The Troubles of a Genin

The Troubles of a Genin

"Then—"

After leaving the mission assignment office, Nara Yan Shui raised his hand as usual. "Meet outside the Death Forest tomorrow morning."

Under normal circumstances, ninjas who accepted commissions to clear beasts from the Death Forest needed to coordinate with the relevant personnel, such as the Barrier Team and Anbu.

But as the squad's Guidance Jonin, he normally handled such handovers himself.

"See you tomorrow." The three members of Fifth Squad said their goodbyes and dispersed.

Lin Ke took out his little wallet and counted his savings. He already had a little over fourteen thousand ryo. Once he completed this C-Rank Mission, he would break through the twenty-thousand-ryo mark and be one step closer to hiring an experienced ninja to teach him ninjutsu.

There were actually plenty of ways to learn ninjutsu: family inheritance, taking a master, being taught by a teacher, or applying to the village to be granted it. But most of them had nothing to do with him. The most practical method was—

Buying it with money.

Whether it was purchasing scrolls containing various low-level Release Techniques or paying to hire a private tutor, both were ways to learn ninjutsu and strengthen oneself.

But genin hardly ever thought about such things...

Because they had too little chakra.

Take Haruno Sakura, a standard outstanding graduate, as an example. In Part One, her chakra—her Essence—was only 2. Using any Release Technique would drain her completely in one go.

As her teammate, Uchiha Sasuke had an Essence of 4. When he used Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique once in battle, Hatake Kakashi was shocked that a genin could possess that much chakra.

The difference between Essence 2 and 4 was not merely double. According to Hatake Kakashi himself, Uzumaki Naruto had a chakra level of 8 while he had 6. The difference was also 2, yet Naruto possessed four times his chakra reserves.

In other words, Uchiha Sasuke's chakra reserves were most likely four times Haruno Sakura's as well.

A normal genin should have been like Haruno Sakura, relying on the Three Basic Techniques and simple ninjutsu taught at the Ninja Academy. They should not have had enough chakra to use Release Techniques at all.

The main reason was that their chakra reserves were generally too low.

After rigorous training, Lin Ke had slightly more chakra than most graduates from his class—excluding Rock Lee with Essence 6 and Hyuga Neji with Essence 4. He was roughly on par with Tenten's Essence 3.

That meant he was currently at a stage where learning Release Techniques was basically useless.

Even if he learned them, using one technique would directly drain all his stamina. What was the point?

The only Release Technique he had learned before, Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique, had mutated into I Release, but its chakra consumption had not changed much. When fighting Hatake Kakashi, he had been forced into using an I Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique, which immediately bottomed out his stamina. In the end, he could not even maintain the Substitution Technique for long and finished the fight unconscious.

Under those circumstances, would learning a bunch of random Release Techniques be useful?

Not at all.

Lin Ke also envied those fellow transmigrators who could casually throw around ninjutsu the moment they crossed over. Despite his innate deficiencies, he had caught up to people his age through insane training, yet he still could not use various Release Techniques as standard combat tools. It was honestly frustrating.

So he should be practical and save money slowly. Once he had enough money and a little more chakra, he could hire an experienced ninja to guide him.

That little bit of transmigrator pride in his heart had long been ground away by harsh reality. He had to be practical. Before transmigrating, he would have demanded at least someone on the level of the Three Ninja as a teacher. But after coming here, he believed that even a random experienced chunin could help him improve drastically.

Nara Yan Shui was indeed a decent teacher, but Lin Ke could not expect him to genuinely teach him any ninjutsu.

Haruno Sakura had not learned any ninjutsu from Hatake Kakashi either. She had merely built a solid foundation. It was not as though he discriminated against students.

After all, the reality was that the vast majority of genin could barely use a few ninjutsu. Even if they learned a thousand techniques, they would be panting and out of commission after using just one in battle. There was no point.

Besides, a Guidance Jonin was under no obligation to teach their subordinates ninjutsu.

Lin Ke had to make plans for himself. With his special ninjutsu, he might become a chunin at any time. After becoming a chunin, if he did not take a master, he would most likely have to worry about his own future advancement and growth.

"Mm, this afternoon..." He flipped through his notes and scratched his head. "There's a Medical Ninja seminar."

It was a class for genin conducted by Medical Ninja, one of the channels for training Medical Ninja. According to the setting, similar programs had existed before the start of Part One. Its name came from Boruto TV episode 152.

How should he put it? It was a course intended for genin after graduation, and it did not teach any Medical Ninjutsu—

Medical Ninjutsu was a rare, highly demanding specialized ninja field. It required extremely precise chakra control, sufficient knowledge, and innate talent. Even Delicate Illness Extraction Technique, the lowest-level Medical Ninjutsu, had the learning difficulty of a B-rank technique. It was not something genin could learn at all.

As for ordinary treatment through using chakra to activate cells, the Ninja Academy had already taught some related material, classifying it under ninjutsu.

Lin Ke had done quite well in that area at school. His chakra control was excellent, and using chakra for treatment came easily to him, which was why he was not particularly interested in the Medical Ninja seminar.

There were two reasons for that:

First, the Medical Ninja seminar taught medical knowledge and basic healing, things he either was not interested in or had already learned.

Second, he did not have enough chakra.

He had to carefully budget even the chakra he used for ninjutsu, and now he was supposed to spend chakra healing others? What a waste.

Mastering the basics was enough. He did not have enough chakra for large-scale healing, and in battle, his Clone Technique was far more cost-effective.

Of course, if he did not want to attend the Medical Ninja seminar, he could simply skip class. Not everyone wanted to become a Medical Ninja. But what he valued more was the chance to treat injured animals under the guidance of Medical Ninja during class.

It was extremely effective for training chakra control. With someone guiding him, his improvement speed was also decent. If he wanted to extend the duration of his useful Substitution Technique in the future, improving his chakra control was unavoidable.

So even if he was not interested in treating others, he still had to attend the class...

The only problem was that not every lesson involved practical training. There was a fifty-percent chance it would just be a lesson on basic medical knowledge.

Lin Ke sighed helplessly. It was the last class of the day anyway, so he might as well go.

As usual, he went to Ichiraku Ramen for lunch, removed the ninja tools he wore while on missions, and changed into casual clothes. Fifteen minutes before class began, he arrived at the classroom in the Medical Team's base.