As soon as school ended, the classroom emptied out in an instant.
If you weren’t enthusiastic about going home after class, then there was clearly something wrong with your mindset.
Natsuki had just gotten to his feet when he saw Minato.
Just like yesterday, Minato invited them to walk home together.
“We’re going to the mission hall first.”
After thinking it over, Natsuki gave him the full explanation from beginning to end.
There was no reason to hide it.
The ultimate goal of having Yakushi Nono study medical ninjutsu was to make her Tsunade’s student.
If that really happened, everyone would know about it sooner or later.
Besides, since there was no medical ninja training class yet, posting a mission to hire a medical ninja to teach them was perfectly reasonable.
Minato looked surprised after hearing it.
He hadn’t expected Natsuki to be this thoughtful, or this proactive.
A sudden sense of crisis welled up in Minato’s heart.
He couldn’t keep slacking off like this.
He had to start grinding harder.
He was absolutely serious about becoming Hokage.
With that thought in mind, Minato headed straight for the school training grounds.
Natsuki withdrew his gaze.
Grinding harder was good.
The more the better.
“Want some takoyaki?”
Natsuki caught a whiff of something delicious and immediately started craving it.
“I’ll go buy some.”
Yakushi Nono spoke up at once.
Before Natsuki could answer, she had already jogged off to a nearby snack stand.
A moment later, she came back carrying a box of takoyaki.
She used a wooden skewer to pick up one piece and held it out to Natsuki.
Natsuki took the skewer, but instead of eating it himself, he brought it to her lips.
Yakushi Nono froze for a second, then bit into the takoyaki.
She chewed a few times, tasting the flavor bloom in her mouth.
Her eyes narrowed happily, and a bright smile spread across her little face.
Children in the ninja world might mature early, but at the end of the day, they were still children.
“How does it taste?”
Natsuki asked, watching her adorable expression.
“It’s good, but it’s not as good as your cooking.”
Yakushi Nono answered honestly.
She wasn’t flattering him.
Yesterday, Natsuki had learned five dishes from Mayu.
Other than the first dish, sunny-side-up eggs, which hadn’t turned out especially well, every other dish had surpassed the teacher.
By the end, even Mayu had started questioning her life choices.
Yakushi Nono had also felt a bit defeated.
After all, the ninja world was basically a feudal Japanese society, and most women believed in being good wives and wise mothers, so they were generally quite skilled in cooking.
By the time they reached the Hokage Building, they had finished the entire box of takoyaki.
Natsuki and Yakushi Nono soon arrived at the mission hall.
“I’m Chiwa.
I’m the one who accepted your commission.”
A female ninja who looked to be in her thirties introduced herself.
“I’m currently a genin, and I work at Konoha Hospital.”
“Thanks for your help, Chiwa-senpai.”
Natsuki nodded.
A genin who could work at Konoha Hospital was no ordinary genin.
“According to Konoha’s rules, I can’t teach you medical ninjutsu.
I can only teach you basic medical knowledge.”
Chiwa gave them a reminder.
“I understand.”
Natsuki wasn’t surprised.
In Konoha, there were only three legitimate ways to obtain ninjutsu.
One was through rewards from the village.
The second was being taught by your team leader after graduation.
The third was inheriting ninjutsu from your parents.
Any other method was considered improper.
These rules existed so Konoha could maintain a monopoly on ninjutsu.
If anyone with money could just buy their way into learning techniques, the whole system would fall apart, and Konoha’s position would be undermined.
“Can you teach us how to prepare some commonly used medicines?
Like anesthetics, for example?”
After a moment’s thought, Natsuki asked.
“No problem.”
Chiwa agreed without suspicion.
As a ninja, you had to master a wide range of skills, and medicine was one of them.
Not medicine for saving people, but medicine for killing them.
Coating ninja tools with poison was an extremely standard tactic.
Most ninja bought their poisons, but some made their own.
Chiwa had assumed Natsuki wanted to become the latter kind of ninja.
