บท 10: Understanding the past!
"Thank Kami, I was beginning to get worried about you Akio-kun!" I heard someone behind me, the interruption was quite surprising but I managed to remain calm. I did not squeak. Nope.
I glared at the scarred chunin who tried to chuckle appearing as friendly as he could be, though somewhere at the back of my a voice kept whispering that the man in front of me could snap in half in an instant.
...
[Danger Sense Lv 0 {1/50}] {+1 Exp}
...
The new skill might be worth it, but if I have to deal with 50 heart attacks then I rescind my statement. Still, new prospects aside, I focused on the chunin in front of me, the playful scar that set Iruka aside from a lot of the chunin in canon, Naruto's father figure in the anime, now had a lot more sinister vibe. The scar now held a more twisted story behind it that I would not like to know about it.
'Still, why was he so silent, I didn't hear him approach. I know that the shinobis are killers but the show was full of ninjas announcing their next attack followed by throwing a fireball at you.'
"Iruka-sensei, you surprised me," I spoke, I was a little tentative with my words not wanting to arouse any suspicion. My efforts though were wasted as Iruka clearly noticed something.
"Well don't mind me, I was just surprised that you decided to finally start taking your skills seriously," Iruka spoke. He had a sunny smile that lit up his face but I couldn't look past the scar for now.
"Well we just have one year left before we graduate right," I shrugged, fishing for some more info. From his words, I could guess that 'Akio' was quite lazy, or at least someone who didn't focus on training skills at the very least.
"Good, even though you woke up a little late it is better than never. Seriously I nagged at you throughout last year to focus less on increasing your strength and speed and more on your body's control and skills. Now you are a year behind..." Iruka shook his head, the clues were there, glaring at me.
"Yeah, now with chakra training starting tomorrow, I'm thinking about reducing my strength exercises and focusing more on taijutsu and chakra control," I admitted it was apparently the wrong thing to say as Iruka stared at me for a long moment.
I was worried he would get suspicious but the older man smiled as he nodded his head repeatedly, "Good Good Good, I was worried I led you astray because of the first two years of physical conditioning..." He paused to think for a bit before he continued, "If you show me that you are willing to put more effort into your studies, once a week I would check on your progress and spar with you to make sure you get the taijutsu kata's right."
Since Iruka was giving me a hopeful look, I nodded agreeing to the man's request. It's not like it was detrimental to me so it wasn't a hard sell.
"Understood Iruka-sensei." I bowed my head slightly.
"Good, you continue with your training, I have some papers I need to grade," Iruka grumbled before the chunin vanished in a swirl of leaves. After marveling at the Body Flicker technique for a bit, I turned around walked toward the target, and began picking up the shuriken. The brief chat with Iruka had given me a lot to think about.
'The man was clearly under the impression that I was a blockhead, according to him, 'Akio' didn't believe in training taijutsu or other skills. The Taijutsu scroll that I found would disagree with this thesis but still, it does make sense. Did my selecting the perk Unsarpassable Physique make 'Akio' focus on just body training to get as much of the stats as possible?'
It was all a theory for now, I wouldn't know for sure if 'Akio' knew any Taijutsu because even if it did, I'm not sure that any skills would have survived the transmigration process.
'...Am I glad that he only focused on physical conditioning, this way at least I won't have to worry about two stats as they were already far ahead.' I concluded. Regaining my stance I once again flung shurikens at the target. This exercise was fairly easy when compared to the taijutsu one, as I was pretty sure throwing stuff was universally easier than fighting one-on-one.
As I thought about the interaction with Iruka more and more, my experience meter continued to fill, and once that was done another burst of memory hit me. This time I was ready and didn't go through the whole freezing in the middle of the training ground phase. At the same time, the amount of memory and experience I gained was a lot less.
I had already exhausted all of my shuriken once again, but just to test, I grabbed a kunai from the weapon's pouch. I haven't tried throwing a kunai with the express purpose of testing how effectively I can rely on this fake muscle memory I had. As I took a stance, I once again noticed the difference in stability, in addition to that the kunai felt a lot more familiar in my hand than even the shuriken did on the last throw.
I grabbed onto the handle comfortably and pinched it right above my left shoulder, until now I have always tried swings from outside of my body but right now I was introducing one more variable.
After making sure my grip was okay, I whipped my hand outward, away from my body, and at full extension of my hand let go of the kunai. The kunai didn't stick with a loud thump it collided with the plank and fell down on the ground. Still, the whole motion and the amount of controlled power that I was able to throw it was incomparable to before.
With my little experiment concluded, I walked over and started collecting the 10 shuriken and 1 kunai lying on the ground. It was a little difficult to suppress my excitement for now. I did not hit the bullseye a single time, with all of my throws colliding with the large board at varying amounts of places.
'But I got the two skills reducing the gap between me and someone like Sasuke and Neji slightly. Now I have a year to grind these skills and with my superior stamina, I need to make sure I reach at least level 10 in both before the year ends...' With my conviction made I walked back to the starting point and got ready.
'Let's try to get to level 2 before the day ends...'
-----------------------------
{90 minutes later}
I picked up the last kunai and looked at the starting line once again. It was difficult, the monotonous exercise was a lot more challenging than I initially gave it credit for. At first, it was fun to watch the numbers go up, but seeing that my target was still quite far away the will to continue throwing things at the board didn't seem appealing.
'I managed to grind 454 EXP toward the next level up. And I don't feel like doing it anymore.' The novelty of the Naruto world was quickly wearing off as I stared at the starting line for one more moment before I walked off the shooting range.
'No need to focus too much on just one skill otherwise it would get boring pretty soon. I should practice the Taijutsu kata's against the training post and see if that has any bonus or not.' I concluded.
The sparring area was still empty and so was the training log, taking my chance I walked over to it and stood in front of it. Taking the basic stance I jabbed at the log controlling my strength, even though the punch was a little weak, the angle of contact with the log wasn't right as my hand skimmed its surface.
Pain radiated from my knuckles as I flicked my hand back and forth. At least the notification told me that I was rewarded for my efforts as instead of +1 Exp I got a +2 instead.
...
[COR Lv 6 {49/600}]{+1 Exp}
[PHY Lv 26 {5/26000}]{+2 Exp}
[Beginner Academy Taijutsu Style Lv 1 {23/1000}] {+2 Exp}
...
'So the training log provides a boost of 100% to taijutsu training skills. Then I'm guessing sparing against someone would be beneficial as well.' I concluded. I looked at my knuckle and although my skin was still intact, something was telling me that recklessly trying this method would not be super beneficial.
'I at least need a glove or some bandages if I want to abuse this training mechanic.' My decision made I hightailed out of the training ground for now. With a thought my purse appeared out of nowhere and I opened it to take a look inside.
The Ryo was the standard currency of the Elemental Nations, the bills that I had in my purse had the symbol of Konoha imprinted on it with a lot of other stuff. Looking at the piece of paper the thought of money printing appeared in my mind.
'Surely this world does not have as sophisticated of a process when producing bills right? No serial numbers or codes hidden within the lines of the notes itself?'
The paper looked ordinary to me and as I counted the amount of money I had, the helplessness of not knowing what 2000 Ryo meant that I would have to look around the market to find a sense of money again.
'Wasn't 10 Ryo equivalent to a dollar or something? $200 doesn't sound too bad.'
...
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AN - Increasing the length of each chapter to 1.5 to 2k words per chapter. Smut chapters would be shorter though! Working on revamping the skills system!
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