Hiruzen and the others' speeches left Jiraiya and the rest utterly fired up. Having been indoctrinated with the so-called Will of Fire since childhood, hearing now that their performance in the Chunin Exam concerned the village's core interests...
Each of them wished they could offer up their hearts for Konoha on the spot, rush into the Chunin Exam arena right now, and shed their blood.
Hoshi was excited as well, though not because of any sense of honor for the village. He knew full well that after accepting this so-called S-rank Mission, they would receive resources far beyond what they had before.
What S-rank Mission? This was clearly them being showered with benefits!
Even without what had happened today, Hoshi and the others would have given the Chunin Exam everything they had. The Chunin Exam only came once every three years, and proud people like Tsunade would never accept remaining Genin for three whole years.
They had already been certain to attain strength no weaker than a Chunin's based on talent alone. Now, with Konoha devoting a full year's worth of resources to nurturing them, there were only two words for it:
Takeoff!
One year of preferential resources was no small thing. This was the full support of the Ninja World's greatest ninja village. If Hiruzen and the others had previously only been willing to secretly give them a few ninjutsu and provide some private lessons...
Then now, aside from the Scroll of Seals, they could freely enter and leave Konoha's ninjutsu archives, and no one could even criticize them for it.
To put it exaggeratedly, even if they forcibly demanded a secret technique from some clan, as long as they could learn it, Konoha High-Rank would obtain that secret technique for them.
Beyond that, they would receive priority access