Building with Feverish Zeal

Day by day, life rolled steadily onward amid marks on planning charts and dust rising from construction sites.

Konoha's Five-Year Plan was like a wound-up clock, producing a steady, powerful hum as all its gears meshed together.

The new residential district in the South District had already begun to take shape. Neat houses, widened roads, and sensibly planned public spaces made every passerby unable to resist taking a second look, filling their hearts with grounded expectations for the future.

Under Hiruzen Sarutobi's oversight and the Nara Clan Leader's increasingly skillful coordination, the construction crews had long since passed their initial period of chaos.

After the Earth Release ninja efficiently completed the foundational work, a great deal of detailed and ordinary construction work began to require more steady hands.

Thus, a measure with Kumoi's distinctive touch was quietly put into effect: the construction crews opened recruitment to the public, especially to young people who had failed their Ninja Academy graduation assessments or earned only mediocre results.

The requirements were not demanding: good health, the ability to perform basic chakra refinement—one of the Ninja Academy's most elementary courses, which almost everyone passed—a willingness to endure hardship, and obedience to management.

The news caused quite a stir among young people who were lost about their futures.

Become a laborer? For many children who dreamed of becoming ninja, that seemed like quite a step down. But another piece of news soon dispelled their concerns.

After conducting an in-depth survey of the construction sites, Nangō Kumoi combined his rudimentary understanding of how chakra could stimulate the body's potential

with the ideas of gentle energy application that Ray and Gaia had mentioned, and tinkered together an extremely practical small-scale support ninjutsu—the Full Energy Technique, commonly known as the Gumption Technique.

The technique's principle was simple, and its effects were direct:

By using a specific flow of chakra to stimulate several major acupoints and muscle groups, it could significantly relieve fatigue for several hours while slightly improving focus and the rate of physical recovery.

It had almost no side effects, aside from the need to eat and rest normally after it ended.

When the first group of young people joined the construction crews merely to give it a try, and successfully used the technique under the guidance of the foremen—usually Chunin—

then truly felt that they had more "drive" and tired less easily while carrying timber and laying bricks and tiles, their slight sense of disappointment was quickly replaced by the satisfaction of I can do this and This work doesn't seem so bad either.

This technique not only improved construction efficiency; more importantly, it gave these young people who had suffered setbacks on the ninja path a tangible, controllable sense of strength.

Through the labor of building their home, they rediscovered their own value and place.

Meanwhile, at the Ninja Mission Dispatch Center, a new category of long-term missions was posted in a prominent place. Usually rated D-rank or C-rank, their contents were varied:

They ranged from several days of transporting construction materials and patrolling construction-site safety to support surveying that required a certain degree of chakra control, temporary small-scale earthworks, and more.

The rewards might not have matched those of traditional escort or clearing missions, but they were stable, safe, close to home, and the construction crew supervisors submitted completion evaluations directly to the mission center, providing a reliable record of experience.

This became an excellent transitional option for Genin who had just graduated from the Ninja Academy and lacked experience.

By completing these missions, they could earn steady commissions, accumulate mission experience, hone their teamwork, and directly participate in the village's construction, watching with their own eyes as their sweat transformed into the new face of their home.

Quite a few Jonin leading teams were also happy to take such missions as a way for their squads to develop initial coordination and cultivate a sense of responsibility.

Konoha's vitality was thus carefully channeled into every possible corner.

Top talents such as Orochimaru and Tsunade were given focused training within the blueprint for higher education;

The core ninja honed themselves through regular missions and the new command structure;

And young people who had temporarily failed to set foot on the traditional ninja path, along with fresh recruits who needed to gain experience, found their own ways to strive and their own sense of belonging amid the bustling construction sites and the accompanying mission system.

Nangō Kumoi stood atop Hokage Rock, overlooking the ever-expanding village below and the orderly construction sites in the distance.

Cooking smoke curled upward, new houses stood in rows, shouts rang from the training grounds, and work chants echoed across the construction sites.

A nascent prosperity with many layers and great resilience was slowly emerging along the track he had designed.

"Construction is more than bricks and tiles."

He murmured softly, a smile at the corner of his lips. "It is also about letting everyone find a place beneath these green leaves where they can shine and give off warmth."

The Ninja Academy's bell, the mission center's notice board, the work chants from construction sites, and the cooking smoke rising from every household together played a steady, upward-building symphony that belonged to Konoha alone.

And before this increasingly solid prosperity, the distant future and the undercurrents lurking within it seemed to have temporarily retreated a little.

Nangō Kumoi had just sat down in the Hokage Office and had not yet fully turned his attention to the documents before him when familiar footsteps sounded outside the door.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and Nara Shikato entered one after the other. Both wore the relaxed expressions of men who had reached a pause in their work, yet the focus in their eyes as they came to report serious matters remained clear.

"Hokage-sama."

They spoke almost simultaneously, then paused at their shared form of address. Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled and gestured for the Nara Clan Leader to speak first.

Nara Shikato did not refuse. Holding a thin but neatly bound report, he began:

"Hokage-sama, first, I will report on the Bedrock project—the construction crews."

His voice was calm and methodical.

"The first phase of the South District Housing Project has been fully completed, and feedback from residents who moved in has been favorable.

The second-phase expansion, along with some public facilities, training grounds, and small warehouse projects, is now being wrapped up.

At present, the construction crews have achieved complete financial self-sufficiency and are operating at a surplus.

The two official Land of Fire commissions we undertook—repairing the northeastern border outpost network and widening hazardous sections of Highway 13—have both been delivered on schedule, and the final payments have been settled.

After deducting all material costs, labor costs—including ninja bonuses and ordinary workers' wages—and maintenance expenses, the net profit for the previous quarter was this amount."

He named a rather impressive figure, then turned the report to a certain page and pushed it before Kumoi. Clear income and expenditure charts were printed on it.

Hiruzen Sarutobi added from the side, his tone carrying the grounded confidence of a practical man:

"The team is working together more and more smoothly. Those Gumption Techniques have proven extremely useful—the ordinary workers' efficiency and endurance have improved noticeably, and the injury rate has also dropped.

The collaborative model between ninja and civilian craftsmen has basically been established, and morale is high.

The construction crews have made a name for themselves now. Some wealthy merchants and even minor nobles within the Land of Fire have begun making private inquiries, hoping to hire us to repair their residences or estates. Their offers are quite generous."

He paused. "However, we are holding off on private commissions for now. We are prioritizing internal village construction and official contracts."