24-Character Mantra

The Heroic Spirit Card's enhancement effect fluctuated within a certain range, specifically influenced by Shiro's actions. The closer Shiro's way of doing things was to that Heroic Spirit's, the stronger the card's enhancement became. Simply put, his actions needed to earn the Heroic Spirit's approval—the greater the approval, the stronger the effect.

However, this enhancement did not affect the power of Shiro's Reinforcement Magecraft or Projection Magecraft. It only affected how quickly he practiced those two forms of Magecraft. And if his compatibility with the Heroic Spirit was truly poor, he could simply ignore it. The enhancement had a baseline value anyway; it was just less effective.

Fortunately, Shiro's compatibility with Shirou Emiya was fairly good. It was just that Shiro could not, like Shirou Emiya, devote his entire life to saving others and stopping wars! Even after dying, Shirou had continued striving as a Counter Guardian.

Shiro was just an ordinary person and did not possess such lofty convictions. Fortunately, Shirou Emiya's beliefs were mainstream values in the country from Shiro's previous life. As a fine young man raised beneath the red flag, he had always kept the teachings of the 24-Character Mantra in mind, so his training speed was decent.

As a result, Shiro was now close to grasping the projection of Noble Phantasms. He was merely limited by his Chakra and could not yet project one, but it would not be long before he could put it to use. Over the past few days, Shiro had clearly felt his Chakra reserves increasing. He believed that, after a little more time, he would barely have enough Chakra.

Facts proved that when someone focused wholeheartedly on something, time passed especially quickly. Shiro felt as though he had only trained for a short while when night fell.

However, Duy and his son showed no signs of stopping, as though they did not feel hungry at all. Unfortunately, Shiro did not have their willpower to forget meals for the sake of training. If it were reading novels or playing games, Shiro could absolutely crush the two of them! Sadly, Jiraiya had not yet begun publishing his novels, or there would have been something to read.

Yes, I meant The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja. Don't get any strange ideas.

So Shiro could only painfully interrupt their training. Yes, painfully—because every time he interrupted them, the expressions that flashed across their faces often made Shiro feel as if he had done something terribly wrong to them.

"Has time really passed that quickly? Very well, Guy! Let us burn our youth to welcome dinner's arrival! Let us frog-jump our way to the restaurant!"

"Yes!"

"..."

Though this was not their first time doing this, Shiro still could not get used to it.

But wasn't that what friends were? Tolerating each other's flaws. Perhaps when Shiro had first approached them, he had done so with ulterior motives, but after two years of knowing them, he had become genuine friends with them.

"Shiro, what are you standing there for? Let us burn our youth together!" Duy, who had already gone ahead, saw Shiro stop and turned back to shout at him.

Hearing that, Shiro drew back his wandering thoughts, smiled slightly, and followed after them.

"Coming."

How could anyone be in Konoha without eating ramen? Unfortunately, Ichiraku Ramen had not opened yet. Otherwise, he really would have liked to see what the legendary Otsutsuki Ichiraku looked like.

Of course, it was not as though Konoha had no other delicious food. The main problem was that they had no money.

Shiro and Duy were only genin, and mission payments were not high to begin with. After deducting training expenses, there was barely anything left.

Though Duy and Guy mainly trained in taijutsu, their expenses were not small either, especially Guy's. He was still young and in the middle of growing, while his training volume was enormous. Without sufficient nutrition, Guy would have long since trained himself into ruin.

It could be said that Guy's future achievements came from his talent and hard work, but more importantly, Duy had laid a solid foundation for him. Sometimes, to keep Guy from suffering more injuries, Duy would rather reduce his own share than let Guy go without better care.

However, things had improved a little after they got to know Shiro. After all, Shiro's training expenses were not particularly high, and he could still have some left over. They were still just as poor, but at least they were no longer so strapped for training resources.

So they could still only eat ramen. And Shiro could not bring himself to ask his parents for money. His mental age was already in his twenties, and he had his own income. How could he possibly bring himself to ask them for money again?

