Afternoon.
Students streamed out of the school gate in twos and threes.
Iruka stood under the corner of the wall by the school gate, hands in his pockets, his gaze constantly sweeping over the stream of people walking outward, and sighed.
Could he have already left?
He had clearly been staring at the entrance the whole time, how did he miss him?
As he was pondering whether to take a look at Naruto’s home, a crisp sound of footsteps suddenly came from before him, accompanied by a familiar voice.
“Iruka-sensei, what are you doing here?”
Iruka was stunned for a moment and raised his head.
The blonde youth stood right in front of him, hands behind his head, wearing a smile that looked softer than before.
“Ah…
I was waiting here specifically for you.” Iruka raised a hand to scratch his cheek, his voice carrying a bit of unnatural awkwardness.
“I wanted to talk to you before school ended today, but you stood in line for a while and then left before I could call out to you.”
Naruto lowered his hands and tilted his head.
“Looking for me?”
“Yeah.” Iruka paused, his gaze lingering on Naruto’s face for two seconds.
“That actual combat exercise just now…
I saw it all.”
“And the whole day of classes today, you were listening attentively.”
His tone was light, and his heart felt a bit dazed.
The quietly standing youth before him truly felt like a different person compared to the prank-pulling Naruto of a day ago.
“I feel like you’ve changed too much,” Iruka added, “so much that I don’t even know what happened.”
Hearing this, Naruto grinned wide.
“In the past, I always felt like I couldn’t do anything right and was disliked no matter what I did.
After a long time, even I almost believed it.”
“Because of some accidents…”
“I feel like the current me can change everything.”
Iruka looked at him and opened his mouth, but the words ‘what on earth happened’ were ultimately swallowed back down.
Forget it.
This child’s change wasn’t a bad thing anyway.
“Anyway,” Iruka reached out to pat Naruto’s shoulder, revealing a smile, “you’ve indeed become confident and steady.
The current you might actually be able to pass the graduation exam.”
Because for the Naruto of a day ago, wanting to graduate and become a Genin was an extremely difficult matter.
After all, he had failed the graduation exam three times before.
Hearing this, Naruto nodded, his tone brisk.
“In any case, I will definitely graduate, and then become an outstanding Ninja.”
“Goodbye, Iruka-sensei.”
After saying this, he left with brisk steps, gradually disappearing at the end of the street.
Iruka stood at the school gate, feeling emotionally that this child had truly grown up.
…
Nighttime.
Naruto sat cross-legged on the bed, his eyes closed.
His breathing gradually slowed down.
The environment within the mental space remained a dimly lit, gloomy sewer and a giant cage.
A behemoth lay flat behind the iron cage.
“You’ve finally come.” The Nine-Tailed’s tone carried a hint of impatience.
“I waited for you all day during the day, you’ve finally managed to get in here.”
Naruto walked to the front of the iron cage, looking at the Nine-Tailed across a set of bars. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“I was in class during the day, when would I have time to come look for you?”
“Hmph.” The Nine-Tailed raised its head slightly, its two front paws crossed and rested in front of it.
“Let’s not talk about that anymore.
Can you teach me magic now?”
Naruto blinked.
“You seem to be in a rush.”
The Nine-Tailed let out a soft huff, its tail flicking.
“You stayed in that Magic World for three months, and I watched those miraculous magics with my own eyes yet couldn’t learn them.
What a painful feeling that is.”
“And during those three months you were training, I was staring right beside you all along.”
“Most of the things that elf woman taught you, I could hear and see, except for the things written on those Grimoires which I couldn’t see.”
Speaking up to this point, it paused, its tone carrying a trace of dissatisfaction.
“If I could read books, I would’ve already learned it.”
Naruto thought about it, and indeed that was true.
For those few months, the Nine-Tailed had been synchronously watching what happened outside right inside his head.
It should have heard all the basic theories taught by Master Serie.
“Then which step have you mastered up to now?” Naruto asked.
“Mastering mana.”
“Operating according to the method taught by that woman, the energy that comes out is indeed mana.”
As it spoke, it raised a paw, a faint layer of white light welling up on it, and then it dissipated.
Naruto nodded.
“Master said that for a Mage, the most important thing is the precision control of mana.”
“As for magic itself…
it would be great if you had a Grimoire to read.”
“Didn’t your previous spatial magic store a lot of Grimoires?
