Chapter 13: Academy Exam

While the whole ninja world discussed Orochimaru's defection, Fujin didn't bother with it and kept his focus on his training. After 2 weeks of training for transformation jutsu, it had finally improved to an acceptable level, though it still had a lot of space for improvement.

After that, he began the training for substitution jutsu. This one was much tougher than the other two. It took nearly twice the time to learn this jutsu and master it to an acceptable level. However, it wasn't what Fujin had thought it to be.

He thought, 'The technique is basically just misdirection. The main focus here is noticing your opponent's focus and the instant he loses focus a bit, replace yourself with an object quickly enough so that the enemy won't notice you. It ain't an instant switcheroo. So it won't work against someone much stronger than you or someone having a Sharingan activated. The object actually has to be very close to you, otherwise the jutsu will become much harder to be performed. Sigh, that makes sense, instant switcheroo would have been too overpowered considering that every academy kid learns this technique.

It does have a lot of variations though. Genjutsu, transformation jutsu can be used to fool the enemy better. Chakra threads could be used to bring an object at a distance closer to you. It also states that a lower form summoning jutsu could be used to instantly summon the objects around you, while you hightail outta there. Still, though it ain't as overpowered as I thought, it is still very useful. The subtleness of misdirection would be a very important skill to have as a ninja. It could be applied in a lot of scenarios. I should still master it to the point of being able to do it without hand signs. But Body Flicker jutsu has to be focused much more now. I will also have to learn some wind and earth style escape jutsus.'

For nearly 2 months, Fujin kept on attempting these jutsus till he ran out of chakra. This process of training till he ran out of chakra had a marvellous effect on his chakra reserves. They increased considerably during these 2 months.

During these 2 months, he also searched the library for scrolls on increasing Chakra reserves. He found two scrolls very easily. One explained that Chakra increased as one experienced physical and spiritual growth, i.e., it could be increased over time by doing physical exercises and meditation.

Another compared chakra reserves to muscle. Just like how physical straining your muscles would increase muscles, chakra reserves would increase by straining it. So to increase the reserves, one had to keep using his chakra till he ran out of it.

Fujin had been dependent on the above two till now, which explained the rapid growth in his chakra reserves.

Apart from that, he also found a few other ways or theories. One scroll talked about using nature chakra, i.e., the Sage mode, which would increase the chakra reserves and make it more potent for the time the sage mode was activated.

Another scroll talked about increasing cellular activity. By making the cells more active, one could extract more chakra out of each cell. Thus considerably increasing the reserves. It would also help in improving the physique. Fujin was quite impressed with this theory. Sadly the way to increase cellular activity wasn't mentioned. Fujin wondered, 'I doubt it'll be easy to increase cellular activity. Otherwise this method would be very common. I wonder who came up with this theory. Perhaps I could contact that person in the future.'

On reading the scroll entirely, he saw the name of the person who wrote this scroll at the end. He was very surprised by it initially and then concluded, 'Makes sense that it was the snake bastard who came up with this theory. Tch, seems like this method is a dead end. Maybe if I raid his bases in the future and get my hands on his research results, I could find the way if I get lucky, though the chances are pretty low to be honest. Otherwise I could try asking Tsunade. Her knowledge of the human body might exceed Orochimaru's. And she was his ex-teammate. It's possible that she helped Orochimaru on this. Sigh, another thing to consider for the future!'

The other theories were similarly not implementable. Some were not complete, some were detrimental in the long run. Fujin sighed and returned all the scrolls to their place.

He thought, 'I guess my only option is asking Genki. Sadly I don't have a reasonable excuse to explain why I want to increase my chakra level. His first question would be how am I running out of chakra. And I can't tell him that I am practicing the basic jutsus on my own. If told it to him, and he told his colleagues, the word would eventually reach Hiruzen and Danzo. A six year old orphan who can perform all 3 basic ninjutsus, it's a ticket straight into the root!'

After Fujin had those 3 jutsus down, he started to again allot time for other aspects. For the past 2 months, he had decreased his shuriken throwing practice time, dropped clay molding, stopped practicing chakra control and used to meditate only when he was totally drained of chakra.

Among those 3 jutsus, he didn't intend to work much on the clone jutsu as in the future he'll be replacing it with shadow clones and elemental clones. As for transformation jutsu, it was very difficult to completely master. So he just decided to focus on the appearance part.

However, for Substitution jutsu, he planned to master it completely. To the extent where he could do it instantly without the use of any hand signs.

In these 2 months, he also progressed a lot in earth and wind nature training during the lectures. He was now instantly able to crumble a small stone into soil, and also able to cut a stone into 2.

In a rather awkward but hilarious incident, his desk was once full of the soil from crumbled stones and he had to silently clear it after the classes were over.

After that incident, he stopped crumbling the stones in the class. He wondered what he could do during that time though. Sadly he couldn't think of a suitable replacement for earth nature training. So he just decided to further focus on wind nature and started carrying a small metal scrap into class and started to try to cut it.

