A few years ago, the Third Hokage would never have agreed to an assessment like this.
But things were different now.
The various nations of the shinobi world were all restless, each of them intending to take a bite out of the Land of Fire, with its vast and fertile territory.
It was foreseeable that, within a few years, Konoha would find itself surrounded by enemies on all sides.
If they continued using the carefree approach to education from before, then once these young shinobi of Konoha stepped onto the battlefield, they would be nothing more than cannon fodder.
Rather than sending them to their deaths on the battlefield, it would be better to have Isamu stop them all while they were still in the Academy.
Of course, this kind of treatment would only be given to this particular class.
This assessment was not merely meant to knock some sense into the students who had yet to graduate.
It was also meant to send a message to Konoha’s various clans.
Even a wandering boy like Isamu is stronger than the supposedly gifted heirs of your clans!
The Second Hokage had established the Ninja Academy in the hope of ensuring that Konoha would have a stable channel for cultivating new talent.
Whether someone came from a clan or was a civilian, as long as they were willing to become a shinobi and possessed the necessary talent, they could receive proper training.
But the various clans did not think highly of this method of education.
They continued to adhere to the traditional clan-based approach to training.
At present, even the Ninja Academy’s teachers were all civilian shinobi who had retired from the battlefield.
There wasn’t a single member of the major shinobi clans among them.
Inside the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi watched the situation on the field through a crystal ball.
When he saw the students splitting into multiple groups according to their clan affiliations, Hiruzen couldn’t help shaking his head.
Konoha was still dominated by the clans.
There were plenty of civilians, but there were relatively few civilian shinobi.
Among the younger generation, the two rare young talents without significant clan backgrounds were Orochimaru and Jiraiya.
Aside from them, outstanding shinobi born into civilian families were exceedingly rare.
As the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi understood the shortcomings of this system very well.
The village needed more heroes to rise from among the civilian shinobi.
Hiruzen shifted his gaze toward the blond-haired Minato Namikaze standing among the crowd.
This boy had been chosen as Jiraiya’s disciple.
Nearly two months earlier, Hiruzen had also witnessed Minato’s first encounter with Isamu through the Telescope Technique.
Catching a kunai with his bare hand.
Even though Isamu had only been feinting at the time and the kunai itself hadn’t been particularly fast, being capable of such a feat at that age was still quite rare.
Hiruzen had regarded Minato catching Isamu’s kunai barehanded that day as a demonstration of Minato Namikaze’s own ability.
He was therefore quite pleased with his future grand-disciple.
Perhaps one day, this child would bring a new kind of vitality to Konoha.
Inside the Forest of Death, Isamu stood atop the central tower, gazing into the distance at the people gathered outside the assessment grounds.
Over the past month, he had constantly been thinking about what kind of role Konoha’s higher-ups or more precisely, the Hokage wanted him to play in this assessment.
The most obvious purpose was to put pressure on these students who had never been to war, indirectly pushing them to train harder.
Ideally, before they ever stepped onto a battlefield, they would already understand that an enemy might use any means necessary, and that they needed to be prepared for it.
That alone would considerably increase their chances of survival.
But
Isamu remembered a conversation he’d had with Tsunade the previous night.
“Sensei, what if the whetstone is too hard, while the blade being sharpened is too brittle, and all the blades end up breaking?”
“What should we do then?”
Tsunade had looked at Isamu in surprise, a trace of astonishment flashing through her eyes.
The goal Konoha had given Isamu was to eliminate eighty percent of the participants.
After all, there were still quite a few promising young shinobi among the students taking part in the assessment.
In their original calculations, there had never been any possibility that Isamu would eliminate everyone.
Individually, not one of them was Isamu’s equal.
But once they formed groups, the situation would undergo a qualitative change.
All it would take was one or two people to hold Isamu back while everyone else swarmed him.
Under the condition that they could not kill him, even elite Chūnin instructors from the Ninja Academy who had retired from the battlefield would eventually be exhausted and defeated.
Unless Isamu possessed Jōnin-level strength, there was no way he could effortlessly defeat a team of more than a hundred provisional Genin.
This kid really does think things through.
“That whetstone would no longer be a whetstone,” Tsunade had answered.
“It would instead be ground down into another sharp blade.”
Thinking about that conversation, the corners of Isamu’s mouth lifted.
Then let me grind your blades until they break.
Far away, a red signal flare shot into the sky.
The assessment had begun.
More than a hundred students carrying their supplies eagerly rushed into the Forest of Death.
Someone used a telescope and spotted Isamu standing atop the central tower.
The latter happened to be looking back at them through a telescope of his own.
“He’s on the central tower!”
As soon as the news spread, the students hurried toward the tower.
Seven days?
We’ll settle this in two hours!
The assessment area had a radius of more than ten kilometers.
At the pace of these provisional Genin, even while conserving some stamina, it would take only about an hour and a half to reach Isamu.
With the remaining half hour, surely more than a hundred of us can deal with one person!
This was where the differences between the Genin began to show.
The groups at the very front were primarily composed of members from various clans.
With access to clan resources and instruction, their physical abilities were considerably superior to those of the civilian shinobi.
These people charged straight into the forest, attempting to reach Isamu as quickly as possible.
“No, that’s not a good idea.
There could be traps in the forest.”
The person who spoke was none other than Shikaku Nara.
The people gathered around Shikaku immediately began slowing down and moved toward the cleared riverbed.
After the other groups noticed this, they also began consciously waiting for the main body.
More than a hundred people gradually consolidated into four groups.
They advanced upstream along the river, with roughly three to four hundred meters between the groups.
And all of this was accomplished under Shikaku Nara’s guidance.
“Shikaku, your boy is quite impressive.”
Inside a conference room in the Hokage Tower, quite a few people had gathered.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was using a large specially made crystal ball to project images from inside the Forest of Death.
Among those present were a number of Konoha Jōnin.
Shikaku’s father and the current head of the Nara clan, Nara Shikayoshi, was also there.
The person who had previously warned everyone about possible traps and guided the groups was none other than his son, Shikaku Nara.
Hearing Hiruzen’s praise, Shikayoshi thanked him aloud, but inwardly he could only sigh.
If the target has revealed himself so openly, then besides considering whether there are traps, the next thing to consider is how to divide the formation and capture him.
If I were arranging this, I’d divide the hundred-plus people into three groups and have them approach from three directions.
That way, they could support one another and guard against traps.
Once they got close, the central group could probe the enemy while the two groups on the flanks moved in to encircle him.
If the person they encountered really were the target’s true body, they could even intercept him if he attempted to retreat.
But
Why would the opponent do something so foolish?
Or is this actually a trap designed to lure everyone in?
“Lord Hokage, can we switch the view to Isamu?” someone asked.
Hiruzen, sitting at the front, shook his head without saying anything.
Of course he wanted to.
If he could switch the viewpoint, he would have done it long ago instead of sitting here watching the students run for more than an hour.
But the problem was that the Telescope Technique required him to know the target’s chakra signature.
Previously, he had been able to rely on this technique to monitor Isamu’s movements.
Yet strangely enough, after the previous night, he had been completely unable to locate Isamu.
Can his chakra signature change as well?
Hiruzen Sarutobi still couldn’t figure it out.