AN: Here it is. At last, the chapter is ready. Enjoy.
Hiruzen visited naruto's apartment to give the monthly stipend amount.
"Jiji" Naruto ran towards the Hokage and hugged him.
Naruto welcomed him with a big smile. And regaled his adventures and pranks he had done that month.
To naruto, Hiruzen is his jiji and is his best friend. So nano did not want to affect his psychology by giving its hypothesis before breaking him out of his character.
"What do you say we get out here and go get something to eat. My treat" Hiruzen asked naruto.
"Yatta...RAMEN" Naruto shouted and dashed towards the door.
In the ramen stand, naruto had been asked to eat as much as he can by nano. This was the first quest given by nano that naruto liked. He happily obliged.
Since naruto was malnourished, nano wanted to collect the nutrient required for naruto slowly. But since the situation presented itself, nano made use of the situation.
20 bowls of ramen. Bowls kept coming and naruto did not stop eating. Normally naruto's maximum capacity was 7 bowls (for a 7-year-old). But with nano digesting the food and distributing its nutrients as soon as the food entered his stomach, he was able to eat so much.
Hiruzen and others looked at the scene with wide eyes. 20 bowls of ramen finished by a 7-year-old kid. Unbelievable.
After the last naruto stopped ordering for more. Well, nano said it was enough plus his stomach appeared bloated.
"Well, naruto that is your new record. 20 bowls of ramen" Teuchi said from the other side of the counter. And Hiruzen agreed to that. Like a bottomless pit, going on and on without break.
While walking back to naruto's home, Hiruzen asked some questions, more like an interrogation but in a pleasant manner.
"What are you doing these days naruto?"
"I am reading all about the previous Hokage from the books that are in the library"
"Oh…..you were able to get into the library. Last time you told me that the ninja at the front desk not allowing you"
"I used transformation technique to change into my classmate. They didn't stop me at all" naruto smiled widely while rubbing his neck with his hands.
Like this Hiruzen continued to ask many questions to naruto, who answered the questions with the displayed script written by nano. To not expose any of the lies, nano made sure to control his facial muscles so that the Sandaime could not identify any lies.
….....
Time skip - six months. Naruto's 2nd year in the academy. June 2nd, year - 72.
'Nano display my profile'
[Name : Naruto Uzumaki
Age : 7
Height : 120 cm
Weight : 22 kg
Chakra : above chunin levels, not quantified accurately.
Chakra control : 20% chakra wastage
Level : Genin]
Naruto's days went on usual, well…..like going to academy ten minutes late. Sleeping in class, scoring badly in tests, taking rest on Hokage statues on the mountain, doing obstacle training in the forest beyond Hokage mountain, and lastly Ichiraku ramen. That was how it looked for the ANBU following him and to other people of the village. It looked usual.
But the reality was anything but that.
Nano would wake up naruto at 0500 to start meditation. It is a daily chore, not a day gap, which he did not miss a single day. He slept in the sitting position instead of meditating during the early days. While he didn't really like the activity at the beginning he came to love it as time went on.
For one, his mind and heart were finally at peace. Before this he always had a nagging feeling, whenever hearing people talk about him, curse him, his mind wanted to lash out at them in revenge. But his heart always prevailed, pushing all those negative feelings, the dark mass of hatred to the back of his mind. It was ready to burst out at anytime before. Even now after months of doing meditation he could feel the presence of darkness in his heart, it is subdued, but it is still present there.
Second, he had better control of his emotions. Yes, emotion. When nano told naruto to keep his progress secret, he didn't want to. His infantine mind wanted some recognition from others, but on nano's insistence, he kept his improvement secret. Scoring low in the test when he fully knows the answers. Even if one or two answers were correct it was marked as wrong by the academy teachers. But Naruto never voiced his opinions.
Naruto wanted to lash out at the teachers in the academy, wanted to prank them daily.
