Time passed quickly, and before anyone knew it, the first class had come to an end.
After Sato announced that the rest of the afternoon was free and that regular lessons would begin the following day, the entire classroom erupted in cheers.
Watching the noisy children celebrate, Sato smiled faintly, gathered up his lesson materials, and quickly left the classroom.
The moment the teacher stepped outside, Akira immediately slid open the window and jumped out.
Tsunade instinctively wanted to call after him, but the words caught in her throat.
Before she could figure out what to say, Akira had already bounded across several rooftops and disappeared from sight.
“…Forget it.” “I’ll talk to him next time.” Tsunade pouted and swung her tiny fist through the air a couple of times in frustration.
Beside her, Hiruko clicked his tongue, packed up his belongings, and hurried away.
Being deskmates with the Senju Clan’s princess was pressure enough for him.
During just a single class, Akira’s Reputation had increased by more than thirty points, bringing him close to fifty.
There were forty-one other students in the class.
Judging by the numbers, over half of them had remembered who Akira was.
As for the rest…
They had probably heard his name once and forgotten it just as quickly, leaving no impression whatsoever, and therefore granting no Reputation.
Once I spread the Will of Fire a few more times and let everyone know I want to become Hokage, my Reputation should easily break one hundred.
Then I’ll finally unlock the minimum requirement for making a Wish.
I wonder what I’ll get.
The current featured banner was Tomb Raider.
He couldn’t help looking forward to it.
If he remembered correctly, the Tomb Raider series featured a Prophet named Jacob, an immortal who had lived for thousands of years.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [The More You Know] Jacob is an important character in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
He is the leader of the Remnant, and he helps Lara Croft fight against Trinity.
Jacob is later revealed to be the immortal Prophet whose search for eternal life caused much of the conflict surrounding the Divine Source.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If he could pull that immortality…
That would be absolutely amazing.
Orochimaru had spent half his life desperately pursuing eternal life.
If Akira obtained it this easily…
The poor guy would probably be furious enough to fall apart.
Lost in thought, Akira soon returned home.
He put away the vegetables he’d bought, neatly filling the refrigerator before tying on an apron and beginning to prepare lunch.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Meanwhile, Tsunade returned to the Senju Clan compound.
It had once been bustling with life.
Now…
It felt rather lonely.
Ten years earlier, the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, as head of the Senju Clan, had begun promoting the integration of clans into the village.
Members of the Senju were encouraged to marry civilian shinobi, gradually dispersing the clan and allowing it to merge into Konoha as a whole.
Nowadays, aside from a few households of the main family, only elderly, wounded, or otherwise infirm survivors from the Warring States Era still remained in the compound.
Pushing open the door, Tsunade stepped inside.
“Mito-obasan, I’m home!” Hearing her voice, a red-haired woman with twin buns emerged from the house and immediately embraced the little girl who had thrown herself into her arms.
Although everyone called her “Mito-obasan,” Uzumaki Mito looked astonishingly young.
Her skin was flawless, and she appeared to be barely in her early twenties.
The violet diamond-shaped mark on her forehead gave her an elegant, almost otherworldly charm.
Tsunade’s mother was currently pregnant and had little time to look after her.
As a result, Tsunade had been living with Mito during this period.
“So, little Tsunade.” “Did you meet anyone interesting at school today?” Holding Tsunade in her arms, Mito carried her into the dining room.
The table was already covered with delicious-looking dishes, all clearly prepared by Mito herself.
After gently setting Tsunade onto a chair, she took the seat opposite her and smiled while placing food onto her plate.
“School was pretty boring.” “There wasn’t much to do…” “But, Mito-obasan, I think I found a genius.” Taking a bite from a fried chicken drumstick, Tsunade answered while chewing happily.
Mito smiled warmly.
Throughout her life, she had met countless geniuses.
First there had been Hashirama and Madara.
Then came Tobirama, a master of forbidden techniques.
Very few prodigies could still surprise her.
Still, since little Tsunade had brought it up, Mito happily played along.
“Oh?” “What kind of genius?” “Is he even more talented than our little Tsunade?” Swallowing her food, Tsunade scratched her head as she searched for the right words.
“I think he’s from a civilian family.” “But he understands the Academy textbooks after reading them only once.” “He can even use basic fuinjutsu and genjutsu right away.” “And I bet the Three Basic Techniques won’t be any problem for him either.” Mito looked slightly surprised.
“The Three Basic Techniques are simple enough.” “But even something as complicated as fuinjutsu…” “He learned it after reading it only once?” “Mhm.” “He pressed his palm onto my shoulder, and my chakra stopped flowing immediately.” “My whole body went numb.” “I couldn’t move at all.” Tsunade nodded earnestly.
“I see…” “That certainly sounds like a very gifted young man.” “Bring him here someday.” “If he’s a good child, I wouldn’t mind teaching him a few things.” Smiling, Mito gently patted Tsunade’s head.
As the perfect Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, she possessed Kurama’s ability to sense malicious intent.
If this truly was an outstanding young talent the village had yet to discover, she wouldn’t mind giving him a helping hand.
Tsunade nodded firmly.
The village had been her grandfather’s greatest treasure.
Long ago, she had already come to regard Konoha as part of her own family.
If the village produced exceptional talent, she wanted to support them with everything she had.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Meanwhile, Akira prepared himself a large bowl of ramen and cracked two eggs into it.
Just as he began eating, however, he noticed the system interface flashing repeatedly.
His Reputation kept increasing.
It had already surpassed one hundred.
After a moment’s thought, he immediately understood why.
His classmates had probably gone home for lunch and were chatting with their families about what had happened on the first day of school.
Among all forty-two students, he was the only one who had boldly declared his dream of becoming Hokage.
Naturally, his name had come up in conversation, earning him another wave of Reputation.
That wasn’t the only source, either.
Teachers discussed students among themselves as well.
Not to mention that every freshman’s list of dreams and aspirations would eventually be compiled into a report and submitted to the Hokage’s office.
Either way…
Now that he had enough Reputation…
It was time to make a Wish.
Without hesitation, Akira opened the system interface and selected Begin Wish.
A shooting star streaked across the sky in a short cinematic animation.
When the light faded, a card depicting a bow appeared on the system panel.
━━━━━ SYSTEM ━━━━━ [Multi-Purpose Archery Mastery] Description: You can quickly craft bows using materials gathered in the wild and modify specialized arrows to suit different situations.
Special arrow types include: ✧ Fire Arrows ✧ Poison Gas Arrows ✧ Explosive Arrows ✧ Rope Arrows ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Akira immediately chose to use the card.
An enormous amount of information flooded into his mind.
Not only did it include techniques for crafting bows and specialized arrows, but also countless combat skills: Double Shot.
Dynamic Aiming.
Environmental Utilization.
Weak Point Analysis.
After quietly experiencing the newfound knowledge for a moment, Akira smiled to himself.
If he combined this mastery of archery with chakra…
Taking down a few average chunin or weaker opponents, shouldn’t be difficult.
Of course…
That assumed he was attacking from the shadows.
If an archer let an assassin close the distance in a face-to-face fight…
Well…
The outcome hardly needed explaining.