Ability Test

Three days later, the medical squad ninjas thought Xing Ran's recovery rate was already optimistically estimated, but in reality, he was healing even faster than predicted.

After being hospitalized with severe injuries, it only took him four days to almost fully recover.

Hai Yi had accepted a mission and left the village yesterday, so Xing Ran quietly checked himself out of the hospital today and returned home alone.

Originally, Hai Yi wanted his wife, Yamanaka Sae, to pick Xing Ran up from the hospital tomorrow, but Xing Ran knew Aunt Sae still had to take care of two-year-old Ino. Since he was being discharged early anyway, he didn't want to trouble them.

Xing Ran's home was on the street where the three Ino-Shika-Cho clans of Konoha lived. It wasn't a big house, but it was more than enough for a family of three.

Next door was Yamanaka Hai Yi's house, both standalone homes with small yards.

Even though they were standalone houses, among the three Ino-Shika-Cho clans, the Yamanaka Clan was at the bottom economically. Few Yamanaka clan members lived in large houses or mansions.

The Ino-Shika-Cho clans were families that used extremely rare secret techniques, wielding great influence in Konoha. However, that influence only came from their combined strength. As individual clans, they were only slightly better off than commoners, far inferior to the Uchiha Clan and Hyuga Clan, both of Otsutsuki blood.

Among them, the Akimichi Family, representing "Cho," ran a chain of barbecue restaurants with significant influence in the Land of Fire. While this was because the Akimichi Clan's secret techniques required constant eating to fuel their massive Chakra consumption, it also meant they had a natural talent for the food business, giving them strong financial power.

Then there was the Nara Clan, representing "Shika." Their members were generally sharp-minded. Even if they didn't focus on economic development, money was never a shortcoming for these clever people. In the original story, aside from Uchiha Clan leader Fugaku's home and the Hyuga Clan, the Nara Clan was one of the few families that could afford a traditional Japanese-style courtyard house.

Finally, the Yamanaka Clan, representing "Ino," had no economic advantages beyond their extraordinary achievements in intelligence and mental secret techniques. So while the Yamanaka Clan had many members, most of them lived lives not much different from Konoha's commoners.

Back home, Xing Ran could no longer contain his excitement and began testing his flying ability.

Other abilities could wait, but flight was one of humanity's oldest dreams. Xing Ran couldn't wait to experience the feeling of soaring freely through the sky.

He guided his body slightly upward, feeling his weight grow lighter. Gradually, starting from his heels, he broke free from gravity's pull, then his soles, and finally his toes.

He was flying!

Xing Ran looked down in surprise. His feet were off the ground, and he was completely suspended in midair.

Across the entire ninja world, the only known people who could fly using their own abilities without any tools were Ōnoki, the Tsuchikage, and a handful of others. That old man could achieve flight with just Earth Release, but not just anyone could pull that off.

From now on, there would be one more person in this world who could fly without relying on any external force.

Xing Ran was overjoyed. He planned to wait until dark, find an empty place, and truly experience the feeling of flying at high speed through the vast, boundless sky.

Unfortunately, it was still daytime. If he didn't want to be dragged into a lab for research, he could only fly around inside the house.

Having just gained the ability to fly, Xing Ran was still riding the novelty. He didn't walk anywhere in the room, floating instead. But soon, a new problem arose.

Within three minutes, Xing Ran landed on the sofa, panting heavily, his expression grim. He was exhausted. Was this the stamina a Superman should have? He had recovered so quickly, so he should have had Superman's Steel Body ability. Why did he have so little stamina for flying?

And he wasn't even flying fast—floating was a better description. So not only could he fly for a short time, but his speed was also very slow. This ability had no practical combat use; it was only good for sightseeing.

Sensing something was wrong, Xing Ran hurried to the backyard, where he usually trained. There were plenty of exercise equipment there.

Superman had a Steel Body, with strength and speed as his main selling points. So how strong was he now that he had awakened Superman's power?

He picked up a barbell in the yard, lifting it easily. It was useless as a test.

But then Xing Ran thought of something. He grabbed both ends of the barbell, exerted force with his arms, and tried to bend it.

"Hah!"

With a shout, the barbell in his hands instantly twisted into a bent piece of scrap metal.

It seemed like his strength had increased a lot, but many taijutsu-type ninjas could easily do the same. He still needed weightlifting to get a more accurate measurement.

Without proper testing equipment at home, Xing Ran switched to testing his speed. This was much simpler. Holding a stopwatch, he measured the longest distance in the small yard—10 meters. Ten round trips made 100 meters. While not very precise, it could give a rough idea of his speed.

100 meters in 5 seconds.

That speed wasn't particularly fast—about 72 kilometers per hour, slower than a car. Ordinary ninjas running with Chakra assistance could easily exceed that.

The speed of sound was 1,224 kilometers per hour, and the Eight Gates explicitly stated that opening the fifth gate, the Gate of Limit, already reached supersonic speed.

So, following the logic that each gate opened further increased strength and speed, by the fifth gate, it had been enhanced five times. Assuming each enhancement doubled the previous value, the first gate, the Gate of Opening, would give a speed of 244.8 kilometers per hour.

From Rock Lee's speed after opening the gates in the original story, it was at most mid-level chunin combat speed.

With this speed as a reference, the size of the Naruto world and the typical travel speed of ninjas could be roughly estimated.

Ordinary ninjas traveling could probably maintain speeds between 100 and 200 kilometers per hour.

This was also one reason ninjas didn't use horses for travel—the fastest horse only reached about 60 kilometers per hour.

When the Konoha support team went to rescue Gaara and his group, it took them three days to travel from Konoha to Sunagakure. At that time, their speed was definitely not below chunin level. Excluding rest time, if they traveled 10 hours a day at 200 kilometers per hour, the distance between the two places was about 6,000 kilometers.

The highway from Shenzhen to Harbin is 3,342 kilometers, roughly the distance from the south to the north of China.

This 200-kilometer-per-hour travel speed might have some error, but it definitely wouldn't be below 100 kilometers per hour. At minimum, the distance from Konoha to Sunagakure was as far as crossing all of China.

From this perspective, the Naruto world was truly vast. The main continent was roughly the size of the entire Eurasian continent.

(PS: The world setting isn't finished yet; there will be more arguments later. Also, Xiao Ran already has a completed novel of over a million words, so please rest assured and add this to your collection. And while you're at it, please give a recommendation. Thank you!)