Gallstones, Accio!

"An excellent doctor and an excellent ninja are two entirely different things. Becoming the medicine that heals others isn't as simple as learning a few Medical Ninjutsu!"

"You're right. I'll be sure to keep that in mind from now on."

Soji lowered his eyes and listened obediently.

But the old doctor in a white coat, with a hearing aid hooked over his right ear, looked even more disgusted at his words.

"Don't think I don't know what you're plotting! You think you can become a doctor to escape the battlefield? Dream on!"

"I wouldn't dare."

As the old doctor's scolding grew more intense, the other colleagues in the ward hunched their shoulders and fell silent, trembling with fear. Putting themselves in his shoes, quite a few of them had joined Konoha Hospital for similar reasons.

The young man himself was the only one who never argued back. Yet his steady, composed presence and the way he stood straight as a pine seemed to answer the old doctor's slander through his actions...

Scenes like this had played out repeatedly since the first day of Yamada Soji's internship. Today marked exactly one week.

Quite a few people had begun quietly praising the boy's composure and resilience as absurdly impressive... Yet for reasons unknown, the old doctor had never used his administrative authority to drive Soji away.

And so, the conflict between the two settled into a prolonged stalemate.

"That's enough! Stop interfering with the hospital's work and go where you belong!"

"This student will take his leave."

As everyone could see,

although he had received permission from the Ninja Academy, Yamada Soji's path to becoming a medical ninja had not been smooth.

At least, ever since he'd first shown up at the internship site with the relevant documents, the hospital director, Chosokabe Masayuki, had never once given him a warm welcome.

—As a venerable elder born in the Warring States era, the old man was over fifty and possessed superb medical skills and techniques. But he had every flaw common to an old bureaucrat.

Committed to the First's ideals, Chosokabe already had plenty of grievances against Konoha under Sarutobi Hiruzen's leadership. Add in the arrogance of an authority in his field, and he was naturally at odds with the younger generation!

A glimpse of one part revealed the whole.

As he steadily expanded his influence and gradually shed the personal imprints of the First and Second Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was experiencing the inevitable growing pains of a successor. The resulting conflicts naturally spread across every field in the village.

From this perspective, Soji was taking the blame for the Third Hokage! It would have been stranger if he'd had an easy time at the hospital.

Fortunately, Yamada-kun had expected setbacks like these...

As he'd reasoned before, for Soji, who'd been born into a civilian family, being born in this "good era," when people could still move between social classes, was already his greatest fortune.

"Konoha Hospital," one of the many new institutions established during the Second Hokage's era, was practically the ideal place for a transmigrator to demonstrate his comparative advantage.

And with the unique historical opportunities brought by the coming war, starting out here also made it easier to climb aboard the ship of Sarutobi Hiruzen, the rising power of the Shinobi World!

According to Yamada Soji's plan,

as long as he successfully established himself at Konoha Hospital and made sure the key decision-makers knew his name within three to five years, he'd have room to make use of his foresight.

But how could anyone rise to the crest of the tide in such a tangled era without paying a price?

From the moment he'd taken the initiative to confess his "Kekkei Genkai" to Uesugi Taro, Soji had already prepared himself to make choices and sacrifices.

A few cold remarks were nothing. His adult soul wasn't so fragile that he'd hold a grudge or fall apart over them.

—He knew perfectly well that he had no power to change his circumstances right now.

As a student still attending the Ninja Academy, Yamada-kun had no choice but to endure and obey when Chosokabe Masayuki made things difficult for him. If he let anger drive him into even the slightest inappropriate action, he'd only be asking for trouble.

Of course, he'd come to Konoha Hospital to learn Medical Ninjutsu, not to pick a fight with an old man.

Determination without a method was just as useless for achieving great things.

So although Soji was compromising and yielding, he wasn't adopting the groveling, cowardly strategy of a lapdog.

