Come out and fight me one-on-one!

The morning theory exam ended.

After a short lunch break, the practical test began that afternoon.

Before the test, Minato came over specifically to ask, "Maki, how do you think you did on the theory exam this morning?"

Amamiya Maki shook his head, looking miserable. "Only heaven knows. I did fill in all the answers, though."

Even as he said that, he kept sneering inwardly at Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Setting questions like those? His motives were downright sinister.

Whether his answers had sucked up to the Third enough was anyone's guess.

As they chatted, everyone gathered at the Training Ground.

Junji Ito stood in front of the assembled students and clapped his hands for silence.

"The practical test officially begins now. Everyone will start with the ninja tool throwing test."

He began explaining the rules.

The ninja tool throwing test had two parts: stationary targets and moving targets. Rankings for both were based on the number of bullseyes.

There wasn't much to say about the stationary targets.

Ten targets stood in a row, at a reasonable distance and straightforward angles.

It was a basic exercise that a month of practice could produce results in.

But when the staff wheeled out the moving targets, gasps and sighs began rising from the students.

There were ten mobile targets mounted on tracks.

They moved back and forth at different speeds and in different directions. Some went left to right, others right to left, and some even bobbed slightly up and down.

Seeing the students' reactions, Junji Ito said nothing. He simply raised his hand and unleashed a volley of kunai.

After a series of whistles through the air, all twenty targets had kunai planted squarely in their bullseyes.

He glanced back at the students and spoke without expression.

"Don't make excuses for your incompetence. The Ninja Academy doesn't teach useless fools."

Amamiya Maki silently noted another rule for surviving in Konoha: if you were too stupid, the villagers would accept you, but the teachers would start piling on the pressure.

Of course, even if you weren't useless, there was still a good chance you'd get pressured.

Konoha's ecosystem really was rich and varied.

Never underestimate the power of throwing your weight around!

"I'll go first!"

Jiro Matsumoto eagerly raised his hand.

He wanted to get ahead so badly!

Especially since opportunities to crush that blond underfoot in public didn't come along every day.

"First place is mine!"

He strode up to the throwing line, took a deep breath, and hurled his shuriken one after another in what he thought was the coolest pose possible.

Eight hits out of ten on the stationary targets, three out of ten on the moving targets.

To be fair, that was a decent result for an ordinary Konoha villager who had only recently enrolled.

After all, not everyone had Senju blood or a cheat system. The fact that Jiro Matsumoto had reached this level showed that he'd genuinely put in the work.

But if there was one thing Konoha never lacked, it was geniuses, especially lower-tier ones.

Clan legacies, inheritances from parents, secret techniques-Konoha had the strongest reserve of mid-tier ninja in the entire shinobi world.

Someone like Jiro Matsumoto, a "top performer among the bottom-tier candidates,"

Could still find his own little cog to turn in Konoha: catching cats, finding dogs, escorting caravans, clearing waterways. He would surely become quite capable at those jobs someday.

But Jiro Matsumoto clearly didn't see it that way.

He turned around and shot Minato Namikaze a challenging look in the crowd, his grin stretching almost to his ears.

Junji Ito looked at him, then at Minato, and understood what was going on.

"Next, Minato Namikaze."

As a teacher, he supported healthy competition.

There was no walking the path of a ninja without competing.

Minato first smiled and nodded at his teacher, and Junji Ito responded approvingly.

Watching from the side, Amamiya Maki couldn't help feeling moved.

In the Land of Fire, where masters and disciples played battle royale with each other, seeing such a normal interaction between teacher and student was no small feat.

Finally, a normal master-disciple relationship.

Minato turned his attention back and picked up the shuriken.

Then his hands moved, and the blades flew.

He threw twenty shuriken in succession from all sorts of angles.

Some flew straight, some curved, and some bounced off a wall before hitting the bullseye.

Every movement was crisp and clean, without a single wasted motion.

Ten out of ten on the stationary targets, ten out of ten on the moving targets.

And every single one struck dead center. Not one merely clipped the edge.

The Training Ground fell silent for a second, then erupted.

"He's amazing!"

"Is he really a genius?"

"I've never seen someone throw like that right after enrolling!"

On the sidelines, Minato Namikaze's fan club was already cheering wildly.

That was Konoha's atmosphere: you could have no skills, but you couldn't fail to cheer.

When a genius burst onto the scene, you had to applaud when applause was due. That was basic etiquette for a Konoha villager.

As for why they had to applaud...

If the person you put through the wringer wasn't a universally recognized genius, wouldn't all that torment be wasted?

Even Junji Ito looked surprised.

He'd expected Minato Namikaze to be excellent, but not this excellent.

Jiro Matsumoto's face had turned thunderously dark.

He looked at the shuriken in the bullseyes, then at Minato's calm, smiling face, and a flicker of doubt arose deep inside him.

It seemed that among this year's students, he was destined to be overshadowed by that blond.

Damn it, was losing to a blond his destiny?

The ordinary villagers who went next produced unremarkable results.

