Training Ground

Four enormous, stern faces on the cliff gazed silently ahead, as though guarding something. This was Konoha's iconic landmark, Hokage Rock.

Viewed from above, all of Konoha radiated outward from Hokage Rock. Its neatly arranged buildings, bustling streets, and lively crowds painted a peaceful, tranquil scene.

On the roof of the Hokage Office Building in front of Hokage Rock, Uchiha Naruto faced off against two Konoha Ninja with indistinct faces and green flak jackets, his expression grave.

Suddenly, one of the Konoha Ninja flicked his hand, sending a shuriken flying toward Uchiha Naruto. At the same time, he and the other Konoha Ninja charged in with kunai in hand, attacking from both sides.

His Two-Tomoe Sharingan spun, letting Uchiha Naruto clearly see the shuriken's trajectory. He calmly tilted his head, and the shuriken skimmed past his cheek by a hair's breadth.

His hands moved swiftly, and with a puff, two clones appeared and charged forward without hesitation.

Facing the two clones, the Konoha Ninja hesitated briefly before launching their attacks.

Seizing that opening, Uchiha Naruto's hands flew through the hand seals in order: rat, tiger, dog, ox, rabbit, tiger. Then he opened his mouth and spat out balls of flame, scattering them across the sky like a shower of blossoms.

C-rank Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Technique!

It instantly turned both Konoha Ninja into human torches.

The Konoha Ninja did not scream. Instead, they dissolved into specks of light where they stood.

"With LV2 Fire Style, dealing with two basic genin who don't even have any ninjutsu is still a breeze."

Standing atop the Hokage Office Building, Uchiha Naruto looked down over all of Konoha like the Hokage himself, his face relaxed and pleased.

With a thought, the backdrop of Konoha and Hokage Rock vanished. In the next instant, he appeared in Sunagakure, surrounded by desert and swirling yellow sand, its buildings rounded like spheres and columns.

Sunagakure's buildings were clearly modeled after real-world homes in the North African desert. Their thick walls effectively handled the desert's drastic temperature changes between day and night, while their rounded shapes and narrow windows protected against windblown sand.

Uchiha Naruto admired the exotic scenery with interest for a while. Before long, the scene changed again, and he appeared in Kumogakure, high in the mountains beneath a clear blue sky.

There was also Amegakure, shrouded in rain and mist year-round, its towering buildings packed tightly together.

The scenery around Uchiha Naruto kept changing like a slideshow before finally stopping back at the Hokage Office Building in Konoha.

The Training Ground feature Uchiha Naruto was using worked much like meditation. His consciousness could enter it for all kinds of training, with time passing at the same rate as in reality. Any experience and proficiency he accumulated remained after he left.

The Training Ground offered various locations for practice, all famous settings from Naruto. It could also generate NPCs for simulated combat. These opponents were not particularly intelligent, but they made adequate training targets and allowed him to build actual combat experience.

The Training Ground was an enormous help to Uchiha Naruto. After all, Fire Style was frighteningly destructive. Fire and water showed no mercy, and even a slight mistake could start a blaze. He had no desire to set his own house on fire.

Most importantly, it was completely private. Practicing ninjutsu in the Training Ground meant he did not have to worry about accidentally exposing his secret.

[Exiting the Training Ground]

[Please select a skill for idle training-]

[Three-Body Technique LV1 (0/10), idle training in progress. Gain 1 proficiency point for every 24 hours of idle training.]

After training through half the night, his mental energy was nearly exhausted. Once he exited the Training Ground, the fatigue he had accumulated returned to his body as well.

Uchiha Naruto stretched and checked the clock. It was already three in the morning.

Time in the Training Ground passed at the same rate as in reality. Uchiha Naruto was still only a first-year high school student, after all. He had classes to attend and sleep to get, so he could not spend all twenty-four hours of the day practicing ninjutsu there.

Although idle training earned proficiency less efficiently than practicing in person, it let him put the time spent sleeping and attending classes to use.

One proficiency point every twenty-four hours did not sound like much. It would take ten days just to raise an LV1 skill to LV2. But little by little, it added up. He could accumulate at least three hundred points in a year, enough to raise his Sharingan, Fire Style, and Three-Body Technique to LV3.

With a little more effort, awakening the Mangekyo before graduating from high school was not impossible!

That was Uchiha Naruto's current modest goal.

He hurried to get some sleep. When his alarm rang, it was already six thirty. He went to the bathroom and checked the mirror, finding faint dark circles under his eyes.

Uchiha Naruto took a cold shower, brushed his teeth and washed up, ate a little bread, then caught a JR train on the Yamanote Line to school.

Class 1-B, Jinguji Private High School, Bunkyo Ward.

"I'm Uchiha Naruto. It's nice to meet you all. I look forward to getting along with everyone."

After writing his name on the blackboard, Uchiha Naruto turned around and introduced himself with easy confidence.

He wore Jinguji Private High School's spring uniform: a jet-black blazer over a crisp white short-sleeved shirt and a beige wool sweater vest. His straight, slender black trousers made him look even taller.

