Back to the matter at hand.
When the Nine-Tails heard that Naruto was about to begin another round of training, it became extremely curious about what he intended to practice.
After all, the Nine-Tails itself did not know ninjutsu.
Aside from the Chakra Refinement Technique and the Three Basic Techniques, no one had ever taught Naruto any ninjutsu either.
Although the Nine-Tails had no idea where Naruto had learned the training method for the Rasengan, after Naruto mastered the Rasengan and then went even further to complete the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken, the Nine-Tails believed his self-training had already reached its limit.
From this point onward, he should need someone to guide him.
Yet unexpectedly, Naruto was actually about to begin training another new technique.
That naturally made the Nine-Tails curious about what strange idea Naruto had come up with this time.
Under the Nine-Tails’ watchful gaze, Naruto opened his palm.
Then he closed his eyes.
A moment later, the outline of a leaf unexpectedly began taking shape above his hand.
“It actually worked!”
Naruto’s delighted voice immediately rang out.
Even the Nine-Tails could not help being surprised.
This brat had actually figured out how to manifest objects inside the sealed space all by himself?
Then Wind Release chakra nature transformation surged over Naruto’s hand.
Riiip!
The leaf was instantly torn into several pieces.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. Its texture is exactly the same as a real leaf outside.”
Naruto nodded in satisfaction.
“Brat, what exactly are you trying to do?”
The tsundere Kurama spoke in a tone full of disgust.
“Hehe. Have you ever heard of the supreme martial-arts realm where even flying flowers and plucked leaves can wound people?”
Naruto smiled faintly, revealing eight bright white teeth.
“That’s the realm I intend to reach.”
“Flying flowers and plucked leaves can wound people? Supreme martial-arts realm? What is that?” the Nine-Tails asked in confusion.
“Well, it’s a realm described in novels. You know what a novel is, right?”
Naruto explained casually.
“It’s a story imagined by people, recorded in writing, and then printed into a book.”
“That’s what a novel is.”
“For example, Kurama, your life could also be turned into a story. Once written down, it could become a novel called The Tsundere Little Fox Thought It Was Invincible Until the God of Shinobi and the Asura of the Shinobi World Taught It How to Behave with Their Fists of Love.”
“Damn brat! How dare you mock me!”
The Nine-Tails instantly flew into a rage.
“And you’re talking nonsense! I’m not a tsundere at all! Those bastards Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha didn’t have any ‘love’ either!”
“And I’m the Nine-Tails! Why would I need anyone to teach me how to behave like a human?”
The Nine-Tails sounded extremely dissatisfied.
“Well, that’s what novels do.”
Naruto smiled faintly.
“They take a story and exaggerate or embellish parts of it to stir the readers’ emotions more effectively.”
“Now that I’ve learned how to manifest things with mental energy, I’ll manifest a few novels for you sometime and let you read them.”
Naruto’s eyes suddenly shifted as he remembered methods protagonists in other Naruto fanfictions had used to win over the Nine-Tails.
He immediately began making grand promises.
The moment the Nine-Tails saw Naruto’s eyes darting around, it knew the brat was up to no good.
It immediately snorted warily.
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just letting you read some novels. Then we’ll have something in common to talk about.”
Naruto grinned.
“Hmph! Who wants anything in common with an irritating brat like you?”
The Nine-Tails snorted even more disdainfully.
If Kurama had lived on Blue Star, there was a very good chance it too would have remained single entirely through its own efforts.
“All right, we’ll talk about that later. I’m going to start training.”
Naruto sighed helplessly.
But he quickly adjusted his mindset and threw himself completely into training.
One leaf after another manifested in his hand.
And one after another, they were torn into several pieces.
Thus, Naruto began his newest training project.
After spending the entire winter break practicing it—
The winter snow melted.
Spring warmth returned, and flowers bloomed.
Another new academic year began.
This year, several new courses were added, including theory and intelligence analysis, as well as genjutsu analysis.
With the addition of these theoretical subjects, Sakura’s written-test results immediately surged far ahead of everyone else.
