Shuriken Class

A week later, the Ninja Academy held its first officially graded shuriken course assessment.

It wasn't a decisive major exam, but it was enough to make every student nervous. The reason was simple: the scores would be recorded separately and serve as an important reference for future group training. For children from ninja clans, it was also the first step in proving whether their family's legacy had lost its edge.

The training ground was already lively early in the morning.

Kiba busied himself warming up his wrists, Sasuke quietly checked the positions of the wooden targets, while Ino stood to one side encouraging herself and several other girls. Hinata was more nervous than usual, gripping her kunai pouch tightly.

Ling, on the other hand, showed little emotional fluctuation.

Shuriken and kunai were currently the most suitable mediums for carrying the nascent forms of compression and explosion. Compared to Fire Release techniques that could throw his whole body off balance the moment he cast them, these controllable, brief, precise attacks suited his current stage far better.

Iruka divided today's assessment into two parts.

The first part tested accuracy against stationary targets.

The second involved moving targets and consecutive hits.

"Remember," Iruka said steadily from the edge of the field. "Fast doesn't mean accurate, and accuracy doesn't mean useful in actual combat. The true value of ninja tools lies in whether you can make them strike the right place at the right time."

The children took the field one after another.

Ino's results were unexpectedly good. Though her throws lacked power, her wrists were nimble and her accuracy was high. Hinata was so nervous that one of her throws missed in the first round, but she steadied herself over the next two rounds and ended up with a decent score.

When Kiba stepped up, his style was as direct as ever. His throwing motions were sharp and powerful, and several kunai struck the wooden target hard enough to make it tremble wildly, drawing plenty of cheers.

Sasuke needed no introduction.

He wasted almost no movement. All three rounds against stationary targets struck the bullseye, and he only lost edge points on one moving target. A wave of astonishment immediately rose from the sidelines, and even some upperclassmen couldn't help taking a second look.

When it was Ling's turn, the atmosphere fell subtly quiet again.

During this period, every time he made a move in class, it seemed to raise everyone else's expectations. By now, many no longer questioned whether he was strong. They were guessing just how strong he could become.

Ling walked to the starting line and began with the most ordinary round.

Three kunai flew from his hand, all striking the bullseye. His movements were clean, his rhythm steady, without any exaggerated display. If that was all, he was no more than evenly matched with Sasuke.

"Not bad," Kiba snorted with his arms folded, as though trying to save face.

But once the second part began, the situation changed immediately.

The moving targets crossed along their ropes. They were not especially fast, but they constantly changed direction, making it easy for children their age to lose their rhythm. Many of those before him had missed the moment they got nervous.

Ling stood in place, his eyes narrowing slightly.

The Divine Pattern Eye was not fully activated, only tracing the targets' paths to the slightest degree. At the same time, a thread of compressed chakra flowed through his fingers into the tail end of the kunai.

The first one flew.

Whoosh.

The kunai seemed heavier than usual, yet it was faster, piercing straight through the center of the first moving target.

The second followed close behind. Rather than pursuing the same direction, it cut ahead toward where another target was about to pass. That target seemed to crash into it on its own, struck with perfect precision.

People at the sidelines were already staring in disbelief.

The most crucial was the third.

Ling flicked his wrist lightly, and the kunai shifted slightly in midair. It threaded through the gaps created by the first two from an extremely tricky angle, striking the final wooden target just as it made a high-speed turn and knocking the target face askew.

Three consecutive hits.

And the final kunai clearly carried penetration beyond that of an ordinary throw.

"Why is it so heavy?" Iruka muttered under his breath as he stepped forward to inspect it.

When he pulled out the kunai, he could clearly sense that the chakra lingering in the metal was denser than normal.

It wasn't a greater quantity, but a qualitative change.

This was one of the things Ling had been concealing.

Before the results were announced, Kiba had already walked over, his eyes full of unwillingness. "Did you do something to the kunai again?"

Ling answered calmly, "I just used it better."

Kiba was left grinding his teeth, yet he couldn't find any argument against that.

Ino laughed beside them until her shoulders shook. "You manage to make people mad every time."

Ling ignored her and turned to look at Sasuke in the distance.

Sasuke was looking at him as well.

This time, the other boy's eyes no longer held their initial simple indifference. There was unmistakable pressure in them. Sasuke could see that Ling wasn't merely exceptional in one area; in nearly every basic course, he was catching up at an astonishing speed.

After the assessment ended, Iruka posted the top rankings on the notice board.

Sasuke was first.

Ling was second.

The gap lay only in the finest scoring details.

The gathered crowd immediately erupted. Most had expected Sasuke to lead by an overwhelming margin, but now, this ranking felt more like a declaration.

Uchiha Ling had truly entered the front ranks.

That evening, when Ling returned to the training ground, placing second stirred no emotion in him.

What he cared about had never been the ranking itself, but that fleeting sensation during the process. When the third kunai left his hand, he had clearly felt that the nascent explosive force could gradually merge with its flight trajectory. It was still far from mature, but the direction was completely right.

Ling looked at the shuriken in his palm and slowly infused it with a thread of chakra.

Next, it was time to truly transfer "exploding after impact" onto ninja tools.

If he could achieve that, his long-range killing power would truly take shape for the first time.