Power Reshuffle in Kumogakure

At this point, those who had not chosen to support the Third Raikage were basically deeply bound to the two advisors by shared interests.

The Jonin council easily passed the Third Raikage's proposal to add two advisor positions, then smoothly promoted two of his own trusted subordinates to become advisors.

With that, Kumogakure's upper ranks went from four people to six, while the Third Raikage's side grew from two people to four.

The two sides went from evenly matched to utterly one-sided.

At the Jonin council meeting, Chiba Shun did nothing and said nothing. He merely raised his hand three times.

Once to approve the addition of advisor positions, and twice more to approve the two advisors nominated by the Third Raikage.

Oh, and Chiba Shun had some impression of one of the two new advisors.

It was Dodai, who had gone to Konoha as an envoy in the original story.

The day after the Jonin council meeting, the people in charge of many positions throughout Kumogakure were replaced.

However, from beginning to end, the Third Raikage did not kill anyone, nor did he remove the two advisors who had effectively been sidelined.

To maintain the appearance of peace, the two would announce their retirement a year later.

In truth, whether they announced it or not no longer mattered.

After that Jonin council meeting, they never returned to work at the Cloud Ninja Building.

Their offices remained, but their authority was gone.

Chiba Shun believed that the overwhelming majority of the village's Jonin would no longer treat their words as orders from the upper ranks.

This internal struggle involved no bloodshed and no rebellion, so naturally, no one defected.

Because the two advisors were still alive, the Jonin they had supported had even less reason to defect.

Although they had lost their important posts, these Jonin still chose to swear loyalty to the Third Raikage.

The Third Raikage had minimized the impact of this matter on Kumogakure.

The village's strength had not been damaged, which was a good thing for Kumogakure, already short on manpower.

The Third Raikage's moderate methods also won the approval of all the Jonin.

The major reshuffling among the village's upper ranks had not actually affected Chiba Shun.

Aoki Yuyi and he were both on the Raikage's side, so neither of them had been touched.

Chiba Shun did not inquire about matters in the other departments.

Chiba Shun only felt some regret that he had not personally dragged Advisor Yukio, who was always making things difficult for him, down from his position.

The last time Chiba Shun left Kumogakure, he encountered bounty ninja as soon as he exited the Land of Lightning. He suspected Advisor Yukio and the others had a hand in it.

However, just as Chiba Shun began cultivating the Yin Release Danzo had given him, an order spread throughout Kumogakure.

All ninja and ninja apprentices aged eight and under had to return to the Ninja Academy for retraining.

He even ordered that the children of all ninja clans had to enter the Ninja Academy to study!

The Third Raikage directly abolished the original ninja training system, making the Ninja Academy the village's only institution for training ninja.

It was a rather drastic move, but because it was the Third Raikage's first political order after fully taking control of power, no one opposed it.

At the very least, those who opposed it temporarily swallowed their anger.

This was not the time to clash head-on with the Third Raikage while he was at the height of his power.

They knew the Third Raikage's explosive temper. His use of moderate methods to seize power last time had already surprised everyone.

No one could be sure that the Third Raikage would still be in such a good mood next time.

They could only wait and influence the village's upper ranks in the future, like boiling a frog in warm water.

When Aoki Yuyi received the news, he was finally relieved.

The expansion of the Ninja Academy did not merely mean greater authority and more funding.

It also erased his previous concerns.

No wonder the Third Raikage had kept two Jonin stationed at the Ninja Academy despite the manpower shortage.

Now that the Ninja Academy was expanding, let alone two Jonin, it would not be too many even if two more came.

In fact, the Third Raikage did assign more personnel to the Ninja Academy.

For instance, A entered the Ninja Academy as vice principal.

However, A did not directly participate in the Ninja Academy's affairs. This was merely the Third Raikage's way of conveying his determination to reform to all Kumogakure shinobi.

Chiba Shun had no choice but to postpone his Yin Release training. With so many students entering the Ninja Academy, he was destined to lose his free time.

Especially since these students were different from those previously admitted.

They had ninja foundations. Many had experienced battle, most had completed missions, and some geniuses had even learned jutsu already.

Aoki Yuyi, A, Chiba Shun, and another female Jonin who had newly joined the Ninja Academy, Ichikawa Yuka, gathered to discuss how to arrange these children.

Aoki Yuyi looked toward Chiba Shun. For this sort of matter, they still needed to hear Chiba Shun's thoughts first.

A had no objections either. He also felt that only Chiba Shun's mind could solve this problem.

The last person looked at Aoki Yuyi and A, then wisely chose to remain silent.

Chiba Shun thought for a moment and said, "First, we need to understand these people's circumstances and compare them with our current students."

"The village has lost so many people who were originally carrying out missions. It was already short on manpower, and now it must be even more desperate for people."

"We do not have much time. We must quickly allow a group of children to graduate."

"I propose creating a quantitative standard to score everyone's abilities."

