Shadow Clone into an unavoidable situation, the Shadow Clone would use Ninjutsu for defense. As long as he didn’t use Ninjutsu, the Shadow Clone wouldn’t either.

“Full Concentration, Flame Breathing!” Shisui quickly adjusted his breathing rhythm, focusing his breathing intensely, while his internal Chakra also gathered and flowed continuously through his meridians and acupoints.

Shisui tried his best to attack the Shadow Clone, but each time, Muzuki narrowly evaded him, seemingly very close, but in reality, he didn’t even touch Muzuki’s clothes.

But Shisui didn’t lose heart; this was within his expectations. Just like before, when he was just a little bit short of evading, it was all a result of Muzuki’s deliberate adjustment. If they couldn’t improve, they would always be just a little bit short.

Five minutes later, Shisui still hadn’t hit Muzuki once, though the trees beside them had suffered quite a bit of damage.

“Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!”

Feeling that his setup was complete, Shisui formed hand signs and gathered Chakra to use the Ninjutsu. A large amount of Chakra condensed in his throat, and he spat out small fireballs, one after another, towards Muzuki.

Since Shisui spat them out one by one, the Shadow Clone didn’t use Ninjutsu to intercept but calmly dodged the incoming small fireballs.

The fireballs didn’t hit Muzuki but struck the large trees that Shisui had cut with his short blade. The explosion of the fireballs caused the already damaged trees to snap and fall.

Shisui had tampered with a total of six large trees. With a rumble, the tall trees all pressed towards Muzuki’s direction.

At the same time, Shisui also pushed his Breathing Technique to its limit, bursting with power as he charged forward.

Relying on this unexpected offensive, Shisui finally eliminated that subtle gap and touched Muzuki with his hand.

Although his punch was caught by Muzuki’s hand, it still counted as a touch.

“Very good. Although your Breathing Technique didn’t break through, you flexibly used the surrounding environment to create favorable conditions for yourself,” the Shadow Clone said with approval, releasing Shisui’s arm.

Unlike the previous training, this time, even if the Breathing Technique didn’t break through, good tactics could still complete the training early.

Of course, since it was training for the Breathing Technique, the main focus was still on the Breathing Technique, because tactics aren’t endless. Next time, the Shadow Clone would be prepared, and only an increase in hard power could fundamentally solve the problem.

When Obito’s battle ended ten minutes later, Muzuki announced the results of this battle.

“Obito failed to hit for ten minutes and needs to complete fifty problems. Shisui failed to hit for five minutes and needs to complete twenty-five problems.”

Hearing that Shisui completed the training in five minutes, Obito looked a bit surprised and said, “Shisui, you’re amazing! You improved so fast this time.”

“No, I just used a trick,” Shisui replied, shaking his head.

“How did you trick him? I want to learn too!” Obito looked envious; that was a full twenty-five problems.

“Think more during battle and observe the surrounding environment to create favorable conditions for yourself,” Shisui said after some thought.

He also knew that the same method certainly wouldn’t work twice, so he only told Obito the general idea, not his specific method.

“You should learn more from Shisui and Kakashi in this regard,” Muzuki nodded, then handed the test papers to both of them.

Obito glanced at it, then prepared to put it away, but he suddenly noticed something and quickly took it out again to look closely.

When he saw problems like “Analyze the original intention of establishing the Ninja Academy based on reading materials,” Obito couldn’t help but say, “Muzuki-sensei, did you give me the wrong paper? The problems on mine don’t seem right. Did you mix up Shisui’s paper with mine?”

Obito even specifically went over to look at Shisui’s paper, and he found that Shisui’s problems hadn’t changed, which made him feel a bit uneasy.

“There’s no mistake. Now that you’ve graduated from the Ninja Academy, the problems naturally need to change,” Muzuki explained with a smile.

The original purpose of giving those problems to Obito was, firstly, because Obito’s foundation was too poor and he needed to supplement a lot of knowledge, and secondly, it could improve his Ninja Academy grades and increase exam rewards.

Now that Obito had a year of tutoring and had graduated from the Ninja Academy, it was natural to change things up. The main purpose of the upcoming problems was to allow Obito to absorb knowledge from history, and there would be specialized political classes later.

He couldn’t change the entire Ninja World at once, but he could start by influencing his own disciples.

In an instant, Obito had an unprecedented thought: he actually started to miss the old test papers and the old problems.

This was something that would have been impossible before, but today, it truly happened, because what he was about to face was an even more terrifying existence.

Obito’s gaze towards the two test papers changed. This was an existence even more powerful and terrifying than a Kumogakure Jonin.

“You must do the problems seriously. Even if you really don’t know, you must write down your thoughts. When you’re done, come to me and we’ll go over them,” Muzuki said seriously.

The reason he assigned problems instead of directly lecturing was to let the students think for themselves first, so that they could absorb it better when he lectured later, and they would subconsciously think about it again.

“I will definitely complete them,” Obito promised weakly. He had a premonition that he might not sleep well tonight.

