Two Years

Winter passed and spring came. In the blink of an eye, two years had gone by, and the time had reached Konoha Year 32.

At the Ninja Academy, the students' curriculum was mainly divided into two categories: Practical Combat Class and Theory Class.

Practical Combat Class included Ninja Tool Mastery, practice of the Three Basic Ninjutsu Techniques, and Taijutsu training.

Theory Class included Shinobi World Geography, Shinobi World History, Basic Toxicology, Basic Sealing Jutsu, Basic Ninjutsu Analysis, and so on.

A group of children under twelve were at exactly the age where they loved to move around. Most children who wanted to become ninja were naturally interested in Practical Combat Class, which could clearly improve their strength, and had no interest in Theory Class, which sounded almost like listening to a book from heaven.

On top of that, the minimum requirement for graduating from the Ninja Academy was only to successfully master the Three Basic Ninjutsu Techniques, which led to most of the students at the academy being seriously lopsided in their studies.

Favoring practical combat while neglecting theory was an extremely normal phenomenon at the Ninja Academy.

That was only natural. In Kirito's view, excluding Shinobi World Geography and Shinobi World History, the rest of the Theory Class subjects were not friendly at all to most civilian students who had no foundation whatsoever.

For example, Basic Toxicology contained a large number of terms. If students wanted to learn how to make some basic poisons and antidotes through books, they first had to understand those terms. Otherwise, the production would fail. And quite a few of those terms were things even the teachers in class did not understand, let alone making the students understand them.

And the instructors would not explain them over and over again in class. How much the students could understand depended entirely on their memory and the effort they put in privately.

As for Basic Sealing Jutsu, that went without saying. Placing these two things in front of Ninja Academy students was practically no different from making them learn high school mathematics right from the start. Only true geniuses could keep up with the teacher's lecture speed.

As for this, the teachers at the academy did not feel that anything was wrong, because from the very beginning, they had never placed much hope in the academy's students when it came to Theory Class.

They knew better than anyone how difficult the Theory Class textbooks were.

These things were simply not meant for children of this age group to study. The reason these subjects had been added at all was entirely to let the students gain a rough understanding of poisons, sealing jutsu, and various release techniques, so they would not encounter them in the future and be completely clueless, unable to bring back useful intelligence.

Of course, if a genius could be unexpectedly discovered through this, that would be even better.

At the Ninja Academy, in the Basic Toxicology classroom, the already eight-year-old Kirito was listening with great interest as a teacher with a pineapple hairstyle talked about a method for making a healing pill that was not in the textbook, and he carefully took notes.

As for Chizuru and Nawaki on his left and right, neither of them were by his side anymore.

Because the two of them were not interested in this class, they had tacitly chosen to skip class and go outdoors to practice ninjutsu.

There were quite a few people who thought the same as Chizuru and Nawaki.

As a result, in the classroom where fifty people should have been attending class together, only about half were present at this moment, and most of them had no intention of listening. They were either spacing out or sleeping.

The teacher turned a blind eye to this. As long as no one caused trouble in his class, he let them do as they pleased, then did his best to pass on the knowledge he had mastered with the greatest possible enthusiasm to the students who chose to listen seriously.

As long as one listened attentively in class, time always felt like it passed quickly.

Just as Kirito was listening intently, the bell for the end of class rang. The teacher decisively stopped the lecture and announced that class was over.

The students in the class immediately ran out of the classroom in high spirits, going outside to play.

Kirito, while the teacher had not yet left, quickly came to his side, then placed a small medicine bottle in front of him. Looking at him with expectant eyes, he said, "Teacher Shikaku, this is a Hemostasis Pill I made yesterday. Can you help me see how good its quality is?"

Shikaku Nara, the father of Nara Suzaku, the cousin-uncle of Nara Shikaku, a Konoha Chunin, and currently the teacher in charge of Basic Toxicology at the Ninja Academy, was a Medical Ninja proficient in pharmacology and medicine-making.

