“Wherever the leaves of Konoha dance, the fire will spread beyond control.” Akira read through the copy of First Hokage and the Will of Fire with great interest.
The book briefly described the brutality of the Warring States Era and how the First Hokage brought an end to the chaos.
Uchiha Madara was only mentioned in passing, portrayed as an insignificant figure who had been effortlessly defeated by Senju Hashirama.
Tobirama’s handiwork?
Akira pondered the thought.
Had they already started downplaying Madara’s influence during this era?
The real purpose was probably to subtly reshape the Uchiha Clan’s way of thinking.
This history book is stuffed with personal bias.
You devious Senju Tobirama.
He continued reading.
The remaining chapters were mostly political slogans.
Everyone in Konoha was one family.
Sacrifice the small family for the greater one.
The older generation had illuminated the road ahead with their sacrifices.
From beginning to end, the message remained the same: The village, the collective, stood above the individual.
Shinobi were encouraged to sacrifice themselves for their comrades and the next generation.
It wasn’t surprising.
When Hashirama killed Madara, his conviction had been simple: Whoever threatened the village, no matter who they were, would receive no mercy.
That raised an interesting question.
Who represented the village?
And who represented the individual?
Without a concrete set of principles defining how those ideals should actually be applied, the Will of Fire felt rather empty and overly idealistic.
Then again, considering the world had spent years locked in constant warfare, it wasn’t strange that their ideological education was somewhat lacking.
The Academy had distributed quite a few textbooks.
Every textbook from the first through sixth year had been handed out at once.
If someone possessed exceptional talent and enough self-study ability, graduating from the Academy within a single year was entirely possible.
Aside from the ideological material like the Will of Fire, the remaining books covered the knowledge expected of a proper shinobi.
Chakra Analysis.
An Introduction to Genjutsu.
The Three Basic Techniques.
Fundamentals of fuinjutsu.
The Twelve Hand Seals.
Mathematics and ninja tools.
Common Poisons.
Codes and Confidentiality.
As soon as Akira opened one of the books, the system activated.
It felt exactly like clicking a skill book in a game.
A translucent panel unfolded before his eyes.
━━━━━ SYSTEM ━━━━━ Chakra Analysis Learning Progress: 7%…14%…28%…100% You have mastered the fundamentals of chakra through the system.
You can now use chakra for basic offense and defense.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ An Introduction to Genjutsu Learning Progress: 7%…36%…67%…100% You have mastered the basics of visual genjutsu through the system.
You can now alter your immediate surroundings with simple illusions.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Fundamentals of fuinjutsu Learning Progress: 8%…46%…87%…100% You have mastered basic sealing techniques through the system.
You can now temporarily seal an opponent’s chakra.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ …
After flipping through several textbooks, Akira rapidly skimmed every page.
Under the system’s miraculous power, every piece of knowledge was instantly understood and deeply engraved into his mind.
In the blink of an eye, he had become an all-round genin.
Ignoring actual combat ability, he could probably apply for graduation immediately.
His fingers trembled slightly.
If only I’d had a system back when I was in school…
Just skim through the textbook, fail to understand a single word, and the system would instantly explain everything and shove the knowledge straight into your brain.
Getting into Tsinghua or Peking University would’ve been effortless.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [The More You Know] Tsinghua University and Peking University are two of China’s most prestigious universities, both located in Beijing.
Tsinghua is especially known for science, engineering, and technology, while Peking University is famous for the humanities, social sciences, and academic research.
They are often compared to top elite universities in other countries.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Programmers.
Medical students.
Law students.
They’d all be in tears.
With a system like this, who needed to worry about going bald from studying?
While Akira was busy downloading skill books into his brain, Tsunade frowned deeply.
Confusion filled her beautiful little face as she tilted her head and watched him.
From her perspective, Akira was flipping through the books at lightning speed.
His eyes swept over pages so quickly that she couldn’t even finish reading one before several more had already been turned.
Yet he still wore a thoughtful expression, as though he had actually gained something from reading them.
He’s pretending…
right?
Can anyone really read that fast?
Although they’d only just met, Akira didn’t seem like the childish type who showed off just to attract a girl’s attention.
Unable to hold back her curiosity, Tsunade reached out and pressed down on the book he was turning.
Akira immediately stopped, turned toward her, and stared with obvious confusion.
A giant question mark practically appeared above his head.
“Did you actually read all that?” Tsunade asked with complete seriousness.
“What do you think?” Akira replied.
She didn’t believe him.
Grabbing the book he’d just finished, she immediately decided to test him.
Akira simply shrugged.
He didn’t mind.
“What does the Rat Seal represent in ninjutsu?” Sitting across from him, Tsunade fixed her eyes firmly on his.
“The Rat Seal symbolizes beginnings.
It’s associated with Water Release and is commonly used when performing Water Release techniques.
It represents quietly gathering strength before unleashing it in an instant.” Akira formed the Rat Seal with a smile, his right hand extended like a sword and his left hand covering it in the proper position.
“What about the Ram Seal?” Tsunade narrowed her eyes.
“The Ram Seal represents the sheep.
It’s associated with the soul and genjutsu.
Most illusion techniques make use of this seal.” He formed the Ram Seal.
Chakra flowed through his body as he casually cast a simple genjutsu.
Instantly, several invisible beauty filters seemed to settle over him.
His appearance became noticeably more handsome, and he even seemed to emit a faint glow.
“What does the Dog Seal represent?” Tsunade continued without blinking.
“The Dog Seal represents the dog.
It symbolizes permanence and sealing.
Nearly every sealing technique ends with the Dog Seal.” Akira formed the hand seal before casually placing his palm on Tsunade’s shoulder.
Her entire body instantly went numb.
Her limbs weakened, and her chakra refused to respond.
Before panic could even rise inside her, the sensation disappeared after only a single breath, and control returned to her body.
A sealing technique?
He learned it just from reading it once?
Taking a deep breath, Tsunade tossed the book onto the desk.
“This is boring.” “I’m done.” There was no stumping him.
Akira was a genuine genius.
For the first time, Tsunade felt enormous pressure.
As the First Hokage’s granddaughter, not only did the entire Senju Clan place great hopes on her to shoulder the responsibility of protecting Konoha, but the other great clans of the village watched her just as closely.
Yet on her very first day at the Academy…
She had ended up sitting beside an absolute monster.
Her mood instantly worsened.
It looked like she had no chance of beating him in the classroom.
Fortunately…
There were still practical combat lessons.
No matter how talented Akira was, he came from a civilian family.
He probably didn’t know any advanced ninjutsu.
She still had a very good chance of defeating him there.
Quietly pumping her tiny fist, Tsunade silently encouraged herself.
Akira, meanwhile, stared nervously at that tiny fist, terrified she might accidentally swing it at him.
His impression of Tsunade’s monstrous strength ran especially deep.
In the original story, Jiraiya had once admitted that when he was young, he peeked at Tsunade while she was bathing.
She responded by punching him over a hundred meters away.
Utterly ridiculous.
Akira immediately made a firm resolution.
No matter what happened in the future…
He would never make Tsunade angry.
Unlike Jiraiya, he wasn’t built like a tank.
With only three points in Constitution, if she landed a single punch…
She’d probably end up kneeling beside him, begging him not to die.