Over the next few months, he started to go out of his home and roam the streets of Konoha while using transformation jutsu to disguise himself as a random teenager. He identified a lot of isolated places in the bunch of mini-forests within Konoha and started practicing tree climbing. It was very similar to walking on walls. Only difference being, the rougher surface of the trees. He managed to do it within an hour itself and moved onto water walking. Apart from that, he also read up on the gravity seal and a few suppression seals in the library.

Another month went by in a similar manner, leaving less than a month to the final exams. Fujin finally wondered whether to start preparing for the exams, he thought 'Still 25 days for written exams. It's still too early!' However after 'convincing' himself a bit more, he sighed 'Whatever, it's my first exam in this world, might as well get it done with.'

While studying, he did note that the syllabus here was tougher than his previous world. It's probably what would be expected of a 9-10 year old kid, and not from a 6-7 year old kid. He wondered whether the syllabus in the ending years may actually provide a challenge to him.

Soon final exams were upon the academy students. For all other students, the final exams were only the written part. However for the ones in elite batches, more parameters were added. For Fujin's class, Shuriken throwing competition, leaf concentration competition and Taijutsu tournaments were arranged too.

For shuriken throwing, a board with circles of different size but same center was placed and everyone had to hit it. The points depended on in which circle the shuriken hit, with the smallest circle having highest points and largest having the lowest. In all, the Shuriken competition was worth 30 points.

Leaf concentration competition was only to see how long one could keep the leaf from falling down. It was worth 20 points. The one who held it for the longest would get full 20 points and the points of others would depend on how long they kept the leaf from falling as compared to him. For example, if the one who held it for the longest hold it for 30 minutes, he would get 20 points, whereas if someone else held it for only 21 minutes, he'd get only 14 points.

The Taijutsu tournament was straightforward, with points depending on the rank. It was worth 50 points. And the written exam itself was worth 100 points.

The exams finally happened. Fujin did get a laugh out of how serious everyone was for the exams.

In the written exams, Fujin was confident that he answered everything right. Though he wasn't sure how everyone else performed. Two days after the written exams, the other competitions were to be held. He guessed that they wanted to grade the written papers first, so that Hokage can reward the winner right there.

They started the day with leaf concentration. Fujin, as he had already started to practice water walking, was quite confident in this competition. The competition started. The first guy dropped his leaf in merely 2 minutes. He was from the Inuzuka clan. More than half of the class dropped out within the first 4 minutes. Fujin could hear the groaning and upset voices from them. After 10 minutes, only 9 students were still competing.

After 15 minutes, the only ones left were Suzuki Fujin, Hyuga Hana, Senju Teru, Shimura Nobu and Uchiha Yori. Right around that time, he heard Yori groaning. He knew from the exercises conducted in class, that at max the others could go 20 odd minutes. Senju Teru dropped the leaf during the 19th minute, Nobu dropped it at the 21st minute, whereas Hana continued till the 22nd minute. Fujin decided to build up a decent lead for the points he'll be losing in the Taijutsu tournament. Wanting to stop around half an hour, he continued upto 33rd minute before intentionally making a mistake and dropping the leaf. Though he had outperformed his classmates, he wasn't that worried about attracting a lot of attention, as last year, Itachi didn't drop the leaf for freaking 2 hours! And there were rumors that he didn't drop it but was asked to stop performing it!

On opening his eyes, he saw a few kids looking at him enviously, and Yori nearly fuming at how outmatched he was in this competition.

The next one was the Shuriken throwing competition. Yori, Teru, Nobu, Fujin, Hoka and a couple more scored perfect in this competition. Looking at Yori's fallen face, Fujin noted, 'This competition is indeed unfair for him. From what I've seen, Yori is able to hit a still target while he is moving very accurately. While he can also hit a moving target on a consistent basis, though not dead center. Sadly for him, the exam wasn't that difficult and hence many others were able to match him. If not, only Teru and maybe Nobu would have been able to match him.

In the Taijutsu competition, Hyuga Hoka ranked first, followed by Teru and Hana. Fujin was ranked 4th and Yori and Nobu were 5th and 6th respectively. Fujin had defeated Yori in the quarterfinals. Admittedly, Yori's technique was superior to Fujin's, however his physique was much weaker. However, in the semis, Fujin lost to Hoka, and in the fight to decide rank 3, he lost to Hana. He noted, 'Damn these Hyugas are tough to fight. Heck, pure Taijutsu competition against them is completely unfair! Even Teru, though he fought well with his Senju style, in the end he still lost. If I meet these Hyugas in chuunin exams or somewhere, I'll be sure to pack a shit lot of explosion tags to fight from far away!'

Hiruzen had visited to spectate the Taijutsu completion. Fujin did note that everyone was much fiercer during the Taijutsu competition, especially Hana. He wondered if that was because it was the exams, or because the Hokage was spectating.

With all the exams completed, the teachers allowed the students a small break while they readied the final scores of everyone.