Obito's expression froze.
Several classmates nearby immediately pricked up their ears. Kurenai Yuhi watched him with a smile, while Rin Nohara looked as though she was waiting for his answer.
Obito opened his mouth, wanting to deny it.
But looking at Fang Xu's face, he simply couldn't get the words out.
Fang Xu really was handsome. Even he found that hard to deny.
In the end, Obito could only turn his face away and snort.
"You're just... just a tiny bit more handsome than an ordinary person."
Fang Xu said, "A tiny bit?"
Obito gritted his teeth. "Fine, you're pretty handsome! Happy now?"
Kurenai Yuhi and Rin Nohara laughed again.
Obito hurriedly added, "But! What good are looks? Strength is what matters for a ninja! I'm going to be Hokage someday. I definitely won't lose to you!"
Fang Xu nodded. "Yeah, good luck, future Hokage."
Hearing that title immediately perked Obito up again. "Of course! Just you wait. Sooner or later, I, Obito Uchiha, will make everyone acknowledge me!"
Not far away, Kakashi watched the whole exchange.
Resting his chin on one hand, he rolled his exposed eye upward.
Childish. So childish.
Getting jealous over girls and arguing forever about who's more handsome was a complete waste of time. The shinobi world had never been a place where looks mattered.
Strength was what mattered.
No matter how good-looking your face was, an incoming kunai wouldn't swerve around it. When ninjutsu came crashing down, it wouldn't explode any less just because you were handsome.
Kakashi looked down at the short sword on his desk, then touched the black mask on his face.
Still, there was a reason he always wore a mask.
After all, his good looks were too dangerous.
If he didn't seal this face away, the girls in class would probably be even more troublesome.
Kakashi sighed very solemnly to himself. Women would only slow down my sword draw.
Not everyone understood the trouble of being pestered by girls because of your looks.
As soon as the class bell rang, the noise in the classroom immediately died down.
Obito Uchiha wanted to argue with Fang Xu a little more, but one look from Rin Nohara made him shut his mouth at once.
"Hmph. We'll settle this next time."
Despite his defiant words, Obito obediently returned to his seat.
Before long, he buried his head in his arms and went straight to sleep on his desk.
Fang Xu was a little speechless.
This guy had just been shouting about becoming Hokage, yet the moment the class bell rang, he'd run out of power before his youth could even start burning.
But he paid Obito no more attention.
Fang Xu took his textbook out of his schoolbag and opened it to the basic theory they would cover that day. The body's original owner had studied this material before.
Throwing angles for ninja tools, the basics of chakra control, precautions for the Three Body Technique, and discipline requirements when carrying out missions.
These things were neither particularly difficult nor particularly easy. A true genius could memorize them after a single reading.
For an ordinary student like the original owner, much of the material had to be memorized over and over, and even then, he might not be able to put it to good use.
But things were different now.
Fang Xu looked down at the textbook, his mind instantly focusing.
The first line, the second, the third.
Once the words entered his field of vision, they didn't pile up in scattered fragments in his mind as they had before. Instead, they quickly formed a clear structure.
What was important, what was supplementary, and what could be applied to his own training-the answers came naturally, almost without conscious thought.
He turned a page and tapped his fingers lightly against the desk twice.
I've memorized it.
An idea struck Fang Xu, and he closed the textbook again.
The contents of that page were actually imprinted on his mind, even the positions of the paragraphs perfectly clear.
He could even follow the material further and draw deductions.
For example, the textbook explained that the key to throwing ninja tools was coordinating force from the shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
Previously, the original owner could only memorize phrases like "stay steady" and "control the angle."
But now, Fang Xu immediately realized that applying Lightning Activation to his arm to briefly improve his muscles' responsiveness would increase both the speed of his shuriken throws and his ability to adjust them.
As another example, the section on chakra control only discussed the importance of keeping chakra stable.
Yet Fang Xu could connect it to his failures while practicing Lightning Release: Lightning Ball the night before.
The lightning release chakra was too rushed, gathering too quickly and lacking stability.
If he reduced the output first, then used mental strength to refine his control, the success rate should improve further.
This wasn't simply an improvement in memory. His comprehension had grown stronger too.
Fang Xu remained calm on the surface, but inwardly, he was already struggling to contain his excitement.
After the two souls merged and my mental strength doubled, the changes were even greater than I imagined.
My learning speed, memorization speed, and comprehension speed have all improved.
That's incredibly important for a ninja.
Ninjas didn't compete solely on chakra reserves. Intelligence, hand seals, tactics, chakra control, physical coordination-they had to learn all of it.
If his learning ability really had undergone a qualitative change, then his future training in ninjutsu and taijutsu, and even his research into combining the Rumble-Rumble Fruit with chakra, would be far more efficient than before.
This was an advantage that could truly snowball over the long term.
Fang Xu opened his textbook again and continued reading.
The teacher lectured at the front while he read at his seat.
It wasn't that he wasn't listening. Rather, before the teacher was even halfway through an explanation, he had already finished the next few pages and jotted down his own understanding in his notebook.
Sitting beside him, Kurenai Yuhi initially only gave him a casual glance.
Soon, she noticed something unusual. Fang Xu was far too quiet today.
It wasn't the absentminded quiet of before. He really was studying seriously.
His eyes stayed on his textbook and notes, and the pen in his hand hardly stopped moving.
When the teacher reached an important point, he looked up and listened. When the teacher skipped something, he lowered his head and added to his notes.
Occasionally, he frowned, but not because he didn't understand. It looked more as though he was comparing the textbook's contents with his own training experience.
The longer Kurenai Yuhi watched, the more surprised she became.
Before yesterday, Fang Xu couldn't have been called lazy, but he had definitely never shown this kind of focus.
In the past, he had mostly followed along with the lessons. His grades weren't bad, but they weren't outstanding either.
Today, however, he seemed like a different person.
Kurenai Yuhi couldn't help asking quietly, "Are you really planning to study seriously today?"
Fang Xu didn't even look up. "Not just today. From now on."
Kurenai Yuhi froze for a moment.
He had said it lightly, but it didn't sound like a joke.
Watching the lines of notes Fang Xu wrote, she suddenly felt a little pressure.
Fang Xu had already begun to change. If he really could keep this up, his strength would definitely improve quickly.
She couldn't fall behind either.
"Then I'll have to see how long you can keep it up," Kurenai Yuhi said softly.
Fang Xu smiled. "You can take your time watching."
Kurenai Yuhi stopped disturbing him and lowered her head to read her own textbook.
She had never been lazy herself, but the change in Fang Xu today was so obvious that it gave her an extra drive.
If Fang Xu was moving forward, she had to keep up. At the very least, she couldn't let him leave her too far behind.
The day's lessons soon passed.
Obito slept, woke up, and fell asleep again. In between, the teacher called on him to answer a question. He hemmed and hawed for ages, and only barely muddled through after Rin Nohara quietly prompted him.