Kazan

[Heard eggplants have a habit of losing brains, so I'm leaving a layer here too!]

[Brain deposit counter, promise me you'll remember to pick it up after reading!]

Konoha, Ninja Academy.

This was the most important construction project during the tenure of Second Hokage Tobirama Senju, and in just a few short decades, it supplied a massive number of talents for the Konoha Shinobi Village.

Present-day Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, First Pot Kage Shimura Danzō, and the two advisors, along with the Third Hokage's three disciples Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Tsunade, and so on...

These current pillars of Konoha walked out of this very school.

It could be said that the Ninja Academy had already become the most important part of Konoha Shinobi Village.

Right at this moment, inside a classroom at the academy, a chunin teacher stood on the podium holding a clipboard, and the kids whose names were called stepped up one by one to perform their Three Techniques.

"Next, Kazan."

As the teacher finished speaking, a brash kid left his seat and walked up to the podium.

The content of today's test was the Clone Technique, one of the Three Techniques.

Although this was the academy, it generally only taught students a few non-lethal basics like the Three Techniques and chakra extraction methods.

The founding of Konoha was formed by the First combining multiple shinobi clans.

To realize his childhood dream and keep children off the battlefield, Hashirama Senju created the first shinobi village in history.

The current Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi constantly went around saying, "We are all one big family."

Yet when all was said and done, high-end commodities like ninjutsu were the chips various shinobi clans used to secure their livelihoods, and especially certain special secret techniques that would absolute never be passed on to outsiders.

Commoner ninja who wanted to study them had only three methods.

The first and simplest was taking a master.

Like Jiraiya of the Sannin, born a commoner yet he entered the Third Hokage's tutelage, and upon first learning the Summoning Technique, he immediately reverse-summoned himself all the way to Mount Myōboku.

These opportunities forged the now-famous Konoha hero in the shinobi world.

The second was a bit more troublesome: accumulating contributions by completing missions, and then exchanging for them in the village.

The third relied on talent—creating them yourself.

If you possessed the ninjutsu talent of Tobirama Senju or Orochimaru, then all the above problems were no problems at all.

What about Kazan?

Bearing such a badass name, his ninjutsu talent was thoroughly mediocre, and he had no shinobi family supporting him from behind.

"Bang!"

With a burst of swirling smoke, Kazan quickly formed hand seals and produced a clone identical in appearance to himself.

"60 points, passing."

The teacher nodded at Kazan, using his pen to record his name and score.

There was no excessive expression on Kazan's face as he dispelled the clone and walked back to his seat.

He felt no emotional fluctuations regarding his score; as a transmigrator, he was a cheater equipped with a golden finger.

Ever since his birth in this world, a Monkey D. Garp template had accompanied him here.

It was that badass legendary duo-queue king who ran all the way to Hachinosu, only to get thrashed and subsequently mocked by the fandom.

Duo-queuing with Golden Lion against Sengoku, duo-queuing with Rocks against Roger, and as it turned out later in the manga at God Valley, even Imu got thrashed—that Garp who transformed into the Hero of the Marines!

So, since he even had the Garp template, did ninjutsu matter anymore?

While he was speaking, an outburst of cheers erupted in the classroom.

Kazan looked up, seeing that it was now an Uchiha brat's turn to perform on stage.

Compared to Kazan, who found even producing a single clone a struggle, the Uchiha brat conjured a total of seven clones.

"As expected of an Uchiha!" The teacher first let out an exclamation of praise, then recorded it down, "Full marks!"

Upon hearing this, Jing Uchiha walked off the stage expressionless.

Greeting him were the screams and adoration of the girls inside the classroom.

"Jing-kun, so cool!"

"As expected of a genius, highest score again this exam!"

"That's right, ever since Kakashi graduated early, Jing-kun has always been number one!"

Countless girls' eyes sparkled, but there were also some untimely noises.

For instance, Obito Uchiha, who wore goggles even during class.

"Tch, what's so great about it? If I hadn't eaten something bad today and had diarrhea, I could've gotten full marks too."

Hm.

The inherently evil Uchiha brat was even worse than Kazan, ranking as the super dead last of the class.

His scores were just barely better than Might Guy's, whose Clone Technique could only produce a set of clothes.

Meanwhile, not far from Obito, a goofball wearing a red scarf and striking thick eyebrows was staring intently at Jing Uchiha with burning eyes.

That gaze was practically several times more enthusiastic than those of the female students.

He's so amazing! Father wasn't wrong, the academy is a place where hidden dragons and crouching tigers lie! I've decided, after finishing five hundred laps around the playground after school, I'll challenge Kakashi!

Hey, Kazan, let's go burn our youth together!

Clang~

As he spoke, he even shot a wink at Kazan, flashing teeth so blindingly white they seemed to reflect light.

"My youth is precious, and I haven't reached the luxury level where I can afford to burn it. If you want to burn it, burn your own." Kazan rested his chin on his palm.

It was already Year 42 of Konoha, and only a few years had barely passed since the end of the Second Shinobi World War.

However, come Year 43 of Konoha, the Third Shinobi World War would break out.

Lately, when walking around the village, Kazan could detect a hint of solemnity on the faces of the ninjas returning to the village.

Without any accidents, that unlucky Kazekage from Sunagakure who had been turned into a puppet had already been missing for some time, and the border atmosphere was extremely tense now; a full-scale war was only a matter of time.

During the Warring States Era, the Shinobi World was extremely chaotic.

Ninja factions back then were merely mercenaries for the major nations, and battles happened constantly, basically following a rhythm of a small fight every three days and a big fight every five days.

Then, Hashirama Senju gathered the independently fighting ninja factions together and ended that turbulent era.

Yet disputes did not stop, but instead developed in a direction that Hashirama Senju had never anticipated.

The era of shinobi villages emerged, and while the number of battles decreased, their scale increased exponentially.

Following the establishment of Konoha, other large and small ninja factions in the Shinobi World, in order to avoid being devoured or for other reasons, also followed Konoha's example and began banding together to form the super tri-giants...

They cooperated with the nations, establishing shinobi villages through the financial power of the major powers, and the shinobi villages became the swords in the hands of the major nations.

Now there were no frequent battles, but once a war broke out, every coffin seller in the entire Shinobi World would make a fortune.

Even without needing a particularly good memory, Kazan knew that every time a Shinobi World War reached its end, the shinobi villages would send newly graduated kids straight to the battlefield due to manpower shortages.

In such moments of life or death, no one would care whether you had just graduated or not.

If I want to save my dog's life on the battlefield, I'll need at least the combat power of a Jonin.

Kazan did not know what his current combat power was like.

Although he had a system, Brother System had given him a Garp Template and some training methods before starting a long period of deep-sea diving.

Right now, he had no idea just how hard his pair of iron fists actually were, but he trained extremely hard every day.

Thinking of this, Kazan glanced at Jing Uchiha, who was sitting silently in his seat acting cool after scoring a hundred on his test, and wondered whether he should go blast him one.