Five Days Later, the Chūnin Exams Begin

"Lord Hokage, this is what we should be doing."

The three spoke in unison, without any unnecessary pleasantries. Every voice carried a complete acceptance of their duties.

The Third Hokage nodded.

He picked up a document from the desk and went over the specific arrangements and precautions for the Chūnin Exams with the three of them from beginning to end. They discussed everything from the examination procedures and emergency plans to the coded signals between testing sites, as well as how to handle potential provocations from shinobi of other villages and sudden diplomatic disputes.

Once the discussion ended, the three gave slight bows once more before leaving the Hokage's office one after another.

The footsteps in the corridor gradually faded away, and the office returned to its quietness, filled only with the scent of smoke and old wooden furniture.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat alone for a while, then habitually glanced once more at Naruto's peaceful sleeping face in the crystal ball.

Then he reached out and picked up the scroll that ANBU had delivered earlier.

But his hand paused over the scroll's wax seal. He did not open it, because another document lay spread open at the corner of the desk, and the few lines written on it drew his thoughts toward something more deserving of his attention.

This was part of the contact records between Sunagakure and Otogakure over the past few months. One piece of intelligence in particular concerned him.

The Fourth Kazekage seemed to be making contact with someone, whether intentionally or not.

When Hiruzen Sarutobi saw that name, the hand holding his pipe paused slightly.

Outside the window, the sky was high and the clouds were pale.

The Chūnin Exams were a selection process, but also a game of power. And the undercurrents of this year's game seemed fiercer than in any previous year.

Hiruzen Sarutobi set down the intelligence report, picked up his pipe again and lit it, sinking into thought amid the rising smoke.

Inside the waterfall cave, Naruto had no idea that the meeting in the Hokage's office regarding the Chūnin Exams proctors had ended.

He only knew that it was about time to head back.

His mind locked onto the Flying Raijin Kunai in his apartment.

Whoosh!

The next second, Naruto appeared in the bathroom of his apartment.

The Shadow Clone Technique sensed his return and sleepily walked into the bathroom.

After switching places, Naruto returned the kunai hidden in the bathroom to his ninja tool pouch and lay down on the bed.

The moment his head touched the pillow, he fell asleep.

Over the following days, Naruto went about the village normally during the day, occasionally chatting with Uncle Ichiraku about new ramen offerings.

At night, he used Flying Raijin to go to the waterfall cave and train alongside forty shadow clones.

For an ordinary shinobi, five days might not even be enough to become proficient at drawing the Flying Raijin formula.

But Naruto had forty shadow clones studying it at the same time. It was equivalent to one person spending a full two hundred days tackling the same technique.

The intensive training of forty people made the memory integration before sleep feel like a flood of information every day. After five days, Naruto had finally conquered all the most critical breakthroughs.

First was Flying Raijin Second Stage's consecutive teleportation. He could now switch coordinates multiple times in midair and alter his attack direction.

This improvement was crucial.

If Flying Raijin's first stage gave him a teleportation tool, then Flying Raijin Second Stage gave him the fundamentals for dynamic spatial combat.

With only his taijutsu speed combined with Flying Raijin, even without Golden Body Mode, he could create devastating positional chaos for an opponent in a direct confrontation.

As for formula-inscription speed, after five days of tens of thousands of high-speed touch-and-mark drills every day, Naruto could now inscribe a complete five-pointed-star mark onto an opponent's body in the instant they clashed in taijutsu.

Its precision and concealment still had not reached the level of his father, Minato Namikaze—where an inscription was permanent once placed and impossible to detect unless activated.

But his marking speed had already improved dramatically. He was moving in the right direction now; all that remained was patient repetition. Sooner or later, he would catch up.

As for Golden Body Mode, over those five days, he had raised the coordination and stability of his speed, strength, perception, and chakra arms by a major level.

The chakra arms had shown the most obvious progress. He could now summon arms from eight to ten different directions at once for coordinated attacks.

During that time, the Nine-Tails woke up twice. Once, it complained that the pose Naruto struck when summoning chakra arms was not imposing enough. The other time, it yawned and said, "Hmph, you're using Golden Body Mode passably enough. At least you haven't disgraced my chakra!"

On the final night, Naruto did not continue training.

He stood in the cave for a moment, looking around at the small pile of practice kunai at his feet and the Flying Raijin marks fixed onto the rock walls. Then his hand brushed over the sixteen kunai engraved with five-pointed-star marks inside his ninja tool pouch before he withdrew his gaze.

As he left the waterfall area, he looked up at the gray-white light of dawn spreading across the horizon and let out a soft breath.

Since arriving in this world, he had finally transformed himself from a transmigrator who survived by relying on the plot and instinct into someone who truly held a few trump cards in Konoha.

Morning

Naruto stood in his spotlessly cleaned apartment bathroom, studying his new appearance in the mirror.

His hair was a little longer than before. It was no longer cut into that close-cropped style, but had grown just long enough for a few strands to fall naturally along the sides of his face.

He swept the golden strands before his forehead upward, no longer letting them cover it, revealing his full eyebrows and forehead protector.

The dark blue cloth band of his forehead protector was tied neatly, utterly unlike the crooked way he used to wear it.

He had changed his clothes completely as well.

Gone was the orange tracksuit jacket. In its place was a sharp black high-collared bodysuit, tailored close to his body without being restrictive, accentuating the lines of his joints and muscles.

Over it, he wore a short white trench coat, left unbuttoned. Its hem drifted slightly behind him, forming a striking visual contrast with the pure black shirt and pants beneath.

He had also changed into a pair of black ninja shoes. The tread on their soles was more resistant to wear than his old pair, making them suitable for high-speed movement.

Naruto smiled at his reflection.

If not for the three distinctive whisker-like marks on his face, the blond-haired, blue-eyed youth in the mirror, dressed in black and white, was practically a miniature version of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze.

No.

Compared to Minato Namikaze's steady, understated gentleness, Naruto's features and eyes held an additional sharpness and flamboyance unique to youth.

Naruto had not originally intended to stand out so much, but strength gave him confidence.

With the practical teleportation ability of Flying Raijin Second Stage combined with Golden Body Mode, revealing a few changes and letting the outside world speculate would instead make it easier for him to seize the initiative.

Besides, he was going to become Hokage someday. If he kept shrinking back and hiding himself, he would never be able to bear the Hokage's cloak on his shoulders.

True control was never about not being discovered. It was about changing your appearance, standing before everyone, and leaving them no choice but to accept it.

After adjusting his forehead protector, Naruto pushed open his apartment door with unhurried steps.