One month later, and I finally finished all the books my parents left behind.
For the record, I am not taking the full 30 days to read all those books. I actually only needed 18. Unfortunately, there’s a problem that distracted me from wholly immerse myself in the books, which happened the next day after memory awakening when I was out to catch that beef discount.
It is my sense.
Not the 5 human senses, mind you. But the warmth that I felt inside of me, that I (for now) assumed as chakra, can also be sensed all around me. It’s not ever present that it ended up overwhelming me, but it’s out there.
The problem was when I remembered the tidbit about sensor-nin.
Something along the line of “if I sense you, I also announce myself to you”. So, the fact that I sensed all of this crap, does that mean I just announced myself to every sensor in the village?
Well… After being a nervous wreck for a whole day (and missing the discount), I was relieved to conclude that it was not what happen. Probably, if the lack of “special” visitors that day were any indicator.
Thankfully, there were also no unique visitors in the last month, so I should be safe.
As for what ability I’ve just experienced, I’m still not sure. I’ve skimmed my parents’ books to look for any mention of similar phenomenon, but to no avail. It’s still the same after properly reading everything; there’s just no mention of what I’ve experienced.
Digging my memory for meta-knowledge, however, yielded some result. At first, I thought this was the ability of Karin, the Mind Eye thingy, but dismissed the idea after trying out the sense further and found that the effect didn’t match of what I remember.
Then I recall a certain legendary Naruto fanfic, the one where the MC was reincarnated as the twin sister of Shikamaru. If I remember it correctly, then this ability should be similar to hers; a heightened sensitivity toward chakra.
Upon arriving at that conclusion, I… reluctantly put that ability aside.
I can’t help it. Training such an advanced “ninja stuff” was just too risky. Leaving aside the risk of something goes wrong to my well-being, what if I ended-up triggered some detection of a sensor-nin while training it?
So right now, I think it is much more important to honestly train my physical ability first and foremost.
All that distraction aside though, it was definitely a bountiful reading session. What my parents have wrote in those books was all the basics in addition to the foundation to learn fuinjutsu, iryojutsu, and kenjutsu.
Thanks to those I understand why Hiruzen recommended me to focus only on either fuin or iryo and not both, at least not at the same time. If the foundations are as complicated as this books conveys, I can only imagine how hard the subject will be in a practical level.
Speaking of practical, the next step would be to begin actual training now that I have finished reading those books. I have delayed enough and the time would not wait any longer.
…I guess it could wait until tomorrow?
It was very late after all, 9 in the evening and I just had a very late dinner. Time to hit the hay so I can ACTUALLY start training tomorrow.
Alright then, g’night~
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It was an early morning, around 5:30, with the summer sun already illuminating the room in golden. And there was I in said room, panting and sweating bullets. I clutched a cup of water while occasionally taking sips, trying to restore the water loss from my own sweat.
Yeah… maybe it was not a good idea to push myself to the very limit in my first ever training session. Can’t help being excited though, it has been sooo long since I could exercise properly without having pain all over my body.
And yes, I did my warm-ups properly, thanks for asking.
Now, about the result: 3 sets of 10 reps push-ups, 5 sets of 10 reps sit-ups, and 4 sets of 10 reps squats. Please let’s keep in mind that I’m currently a 5-year-old physically. Sure, it might be because of chakra doing some magic, but still!
That result was worth getting excited over because that was almost half the requirement of Saitama’s training, minus the running. So that’s almost like a quarter of the Daily finished.
… Assuming the Daily was indeed having the same task as the one from Solo Leveling.
But hey, even if it wasn’t, the routine itself does make a pretty good training programme. Not just my opinion, by the way. It fits the bill of the pre-academy training recommended by my parents in their books. That’s why I decide to try it to crack the Daily in the first place. This story is hosted at novelping . com.
Though, even if Saitama’s was the answer, I just hoped that the system doesn’t require me to finish it all at once. Especially the running part. That would be double trouble with how difficult and how eye catching it was.
Sure, this is a world where chakra exist. But a 5-year-old kid running 10k all at once every day still could easily catch the wrong eye.
Eh… problem for future me. The current me should make a decision; to have breakfast first and start running later at around 8, or try running now before breakfast? Hmm…
… Breakfast it is.
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“Ara, where are you going in a hurry, Takeshi-kun?”
“huff… I’m training huff… Obaa-chan!”
“Maa, how diligent. Do be careful, okay?”
“Okaay!” I half-shouted while I gave her a thumbs-up as I went past her.
It should’ve been around 20 minutes since I start running. Yes, running, not jogging. At least it felt like running. And I can say it’s been decent so far. I can maintain consistent pace and my breathing is still under control.
My chosen track to run? The street. Like normal street, the one that everybody uses. Specifically, I chose a route that I have been familiar with in my 5 years living in this world.
The chosen route was also the one I know will have me passing by someone who’s familiar with me, or at least knew me, either as Takeshi who helped his orphanage’s staff, or Takeshi of Nobu family, or both.
