The First Lesson of the School Year

"Good morning, Chiba Genichi."

Hyuga Hana took the initiative to greet him, her voice and every gesture radiating an air of elegance.

"Good morning, classmate Hana."

This made Genichi sigh inwardly; children of great clans truly possessed such refinement. When Hana grew up, she would surely become a woman as graceful as a Yamato Nadeshiko.

"Good morning to you too, Mikoto." Genichi arrived at his seat and greeted her with a smile.

"Hmph!" Mikoto turned her head away, pretending not to hear him.

Yesterday, an angry Mikoto had blamed everything on Genichi and challenged him to a duel in the small woods, determined to exact her revenge. To her surprise, Genichi hadn't resisted at all and simply laid down on the ground.

Watching Genichi act like a shameless rascal on the ground, Mikoto felt she had no way to proceed. Unable to bring herself to be truly ruthless, she could only give his calf a light, perfunctory kick and deliver a fierce ultimatum:

"Just you wait! I'll definitely make you pay later!"

Fortunately, children's emotions come and go quickly.

Today was the first day of formal classes, and with Genichi's various flattering compliments, he had finally managed to coax Mikoto back into a good mood.

"You two have a really great relationship," Minato Namikaze, sitting in the front row, couldn't help but remark after witnessing the scene.

"I remember you, Minato Namikaze," Genichi said in a calm tone. "Your dream is to become Hokage, right? It looks like we'll be rivals in the future."

"Uh, isn't your dream to live a peaceful life?" Minato remembered clearly, as Genichi's self-introduction had been right after his own.

"Isn't the life of a Hokage peaceful enough? Who in the village would dare to provoke the Hokage?" Genichi looked straight into Minato's eyes with composure and continued:

"Minato, don't be discouraged. Although there is only one Hokage, when I become Hokage, there will still be a position for you as my assistant."

Genichi recalled Minato's performance after becoming Hokage in Naruto Shippuden; he was a top-tier "tool" by any standard in the ninja world.

Handling administrative duties from dawn till dusk, avoiding power struggles with the Third Hokage, using the Flying Thunder God to seamlessly transition between work and home—most importantly, he possessed a heart that gave everything for the village without asking for anything in return.

For some reason, Minato, who had been assigned the position of assistant immediately upon enrollment, felt his mouth twitch, barely managing to maintain his friendly smile:

"In any case, let's work hard together from now on. If the goal is to be Hokage, I won't lose to anyone."

As the school bell began to ring, Sarutobi-sensei stepped onto the podium.

Genichi placed his textbooks, Detailed Explanation of the Will of Fire and Brief History of Konoha, on his desk. Having no intention of listening to the lecture, he immediately began practicing his chakra control.

He propped his head up with his left hand, focused his attention, and channeled chakra into his right hand to adhere to his pen, starting to spin it.

Simple, far too simple. His chakra acted like a magnet, binding the pen to his hand, allowing it to spin however he pleased. He had never felt pen-spinning to be so effortless.

Next was to reduce the amount of chakra, covering only the contact area between his hand and the pen, and as the pen rotated, he continuously controlled the chakra to shift its position.

"Have you already refined chakra?" Minato, sitting in the front row, noticed this and couldn't help but turn around to ask.

Minato Namikaze had grown up in the Konoha Orphanage since he was young. He was clever and sharp, and ever since he set his goal to become a ninja, he had been intentionally training his body to prepare for the future.

After receiving his textbooks yesterday, he hadn't wasted a single minute, reading through Detailed Explanation of the Will of Fire and Brief History of Konoha in preparation.

Finally, he had started trying to refine chakra, but because it was already late, he hadn't succeeded yet.

"Of course, isn't it easy enough for anyone with hands? You haven't succeeded yet, Minato? How about you try to guess my initial affinity? If you guess correctly, I'll share the secret to my successful chakra refinement with you."

Not knowing what he was thinking, Genichi's tone carried a hint of excitement.

"How am I supposed to guess that?" Minato replied with a helpless expression. On the surface, there were only five chakra affinities, but considering the possibility of multi-affinity combinations, it was impossible to guess.

"Then let me give you a hint," Genichi added eagerly. "I have a dual-affinity, and these two attributes are just like those of a protagonist."

After refining his chakra, he had been too impatient to wait and tested it immediately. The result was that one half of the paper wrinkled while the other half split—exactly corresponding to Sasuke's Lightning and Naruto's Wind from the original work.

It wasn't the best-case scenario he had imagined—the five-element transformation of a natural full-affinity user—but it was still pretty good. He felt that the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken and Chidori were already on their way.

Plagiarism isn't scary; the one who is slow is the one who feels awkward.

Minato, Kakashi, the inventors of the Rasengan and Chidori aren't you—it's me, Chiba Genichi!

Nara Shikaku, sitting across the aisle, heard this and turned his head, shifting into a more comfortable sleeping position.

The graduation exam at the Ninja Academy usually only required the Three Basic Jutsu, and chakra affinities were considered a more advanced topic. Curious about Genichi, a fellow enthusiast, Shikaku also began to guess his affinities.

"With dual-affinities, there are only ten possibilities. What does 'protagonist' mean? Is it the protagonist of some ninja novel?"

"Uh, could it be Water and Earth?" Minato, completely unable to understand the second half of the hint, could only guess uncertainly.

"Dead wrong. It's Wind and Lightning. But even though you guessed wrong, I don't mind helping you out. Don't leave after school." Genichi answered straightforwardly.

Hearing this, Minato nodded in agreement.

Beside them, Shikaku couldn't help but open his mouth, his expression speechless as he complained internally: You jerk, then explain clearly what Wind and Lightning have to do with the hint you gave!

"I wanted to ask just now, why have you been spinning your pen the whole time, Genichi?" Minato didn't quite understand this act of using chakra to spin a pen.

At this moment, Uchiha Mikoto also looked at Genichi, her eyes darting back and forth as if she wanted to say something.

Genichi felt a bit confused and explained to Minato: "This is to train my chakra control."

Nara Shikaku simulated the exercise in his mind and felt it was indeed useful, but it only trained a specific part, unlike the traditional tree-climbing and water-walking, which focused more on full-body coordination.

So, he lazily offered a reminder: "If you want to train your chakra control, you could try tree-climbing. You adhere your chakra to the soles of your feet and walk up; you have to pay attention to maintaining your body's balance while doing so."

"Climbing trees during class? You really are something, Shikaku." Genichi, of course, had long known the purpose of tree climbing and water walking.

"Heh, so you do know it's class time? The three of you, get out and stand by the door!" A sudden roar erupted in the classroom.

Unknown to them, Sarutobi-sensei had silently appeared behind Genichi and the others from the podium without them noticing; one could only say he was worthy of being a Special Jonin.

Sarutobi Kimura had been watching them for a long time, but based on his philosophy of fostering harmonious teacher-student relations on the first day of school, he had endured and endured, until finally, he could endure no more. Never mind not listening to the lecture and spinning pens, they actually dared to chat as if no one else was around.

"Sigh." I already warned you all; life isn't easy, Mikoto sighed.