The entire underground training ground was deathly silent.
Uchiha Shinichi's casually uttered "full marks" was like a massive rock dropped into a deep pool, stirring towering waves in everyone's heart.
They had failed?
No, they had earned full marks.
Because they had become "deserters."
The logic was blunt and simple, yet profound enough to send chills down their spines.
Minato Namikaze was the first to recover from that overwhelming shock to his understanding. He looked at the languid figure above, his voice carrying a rasp and reverence he had not even noticed himself.
"Teacher... everything that just happened was... genjutsu?"
"What else would it be?"
Shinichi jumped down from the observation room railing, landing lightly before them like a weightless leaf.
He stretched, his bones giving a lazy series of cracks.
"Find a real 'god' to be your sparring partner? Do you think those things grow on trees? Even if there were one, I couldn't be bothered to catch it. Too much work."
Rather than putting anyone at ease, his words drove that chill deeper into their bones.
He could drag this entire group of elites, enhanced with "divine genes" and possessing mental strength far beyond ordinary people-including Minato Namikaze-into an illusion that could even simulate the laws of the world, without any of them noticing...
That alone was an incomprehensible power even more terrifying than "Eraser."
"But..."
Nawaki clenched his fists, his face still bearing the frustration and humiliation of facing oblivion.
"We just... ran away!"
"Running away was the right choice."
Shinichi walked up to him and glanced at him with those dead-fish eyes.
"Kid, tell me. What was your grandfather, the First, strongest at?"
"Wood Release! Sage Mode!"
Nawaki answered without hesitation.
"Wrong."
Shinichi curled his lip, his expression plainly saying, "This kid is hopeless."
"His greatest