Those shouts of "bottom of the pack" were like a red-hot branding iron, searing Shira's mind and making her blood rush to her head.
He could almost picture what it was like on the other side of the wall—a few classic NPCs with built-in taunting buffs surrounding a figure in training clothes, venting their bored malice to their heart's content.
You ignorant little Deng, you look down on Taijutsu, huh? Watch how I show you a big one!
Shira's eyes flashed with a sharp light. Without a second thought, her body moved faster than her mind. She pushed off with her feet, her leg muscles exploding instantly, and she shot towards the not-too-high wall like an arrow!
He had calculated the distance and angle perfectly, planning to use a clean and swift wall flip to leap over and land steadily in front of the noisy group of guys.
He didn't even consider what to say or do after landing; he just felt he had to flip over, he had to stand next to the person being mocked, he had to shut those voices up immediately.
With my body suspended in mid-air, my gaze passed over the wall, and I could already glimpse the sandy playground and a few blurry figures inside.
Hey, great! It's almost done!
Just as his palm was about to press against the wall, using the momentum to complete the final flip—
"Sizzle--!!!"
A faint yet chilling crackling sound of electricity emanated from the wall beneath his palm without warning! Immediately afterward, an indescribably intense numbness, like countless tiny, scorching needles, shot into his palm and spread wildly throughout his body, along his arm and shoulder!
"Waaaaah--!"
Shira froze, her eyes widening in shock as she looked into her pupils at the patterns on the brick wall so close to her. Her mind went completely blank. What was going on?! How could the wall be electrified?!
The electric current wasn't particularly violent, not enough to knock him unconscious on the spot, but it was enough to completely disrupt all his movements and exertion. His previously fluid vaulting motion instantly distorted; he was like a bird suddenly grabbed by the neck and thrown out, his whole body convulsing comically in mid-air, his limbs swinging uncoordinatedly, and then—
"Thump!"
He landed heavily on the grass outside the wall in a rather unsightly, backside-first manner. Luckily, it was soft grass, not stone slabs, but the fall still nearly dislocated his internal organs, and the pain in his buttocks made him grimace and see stars.
"Uh... cough, cough cough!" He collapsed on the grass, coughing awkwardly, feeling half of his body go numb, especially his right arm, which was numb and painful from his palm to his shoulder, and was also trembling slightly uncontrollably.
His hair was probably standing on end from the electric shock; he could feel a few unruly strands stubbornly sticking up. A strange taste filled his mouth, a mixture of rust and a slightly burnt flavor.
To make matters worse, the fall was quite loud, kicking up a cloud of grass and dust. Not far away, several Konoha were sweeping in the morning and elderly people who were taking an early morning walk all looked over when they heard the noise, their eyes filled with astonishment and undisguised surprise.
He was probably thinking, "Why would this little rascal jump over the school wall so early in the morning? And he did it so... well, creatively."
Shira's face flushed red instantly, not from shyness, but from embarrassment, anger, and pain from the fall.
He frantically tried to get up, but his half-paralyzed body was barely obeying his commands. He struggled a couple of times with his hands and feet before managing to sit up, looking even more disheveled. He could feel those gazes still fixed on him, filled with suppressed laughter and confusion.
" Konoha's walls... are they all electrified?!" Shira mentally screamed, while secretly slapping herself twice. No, who would have thought that Konoha's security system would even take into account the school walls!
But at that moment, an extremely strange sensation suddenly emanated from deep within his body, or more precisely, from the meridians and muscles of his right arm, which had just been violently "baptized" by the electric current.
It wasn't just the lingering numbness and soreness from the electric shock.
It was more like something that had been dormant, hidden deep within him, was disturbed by this foreign, violent current, or rather, it pried open an extremely tiny crack.
The sensation was so subtle that if Shira hadn't possessed an extremely keen sense of bodily awareness, she would have almost dismissed it as a side effect of the electric shock.
It was an extremely subtle restlessness, with a faint tingling sensation, as if something in his blood and muscle fibers had been forcibly awakened and began to "flow" restlessly and extremely slowly, trying to respond to or resist the stimulation of the residual external current.
It doesn't hurt, it's even a little itchy, but it feels very unfamiliar; I've never felt this way before...
It was like a small, rusted valve inside the body that had been locked for years, suddenly jolted open by this external electric current. Although it didn't break open, the shock loosened the lock slightly, making him "feel" that something different, with a faint "crackling" aura, was hidden behind the door.
The sensation was fleeting, quickly overshadowed by a more intense numbness and pain from the fall. Shira shook her still numb right hand and moved her aching neck, trying to attribute the strange feeling to the aftereffects of the electric shock.
But that strange feeling in my heart was like a pebble thrown into a lake, leaving subtle ripples that were hard to dissipate for a while.
On the other side of the wall, the earlier laughter seemed to pause for a moment because of the sudden thud of a heavy object hitting the ground, but soon, the unpleasant mockery continued to drift back, only now it seemed to have shifted direction or been moved away by distance.
Shira sat on the ground, panting heavily.
Well, the Konoha Ninja Academy's security measures are quite "thoughtful," huh? Forget about jumping over the wall.
He pushed himself up slowly, brushing the grass clippings and dirt off his clothes. His buttocks and thighs still ached, and the numbness in his right arm hadn't completely subsided.
Let's see if I can get into school through the normal channels... um... I'll give it a try.