From that point onward, the top rank in written examinations never changed hands again.
Even Sasuke had to admit that when it came to theory and intelligence analysis, he was inferior to Sakura.
But to Naruto, those courses were not particularly important.
The course Naruto truly found useful was an elective.
Lip-reading.
Lip-reading was not an easy skill to master.
Even with Naruto’s mental cultivation at the stage of constant absorption, giving him nearly perfect learning efficiency far beyond that of ordinary people, it still took him more than a month to truly master the skill.
As for genjutsu analysis, Naruto had initially held some expectations for it.
He had hoped he might use the course to learn genjutsu.
But clearly, genjutsu analysis was not the same thing as learning genjutsu.
It merely taught students how to identify whether they had fallen under genjutsu under various circumstances, as well as some basic methods for breaking free.
Judging from the events of the original story, those techniques were not especially useful.
From Naruto’s current level of mental cultivation, any genjutsu weak enough to be broken by those basic methods would probably fail to affect him in the first place.
So Naruto completely lost interest in the course.
As for theory and intelligence analysis, he had even less interest.
There were simply far too many areas of knowledge involved.
Mathematics.
Physics.
Chemistry.
Secret codes.
Decryption.
Ciphers.
And countless other subjects.
The amount of knowledge covered by theory and intelligence analysis could only be described as an ocean.
Unless someone was a genuine academic genius, there was practically no way to master it all.
Naturally, Naruto had no intention of wasting time burying himself in something like that.
Pure physical analysis!
Therefore, without question, Naruto once again retained his position at the very bottom of the class that year.
The undisputed dead last.
Meanwhile, his training in the technique of making flying flowers and falling leaves capable of wounding people made absolutely no progress.
It remained exactly the same as when he had first begun.
Leaves were simply too fragile.
Even after an entire year of training, Naruto still could not prevent them from being torn apart.
He had genuinely failed to take even the first step.
Clearly, Naruto had severely underestimated the difficulty of this technique.
However, Naruto possessed one trait that could be called either a strength or a flaw.
Once he became fixated on something, he refused to let it go.
Especially when he had no other new training project.
There was even less chance he would abandon this obsession.
Naruto simply refused to accept defeat!
This technique of making even flying flowers and falling leaves capable of wounding people—
He was going to master it no matter what.
And so, three months into his sixth academic year—
Naruto finally succeeded.
He learned how to coat a leaf with Wind Release chakra nature transformation without damaging the leaf itself, while still making it incomparably sharp through the enhancement of Wind Release.
Furthermore, the chakra coating could remain intact for one second after the leaf left his hand.
And with Naruto’s attack speed—
One second was enough to extend his effective range to ten meters.
That could be considered the initial mastery of his technique where even flying flowers and falling leaves could wound.
Although this was only the earliest stage of mastery, Naruto had spent more than three years painstakingly researching the technique.
So the moment he finally succeeded, countless inspirations erupted in his mind.
Naturally, Naruto immediately began using those ideas to comprehensively and deeply develop the technique further.
First, Naruto made the leaf spin like a shuriken.
By adding rotation, he increased the stability of the Wind Release chakra nature transformation.
Its effective range instantly expanded from ten meters to fifty meters.
Naruto named it—
Wind Style: Loaded Shuriken Technique.
The reason for that name was simple.
If there was a Wind Style: Loaded Shuriken Technique, then naturally there would also be a—
Wind Style: Unloaded Shuriken Technique.
This was a byproduct Naruto had discovered while developing the loaded version.
Because during his training, Naruto accidentally realized something.
After completing his technique where even flying flowers and falling leaves could wound, his chakra control had already reached an almost abnormal level.
He no longer even needed a leaf to serve as a medium.
He could directly make Wind Release chakra nature transformation rotate and produce the effect of a shuriken.
Its attack range even exceeded that of his original flying-flower-and-falling-leaf technique.
It could reach as far as thirty meters.
In fact, if Naruto had not believed that the Wind Style: Loaded Shuriken Technique might ultimately achieve an even greater range, he would already have abandoned training the loaded version entirely.