Silent Hunt, Abyss of the Mind

"Big brother, that Hidden Sand woman just now..." After sitting down, Sasuke lowered his voice. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan slowly spun in his eye sockets as he instinctively analyzed her. "Her presence was powerful, and her chakra reserves were nothing to scoff at. She's a formidable opponent."

"A formidable opponent?"

Naruto leaned back in his chair, adjusting into a comfortable position. The corner of his mouth curved into an almost imperceptible smile. "She's just a cat that meows a little louder than the others."

Sasuke's mouth twitched faintly, and he wisely shut up.

He knew that by his big brother's standards, a so-called "formidable opponent" might only mean someone worth taking slightly seriously.

Just then, a man with a face full of scars and a bandana wrapped around his head walked in with over a dozen stern-faced Chūnin.

Ibiki Morino, captain of the Hidden Leaf Interrogation Force and chief examiner for this written test.

The moment that face, practically screaming "keep away," appeared at the podium, the temperature in the entire classroom seemed to drop several degrees.

"Welcome to the first stage of the Chunin Exams, you pieces of trash."

Ibiki spoke in a voice like sandpaper grinding together. The rules were brief and brutal. "First, the test is worth ten points. You start with ten, and every wrong answer costs one point. Second, this is a team exam. If one person gets zero, the entire team is eliminated. Third, every act we deem cheating will cost you two points. Get caught five times, and you can get the hell out!"

The moment he finished speaking, an uproar broke out across the room.

"These rules are way too insane!"

Sakura's face turned pale in an instant, and her hands twisted together uneasily.

Watching the panicked rookies below, Ibiki revealed a cruel smile. "Oh, and one more thing. We've already planted our people among you as 'answer keys.' The true nature of this exam is to test how skillfully you can steal intelligence right under our noses!"

At his command, the test papers were handed out.

Sakura took one look at the questions, and beads of cold sweat immediately formed on her forehead.

"Reverse decoding of the 'Class IV Periodic Skip Cipher' in cryptography..."

"Calculate the fifty-meter precision trajectory correction for a shuriken in headwind conditions based on a parabolic decay model..."

This... this wasn't something genin could possibly solve!

She instinctively looked toward Sasuke and found that he had already activated his Sharingan. His scarlet eyes turned calmly as he tracked the subtle movements of other examinees, trying to copy their answers.

Then she looked at Naruto... and Sakura nearly stopped breathing.

He had not even picked up a pen.

He simply leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, his expression serene, as if the noise around him had nothing to do with him.

What the hell are you doing?!

This is the Chunin Exams!

No matter how strong you are, you'll be eliminated if you hand in a blank paper!

Sakura screamed anxiously in her heart.

Naruto was not asleep, of course.

He was just a little bored.

"Using pens and paper to transmit information? How primitively adorable..." His consciousness sank into the sea of his mind.

Ever since mastering the Great Evolution Divine Soul Art, he had never used it in such a complicated environment.

This secret technique was not a crude form of mind-reading. It was closer to a kind of Mental Tuning.

It could not directly read deep memories or future plans, but like an invisible net, it could capture the surface thoughts that every target within range was currently "broadcasting."

Using it consumed a considerable amount of mental energy, and overusing it would leave him mentally exhausted.

It might be difficult to use against ordinary ninjas, but against these Chūnin serving as "answer keys"... to make cheating possible, they had to repeatedly simulate the problem-solving process in their minds.

To Naruto, that was like a series of bright signal towers in the night.

Bzzzz—!

A pure mental ripple, invisible and intangible, beyond the scope of chakra perception, silently spread out from Naruto. In an instant, it wove an invisible net across the entire classroom.

Every person's heartbeat, breathing, even the tense tremors of their muscles, appeared in perfect detail within his "net."

He easily filtered out the chaotic noise filled with What do I do?, This is so hard, and I'm dead, precisely tuning in to several unusually calm signals.

The answer to question one is C. The key is that variable X is a distraction. Those brats definitely won't figure it out.

The trajectory calculation for question four... Good thing I memorized the formula beforehand, or I'd be stumped too.

Oh? That red-haired Hidden Sand kid made a third eye out of sand to peek at the answers. Clever technique, but still far too primitive.

Naruto's mental power moved like the most skilled thief, effortlessly passing through one "signal tower" after another and downloading every correct answer into his mind without missing a single word.

The entire process took only a dozen seconds.

"Done."

Naruto slowly opened his deep eyes. A nearly imperceptible trace of fatigue flashed through them before he picked up his pen.

The examinees around him were still scratching their heads, cold sweat pouring down their faces.

At the front, Kiba Inuzuka was secretly lifting his sleeve to let Akamaru peek at the answers. In the shadows on the ceiling, Shino Aburame's Kikaichū had already silently formed a surveillance network.

And Naruto...

No frantic scribbling rang out in the examination room. Instead, an even more unsettling silence descended.

Everyone saw that the blond boy's wrist was as steady as a rock. The tip of his pen glided across the paper like flowing clouds and running water, without the slightest pause or thought.

He was not answering questions. It was more like he was putting on a performance no one could understand, elegant and cold.

Less than a minute passed.

Click.

Naruto gently set his pen down on the desk. The sound was quiet, yet it rang clearly through the deathly silent room.

Then, beneath everyone's astonished gazes, he swung his feet onto the desk with a bang, folded his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes again. His breathing was steady, as though he had merely completed some trivial task and was taking a short rest.

The entire examination room fell silent.

Every examinee, including the disguised Chūnin, froze and stared blankly at this boy whose demeanor was utterly unlike everyone else's.

Had he given up?

No, he had clearly finished writing!

But... how could he possibly have finished that fast?!

"Hey! You blond kid!"

Chief examiner Ibiki Morino's face was dark enough to drip water.

He strode toward Naruto step by step. His towering figure cast a heavy shadow as the interrogations captain unleashed his chilling pressure in full. "Are you mocking this exam?"

Naruto did not even lift his eyelids. In a slightly weary voice, he replied, "I finished. Am I not allowed to rest? So many rules."

"Finished?"

Ibiki laughed in fury. "Kid, this isn't some game at the Ninja Academy!"

He snatched up Naruto's paper, intending to tear it apart in public as a warning to the others.

But when his eyes landed on the page, the vicious grin on his face instantly froze.

Question one, correct.

Question two, correct.

Question nine, correct!

Every question had been answered!

The answers were as neat as if they had been printed, without a single correction. Flawless!

How... how was this possible?!

Ibiki's breath caught sharply.

He instinctively looked at Naruto, only to find him resting with his eyes closed, as if all of this were only natural.

No peeking, no suspicious movements, not even the slightest ripple of chakra!

Ibiki's proud powers of observation completely failed at that moment!

He could not see through this boy at all!

The blond boy was like a bottomless fog. No—he was an abyss!

A terrifying abyss that could make one's soul plunge into darkness with a single glance!

This was no genin at all!

This was a monster wearing human skin!

Ibiki swallowed with difficulty, forcibly suppressing the turbulent shock in his heart as he tried to keep his voice from trembling.

He slowly straightened up, took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of his lungs to the entire room:

"Alright, you pieces of trash! The written test is over! Now, I'll announce the tenth question!"