This also directly confirmed Naruto's earlier thoughts from another angle.
Among this year's graduates, aside from Naruto and the others, their classmates who were little more than cannon fodder were all assigned Chunin team leaders. Whether they could distinguish themselves in the future would depend on their potential, their perseverance, and their luck. This was a world that valued bloodlines, heritage, and talent, but that didn't mean ordinary people could never make something of themselves. Of course, even ordinary people needed some unique quality, whether it was unusual determination or talent in a particular area. Take Might Guy, for example. Unlike the geniuses who had truly grown strong through bloodlines and inheritance, Might Guy was a hundred percent ordinary. And yet this man, who could be labeled an ordinary Blue Beast of Konoha, had nearly kicked his way into the ending of Naruto. Looking at the entire Naruto World, Might Guy wasn't the only "ordinary person" like that. They weren't common, and they certainly weren't widespread, but there was always a group of "ordinary people" capable of making a comeback.
Today's "cannon fodder" might become an important supporting character in the future.
That possibility—
Naruto wasn't going to deny it.
Speaking in absolutes was itself a kind of "absolute" mistake.
But all that was for the future.
For now,
the only graduates this year who could be considered important were Team 7, Team 8, and Team 10. All three Genin teams had Jonin leaders, a perfectly reasonable ratio. In previous years, only two or three teams from each graduating class had been assigned Jonin leaders. Some years, there might be only one team—or none at all. That was perfectly normal.
Even in Konoha, famed as a cradle of geniuses.
The odds were just a little higher than in other villages.
If geniuses were as common as cabbages sold in bulk,
they wouldn't be geniuses, and their specialness would lose its meaning.
Unfamiliar Chunin continued to file in.
Graduates were led away one after another.
Before long, the classroom had grown quiet and empty.
At last,
the two Jonin who had arrived together—asuma Sarutobi and Kurenai Yuhi—had taken away Team 8 and Team 10, leaving only Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura Haruno in the spacious classroom. Before Hinata left, Naruto had discreetly waved at her. After the girl walked away with a hint of shyness on her face, he closed his eyes and rested in his seat.
We'll probably have to wait another two or three hours, unless something unexpected happens...
Naruto thought to himself.
Who would Team 7's Jonin instructor be?
Was there even any need to ask?
It had to be the famous Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi.
Naruto had been a little worried that the team assignments might deviate from the original story, but after seeing that the teams were unchanged, he could finally relax. Looking at the members of Team 7, was there any Jonin better suited to lead them than Kakashi?
No!
There wasn't.
A former subordinate of the Fourth Hokage who also possessed a Sharingan, Kakashi was the best person in all of Konoha to lead Naruto and Sasuke.
And Naruto knew the habits of this Copy Ninja very well.
Including, but not limited to, his love of reading steamy books and his tendency to show up late for no reason—provided it wasn't anything important.
Today's team assignments
counted as one of those unimportant matters.
So Kakashi's tardiness was a foregone conclusion.
In that case,
instead of waiting around, Naruto might as well get some rest and think about his upcoming training plan.
Sasuke still wore his usual utterly indifferent expression.
Then Sakura suddenly realized
that the atmosphere in the classroom felt strangely cold.
This was nothing like any of the scenarios she had imagined.
Having a crush on someone for the first time was a wonderful thing. And being assigned to the same team as the person she liked was even more exciting.
Their other teammate was also one of the top students in their class, and handsome, too.
It should have been happiness tripled over.
But why?
Why was the air so heavy?
Why wasn't there even the slightest trace of joy?
Had she opened the wrong script?
Sakura nervously glanced at Sasuke, then turned her gaze to Naruto. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but it was as if some force held her back.
It was an incredibly uncomfortable feeling.
Or rather, the stifling atmosphere
was making Sakura's expression grow stiff.
Sasuke was still the same as ever, and Naruto was nothing like his ridiculous self in the original story.
That was why the entire classroom was so quiet.
Of course, Sakura was the only one who felt uncomfortable.
Naruto and Sasuke, on the other hand, were perfectly content with the atmosphere.
After all, neither of them liked noisy places.
Sasuke especially.
Don't expect this aloof young master to make any effort to get close to his teammates.
Naruto was the same.
He'd rather spend whatever time and energy he had on training. Even simply closing his eyes to meditate counted as a way to train his mental strength. After all, for a Ninja, chakra was fundamental. Chakra was made up of two components. The first was the energy extracted from the body's 130 trillion cells; the amount extracted determined the upper limit of one's chakra. The second was mental energy, honed through extensive training.
Unless they encountered some tremendous stroke of luck or an unexpected event, or underwent some kind of operation to alter their body or genes,
a Ninja's natural upper limit of chakra was fixed.
But that didn't mean that a newly minted Ninja already had enough chakra to reach that limit. It only meant they had that potential. They still had to train to reach it.
And mental energy was what determined that.
As mentioned before, chakra = physical energy + mental energy.
The former determined the upper limit of what you could possess.
The latter determined whether you could reach that limit.
To put it more plainly, physical energy was the foundation for forming chakra, while mental energy served as a means of conversion—or, one might say, a medium.
And if you wanted to further refine Senjutsu Chakra, you had to add Natural Energy to those two components!
That was why innate talent was one thing, and hard work was another.
Only by combining the two
could one grow into a true powerhouse.
Meditation couldn't really be called mental training, and it had only a tiny effect on extracting mental energy. Still, it could at least improve one's concentration. Since he had nothing else to do, and he was determined not to waste a single moment,
Naruto naturally made use of every opportunity he could to train.
Naruto and Sasuke were perfectly at ease.
But Sakura was already starting to have trouble bearing it.
At first, Sakura had been eager to edge closer to Sasuke, and even to sit right beside him. But when Sasuke gave her a cold glance, her expression froze, and she didn't dare move at all.
Another hour passed in that almost frozen atmosphere.