For the next half month, Tamura Hiroshi did not go out to train again. He even took half a month off from school, staying at home the entire time to type manuscripts, train his chakra control, and practice the Monster Strength Technique.
Half a month passed quickly in this manner. Using the Transformation Jutsu, Tamura Hiroshi brought the manuscript to the publishing house so they could arrange for scheduled printing and sales, then returned home to prepare for today's battle.
First, he put on the inner armor forged at the cost of one hundred million ryō. The main body was a mesh vest forged from a special metal, complete with arm guards and leg guards on his forearms and calves, armor plates protecting his chest and back, and shoulder guards.
According to the boss, this armor was not only lightweight—weighing less than ten catties in total—but also possessed high hardness and toughness, sufficient to withstand the attacks of C-Rank Ninjutsu, while its strong flexibility could cushion impact forces to a certain extent.
Next came a set of leather clothing, rumored to be made from the hide of a certain ninja beast, which provided decent defense against elemental ninjutsu and at least meant he did not have to worry about exposing himself if an opponent hit him with a Fire Style.
I'm getting a bit of a teenage Sauron vibe, too bad I'm not as handsome as him.
Glancing in the mirror, Tamura Hiroshi was quite satisfied with his current look, especially the pair of leather boots.
He genuinely could not adapt to those open-toed ninja shoes; wouldn't kicking people hurt your toes?
If you were even slightly careless and had a toenail flipped backward, wouldn't it hurt like hell?
Because of this, he not only replaced the ninja shoes with fully enclosed leather boots, but also had the toe and heel areas encased in the same alloy as the armor plates on his body, all to make kicking people feel that much more refreshing.
Flexing his hands and feet, Tamura Hiroshi was exceptionally satisfied. He then picked up the twin blades from the blade rack and sealed them respectively into his left and right arm guards, both sealing jutsu formulas featuring a "meow" character right in the middle.
That was right, this pair of arm guards were also ninja tools capable of sealing certain items, much like those two wrist guards Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi used during the Pacific Naval Battle.
Fully prepared, Tamura Hiroshi finally left home and headed for the ninja school.
The classmates in his room did not react much to Tamura Hiroshi's arrival. Even his unusual attire prompted nothing more than an extra glance, and no one said anything to him about it.
Tamura Hiroshi usually behaved very low-key in class and had no friends, appearing quite mediocre and ordinary.
Before long, the teacher came over to deliver a preliminary speech and then pulled out a list to read off the team rosters.
Every class in the ninja school had a standard headcount, striving to ensure everyone could be organized into three-person squads.
It was just unfortunate that last year, two people in this class had fought over jealousy; one blinded the other's eye and both were expelled from school. The blinded person had no choice but to drop out, unable to become a ninja.
What a precocious world!
This meant one person would be left single. For such a situation, they would either be added to an existing squad, led solo, or combined with under-strength teams from other classes.
Tamura Hiroshi was that single person, and his option was solo-led training, a perk he had plotted for beforehand.
Once the leading teachers for everyone had successively come by and taken their people away, a young boy walked into the classroom and looked at Tamura Hiroshi, who was the only one left.
"Tamura Hiroshi?"
"Teacher, I am Tamura Hiroshi!"
Tamura Hiroshi stood up and bowed, immediately sizing up the newcomer afterwards. Looking at the other's flowing half-white and half-green hair, he guessed his identity.
He should be Killer B's predecessor as the Eight-Tails Jinchūriki, as well as his teacher.
Of course, he wasn't the Eight-Tails Jinchūriki yet, since Killer B wasn't even born yet for all they knew.
Fukai was also sizing up Tamura Hiroshi. Looking at the composed boy before him, he formed a favorable impression.
"Sit down and let's chat."
Fukai appeared quite serene, walking over to sit down at the desk directly in front of Tamura Hiroshi.
"My name is Fukai. I am an upper ninja of the village, specializing in Lightning Release Ninjutsu, Lightning Release Nintaijutsu, and Lightning Release sword techniques..."
