The morning mist had yet to fully disperse when Ling sat down on the gnarled roots of the old tree in the orphanage's backyard. Dew clung to his distinctive gray hair, as though it had been dusted with a fine layer of frost.
[Begin. Today's focus is consolidating the coordination between "chakra polarity simulation" and "ambient water molecule capture."] Tobirama's voice was utterly flat, as though he were issuing combat orders. [Your practice yesterday was appallingly crude. Imagine your chakra as countless tiny magnets, not a clumsy fishing net. Precision! Efficiency!]
Ling closed his eyes and concentrated, struggling to control the faint thread of energy within him. He tried to divide it, imparting weak, alternating positive and negative polarities so it could sense and capture the "blue points of light" that filled the air. The process placed an enormous strain on a three-year-old's brain and mind, and fine beads of sweat soon formed on his forehead.
His progress was frustratingly slow. Whenever he focused on simulating polarity, he forgot to keep his chakra stable; when he barely managed to stabilize his output, his capture efficiency became pitifully low.
[Useless! Can't you even keep your mind focused for five minutes?] Tobirama's rebuke was as biting as ever. [Without this body's natural affinity for "pure water," you wouldn't have made even this much progress!]
Ling gritted his teeth without a word and simply pushed himself to concentrate harder. He knew that "encouragement" did not exist in this mentor's vocabulary.
After a long while, he finally condensed a drop of water on his fingertip, slightly larger and clearer than yesterday's. Before he could feel even a little pleased-
[The purity is still atrocious! The impurity content exceeds the limit! Again! No breakfast until you produce ten drops that meet the standard!]
Ling: "..." He could feel his stomach wailing.
The morning was free time at the orphanage. Most of the children chased one another around the yard or gathered to play simple games. Ling squatted alone in a corner, absently tracing lines in the dirt with a twig.
He was not playing. To anyone else, those crooked lines looked like a child's scribbles, but only Ling knew that they were his attempt at a rough diagram of his own chakra circulation pathways, based on the fundamental theory of chakra meridians Tobirama had drilled into him the night before and what he could sense within his body.
[Hmph. What a crooked mess. You've marked three major meridian nodes incorrectly and completely ignored circulation through the minor meridians. It seems everything I taught you last night went in one ear and out the other.] Tobirama's scorn arrived right on schedule.
Ling sighed and tried hard to recall the lesson and correct his drawing. His lack of basic knowledge was one of his greatest weaknesses at present. He knew almost nothing about this world's writing, history, or common knowledge. He was an "illiterate" through and through.
[Squatting here and imagining things won't help,] Tobirama ordered. [Go to the library.]
The Konoha Orphanage had a small library stocked mostly with old donated books. Their contents were simple: mostly picture books, fairy tales, and fables, along with a few basic literacy primers and illustrated stories about Konoha's heroes. The woman in charge usually opened it for only a short while in the afternoon.
Ling wandered over to the library entrance. The door stood ajar. He poked his head in and looked around. No one was inside.
[Go in. Find the literacy primers and "The Konoha Chronicles: Illustrated Children's Edition,"] Tobirama instructed.
Ling slipped inside like a thief and soon found what he wanted-a few dusty booklets containing simple pictures and kana, along with a brightly colored picture book whose cover depicted the imposing figures of the First Hokage and the Second Hokage in their younger days.
He curled up in a corner and quickly flipped through them. He could not recognize a single character, but Tobirama began teaching him in his mind as he read.
[This character is pronounced "hi." It means fire, and it is also the first character in "Land of Fire" and "Hokage."]
[The one beside it is "kage," meaning shadow. Remember how to write them.]
[Hmph. These chronicles are laughably abridged and heavily whitewashed. They gloss over the crucial battles... Still, they're somewhat useful for learning to read and getting a general understanding. Look at the picture. This is the Valley of the End, where the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, fought his decisive battle against Madara Uchiha...]
Tobirama spoke at a blistering pace. He not only taught Ling to recognize characters, but also supplied biting personal commentary and corrections to the historical account. Ling desperately tried to memorize it all, feeling as though his head would burst. The sheer volume of information far exceeded that of any previous chakra training session.
[...The Uchiha's Sharingan generally progresses from one tomoe to two tomoe, then three tomoe, and then Mangekyo... Remember these features. If you encounter them someday, at least you'll understand how you died.]
[...The Uzumaki Clan is renowned for its powerful vitality and Sealing Jutsu. The First Hokage's wife was an Uzumaki, and the village's barrier and many of its seals...]
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door. Startled, Ling hurriedly shoved the books back into place and darted out of the library like a frightened rabbit, his heart pounding.
[Why are you panicking? Your composure is abysmal!] Tobirama sounded displeased. [Remember the thirty basic characters I just taught you and the corresponding ninja clan traits. I'll test you tonight. Get one wrong, and your chakra control practice doubles.]
Ling felt his vision go dark.
At lunch, the chubby boy, still unwilling to give up, tried to approach him again. Ling was hunched over, struggling to memorize the characters and feeling irritable. Instinctively, he drew on a trace of the chakra he had just learned to produce, with its extremely faint polarity shifts, and gathered it at his fingertip. He flicked it lightly toward the ground beneath the chubby boy's feet-a tiny, almost invisible droplet shot down with precision just in front of the boy's shoe.
The chubby boy stepped on it and, sure enough, slipped again. With a thud, he landed flat on his face this time, spilling food all over himself before bursting into loud sobs.
Ling continued eating, expressionless.
[Your technique has improved slightly. You've learned to reduce the droplet's size to minimize chakra fluctuations. But your motive is childish, and you're wasting energy.] Tobirama's assessments always mixed praise with criticism.
That afternoon, Ling continued his secret training. Under Tobirama's guidance, he tried attaching chakra to fallen leaves without immediately tearing them apart, then making minute adjustments to their drifting trajectories. This was harder than condensing water droplets and demanded extremely stable, precise chakra output. The leaves kept breaking apart.
At dusk, while the woman in charge opened the library to clean, Ling slipped inside again and quickly leafed through "The Konoha Chronicles" to reinforce his memory.
That night, Ling lay in bed while the other children were already fast asleep. He, however, was enduring Tobirama's brutal "spot quiz" in his mind.
[How do you write the character for "water"? How do you pronounce the character for "lightning"? What is the Hyuga Clan's kekkei genkai called? What was the name of Madara Uchiha's younger brother?... Wrong! Fifty extra chakra control repetitions tomorrow!]
Under the Second Hokage's high-pressure, cram-style instruction and training that pushed him to his limits, Ling rapidly absorbed everything about this unfamiliar world. His eyes no longer held the innocent bewilderment of an ordinary three-year-old. Instead, they often gleamed with thought and a growing depth of understanding.
Academic lessons? No, he had no such luxury. His knowledge was stolen, forcibly crammed into his head by Tobirama through the harshest methods. Together with chakra techniques ahead of their time and his preliminary exploration of "absolute pure water," it formed his first-and firmest-foundation as someone who had crossed into another world.
Beneath that gray hair, a precocious and dangerous soul was quietly growing in a corner no one knew about.
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