After a brief conversation, she brought them back to her home.
Looking at the thick stack of books in front of him, Natsuki couldn’t help twitching at the corner of his mouth.
As expected, trying to persuade people to study medicine was the sort of sin that deserved divine punishment.
Meanwhile, compared to him, Yakushi Nono was full of motivation.
She was determined to repay him.
Ever since Natsuki had entered the Konoha Orphanage, he had been looking after her.
And now he had even spent money to hire a medical ninja to teach her.
No matter what, she couldn’t let his efforts go to waste.
In the blink of an eye, time slipped into April.
During that month, the one who had stolen the most attention was Minato Namikaze.
No matter the class, he excelled at everything and was deeply favored by the teachers.
He had even gained a crowd of admirers in class, and his reputation had started spreading to the other classes as well.
Natsuki had a feeling that within two years at most, Minato would earn Hiruzen’s recognition and ultimately become Jiraiya’s student.
But that was a good thing.
Through his relationship with Minato, Natsuki himself might end up noticed by Hiruzen or Jiraiya.
During this time, Natsuki had only done three things:
Running, practicing ninja tool throwing, and studying medical knowledge.
At Chiwa’s house—
Natsuki carefully picked up a test tube.
He was preparing an anesthetic.
Logically, after only one month, he shouldn’t have been qualified to make anesthetics yet.
But in order to unlock the Conan template early, he had asked Chiwa half a month ago to teach him how to make them.
He didn’t need to understand why each step worked.
He just had to memorize the procedure.
“It worked!”
Excitement flashed across Natsuki’s face.
“That’s amazing!”
Yakushi Nono chimed in right on cue.
In truth, she had learned even faster than he had.
[Congratulations, Host.
Conan Template Ability Two, Anesthetic Needle, has been unlocked.]
Smiling, Natsuki reached out and pinched her soft little cheek.
A month of hard work had finally paid off.
Now his Conan template only had one locked ability left.
Of course, he still needed to keep studying medical knowledge, since that was directly tied to both his and Yakushi Nono’s future safety.
Once the lesson ended, Natsuki and Yakushi Nono left Chiwa’s house.
But instead of heading straight back to the Konoha Orphanage, they went to a nearby training ground.
Natsuki took out a kunai.
Over the past month, both his kunai and shuriken skills had reached beginner level.
The standard for beginner level was achieving a bullseye rate of over 70% on stationary targets.
If you could maintain that kind of bullseye rate against moving targets—or against moving ninja—that counted as proficient.
As for mastery, that required more advanced throwing techniques.
For example, the Uchiha clan’s classic Manipulated Shuriken Technique.
Using wire to control the shuriken gave them many more possible trajectories and angles of attack.
Natsuki coated the kunai with the anesthetic he had just successfully prepared.
Only after coating ten kunai did he finally stop.
He fixed his eyes on the stationary target in the distance.
Then he flicked his arm, released the kunai, and sent it whistling through the air.
Thunk.
The kunai struck dead center in the bullseye.
But he wasn’t done.
Natsuki threw the second one, then the third, continuing until all ten kunai were gone.
Watching from the side, Yakushi Nono couldn’t help showing a look of surprise.
She clearly remembered that in the last ninja tool throwing class, Natsuki had only managed seven hits out of ten.
Now he had landed ten out of ten.
The gap was enormous.
But soon enough, she just felt happy for him.
“I’m actually pretty accurate.”
Natsuki felt as though peak Michael Jordan had possessed him.
Every throw just went in.
Next came next week’s monthly test—the equivalent of a monthly exam.
Aside from the written portion, the most important part was the practical test, which had two main sections: physical fitness and kunai throwing.
The reason was simple.
They still hadn’t been taught the Three Basic Techniques or taijutsu yet.
The Three Basic Techniques sounded simple, but for most students, they were actually very hard.
They needed six whole years to learn them.
Even so, more than half of the students still failed to master the Three Basic Techniques and therefore couldn’t graduate and become ninja.