It should be usable in this place too, right?” The Nine-Tailed suddenly said.
Naruto was slightly startled, a thought moving in his mind.
A flash of white light on his right hand, and a thick book with a dark blue cover appeared out of thin air in his hand.
Seeing this, both human and fox were stunned.
“It can really be used?” The Nine-Tailed’s voice carried a hint of surprise.
But then came a new problem.
The Nine-Tailed lowered its head to look at the already small book.
After opening it, it was all dense black dots, and it said helplessly, “How am I supposed to read this?”
“Um…” Naruto scratched his head.
“I don’t think I’ve learned magic to make objects larger yet.”
The Nine-Tailed calmly said, “Forget it, read it out to me word by word.”
Naruto was stunned for a moment, raising his head to look at the Nine-Tailed.
Naruto instantly felt that teaching a person, no…
teaching a fox magic, seemed to have become an extremely difficult matter.
But he still opened the book and cleared his throat.
“Section one…”
The Nine-Tailed lay down, resting its chin on its front paws, its ears slightly erect.
…
The next morning.
When Naruto pushed open the classroom door, the voices inside suddenly grew a bit quieter.
Someone raised their head to glance at him, then shifted their gaze away.
Naruto’s steps paused slightly, and he walked straight to his seat to sit down, pulled out the chair, took the textbook out of the drawer and placed it on the desk, turning to the page to be read today.
After a while, the classroom door was pushed open again.
Sasuke walked in.
He was wearing a black high-collared short-sleeve shirt, his black hair slightly spiked up, and the expression on his face was even colder than yesterday.
The classroom quieted down for a moment.
The gazes of several girls immediately stuck to him, but no one swarmed over as usual.
Sasuke didn’t walk directly to his seat.
Instead, he stopped at the door, his gaze sweeping across the classroom, finally landing on that blonde figure by the window.
Then he took strides, walked in front of Naruto’s desk, and stopped.
The shadows of the two people overlapped together.
Naruto raised his head, seeing Sasuke standing in front of him.
The black-haired youth pressed his lips together, with little expression on his face, but that face faintly leaked a sense of unnatural tension.
The classroom became completely quiet.
Everyone was looking over this side.
Sasuke spoke in a stiff tone, “Yesterday…”
“How on earth did you suddenly become strong?”
For an Uchiha genius, lowering his head to ask a universally acknowledged tail-ender ‘how did you get strong’ was almost the same as admitting defeat.
But Sasuke still asked it out.
Because he wanted to become strong.
He wanted power, needed power, more than anyone else.
Naruto looked into Sasuke’s eyes, roughly understanding what the other party was thinking.
The black-haired youth’s posture standing in front of him was tightly strung, as if he was forcibly holding something up, but the things in his eyes couldn’t deceive people.
He genuinely wanted to know.
Naruto closed his textbook, leaned against the back of his chair, and thought for a few seconds.
“How should I put it…”
“Maybe it’s because I started training seriously.”
For him, the three months of time-traveling to the Magic World had brought him confidence and teachings.
This experience was enough to change his life.
Hearing this, the corner of Sasuke’s mouth twitched.
Started training seriously?
One day?
He had practiced for so many years, only to be surpassed by the other party’s phrase’started training seriously’?
He stared at Naruto’s face, wanting to find a trace of lying or perfunctoriness from it.
But in those blue eyes, there was no evasion, nor any mockery; it was just a very calm gaze fixed upon him.
Sasuke fell silent, not knowing how to reply.
Right at this moment, the classroom door sounded again.
Sakura walked in from the door, and at a glance saw Sasuke’s figure standing in front of Naruto’s desk.
Therefore, she quickened her steps a bit, leaned over, and said softly, “Sasuke-kun, don’t mind what happened yesterday.”
“That guy Naruto must have just lucked out or used some small tricks, how could he possibly really win against you…”
“Forget it…” Sasuke turned around, his complexion gloomy.
After saying these two words, without even glancing at Sakura, he walked straight back to his seat.
Because Sasuke knew that this was by no means sheer luck.
The opponent’s strength had genuinely grown solidly, making even him feel the pressure.
Sakura bit her lips, her peripheral vision sweeping to Naruto beside them.
This blonde youth had already reopened his textbook and continued to lower his head to read, his expression as calm as if nothing had happened just now.