The Will of Fire Is Way Too Heavy!

"Yuichi, why are you reading that book?"

Yuhi Kurenai gazed at Yuki Yuichi, blinking her big eyes as she held a copy of The Will of Fire and asked curiously.

After they had introduced themselves, Umino Ikkaku had told them to look through their textbooks and said the formal lessons would begin in an hour.

Glancing at the copy of The Will of Fire in his hands, Yuki Yuichi replied casually, "The Will of Fire is pretty interesting, isn't it?"

The school had handed out more than ten books. The most important ones were The Will of Fire and the Chakra Extraction Method.

The rest covered things like assassination, stealing information, an encyclopedia of the Shinobi World, and mathematics.

But even all the other books put together weren't as thick as this copy of The Will of Fire.

"There's plenty to read."

The Will of Fire wasn't just a simple explanation of the saying, "Where the leaves dance, the fire burns on."

It also contained accounts of the "selfless" sacrifices made by shinobi, along with plenty of Third Hokage's famous quotes and maxims.

If you wanted to get by in Konoha, you had to know this book inside and out.

Yuki Yuichi and Yuhi Kurenai curiously flipped through their copies.

Not far from them, a boy who'd been pushed aside earlier stared eagerly at the Chakra Extraction Method in his hands.

Once I learn the Chakra Extraction Method and gain chakra, I won't have to get beaten up anymore!

I'll get my revenge!

The boy made a silent vow as he stared at the book, then glanced toward Yuki Yuichi.

"What's he so proud of? He's only acting tough because he can use chakra. Once I learn how, I'll show him!"

His voice was so quiet that no one nearby heard him.

Yuki Yuichi had no idea that his actions had made someone see him as a target. If he had, he probably would have laughed himself silly.

In this bloodline-focused world, a commoner actually had that kind of idea.

Besides, facts aside, Yuki Yuichi had started extracting chakra at five years old.

He'd started a full year before the others. Why would he be scared just because they learned to extract chakra?

Amid the students' chatter, time passed quickly.

The morning lesson was on chakra extraction.

Umino Ikkaku explained everything thoroughly, but the lesson wasn't much use to Yuki Yuichi or Yuhi Kurenai.

They'd both already learned how to extract chakra.

Although Yuhi Shinku seemed a little irritable, wary that Yuki Yuichi might woo his daughter, he was actually a very kind man.

That was just the impression he gave off.

Yuki Yuichi could clearly tell that Yuhi Shinku truly treated him like family.

He was simply a little unhappy about Yuichi trying to win over Yuhi Kurenai.

Even so, he hadn't held back when it came to teaching them.

Yuhi Shinku was a Konoha jonin, but he had no clan and no access to the secret medicinal baths that the major clans had passed down for generations.

In Konoha—or, for that matter, the Shinobi World—it was best to start extracting chakra after turning six, when a child's body had mostly finished developing.

After all, chakra was produced by combining energy extracted from a person's cells and spirit.

It wasn't that people didn't want children to extract chakra before they were fully grown. There were plenty of illiterate people in the Shinobi World, after all.

The main problem was that young children weren't developed enough to extract it.

That was the commoners' situation. Children from the major clans were immersed in medicinal baths from a young age to encourage their development, so many clan children could extract chakra at three.

Unfortunately, Yuhi Shinku didn't have access to those things. Yuki Yuichi and Yuhi Kurenai had managed to extract chakra at five only because he'd traded for some medicinal ingredients at the Nara Clan's estate.

Every so often, he had them both soak in the bath.

But the major clans guarded those ingredients closely. Even Yuhi Shinku could only get his hands on a packet or two now and then, and he always had the two of them share.

That was why they'd only managed to extract chakra at five.

If Yuhi Shinku had only cared about Yuhi Kurenai, she might not have managed it at three, but she could at least have started at four.

A shinobi's strength was easiest to improve during their youth. If Yuhi Kurenai had begun extracting chakra a year earlier, her potential would have been much greater. There was no way a jonin like Yuhi Shinku didn't understand that.

And yet he'd shared the medicinal ingredients he'd managed to get with both of them.

So even though he sometimes got a little irritable with him, Yuki Yuichi had never complained.

When all was said and done, he was the one who had his eye on the man's daughter.

He had enough self-awareness to know that.

It was like having some young punk hanging around your house. Who wouldn't be angry?

As Yuki Yuichi thought about this, Umino Ikkaku continued lecturing about chakra extraction at the front of the room.

He spent the entire morning going over three or four pages of material, repeating the same points over and over.

Most of the students sitting below him, apart from those from commoner backgrounds, were zoning out.

Kakashi Hatake was one of them.

"I should've sat in the back." Kakashi Hatake turned to glance at Yuki Yuichi in the rear row and saw him staring blankly ahead.

He could tell at a glance that Yuichi was daydreaming.

Beside him, Yuhi Kurenai kept her big eyes fixed on Umino Ikkaku without blinking.

She already knew this material, but that didn't stop her from wanting to be a good student.

Just as Kakashi Hatake was about to turn back and keep daydreaming, he caught sight of a "pervert" sitting in the back row.

"Is he an idiot...?" Kakashi Hatake glanced at Uchiha Obito and muttered under his breath.

Uchiha Obito was still watching Nohara Rin. The teacher was lecturing about chakra extraction, but Obito was holding a book called One Thousand and One Ways to Assassinate a Shinobi.

The teacher was more lenient with students who had already learned to extract chakra, and they could get away with daydreaming during this lesson. But Uchiha Obito was the first to be so blatant about it.

Plenty of people in the classroom were daydreaming.

There was a certain redhead by the window in the back row, a guy who looked like a monkey, a black-haired girl wearing the Kato Clan crest, and the Hyuga Branch Family girl in front of him, not to mention Kakashi himself.

But Uchiha Obito was the only one like that.

As Kakashi Hatake was mocking him, Umino Ikkaku seemed to reach the end of his patience. He flicked a piece of chalk from his hand, hitting Uchiha Obito squarely in the forehead.

"Uchiha Obito!"

At Umino Ikkaku's angry shout, everyone in the classroom turned to look at Uchiha Obito.

"Huh?" Uchiha Obito seemed to come back to himself only then. Startled by the teacher's voice, he sprang to his feet. "I'm here!"

"Hahaha, he's hilarious!"

"Have the Uchiha Clan really come to this?"

"He's such an idiot."

As he watched Uchiha Obito jump up in an instant, Umino Ikkaku thought to himself that this was the first lesson of the school year. He couldn't get angry; he had to make a good first impression on his students.

So he suppressed his anger, forced a smile, and asked, "Could you tell your teacher what this lesson is about?"