Getting his butt kicked during taijutsu, when he could have won easily made him angry every time.
But now he could control those emotions or rather exhibit those emotions at the right place and right moment.
Like all of his hatred went into training. Whenever he was doing physical training he would think of those stares, glares, isolation which made him focus on the training more. It only took him six months to achieve this, still, he doesn't have perfect control over his emotions yet.
For third, better chakra control and conversion/moulding. With better chakra control he could perform a Jutsu with the minimum amount of chakra. Nano had already determined he has more chakra than an average academy student. Naruto still hadn't been taught clone technique or replacement technique so he didn't face the issue still.
Chakra is raw energy and when a ninja expels chakra through tenketsu to do a Jutsu, it converts the raw chakra to their expected result. Chakra can be sticky, repulsive, needle, thread, long, small, sponge, wind, earth, lightning, fire, water, etc... it changes into whatever the Jutsu caster wanted it to be if the caster knows the right techniques. And meditation helped naruto in moulding his chakra faster as it leaves the tenketsu point.
And last he got better at lying. Yes, lying came easy to him now. Lying is a necessary skill for a ninja. That was the greatest benefit for nano too. Because however hard it tried, naruto always preferred being honest and truthful. Somehow it overcame that challenge.
After meditation comes tests….yes TESTS like many. Verbal memory test, where nano displays a word for 2 to 3 seconds and he had to recite the word. This goes on for a minute or two at least. Well, nano did have an eidetic memory, storing every moment of naruto's time. But nano wanted Naruto to be a better ninja to become a Hokage, to complete the first task.
Then number memory, just like a verbal test but here a long list of numbers was shown first and he has to recall the numbers. Cognitive test, emotion test, visual reasoning, etc…(check out cognitive skills test or brain skills test to get a better idea of this para)
These tests went on for another one hour. It was difficult just like meditation and his scores were abysmal for weeks before he even saw some improvement but Naruto had come through in the end. Still the results were nowhere near the nano's desired level. But he was improving quickly.
After the test a light workout where nano would help facilitate all the muscles in naruto's body. Nano did not put any emphasis on heavy work out rather only focused on building naruto's flexibility and stamina. For the bones and muscles, nano can alter the strength and toughness by different kinds of biological processes, he could not understand more than five words nano spoke regarding the process. The only thing he need to know was, he just need to practice a fighting technique that nano would provide later and instil it into his muscle memory.
Naruto's food intake too was changed, he could only have Ichiraku ramen, no cup ramen was allowed after the training began. Under nano's constant pester he started to cook on his own. He bought the ingredients himself using the transformation technique. It was on a trial and error basis but with the help of nano, he soon got down the cooking part fast. Nano used augmented reality to mark ingredients and showed how to cook his own food. Of course, nano copied most of the cooking process from the street vendors. but nano was able to grasp the essence of cooking soon.
Another big shock to naruto was nano's emotion reader/tracker. It could read the emotions just by analyzing the facial muscle movements of the target. That was how he found that almost all teachers and instructors in the academy hate him. Except for Iruka. The man showed a mixture of emotions like hate, guilt, sadness whenever looking at him. Some ninja too showed a little bit of sadness and guilt in their face and eyes. He asked nano to note down those people to research on them later.
Even most academy students showed hostility towards him for no reason just because their parents said so. Clan heirs were left out, they never actively hated or disliked him, the emotional reader showed that they were just annoyed because of him.
And there is one girl Hinata Hyuga an exception to that, who was very shy in his presence. Usually, she is shy with everyone, she had difficulty speaking to him in particular. And nano had an answer for that.
[You had saved the girl from possible bullies one time before the start of the academy. From your memories and the present emotion she exhibits, I can conclude that she admires you. She also follows you outside of the academy most of the time. Since she is not considered as a threat, I did not notify you]
Naruto didn't know how to handle the situation. He had pestered sakura so many times, only because she once told, she liked him. That was a long time ago. And he had been told off every time by sakura after that. Now there is a girl who likes him but is too shy to speak with him. He didn't know how to handle the situation. So he asked nano for help.