On the one hand, he showed Director Chosokabe the utmost respect and never openly challenged his decisions. On the other, the boy always exercised his rights as a Ninja Academy intern through tactful workarounds.

...The old man wouldn't let him into the hospital library.

So he bought old textbooks from other newcomers!

...The old man wouldn't let him into the records room.

So he asked other young doctors at the hospital to lend him case files!

...The old man wouldn't let him observe in the operating room.

So he simply transferred to a department that collaborated with the Torture and Interrogation Force, gaining hands-on experience from spies who'd outlived their usefulness!

—Water benefits all things and does not contend. Because it does not contend, nothing in the world can contend with it.

As long as he avoided a direct confrontation with the old director, Yamada Soji could always find a way to achieve his goals.

And once he'd chosen the right approach, the conflict between the old and new powers of the Shinobi World that had seemed like such a headache instead became Yamada-kun's greatest advantage!

By selecting "enemies" for himself, Director Chosokabe had unwittingly helped the boy win his first allies. The young doctors who'd also incurred the director's disapproval for various reasons were generally more than willing to lend Yamada Soji a hand whenever they could.

As time went on, it was the hidebound Chosokabe Masayuki who found himself unable to bring his strength to bear, nearly swallowed by the vast ocean of the people's war...

Meanwhile, through constant study and practice, Soji had gained an initial grasp of the subject within half a year and accumulated plenty of insights into the Mystical Palm Technique and the Delicate Illness Extraction Technique.

Of course, besides his own efforts, Yamada-kun hadn't forgotten the gift fate had bestowed on him after he'd used his Kekkei Genkai as a stepping stone to establish himself...

—Pencil sharpener, Accio!

Seated at the desk in the Emergency Department office, Yamada Soji simply stretched out his hand, and the pencil sharpener on the empty desk beside him flew into his palm.

The other objects on the desk across from him remained completely unaffected. The pencil sharpener also didn't spin unnecessarily as it flew, scattering pencil shavings; it maintained a steady orientation throughout.

He hadn't been capable of such effortless control six months ago.

But while his precision had improved, the strength of Accio itself hadn't increased by much. Soji couldn't inflict damage on a target through nothing more than the shift in "gravity" that pulled it toward him and sent it away, as the Rinnegan could. He couldn't even deflect large, heavy projectiles.

This made him realize that the strength of a spell was probably tied to the "energy purity" mentioned in the system notification.

And since using Accio consumed chakra, just like other ninjutsu, this so-called "energy purity" was closely related to chakra training.

Unfortunately, the cheat hadn't directly improved Soji's talent. His abilities as a ninja were still as poor as before.

Especially after he'd devoted some of his energy to training in medical ninjutsu, his progress in Taijutsu and chakra training had slowed even further.

As a result, developing Accio had immediately become an unsolvable vicious cycle...

Fortunately, unlike reckless fools who believed brute force could solve anything, Soji was better at using his head. If he escaped the confines of narrow thinking, even an ability that seemed useless had its own specialty.

"Since I can't improve the spell's strength for now, I might as well start with the objects it affects."

Compared with Magnet Release and the Rinnegan's techniques, which had similar functions, Accio couldn't match their direct destructive power. But its unique mechanism of action gave this "imported" ability a more flexible range of applications.

Soji brought over a batch of white mice that had been raised on specially formulated feed.

After opening one of them up, he moved its liver aside, clamped the gallbladder duct with forceps, and made an incision at the base of the gallbladder.

Gray-green bile flowed onto blotting paper, quickly leaving behind a large number of white crystals—gallstones formed from accumulated cholesterol.

Soji nodded in satisfaction, then extended his right hand.

—Gallstones, Accio!

At a thought, the scattered white crystals on the blotting paper immediately gathered in Yamada-kun's palm!

The boy let a faint smile show, then took another test mouse from its cage.

This time, he didn't cut open the test subject's belly. Instead, he cast the spell directly.

—Gallstones, Accio!