Aoki Yuyi and the other two did not understand. They looked at Chiba Shun and waited for his explanation.

Chiba Shun said, "We will list out all the various attributes of a ninja. For example: hand seals, taijutsu, ninjutsu, Illusion Technique, swordsmanship, concealed weapons, actual combat, chakra control, medical skills, sealing, sensory ability, and intelligence."

Well, the intelligence attribute was the "wise" attribute—the wise from Wise Two.

Speaking of Wise Two, he should be two or three years old now, right? Chiba Shun wondered whether he could help an old lady cross the street.

These were the various attributes Chiba Shun had listed based on some of the original story's settings.

Quickly reining in his wandering thoughts, Chiba Shun continued, "For some outstanding ninja, we also need to note their talent for the various chakra attributes."

"For example, I have an Earth attribute, while Senior Aoki has a Lightning attribute."

"Each category is worth ten points at full marks. Since some children may be geniuses and could have reached a very high level in one category, I think we should use the average Jonin standard as ten points."

Seeing that no one spoke, Chiba Shun continued, "We will conduct standardized examinations and standardized scoring, then rearrange the classes based on their scores and ages."

"Because these people generally have better talent, each age group should have an elite class. It does not matter if the elite classes are not full; they can have fewer students, and the curriculum can be more advanced."

"Also, we need to make use of the Ninja Academy's strengths. The greatest feature of our Ninja Academy is that it is comprehensive. We have talents in every field. With this reform, the Ninja Academy has received the village's full support, so we can recruit more ninja with specialized expertise."

"After the classes are divided, we can provide targeted supplementary training. Especially for the older ones—they will soon become official ninja, so they cannot have any overly obvious weaknesses."

"Furthermore, the village recently acquired many jutsu. In the past, even if we encountered geniuses with attributes other than Lightning, we would have given up on them. But now, we can cultivate them all."

As he spoke, Chiba Shun looked at A.

A understood what Chiba Shun meant. He nodded and said, "I will speak to Lord Raikage about the jutsu."

Because this was a formal setting, he did not say "Father," but "Lord Raikage."

Chiba Shun continued, "The final point is to divide these children into groups. Does the Ninja Academy have an obligation to arrange groups for the children?"

A and Aoki Yuyi exchanged a glance. Then Aoki Yuyi said, "Tell us your thoughts. If they are suitable, I will report them to Lord Raikage."

Chiba Shun nodded. "In the past, our jutsu attributes were too limited, so team compositions were very simple."

"However, now we have some jutsu from all five attributes, as well as Illusion Techniques, so there are many possible combinations."

"I suggest we first divide the students into groups and have the teachers leading the teams confirm them. If they have no objections, we can follow this plan."

"When assigning teams, we can reasonably distribute close-combat ninja and long-range ninja, as well as taijutsu ninja and ninjutsu ninja."

"Additionally, we can specifically form reconnaissance teams, firepower teams, rapid-response teams, and intelligence analysis teams."

"For some genius teams, we can even consider assigning a medical ninja."

"Of course, with so many students, there will definitely be quite a few who are not suited to becoming combat ninja. We can also consider their placement and see whether they can be assigned directly to the village's various logistical departments."

Chiba Shun rambled on about a great many things, leaving Aoki Yuyi and the other two unable to get a word in.

They did not understand how Chiba Shun had so many ideas in his head.

After obtaining a general direction, the four divided their respective tasks and began acting separately.

Chiba Shun's task was simple, yet troublesome.

He had to create an examination paper for every student to assess the scores of their various abilities.

There had to be one for every kind of ability!

Hand seals only needed to be tested for those who knew jutsu. That was simple—have them perform a jutsu once and measure their hand-seal speed.

Taijutsu was simple too. Speed, strength, and combat skill could be scored by arranging for several Chunin to evaluate them.

Ninjutsu was more troublesome. The vast majority of students had never actually tested their own attributes, so Chiba Shun directly ignored them and stipulated that anyone whose chakra quantity had not reached a certain level would automatically receive zero points for ninjutsu talent.

They only needed to test the remaining people whose chakra quantity met the standard.

They needed to classify these people by attribute and give each person a C-rank Jutsu. The rest would depend on their talent.

Chiba Shun estimated that even after receiving jutsu, there would not be many who could truly learn them.

Testing Illusion Techniques was very simple. Find a ninja proficient in Illusion Techniques to cast a group illusion on the students and see who broke through it first.

Swordsmanship, concealed weapons, and actual combat could be tested together with taijutsu.

Chakra control could be tested through tree climbing and water walking, though they would need to establish scoring standards.

For auxiliary skills such as medical skills and sealing, they would prioritize those who were interested and temporarily leave those without interest alone.

They would organize the interested students into elective classes. This area required a great deal of time, and they probably would not see results in the short term. For now, they would first test theoretical knowledge of medical skills and sealing.