Before the Training Exercise

"Wait, Kakashi-sensei."

Naruto raised his hand. "When you say we'll be sent back to the Academy, does that mean our newly registered Genin status will be revoked?"

"That's right."

Kakashi confirmed, "When you're sent back to the Academy, the information you registered will be erased, and the village will reclaim your Forehead Protectors until you register as Genin again."

"That's so unfair!"

Sakura complained, "What's the point of the graduation exam, then?"

"The graduation exam is just to select those qualified to take part in the survival exercise."

Kakashi explained, "It's not that hard to understand. I'm your team's Jonin instructor, so no matter what the other teams' instructors do, I'm the one who decides what happens with Team 7."

"..." ×3

"Looks like you understand."

Kakashi nodded with satisfaction. "Remember to bring your ninja tools tomorrow morning, and don't be late. I suggest you don't eat breakfast, because you might throw it up. That's all I have to say. Dismissed."

With that, Kakashi vanished in a puff of white smoke.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura looked at one another, then lowered their eyes to the papers in their hands.

"Hmm?"

Naruto noticed something and pointed at the paper. "Aren't the requirements written here a little strange?"

"It's not just the requirements on the paper that are strange. Quite a few things he just said are worth thinking about, too."

Sasuke was calm. "Don't be late, and don't eat breakfast. He told us both of those things verbally; neither is written in the requirements."

"You mean Kakashi-sensei was deliberately trying to steer us into doing those things?"

Sakura looked puzzled. "Why?"

"I don't know. That's why we need to think about it."

Naruto held out his hand to the two of them. "Give me the papers. You two can dispel your clones, and I'll use the Flying Thunder God Technique to send them back to my real body."

Sakura handed him the paper. "Space-Time Ninjutsu sure is convenient."

Sasuke said nothing. After handing over his paper, he immediately dispelled his clone.

Sakura followed suit.

Naruto closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he suddenly vanished.

In the woods on the outskirts of Konoha, Sasuke and Sakura were practicing tree climbing when they abruptly received a flood of information from their Shadow Clones. They lost control of their chakra and fell from the trees.

Fortunately, neither of them had climbed very high, and a thick, soft mat lay beneath the trees.

"Even with a mat, that still hurts."

Sakura gently rubbed her bottom. "I think I've found another drawback to Shadow Clones. The clones don't know what's happening to the real body, so if they send back information at an inopportune moment, the real body could get hurt."

Sasuke couldn't bring himself to rub his backside in front of them, so he endured the pain. "During a fight, we'll have to find a way to keep our clones from getting too far away from us."

"Don't worry. You're only being affected because you haven't gotten the hang of controlling your chakra yet. Just keep practicing until it becomes instinctive, and you won't need to pay attention to it deliberately. In the most extreme case, even if we pass out, our bodies can stay attached to the tree."

After Naruto's Shadow Clone moved over, it dispelled itself immediately, but his real body remained standing firmly on the tree. "You've been practicing for less than half a day. It's perfectly normal to fall."

"Okay."

Sakura got to her feet. "What do you think about the things Kakashi-sensei said?"

"I don't think we need to question whether they're true."

Naruto rubbed his chin. "But considering how he was trying to steer us, I think we'd better not show up too early tomorrow, and we should eat a little more breakfast."

"Agreed."

Sasuke said, "Still, I think we should get there early tomorrow."

Naruto looked at Sasuke and immediately understood. "You want to set traps?"

"Exactly."

Sasuke nodded. "Since it's a training exercise, there'll probably be some kind of combat-related challenge, even if we don't fight directly. Setting traps ahead of time could give us an advantage."

"Considering Kakashi-sensei has much more combat experience than we do,"

Sakura reminded them, "we should set as many as possible, just in case."

"I actually think it'd be better not to set any traps."

Naruto objected. "When we run into an enemy, they won't give us time to set traps. Besides, we don't know whether Kakashi-sensei has a way to detect them. If our traps are turned against us, it'll only make it harder to pass the exercise."

Sasuke and Sakura couldn't deny that.

The three of them kept discussing it for a few more minutes before finally reaching an agreement.

After that, Sasuke and Sakura kept practicing tree climbing with two Shadow Clones each until nightfall. They nearly ran out of chakra before they stopped.

With their chakra almost depleted and the extra mental strain from the Shadow Clones, neither of them lost consciousness, but they could barely walk straight. In the end, Naruto had to use a Shadow Clone to take them home.

The next morning, at nine thirty, at the Konoha Training Ground.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura arrived almost simultaneously.

Naruto: "Kakashi-sensei really is late again."

Sasuke: "Looks like he really does have a bad habit of being late."

Sakura: "I don't know if you can call it being late, since Kakashi-sensei never gave us a specific time in the first place."

With nothing else to do, the three decided to chat and pass the time.

"Naruto, besides tree climbing, Water Walking, and walking on air, are there any other basic exercises your mentor has you do?"

Sasuke asked casually.

Yesterday, after experiencing how Shadow Clones could improve his learning efficiency, Sasuke had felt as if he could glimpse a future in which he defeated "that man." His desire to become stronger remained intense, but it no longer felt so urgent.

Hearing this, Sakura looked at Naruto expectantly, too.

She hadn't cared much about getting stronger before, but after learning about Sasuke's "ambition" yesterday and seeing him train, she realized that if she wanted to become Sasuke's wife someday, she needed to be strong enough to help him.

"Of course."

Naruto nodded and said unhurriedly, "My mentor said that, for us ninja, chakra is the most fundamental and important thing. A ninja with a lot of chakra isn't necessarily strong, but one with little chakra is definitely weak. So exercises that strengthen our physical and mental energy are the foundation of all foundations."

"Is that all...?"

Sasuke was a little disappointed.

Shadow Clones could speed up mental training, but not physical training. After all, they couldn't transfer the results of physical exercise back to the real body. And the differences between the various methods of physical training were so small as to be negligible.

"Don't rush me. I haven't gotten to the important part yet."

Naruto smiled. "The methods my mentor taught me for training the body and mind are completely different from the ones they teach at the Academy. They're more efficient, and they don't damage the body."

"Oh?!"

Sasuke immediately perked up. "Tell me more!"

Sakura also focused intently, afraid she might miss a single word.

"My mentor called that training method 'Qi Refining.'"

Naruto continued, "Qi is a kind of physical energy. It's always present in our bodies, so we don't need to extract it the way we do chakra. Concentrating and guiding the qi inside our bodies to gather and grow is called 'Qi Refining.' Our minds gradually grow stronger as we refine qi, and qi, as a kind of physical energy, can be used directly to refine chakra..."