[We shouldn't contact her and continue what we are doing. The girl is also an heiress to the Hyuga clan, a clan that has superior standing in the village. We do not need further attraction]
So Naruto decided to disregard the matter concerning the Hyuga girl until he considers the time is right.
Emotion reader also helped him in identifying one of the hidden major threats. Mizuki. Who Naruto believed till now as the best teacher in the academy.
Every teacher took an active role in sabotaging his home works, test papers, and taijutsu style. Particularly Mizuki, who taught a taijutsu style that he told specially tailored for naruto. But later nano found that the particular style he had been taught had a lot of unwanted movements and useless katas. But he still learned it from Mizuki to keep up the appearances as per nano's request.
Nano didn't stop after creating enhanced hearing and smell. It also experimented and enhanced naruto's eyes to see in long-range and was able to see chakra. Not up to the standards of sharingan or byakugan. But it was still better than before.
And by spying the village by sitting on the edge of the Hokage mountain, nano had recorded many ninjas practising in the training grounds. As a result, it theorized many techniques, mostly taijutsu and some ninjutsu. And successfully replicated some too. Like stages of learning chakra control, tree walking and water walking, replacement technique, clone technique plus some flashy essential techniques as well. Fire making.
It also updated the 3D map of the Konoha village. Now most places that were blank were filled with the help of new chakra eyes. Along with echolocation training reaching a new range, he can view up to nearly 1 km of radius in his GPS map. (Konoha is a big village of radius 10 km, a very big village)
After six months of effort, Naruto finally started sensing the chakra of other people in close range like within 20 m range. He was able to sense them and the amount of chakra they have. He couldn't sense much from any experienced ninjas or his ANBU minders. The technique was not as accurate as mentioned in the books, but with enough practice, he is sure he will get there. As this was the ideal method to become a sensor, he wanted to get this technique done quickly.
He also wanted to find the amount of chakra he has compared to others.
While his physical activities were being monitored, which slowed down any progress in taijutsu, nano trained his mentality and taught him many things.
As naruto learned more and more from nano, he began to express his opinions and do some planning about his training, fixing the problems on his own, giving orders to nano, he started to mature faster. Not mature as adults or like the prodigies but he is somewhat mature for his age. Sometimes he chose to oppose nano's opinions and find his own solutions too. At least he stopped relying on nano to have conversations.
Naruto had fought many opponents in augmented reality. The opponents fighting style and power were recorded by nano during various times. He could best opponents up to genin level. Even though he still didn't have a proper taijutsu style and his taijutsu weren't his focus last year.
Plus nano had found something about his regenerative ability, which was 10 times faster than any other students it had observed. Nano had come to a conclusion that it has something to do with his DNA. Most probably a bloodline like Hyuga clan's Byakugan (All-seeing eye), Nara clan's shadow manipulation.
But when Naruto had scoured the library for different bloodlines with regenerative powers, there were none. So nano had come up with an idea to check for his parentage.
He is a high-profile target who is being watched by Hokage's bodyguards all the time. In addition to ANBU, nano was able to find there was another ninja following them, who is well versed in stealth tactics. So all the secrecy made nano 100% sure that his parentage was well documented but made confidential. A new plan was made.
To sneak into the archives.
AN: Let me tell you guys, Naruto is no Itachi or Kakkashi. Both of the ANBU personnel were intelligent from a younger age and had aid to help them during their childhood. By the age of 6, they became genin.
Naruto did not have any of that help. He is very observant for his age, that is it. But now that nano is training him in basic and crucial things, by the time he graduates his intelligent mind would rival the likes of Itachi and Kakashi.
Okay….this chapter, I tried a big time skip. I would like your comment on how the scene turned out to be.
Just mention if there were any cringe-worthy moments I need to curtail on.