"By the way, Uncle Duy, Guy should be going to the Ninja Academy next year, right?"

"Mm. Guy will be four next year, so he can go already. I just don't know whether he can pass the assessment. Sigh..." At that, Duy sighed. Although Guy had great taijutsu talent, his talent for ninjutsu and genjutsu was not even average—worse than Shiro's.

"Don't worry. Guy works so hard, he'll definitely pass, right, Guy?"

"Mm! I will definitely do it!"

Besides, if things really did not work out, they could ask Kushina to pull some strings. Too much time had passed, so Shiro's memory was a little fuzzy. He seemed to recall that, in order to let Guy enroll, Duy had knelt before the Third Hokage or someone else. Since Shiro had mostly skipped through Naruto, he only vaguely remembered something like that. As for whether Duy had actually knelt or not, he could not remember. (Mainly because I couldn't find it.)

But Shiro did not care whether Duy had knelt in the original story or not. Guy's strength was enough anyway, so pulling strings was fine. And even if Duy truly had knelt, the Third Hokage would not have agreed to let Guy enroll if Guy lacked sufficient talent.

Shiro did not think a genin's dignity held much value to the Third Hokage. Of course, special genin like Naruto and Sasuke were exceptions. Put nicely, allowing someone without talent to enroll would be irresponsible toward them. After all, being a ninja was an extremely dangerous profession; allowing someone without talent to enroll was no different from sending them to their death.

Put bluntly, it would be a waste of resources. Training ninjas consumed a great deal, and without sufficient financial means, it could not be sustained.

Therefore, Shiro believed that the Third Hokage agreeing to let Guy enroll in the original story was more because Guy had his own shining qualities. Thus, Shiro did not mind helping Guy out.

"Then, Guy! You need to work even harder! Let us burn our youth for the sake of enrollment! First, fast-walk around the village ten times!"

"Yes!"

"Hey, you just finished eating! Are you serious? Can't you rest for a while?"

"Shiro! Youth does not permit even a moment's rest! Guy! Let us go!"

"Yes, Father!"

"..."

Shiro was a little afraid now. He was considering whether he should stay away from the father and son for a while, because Shiro had horrifyingly realized that when Duy invited him just now, he had actually felt the slightest urge to join!

Just imagining himself wearing a Green Spandex Suit with a bowl-cut hairstyle made Shiro feel as though he had lost all interest in life.

Shiro shuddered, then immediately ran home. He decided to project some indescribable things to gain some indescribable experience and soothe his mind.

The next morning, Shiro got up early and headed to the training ground. This time, however, he was not looking for Duy and his son, but participating in Yamada Team's training. Although they had graduated for a year, they had not actually had much time to train. Thus, their current mission frequency was low, with more time being devoted to training.

However, because some of the village's ninjas were heading to the front lines these past few days, Yamada had to see off his friends. Therefore, everyone arranged their own training schedules for these two days.

Though they said they were training together, in reality they each practiced separately. Shiro's progress and training direction differed from Seiyu's and Chosuke's. Their usual group training was more about understanding their teammates better and building coordination. After all, they were still a team for the time being.

Even though they all knew that Shiro would leave the team soon, they were still teammates for now and still needed to complete missions together. Therefore, they still had to pay attention to this kind of training.

"Yo, Shiro. You're here. Do you need to get ready?"

"No need. I got ready on the way here."

What Shiro and Yamada had been referring to was their long-standing tradition: combat training. The three of them would join forces against their captain, Yamada, just like the future Team 7. When Shiro's group graduated and was assigned to a team, they had also undergone a battle, though it had not been a bell-grabbing exercise—it had been a genuine test of their strength.

Thus, this became a tradition for their team. Every so often, they would spar to improve their coordination and gain more practical combat experience. At the same time, Shiro and the others wanted to wash away the humiliation of having once been instantly defeated!

"Come on, Sensei! We're ready!" x3

Finally caught up...