For most, four or five hits on the stationary targets counted as good. Their moving-target results were downright painful to watch.

Some missed so badly they didn't even graze the targets, while others simply threw their shuriken into the neighboring target's lane.

Among them, the best performance so far actually belonged to a little blond girl.

Yakushi Nonō.

Seven out of ten on the stationary targets, five out of ten on the moving targets.

And that was after she deliberately held back.

Amamiya Maki saw it clearly from the lineup.

Before every throw, Nonō paused ever so slightly. She was deliberately adjusting her angle to avoid landing too many hits.

Even so, her score already crushed ninety percent of the students present.

Jiro Matsumoto looked at Nonō's score, then at his own, and suddenly felt that perhaps he wasn't so bad after all.

Although Minato had crushed him, at least he could still hold his own among the civilian students.

The corners of his mouth lifted again.

A win.

Amamiya Maki took it all in.

He silently opened his system panel. His Shuriken Throwing proficiency was currently at beginner level. He'd accumulated plenty of fragments but hadn't found the time to combine them.

Hitting all the stationary targets wouldn't be much of a problem for him, but moving targets were something he'd barely practiced.

Still, that was fine.

How could ninjutsu be such an inconvenient thing!

"Deep Blue, add points."

[Consumed 35 pressure points to redeem Shuriken Throwing fragments ×35]

[Shuriken Throwing proficiency: beginner → proficient]

A warm current flowed into his arms, spreading from his shoulders to his fingertips.

It was a very subtle feeling.

As though he'd always known how to throw these shuriken, had merely forgotten before, and now suddenly remembered.

The angle of his wrist, when to apply force with his fingers, how to anticipate a moving target-every detail was etched clearly into his mind.

"Next, Amamiya Maki."

He walked up to the throwing line, picked up the shuriken, and weighed them in his hand.

Then he glanced back at Minato.

The meaning of that look was unmistakable-you can hit ten because ten is your limit.

I can hit ten because there are only ten targets.

[Detected that the host has inflicted mental pressure on "Minato Namikaze"

Pressure points +35

Obtained: Spatial Perception fragments ×2]

The smile on Minato's face froze slightly for half a second.

He understood that look.

Amamiya Maki turned his gaze back.

Ten out of ten on the stationary targets, every one a bullseye.

Without pausing, he immediately picked up the second set of shuriken. Ten out of ten on the moving targets, again all dead center.

His movements were so fluid, his bearing so casual, that he seemed less like someone taking an exam and more like someone tossing pebbles around his own yard for fun.

The Training Ground fell silent again.

Then the cheers rose even louder than before.

"Another perfect score!"

"He's tied with Minato Namikaze for first!"

"There's another ace?"

Amamiya Maki casually tossed the last shuriken in his hand into the air, caught it, and returned it to the equipment box. Then he turned, nodded to Junji Ito, and walked back to the lineup without expression.

Minato Namikaze watched him, a flicker of complicated emotion crossing his eyes.

It wasn't hostility, but confirmation: just as I thought.

Amamiya Maki's throwing movements were more casual than his, his rhythm steadier.

Although their scores were identical, anyone with a discerning eye could see that Amamiya Maki had held something back.

Minato clenched his fists.

Next time, he would force him to use that reserve, too.

Junji Ito wrote the final entry in the scorebook, then closed it.

"For the throwing portion of this month's practical exam, Minato Namikaze and Amamiya Maki are tied for first place."

Standing in the crowd, Jiro Matsumoto's expression went from gloomy to bewildered, then from bewildered to something impossible to describe.

Jiro Matsumoto stood in the crowd, his expression shifting from gloomy to bewildered.

The blond and the black-haired boy, both with perfect scores.

Jiro Matsumoto felt a little panicked. He'd considered himself a civilian genius, yet now he hadn't even managed second place.

At that moment, he felt as though all the eyes around him were judging him.

"Hey, you three over there! Why aren't you taking the test?!"

Jiro Matsumoto began demanding answers as though he'd found his enemies.

Amamiya Maki followed his pointing finger and spotted three people.

After a brief assessment, he realized who they were.

Inoichi Yamanaka, Shikaku Nara, and Choza Akimichi.

In other words, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio from Minato's generation.

"What are you looking at? Come out and fight me one-on-one."

"One of you is as fat as a pig, one looks half asleep, and you-what are you staring at!"

Jiro Matsumoto assumed these three were probably poor students who lacked confidence.

So he'd forgotten to switch off his automatic attacks.

On top of that, he desperately needed someone to vent at, so he'd forgotten what this classic three-person combination meant.

Shikaku Nara said, "Huh~?"

The three, who had been slacking off to the side and hardly looked like they were there to take a test, were suddenly subjected to a torrent of abuse.

All three looked rather bewildered.

Shikaku Nara had even thought their teacher had come to haul them in.

Who would've thought it was just an ordinary Konoha villager?

Then Shikaku seemed to think of something and immediately let it go.

With him already in that state, what was there left to say? Might as well play along.