Since that day, another member joined Hanyu Bai’s little group: Hinata.
However, Hinata was the heiress of the Hyuga Main Family after all, so unless Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru moved together, it was impossible to bring her out.
With Ino acting as the kid ringleader, plus the fact that most of Bai’s group were ninja kids who naturally understood Hinata’s background, no one dared to bully the soft, timid girl anymore!
Bai had tentatively asked Hinata if she knew Naruto, but Hinata said she didn’t.
This made Bai sigh with emotion—Boruto was almost certainly ended by him…
Bai wasn’t about to be polite, because he really liked Hinata too!
Before, he lacked the means due to an ordinary background; marrying one beautiful girl would have been a dream, let alone having a harem.
But now with his cheat, those fantasies were no longer wild delusions.
For now, however, nothing was more important than becoming a real shinobi.
Hinata and Ino were both in Bai’s plans, maybe even Sakura—a man had to be honest, lust was lust.
Though Bai didn’t particularly care for Sakura’s double-standard personality in the original story, right now she was only three years old, just Ino’s little follower, and no one could predict the future.
Besides, not many men could refuse Sakura twenty years later, and doujinshi Sakura was top-tier among top-tiers!
Just a man’s collector instinct, perhaps…
Of course, Bai had principles: wives could be raised from childhood, but he wasn’t going to be a creep!
Although children in the Naruto world were precocious, they weren’t enlightened about romance at three years old.
Bai merely maintained a friendly, close relationship with the girls, patiently waiting for their feelings to gradually shift; that would be the time for him to make his move!
As for the cliché of childhood friends losing to a newcomer…
It wasn’t like he was some ugly loser; could some little brats really steal his girls?
Bai was quite confident in his looks.
Though young, he had fair, smooth skin and refined facial features, making him a handsome little boy.
Otherwise, Ino, a superficial face-connoisseur since birth, wouldn’t insist on pairing up with him every time they played house.
Getting back to the point, ever since his first meeting with Hinata, Bai had actually begun extracting chakra.
The Sage Body truly lived up to its name.
Even at three years old, he effortlessly extracted his first batch of chakra, but it wasn’t until a year later that Bai “accidentally” revealed that he already possessed chakra.
Extracting chakra at three was too shocking.
Four was still impressive, but around this age, children of noble families started trying chakra extraction as well.
Bai was merely a few months ahead of them, remaining within the acceptable bounds of a genius.
“Bai, have you already extracted chakra?” Shikamaru, who was usually lazy, suddenly asked Bai when the others weren’t around.
Bai paused for a moment before nodding.
A blue glow flickered at his fingertips as he said, “I just extracted it not long ago.
Why?”
“Do you know your chakra nature?” Shikamaru asked further.
“Chakra nature…” When Shikamaru asked, Bai realized he didn’t even know his own chakra nature yet!
Although he had extracted chakra a year ago, Bai had too many things to learn and do during this past year.
Aside from daily chakra extraction, since he lacked a teacher, he had to figure everything out on his own.
He needed to learn the basic Three Academy Jutsu, the Body Flicker Technique, the Shadow Clone Technique (since he didn’t have the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique), shuriken and kunai projectile basics, taijutsu fundamentals, hand-seal basics, and general shinobi knowledge, right?
Bai could have asked Kurenai Yuhi for guidance, but he didn’t want to expose his chakra extraction too early.
Besides, Kurenai had been preparing for her Special Jonin promotion over the past two years; with heavy training and missions, he only saw her once every two weeks or so, leaving little time.
Furthermore, chakra paper wasn’t cheap—otherwise Naruto wouldn’t have remained ignorant of his chakra nature until after graduating from the Academy!
Though his parents left behind an inheritance, it was distributed by the village as a monthly living allowance.
A single piece of chakra paper cost about a full month’s stipend for Bai, which was why he hadn’t tested it yet.
Seeing Bai’s reaction, Shikamaru knew he didn’t know.
He spoke up, “Testing your chakra nature is essential.
Only by knowing your chakra nature can you learn corresponding ninjutsu efficiently.”
“You’re right, I’ll go buy a piece of chakra paper later!” Bai nodded after giving it some thought.
“Forget it,” Shikamaru lazily pulled out a piece of white paper and said, “I happen to have one right here.
If you don’t mind, I’m also curious to see your chakra nature!”
Bai was startled for a second.
After staring at Shikamaru for a moment, he smiled and nodded.
Bai had noticed that Shikamaru was unusually chatty today.
Normally, Shikamaru rarely initiated conversations with boys other than Choji.
Bai could understand Shikamaru.
After all, 80% of their current playmates would eventually become strangers—Bai did the same himself.
Aside from the characters from the original series, Bai maintained a distant yet polite relationship with those nameless extras.
This avoided wasting emotional energy.
Highly intelligent people often appeared distant and detached.
Now that Bai demonstrated extraordinary talent, Shikamaru genuinely acknowledged him as a friend, likely second only to Choji.
It wasn’t that Shikamaru was pragmatic or manipulative; he simply disliked unnecessary socializing.
Take this chakra paper for instance: it wasn’t an attempt to curry favor, but simply because Shikamaru knew chakra paper was a significant financial burden for Bai, so he helped out as a friend.
Next, Bai took the chakra paper from Shikamaru and channeled a strand of chakra into it.
Under the watchful eyes of Bai and Shikamaru, half of the chakra paper shattered into dirt, while the other half became soaked with water.
“Water and Earth?” Seeing this, Shikamaru offered a fair assessment, “Looks like you’ll have to put a lot of effort into refining your chakra in the future!”
So-called chakra refining was just a casual term for shape transformation and nature transformation.
Water and Earth natures didn’t possess inherent offensive power like Fire, Wind, and Lightning.
However, Earth had powerful defense, while Water could easily cover broad areas.
If Bai could master shape and nature transformations of Water chakra to an extreme degree, he might even be able to summon massive tides out of nowhere like Tobirama Senju!
“You say that like other chakra natures don’t require refinement!” Bai teased with a roll of his eyes.