Soul Test

The second round ended, and everyone's results were basically similar to the first round.

There were not many people with major differences in endurance and strength. Yichen's results were even somewhat worse than in the first round. However, because he had used a bit of ingenuity, his evaluation was actually slightly higher.

Other than the competition among the children of several clans becoming more intense, nothing unexpected happened, and they soon entered the Third Round.

The Third Round tested the soul, or Mental Power in the terminology of the Ninja World.

Chakra was formed from both the body and the mind. Excellence in either could greatly boost a ninja's training.

The most typical examples were the Sage Body of the Senju Clan and the Sage Eye of the Uchiha Clan.

Therefore, Mental Power testing carried no less weight in the entrance examination than the Physique Test.

Since there were many people in the Ninja World with strong physiques but few with strong Mental Power, Mental Power was faintly even more important than physical talent.

It was simply that Mental Power talent was not as obvious as physical talent and was much harder to discover.

The Ninja Academy's test was relatively simple and was divided into two parts: Genjutsu Resistance and Perception Ability.

The Genjutsu test began without a sound. While Yichen and the others were still focused on the second round, the Genjutsu had already been cast.

Yichen did not know the name of this Genjutsu. He only felt an uncomfortable sense of discord filling his heart, leaving his whole body uneasy.

He looked around but found nothing wrong. Just as he was wondering about it, his gaze swept toward the distant horizon, and that sense of discord suddenly became much stronger.

When he focused his eyes, he found that the distant scenery seemed to have faint cracks and fractures.

Yichen was startled. He hurriedly turned around and shouted a warning toward the teachers.

But after shouting several times, the teachers showed no response, as though Yichen did not exist.

Panic rose in Yichen's heart. He looked into the distance again and found that something was still wrong. This time, as he concentrated, the feeling of fracture became even stronger.

Still, Yichen was an Adult with a relatively mature temperament, and he quickly reacted.

He was shouting and yelling, yet not only were the teachers unresponsive, the other students were as well. There was clearly something wrong.

Then he recalled that the strength test had just ended and the soul test should come next. Could this sense of discord be the test itself? Could it be... Genjutsu?

Yichen recalled all the methods for breaking Genjutsu from his memories of his past life, then went blank. Every method either required Chakra or self-harm.

The former was impossible without the necessary means, while Yichen immediately ruled out the latter.

This was only the Ninja Academy entrance examination. The teachers would never require the students to do something like that, so there had to be another way to break it.

Yichen thought for a while without any clue, so he began observing his surroundings. Then he discovered that the more focused he became, the more flaws the Genjutsu revealed.

After trying several times, Yichen began to get an idea. Did he need to concentrate? He closed his eyes, took deep breaths for more than ten seconds, then opened them...

While Yichen and the others were trapped in the Genjutsu, the Ninja Academy teachers were also discussing everyone's performances. But unlike usual, only a few seconds into the discussion, someone noticed something wrong.

"Hey, hey, look at that kid called Yichen. Could he have noticed the Genjutsu already?" one person stammered.

"How is that possible? The Genjutsu just started." Another person replied while looking in Yichen's direction. "This... did he really notice it?"

All the teachers looked toward Yichen and were collectively startled.

Unlike what Yichen thought, this test was not about how to break the Genjutsu.

A group of five- or six-year-old brats who had never trained Chakra wanted to break a Genjutsu cast by a Chunin? Even a simplified version was impossible to break!

The purpose of this examination was to test when the students could realize they had fallen under Genjutsu. In other words, Yichen had already passed.

Before their surprise had faded, they suddenly noticed that Yichen had calmed down.

"Another Genius. What a pity his physique is too poor. Otherwise, he would have more than an eighty percent chance of becoming a Jonin," said the Teacher who had first noticed Yichen's abnormality.

Do not underestimate that eighty percent. Even a true Genius could not become a Jonin without experiencing life and death and gaining insight.

A Jonin could be said to have taken the first step from mortal to Sage.

"Indeed. Not only is his Mental Power strong, but his temperament is as well. He realized so quickly that this was part of the entrance examination," someone concluded.

While everyone was still marveling, someone suddenly noticed something else was wrong.

"He's trying to break the Genjutsu." This time, it was the caster of the Genjutsu who spoke.

"Oh? He reacted that quickly?"

"He probably can't break it, right? We haven't heard of him before. Among the students participating in this test, there seem to be very few who have trained Chakra in advance. They're all children from major clans, and there's no Yichen among them."

"Even if he had Chakra, it would be useless. These brats have never experienced Chakra Control, so they simply can't use Chakra to disrupt the Genjutsu."

"This Yichen's father is a Chunin, and his mother is a Genin. He has no food or medicine to assist his training. His performance in the physical test just now was average, so he definitely hasn't reached the standard for refining Chakra."

After those words, quite a few teachers nodded with emotion.

Many of them came from civilian families or ordinary ninja households like Yichen's, and they had suffered from a lack of resources for a long time.

It was also for this reason that the Four Great Nations outside the Land of Fire spared no effort in provoking Konoha. Everything was for the sake of seizing resources.

At this moment, before everyone's eyes, Yichen finished adjusting his breathing with his eyes closed.

Yichen calmly looked at everything before him, as if everything were under control. He glanced around, then the caster suddenly cried out, "He broke the Genjutsu!"

At the same time, Yichen's gaze happened to turn toward the teachers, meeting theirs directly. Everyone was startled by Yichen's calm eyes.

"Are those the eyes a five-year-old should have?"

Even in the Ninja World, even with Geniuses emerging one after another, everyone was startled by Yichen.

