"Phew~"
Hagoromo felt thoroughly inflated with pride and hurried to calm himself down.
Don't get carried away. You're still a weakling.
He thought carefully about how monstrous Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju were, and sure enough.
Those two could bring anyone back to their senses in an instant.
He looked again at the new Ninjutsu on his panel, Earth Release: Headhunter Jutsu, and the Taijutsu, Leaf Great Whirlwind.
Both techniques had come from today's classroom evaluations during his explanations. He had to admit, today had definitely been a day of box drops.
In high spirits, Hagoromo hadn't forgotten what he had wanted to do. After quickly tidying up, he went out to train.
Calling it training was generous. At most, he was just running a few laps around Konoha.
As expected, with his previous physical condition, Hagoromo would probably have been drenched in sweat after a few laps.
Now, though, it felt almost insignificant.
Naturally, it was time to reward himself with a few more laps.
Early the next morning.
Hagoromo got himself ready and arrived at the Ninja Academy. The weekend would begin after today, so there would be fewer lessons.
As it happened, Hagoromo had scheduled a test of his students' Chakra extraction for today.
After checking each of them, Hagoromo had a basic understanding of how all his students were doing.
Naruto and Sasuke Uchiha belonged in the top tier.
One had caught up head-on with the help of a cheat, while the other had already begun training before entering the academy.
But after some explanations from Hagoromo, Sasuke had spent the past few days going back to this extraction lesson, which he had considered a little insignificant.
Still, faced with the slightly smug blond in front of him, Sasuke couldn't help seriously reconsidering whether he hadn't been working hard enough.
After all, the moment Naruto revealed how much Chakra he had, every student in the classroom turned to look.
If Hagoromo hadn't promptly reminded Naruto to hold back a little,
the Third Hokage might even have come running to see what was going on.
The next tier down belonged to Shikamaru Nara, Ino, and a few others.
Even Sakura Haruno earned a measure of admiration from Hagoromo.
Putting everything else aside, Haruno really did have the strongest grasp of theory.
This classroom test also gave Hagoromo's Finger-to-Ground Sensing an upgrade.
It was no longer like before, when he could only sense the approximate state of someone's Chakra.
Its range had also grown, to a radius of twenty kilometers.
But if he wanted to know an individual target's Chakra value, the range would shrink to a radius of about ten meters.
Hagoromo didn't hesitate. He lightly tapped the desktop at the lectern, though doing so would make the already small range even smaller.
But for Hagoromo, that distance was just right.
Sure enough, the next second, Hagoromo's senses encompassed the entire classroom.
Hagoromo swept over the other students and found that almost all of them were much the same. Only a few students' Chakra stood out brightly to him.
Naruto Uzumaki, his first disciple, was naturally the most dazzling.
Next was Sasuke, whose Chakra amount was around 1,500, making Hagoromo a little envious.
Without the boost from Yang Release, he definitely wouldn't have been able to match even Sasuke as he was now.
After that came someone no one would have expected: Choji Akimichi.
His value was around 2,500, but Hagoromo thought of the Akimichi Clan's Ninjutsu.
It seemed reasonable to him. After all, the Multi-Size Technique itself was a secret technique that consumed Chakra.
On top of that, members of the Akimichi Clan were generally surprisingly large and took in a lot of energy, so their Chakra would naturally increase as well.
Naruto, meanwhile, was in a league of his own. The value of 25,000 made even Hagoromo's eyelid twitch.
That was because, after reaching his absorption limit yesterday, Naruto's body had also gradually begun instinctively treating the Nine-Tails Chakra as nourishment and converting it to strengthen his various stats.
Otherwise, the value would probably have been even higher.
Hagoromo couldn't help marveling. Naruto really was the kind of formidable person who used Multi Shadow Clone like an ordinary Ninjutsu.
His value was already this high at his age.
Hagoromo thought that if there were a panel displaying Naruto's stats right now,
it would definitely be a sea of gold.
He thought no more about it and clapped his hands.
"All of you have done very well. Chakra extraction is a course that requires persistence.
"Those of you who are doing well should keep working hard, and those who feel they've fallen behind the others shouldn't be discouraged.
"After all, having a lot of Chakra isn't a prerequisite for fighting as a ninja."
Sure enough, the students, who had all been discouraged enough to doubt themselves a little, perked up again at Hagoromo's words.
Hagoromo nodded in satisfaction. These were all his precious treasures.
Although their amounts were small, classroom evaluations weren't based on that anyway.
"All right, you can spend the rest of the time as you like, but you mustn't do anything dangerous.
"Also, since this is your first weekend, I hope you all get a good rest. But don't forget to work hard at your training, either."
Hagoromo stood at the lectern, gathering his textbooks, then spoke to the students in Class One with a warm smile.
"Yes!"
Hearing that they had free time and that tomorrow was the weekend, the students responded happily.
Only Naruto looked a little downcast. After all, these days at the Ninja Academy had been some of the happiest of his life.
Even when he went home at night, the thought that he could come back to school the next day made him go to bed early, afraid he would be late.
"Oh, right, Naruto, come see me after school."
Seeing Naruto like this, Hagoromo naturally knew what was going on.
As for his plans for tomorrow, with the Third's permission, Hagoromo naturally couldn't give them up.
He couldn't pass up the chance to spend time alone with his disciple.
Besides, Hagoromo was planning to start guiding Naruto's training. If Naruto could improve, that meant Hagoromo himself could grow stronger too.
"Yes, teacher!"
At Hagoromo's words, Naruto, who had been hanging his head just a moment ago, was back to full health the next second.
Seeing how happy he looked, Sasuke, who had been watching Naruto from the shadows, couldn't help feeling a little puzzled.
Hagoromo nodded, picked up his materials, and headed straight for the office.
When he arrived, he found that several teachers had already given their students free time and were slacking off in the office.
Iruka was among them. When he saw Hagoromo come in, he hurriedly greeted him.
Hagoromo nodded to the teachers in greeting, then went over and sat down near Iruka.
"What's going on? You let your class out early too?"
Hearing Hagoromo's question, Iruka spread his hands. "I couldn't help it. Tomorrow's the weekend, and the students in my class have no mind to study at all.
"Rather than keep going like that, I might as well let them study on their own.
"After all, they've had a tiring week too."
Hagoromo nodded at that. It wasn't wartime now, and this new generation of students had hardly experienced the shadow of war.
That was why they could be so carefree.