After the special training, it was Constant State training until the end of the training time.

When Obito dragged his tired body home and finished dinner, he went upstairs to his bedroom, took out the test papers, and started doing the problems.

Although he was very reluctant, he still had to listen to Muzuki’s words. No matter how difficult, he had to do them seriously.

Looking at the lines and lines of material on the test paper, Obito felt a headache coming on. After a moment of thought, he began to form hand signs.

“Shadow Clone Technique!”

Smoke flashed, and two Shadow Clones appeared.

“Cough, cough, you wouldn’t want to fail to complete the test paper and disappoint Muzuki-sensei, would you?” Obito said, pointing at the test paper on the table.

“Don’t bother. I know what you’re thinking. There’s no way I’m doing test papers,” one Shadow Clone immediately lay down on the bed.

“You wouldn’t want to be beaten by your own Shadow Clone, would you?” The other Shadow Clone was more aggressive.

Bang bang!!

Obito sighed and dispelled the two Shadow Clones. He saw that it was impossible to get the Shadow Clones to help him. If they fought, he would be the one hurting, because the Shadow Clones’ sensations would eventually return.

“Indeed, this Ninjutsu still has too many flaws.” With his impression of the Shadow Clone Ninjutsu worsening even more, Obito began to seriously do the problems.

“Material 1: After becoming the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama established many institutions, and the Ninja Academy was one of them. After the establishment of the Ninja Academy, with the exception of a very few Ninja clans, anyone wishing to become a Ninja had to enter the Ninja Academy for study and pass the Ninja Academy graduation exam to become a Genin.”

“Carefully read the above two materials and analyze Senju Tobirama’s original intention and significance in establishing the Ninja Academy.”

Muttering the problem to himself, Obito was already feeling dizzy.

There were two materials in total: one was a text description, and the other was the proportion of Ninja clans and non-Ninja clans among Konoha Ninja during three different periods.

Obito read both materials word for word but still couldn’t understand the connection between these two materials and the question, especially the data; he didn’t understand what purpose it served.

“Damn it, so the Ninja Academy was also created by Senju Tobirama,” Obito realized that the inventor of the Shadow Clone was also the founder of the Ninja Academy.

After failing to understand, Obito wrote down his own thoughts. It was better than leaving it blank.

“The original intention was to cultivate stronger Ninja and make the Ninja in the village more excellent. As for the significance, it means that all the children of Konoha will have a school to attend in the future,” Obito said with a slight nod of satisfaction after writing.

He suddenly wondered what children used to do with their extra time if they didn’t go to school.

After a brief tangent, Obito looked at the clock and suddenly realized twenty minutes had passed. So he quickly continued doing the problems. If he didn’t finish, he would have to do them in installments, and installment problems would only increase.

Obito spent the entire night doing problems. When he lay down on the bed, his mind was filled with either Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara, or Senju Tobirama, all three of them doing various things and analyzing various significances.

This time, Obito had a bit of insomnia. He lay in bed for a long time without falling asleep because he couldn’t stop thinking about what Senju Tobirama’s true purpose was and why he did those things.

It wasn’t until he was extremely tired that Obito slowly fell asleep, only to wake up the next day due to his biological clock.

He didn’t know why, but ever since he started doing those problems, Obito felt that daytime passed faster, in the blink of an eye, while nighttime seemed to slow down. Even though he only did problems for a few hours, it felt much longer than daytime training.

Training during the day and doing problems at night, this incredibly fulfilling life almost made Obito forget about graduation. It was only when Muzuki reminded him that he remembered.

“Tomorrow is the day the results and class assignments are released. I’ll give you a day off to rest, to welcome your new Ninja life,” Muzuki said with a gentle smile.

Tomorrow, the Ninja Academy would announce the exam results for all grades, including the Fourth Grade’s graduation exam, and also the final class assignments.

“Yay~” Obito’s eyes showed some excitement. This way, he would have more time to deal with those damn problems.

“Obito, are you okay? You don’t look very well,” Rin Nohara asked with concern.

Before, Obito’s shouts were full of vigor. Today, although his joy was still perceptible, it lacked vitality.

“I’m fine, just a little tired lately,” Obito said, indicating it wasn’t a big problem.

He felt that the only benefit of class assignments might be fewer problems, after all, with less time spent with Muzuki, there would be fewer opportunities for problem-solving training, and naturally fewer problems.

“Then remember to get a good rest tonight. Besides checking the class assignments tomorrow, we also need to pick up our Ninja profiles,” Rin Nohara reminded him with a smile.

Obito nodded in affirmation. After eating dinner at home, he quickly started doing the problems.

“Ah, what exactly are you thinking, Senju Tobirama?” Obito found that Senju Tobirama had created an extraordinary number of things.

That night, Obito slept even worse. He constantly felt as if someone was asking him what the significance of Tobirama’s actions was.

4k, not feeling well today, probably won’t reach ten thousand words, but there’s another chapter coming. A reminder to everyone to adjust your clothes according to the temperature in time; sudden coldness can easily make you sick…