That baa-chan that just greeted me? Apparently, she was my parent’s acquaintance. We first met during one of my grocery runs. Before that, some market seller who my orphanage frequented also greeted me when I ran past them. And even when I just left the house, I got to have a short chat with the neighbours.
That might sound like a lot of distraction, but I also saw it as a layer of security.
The goals of using this route were to ensure that I was seen by people who are familiar with me, hopefully deterring those who have funny ideas against me. On the contrary, I think running in secluded places would only make me an easy and obvious target.
It was also a measure if Hiruzen was spying on me.
Interacting positively with others would surely scores more brownie points with him. Even if he was not spying, the connection I made and strengthened itself is also a good thing. At least the connections my parents made have always been a good thing for me so far.
As for hiding my training? Yeah no.
I don’t think it is realistic to hide my training for almost two years in a village full of ninjas. You would need plot holes kind of luck to achieve that. I mean, my luck has been extraordinarily amazing so far, y’know? On the level of plot armor even. But I really don’t want to push it any further.
And frankly, I see no need to hide it either. Let’s break it down.
The big boss of Konoha already knew first-hand that I wanted to be a ninja, and my parents’ acquaintance would definitely know my parents were a ninja and should assume I would also become one. The orphanage staffs, and people I got to know while helping them, should consider it normal that a Konoha orphan wanted to be a ninja.
If some people came forward and asked why I trained so hard so early, I would say it was to make my parents proud. Because, as I said, they did mention in the books the kind of training I should do even before enrolled. That’s part of the reason I kinda “wasted” some time reading those books; to build an alibi.
You see? I got my tracks covered.
I also for sure got my running tracks covered in my sweat. Should have gone for the run first before or during sunrise before it gets too hot. I totally forgot about the summer heat in my gung-ho, opting instead of doing the SL Daily Quest like how it’s MC has done it; doing the running last. Get faster updates on g.com.
… Yeah, that was a mistake.
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My first day of training was quite a bust.
…. Or is it? Cue V-sauce music.
Ahem. Joke aside, it was definitely failing my initial expectation on the running side of thing. By my estimate, I only got a bit short of one kilo in my 30 minutes run before I have to stop.
The problem was the heat. Honestly, I didn’t expect to carry on my weakness to heat from my previous life, albeit to a much, much lesser severity. Growing up in this climate also helps me getting… well, acclimatized further. I guess I’m just not yet used to this kind of heat for training.
But the show must go on, can’t stop my training just because of heat. If I can’t even handle this kind of heat, surely I have no hope of handling Madara’s Katon.
So, the training continues the next day only after I made sure I was fine. The schedule also changed to running first, and the result was promising.
I was able to run for about an hour without the heat, covering around 2,5 kilometers according to my mental measurement.
Whaaat? Soo sloooowwww…
Well yeah, my feet were short. And that was the first proper one hour run I ever did, both lives combined. Unless I go for a sprint, then the only way for me to get to 5 kilos was running for longer.
The rest of training result were still the same, thankfully. Even after running I was able to pull 30-50-40 as I did the first time. I was still grasping for breath afterward though. But that’s the point, right? Keep going until you feel comfortable and then raise the limit. Rinse and repeat.
I was also managed to do an afternoon session on the same day. I also did the running first on that session, and bringing it as close as possible to sunset to avoid heat but still bright enough for safety purposes.
The result brought about a grin that almost split my face. It was the exact same as the morning session, which is miraculous according to what little I know about human recovery and stuff like that. Though I did practically nothing else after my morning training.
What was gratifying was the fact that the next day I have fully recovered only after a night’s sleep. No soreness, no lingering fatigue, no nothing.
All hail chakra~ I guess?
With that assurance, I kept the physical training schedule the same while increasing the training portion little by little. Though I deliberately not doing any other physical training until I can do a total 100 each of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, plus 10 km of running daily.
Along with those training routines, I also did the leaf concentration exercise and wind release’s leaf cutting exercise in-between morning and afternoon session.
Another thing I did was re-read my parents’ book anytime I was not training, eating, meditating, or sleeping. I was trying to commit all of its content to memory.
Every so often I also set aside a little bit of time to socialize, mainly before, during, or after the run. Of course, there were also grocery runs and chores, this is a real life after all.
Man, I really need Kage Bunshin soo baad.
And so my life goes on in such fashion. Until on an autumn evening…
[Chakra ×2 Quest : - ]
Note
So it starts... the training part of this fic. Hope there's not too many factual/canonical error in this part.
Now, about this 'cheat'. I gotta say that it is me being a bit greedy. Honestly, I don't even have a concrete plan on how to develop this one cheat yet. I also have to admit that I actually haven't personally asks Silver Queen for permission to use this idea in my fic, though I remember reading somewhere that acknowledgement are enough. Please kindly let me know if I'm wrong here.