"A Hemostasis Pill? You really made one, kid?"

Hearing this, Shikaku Nara said in surprise. Then he took the medicine bottle, poured out a small pill, and carefully observed it.

A Hemostasis Pill, as the name suggested, was a pill that could quickly stop a wound from bleeding, and it also had a certain function of accelerating blood production.

This kind of pill was not in Basic Toxicology.

The reason Kirito knew how to make it was entirely the result of Shikaku Nara giving him private tutoring.

Over the past two years, he had displayed outstanding learning ability in Theory Class and very smoothly become one of the top students in the class, winning the favor of the teachers.

And in his previous life, he had been a medical student, so he was very interested in Medical Ninjutsu. After learning that Shikaku Nara was a Medical Ninja, he decisively used the excuse of asking about knowledge from the books to often pester him, and he frequently brought small gifts to his door to seek instruction.

Back and forth like this, he successfully became familiar with Shikaku Nara.

Although he still had not been able to smoothly learn Medical Ninjutsu from him so far, he had unexpectedly learned a great deal of knowledge in pharmacology and medicine-making. Combined with the medical knowledge he studied on his own, his level of medicine had been steadily improving.

Judging by the color and smell, Shikaku Nara thought the Hemostasis Pill Kirito had made was quite good. But the efficacy of a pill could not be judged by appearances alone. He took out a small knife, scraped a bit of powder from the pill, then put it into his mouth and tasted it carefully.

"Though I can't call it excellent, it passes."

Shikaku Nara quickly made his judgment and gave Kirito an approving smile.

"Really, Teacher Shikaku?"

After receiving his teacher's approval, Kirito immediately beamed with joy.

"Mm-hm. But you have to keep working hard. Don't get complacent."

Shikaku Nara nodded and said.

"Yes, Teacher Shikaku. I'll definitely continue improving my pharmacology knowledge and medicine-making skills."

Kirito immediately answered seriously.

That was the truth. Pharmacology knowledge and medicine-making skills were truly very useful. For example, when it came to making money, they could absolutely play a major role.

Now was wartime, and the importance of medicine went without saying.

Because of the restaurant opened by Yakushi Nonō, the Orphanage's current financial situation was still all right. But if it wanted to continue supporting the training of several ninja, or even more in the future, that amount of money was far from enough.

Moreover, Kirito also wanted to conduct scientific research, mastering core technology like Orochimaru and then accelerating the growth rate of his own strength.

And to accomplish all of this, money was absolutely indispensable.

"Kirito, do you have any interest in joining the Medical Unit to study?"

Seeing this, Shikaku Nara thought for a moment, then asked.

How could he not know that Kirito wanted to learn Medical Ninjutsu from him?

But considering that Kirito was now Mito-sama's disciple, was currently learning Sealing Jutsu under her and had already shown impressive talent, and had even taken a post in the Sealing Unit, he had held back from teaching Kirito Medical Ninjutsu.

After all, a person's energy was limited.

It was just that the talent for being a Medical Ninja that Kirito had just displayed was far too tempting.

How old was Kirito? Yet he could already independently make Hemostasis Pills, a C-rank difficulty preparation. As long as he continued to be nurtured, he would definitely become an important pillar of the Medical Unit in the future.

A Medical Ninja's abilities were not reflected only in Medical Ninjutsu, but also in the production and development of medicines—and those two areas were extremely important as well.

A Medical Ninja's Chakra was limited, so their healing capacity was naturally limited too.

But as long as there were enough medicinal ingredients, medicine could be mass-produced. Used together with Medical Ninjutsu, it could heal far more people.

Also, the Chakra control Kirito had once shown him was outstanding. He had healed an injured fish with ease. Mastering an advanced Medical Ninjutsu like the Mystical Palm Technique would be no problem for him at all. He could absolutely become an excellent Medical Ninja—perhaps he might even become a powerful Medical Ninja like Lady Tsunade.

Right now, Konoha's Medical Unit was sorely lacking talented juniors like Kirito.