Fukai made his self-introduction first while feeling quite curious about this boy.
Half a month ago, Lord Third Raikage's order had arrived, telling him to abandon his scheduled missions to serve as a homeroom teacher and to lead only a single child.
Afterward, his older cousin had even come by specifically to instruct him to take good care of this child. Although neither of them stated the specific reason, he understood that this kid definitely wasn't ordinary.
He had inquired about it these past few days and only then discovered that this boy had unintentionally stumbled upon a spy who had stolen funds the village used to purchase supplies from the Land of Iron, amounting to a full ten billion ryō.
This boy had tracked down the money stolen and hidden by that spy and turned it over to Lord Raikage, recovering a huge loss for the village.
This was a benefactor of the village!
Moreover, being able to discover a spy and track down the funds the other party had hidden was also proof of ability.
"Teacher Fukai, my name is Tamura Hiroshi. You can call me Xiao Hao. I excel in Taijutsu and sword techniques. My chakra attribute is solely lightning, and my chakra quantity growth has a shortcoming. In the future, I hope you can provide plenty of guidance in this regard..."
Tamura Hiroshi also introduced himself in great detail, even revealing his cultivation results regarding chakra threads.
Through half a month of cultivation, his chakra threads could already maintain six strands simultaneously, extend out three meters, and perform flexible transformations.
This in itself wasn't much, but it represented an improvement in control.
"You actually cultivated to that extent!"
Fukai was astonished. According to conventional logic, a child just stepping out of the ninja school doing wall climbing and water walking techniques quite well was already considered decent, since the main focus of study in the academy was theoretical knowledge.
Not many people focused on such practical techniques, let alone cultivated higher-level chakra threads.
That kind of technique was only popular in Sunagakure as the specialty of puppet masters, and very few people in Kumogakure cultivated it.
Furthermore, this kind of chakra thread already counted as the cultivation of chakra form transformation, and succeeding in its cultivation proved that his chakra control had reached at least the Chunin level.
This kid had even begun the nature transformation cultivation of the lightning attribute. Although the lack of professional methods made his practice very crude, based on his description, he was already close to mastering the basics.
For a ten-year-old child to reach such a stage was truly startling.
"My chakra talent is quite ordinary, and it will be hard to achieve high accomplishments in that aspect in the future. I can only put more effort into control and utilize my limited chakra more efficiently."
Tamura Hiroshi wore a slightly helpless expression. He hated this kind of world and cultivation system that looked at bloodlines the most; whatever achievements the parents possessed, the offspring essentially stayed at that tier, with no such thing as mutation or transcendence.
Trying to surpass others by relying on acquired effort was truly too hard, approaching the impossible.
Do not look at the high achievements attained by those three liver-burning guys in Konoha; being able to undergo that ultra-high-intensity training without ruining oneself was an extraordinary talent in its own right, something that could not be surpassed by sheer willpower and effort alone.
Tamura Hiroshi had initially tried that burst-liver style of cultivation, and it ended up nearly dissolving his muscles.
Even after lowering the training intensity later on, he still had to spend money every day to hire medical ninjas to scrub his body with medical ninjutsu and nourish it with precious medicinal herbs to avoid leaving hidden injuries or even overdrawing his body, consuming a massive amount of money for this purpose.
He genuinely could not imagine the bodily potential and recovery rate of those three liver-burning guys, and he even suspected that all three of them were related by blood to the Senju Clan, possessing a partial Senju Sage Body.
Therefore, his focus these past few years had been placed on cultivating chakra control, and the harvest was not small.
"Your direction is correct. Increasing chakra quantity relies far too much on talent, and forcibly extracting it under overload will only harm the body.
There are currently no great methods to resolve this, and making the improvement of chakra control your main offensive vector is the best path."
Fukai affirmed this student's choice. Chakra quantity was truly difficult to improve, and there were currently no good methods in the village either.
Although he had heard that the village was secretly conducting experiments involving the ingestion of Eight-Tails Flesh, the results did not seem very good, and examples like Kinkaku and Ginkaku had not appeared again.
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