Uchiha Naruto had a tall, lean build. More importantly, with a face like his, he looked handsome in anything. His striking features already had the girls below gazing at him with stars in their eyes.

Their new classmate was handsome enough to be the school's resident heartthrob!

He single-handedly raised the average attractiveness of the boys in their class to near the top of the year.

Kinjo Ichiro, Class 1-B's homeroom teacher, was a middle-aged man whose hair had already begun to thin. "Uchiha missed yesterday's opening ceremony because of an unexpected incident, so today is his first day at school. Please help him settle in. Does anyone have any questions?"

"Me, me, me!"

Several girls were already eagerly raising their hands.

"Um, Uchiha, do you have any hobbies?"

"My hobby is reading," Uchiha Naruto replied.

"Uchiha placed fifteenth in the entrance exam, and second in our Class B," Kinjo Isshin added.

Jinguji Private High School had admitted just over three hundred new students that year, divided into eight classes with an average of fewer than forty students each.

"Wow, he's a top student too."

The girls looked even more enthusiastic.

The boy wearing thick glasses in the far-left seat of the front row could not help curling his lip.

I'm the class representative, fourth in the entrance exam and first in the class. Why did you girls call me a bookworm when I introduced myself?

It's all about looks!

"Uchiha, do you have a girlfriend?" This question came from a girl with pale blond highlights at the ends of her hair. Her face was above average, but her makeup was exquisitely done.

Handsome and good at studying, too. I thought this class only had a few ugly losers. Who knew there'd be such a big surprise? We'll be reassigned to classes in our second year, but we still have a whole year together. Maybe being close to him will give me a head start.

"I don't think high school is the right time for dating. As students, we have more important things to do. Sir, is my seat that empty desk by the window at the back?"

Once he received confirmation, Uchiha Naruto gave no one else a chance to ask questions. He picked up his schoolbag and sat down.

"Uchiha. You don't see that surname very often. Interesting, isn't it?"

The boy in front turned around, leaning half his body over Uchiha Naruto's desk.

The boy seated in front of Uchiha Naruto looked rather slick, with a pointed face and shifty eyes. His hair was ostentatiously styled with wax, and rather than the uniform blazer the other boys wore, he had on an expensive-looking pale purple jacket.

In ancient Japan, the concepts of hereditary titles and clan names differed greatly from those on the mainland. A hereditary title was an honor the emperor bestowed upon a minister, akin to a noble rank or official post, so commoners could not possess one. A clan name, meanwhile, identified a group linked by blood and was not restricted to powerful aristocratic families; ordinary people could have one as well.

As time went on, however, these titles and clan names became too widespread, leading to the emergence of family names to distinguish people. A family name was a new surname created when a branch split from the main family, essentially the name of that branch household, with a greater emphasis on bloodline and inheritance. Oda and Tokugawa, for example, were actually family names of this kind.

Later, with the issuance of the Commoners' Surname Edict following the Meiji Restoration, hereditary titles, clan names, and family names merged into surnames in the modern sense.

According to his memories from this life, Uchiha Naruto's ancestors had been craftspeople who made a living producing round fans. Originally, they had possessed neither a hereditary title nor a family name. After the Meiji Restoration, they coined the surname Uchiha, Uchiha, from the word for the fans they made, uchiwa, round fans.

"You are...?"

"Let's get acquainted. I'm Tanaka Hikaru. I really envy people with rare surnames like yours. Unlike me. Whenever I'm walking down the street, I hear someone call out 'Tanaka,' turn around, and find they're calling someone else." Tanaka Hikaru propped his head on one hand and pulled a playful face.

"If someone shouted 'Sato,' half the people on the street would turn around. Then if they shouted 'Suzuki,' the other half would turn around too," Uchiha Naruto joked.

Sato and Suzuki were the two most common surnames in Japan.

Both of them laughed.

"When I saw how blunt you were with the girls' questions, I thought you'd be hard to talk to. But you seem pretty reasonable. Looks like we can be friends."

Uchiha Naruto smiled and nodded. This boy certainly warmed up to people quickly.

Tanaka Hikaru was very talkative. Although he was also a new student, he knew Jinguji High School quite well and had all kinds of gossip at his fingertips. Uchiha Naruto found it quite entertaining.

"The girl who asked whether you had a girlfriend was Rika Reiko. She dresses a bit like a gyaru. But Uchiha, about what you said earlier-do you really not want a girlfriend in high school?"

"Dating in high school feels a little too early."

"What era did that old-fashioned thinking come from? We're in the Reiwa era now. Even middle schoolers dating is perfectly normal."

Tanaka Hikaru shook his head dismissively, sounding exasperated. "What a waste. Not just of your youth, but of that face. If I looked like you, I'd have promised to marry several girls when I grew up back in elementary school."

Uchiha Naruto found that rather amusing. Since Japan had introduced relaxed education policies, students generally had only two classes in the afternoon and finished school around three or four. As far as he was concerned, Japanese high school students spent all day thinking about romance and celebrating their youth because they clearly had too little homework!

What serious student bothers with dating?

I, Uchiha Naruto, would never do anything that stupid.