"Eleven teams were eliminated in total..." Sakura murmured.
Naruto nodded. "More or less. In that case, there probably won't be any preliminary matches."
The number of teams eliminated and the teams remaining were the same as in a previous cycle.
The Third Hokage would definitely cancel the preliminaries and directly announce that the third exam would begin in a month.
Even Sasuke revealed a rare smile.
After resting briefly, the three members of Team 7 continued toward the Central Tower.
Not far from the tower, they ran into the resting Ino-Shika-Cho team.
"Yo, isn't that Sakura?" Ino was the first to spot the three of them and greeted them with a smile. "Sasuke, long time no see."
In truth, they had met only recently during the first written exam.
Although every team was an enemy in this exam, they were still classmates who normally got along well.
So not only would they refrain from attacking each other, they would sometimes even help one another. Besides, they had only just graduated from the Ninja Academy and naturally did not have much guard up.
Shikamaru leaned lazily against a large boulder while Choji ate potato chips. His food reserves seemed as plentiful as ever.
"You're almost at the finish line too," Shikamaru said, his gaze falling on the cloth sack Naruto carried. "What's in there? It doesn't look like ordinary ninja tools."
Naruto answered casually, "The scrolls for this exam."
Choji stopped chewing and leaned closer curiously. "Naruto, are your scrolls really that big?"
Shikamaru sat up straight and slowly moved closer to Choji, his expression turning serious. "Could it be that Naruto's team eliminated too many teams...?"
He roughly estimated the sack's size and capacity. Based on the size of the Heaven and Earth Scrolls, that meant there were around ten