"Whew... We Iwa ninja have produced a true Genius as well." Someone let out a breath and sighed.

"Ah, if only his physique were stronger. The village's Yin Release is almost nonexistent, and we have little stored knowledge regarding Genjutsu."

Hearing this, everyone came back to their senses and sighed in disappointment almost in unison. Yes, his physique was too ordinary.

For ordinary people, being above average was an advantage, but for a Genius, it was a burden—and a flaw that was difficult to Make up for.

Look at Konoha's Might Guy and Rock Lee. They could continuously break the limits of the human body through Taijutsu, but that was actually because their physical talents were exceptionally good.

That was right. Rock Lee, who always shouted about surpassing Geniuses, was himself an unquestionable Genius.

His persistence was not simply due to hard work and willpower. It was also because his body could endure that kind of effort. If that training were imposed on other people, it would not bring progress, but cripple them.

In these people's eyes, Yichen was like Rock Lee in the eyes of Konoha High-ranking officials. They would not mock Rock Lee for being unable to use ninjutsu.

Because they knew that someone with such Taijutsu talent had almost no difficulty becoming a Jonin, with a probability of over ninety percent.

Of course, becoming Kage Level was basically impossible. In fact, that was exactly the case. Without the boost of the Forbidden Technique Eight Inner Gates, Rock Lee was only an ordinary Jonin.

Although the Eight Inner Gates could grant him Kage Level strength, it could not last, inflicted severe damage on the body, and was highly unstable. He was at too great a disadvantage against a true Kage Level opponent.

Of course, if he unleashed the Eighth Gate and used his life as fuel, that would completely exceed the scope of a Forbidden Technique. The power of that explosive strike would entirely surpass the Kage's level.

Yichen was similar to Rock Lee. As long as he had a suitable training method and put in the effort, he could absolutely reach the level of Might Guy and Rock Lee.

But Iwagakure did not have one.

The current Iwagakure was not yet the Iwa village from the Fourth Shinobi War. Other than its abundant Earth Release techniques, Iwagakure was weak in almost every other aspect.

At that moment, someone said, "I recommend that he enter Class One."

Even if the village lacked the ability to train him, he was still a Genius! Perhaps a Genius could blaze his own path.

The others were stunned. After a moment of silence, they spoke one after another.

"I agree."

"I agree."

"I agree as well."

Just like that, without Yichen knowing it, he had obtained a place in the Advanced Class—the best class among the several Advanced Classes.

At this moment, Yichen also realized that he had successfully broken the Genjutsu.

He let out a breath of relief. Fortunately, the Genjutsu was not very strong.

Just now, when he focused his mind on the farthest point his eyes could reach, the flaws in the distance grew larger and larger under his gaze.

Then, as his gaze shifted, the flaws shifted with it. Moreover, the places that had already cracked could not recover as quickly as they were being damaged.

Until there were too many damaged areas, and the Genjutsu could no longer maintain itself in his eyes. Then, as if a mirror had shattered, the false scene around him vanished all at once, and the real world reappeared.

The first thing Yichen did was look toward the teachers. He happened to see that they were looking at him as well, and he understood that he had succeeded.

It was not because Yichen was particularly powerful, but because the caster had not used much Chakra.

Moreover, the Genjutsu had been cast on more than a hundred people at once, so its inherent strength was not high. That was what gave Yichen an opportunity.

Even so, it was still incredible for a little brat without Chakra.

Yichen did not waste time and quickly sat down to rest.

What had just happened looked simple, but under the pressure of the Genjutsu, he had consumed too much Mental Power. He already felt exhausted and had to recover properly while everyone else was still struggling.

Chakra was formed from the combination of body and spirit, the product of Yin and Yang coming together.

Yichen's Mental Power had not combined with Body Energy. It was pure Yin Release, so in terms of quality, it could not compare with Chakra at all. That was why he had consumed so much Mental Power while breaking the Genjutsu.

When the teachers saw this, they all nodded approvingly. Seizing time to restore one's strength was also the way to survive on the battlefield.

Ninja was a profession that broke conventional thinking. No one knew when danger would descend, so they had to face the unknown in the best condition possible.

While Yichen sat and rested to recover his Mental Power, most of the students still had not realized they were under Genjutsu.

Everyone thought this was simply the normal break between two stages. In their eyes, the teachers were still discussing their results from the first two rounds.

Only a few people vaguely sensed that something was wrong. The reason they reacted so quickly was that when Yichen broke the Genjutsu, the caster had been too startled, causing fluctuations in the Genjutsu.

But none of that had anything to do with Yichen. He was sitting on the ground with his eyes closed, resting. He judged that it would take quite some time for everyone to finish the assessment, which was perfect for recovering some Mental Power.

However, Yichen was wrong this time. If they had to wait for everyone to realize they were under Genjutsu, it would indeed take a long time, but that was not the actual situation.

After all, only a minority in the Ninja World developed in the direction of Yin Release. The vast majority were conventional ninja.

And among Yin Release ninja, most learned auxiliary ninjutsu such as perception.

Those who could truly use it in actual combat, like the Nara Clan, the Yamanaka Clan, or the person currently casting the Genjutsu, were even rarer.

Therefore, the purpose of this round was to select the few who possessed Yin Release talent or resistance to Yin Release.

Thus, to Yichen's surprise, the teachers quickly announced the end of the Third Round.

At this time, apart from a few people who were cautiously examining their surroundings, the vast majority looked utterly confused.

Of course, in everyone else's eyes, Yichen's surprised expression also looked utterly confused. Naturally, the children from the clans classified him among the mediocre.