Now that school had resumed, Ren could no longer spend seven or eight uninterrupted hours a day training like he had during winter break.
That was the downside of being a student again.
His mornings were consumed by classes, his afternoons by review sessions and practical drills, and by the time he got home, half his energy had already been spent pretending to be an ordinary Academy student.
Still, Ren wasn't the type to waste time complaining.
If he couldn't grind for long stretches anymore, then he would squeeze training into every spare moment he had.
During lunch.
Between classes.
On the walk home.
Even while pretending to rest with his eyes closed in the classroom, he was often doing something else entirely—quietly "conversing" with his ninjutsu, nudging their favorability higher bit by bit.
It sounded ridiculous if anyone else heard it.
But it worked.
And as far as Ren was concerned, if something worked, then pride and common sense could step aside.
Lately, besides his usual routine, he had also been discussing a more complicated issue with the Transformation Technique.
Specifically—
"Transformation templates."
If the Transformation Technique truly had a "preference" for usable forms and stable constructs, then in theory, a well-prepared template might improve speed, detail, and consistency. Ren had no idea yet whether the system would turn that idea into a real upgrade, but the thought alone was worth exploring.
After all, if he was going to cheat, he might as well cheat thoroughly.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere around the Academy had only grown more intense.
The graduation exam was closing in, and everyone could feel it now.
Teachers became stricter.
Students became more serious.
Even the usual troublemakers were training with unusual dedication.
In the middle of all that pressure, Ren became the first person to push the Healing Technique to its next stage.
---
[Healing Technique – Favorability: 5/100 (Intimate)]
Stage rewards obtained twice:
Physique +2
Trait – Healing Brand: Wounds treated by you leave behind a subtle Healing Brand. For three weeks after treatment, the marked tissue continues to recover until it returns to its pre-injury state.
---
When Ren first read the description, he had expected something dramatic.
In reality, the improvement was subtler than that.
Useful—very useful, in fact—but not miraculous.
The biggest visible change was that healing became more efficient. Recovery time shortened by roughly a quarter, which was already impressive for a basic medical technique.
But the true value lay in the lingering effect.
The wound didn't just close.
It kept improving.
Like a quiet, delayed repair process that continued even after Ren's chakra had withdrawn.
Naturally, he tested it.
Carefully.
On small animals first, because he wasn't insane.
The results confirmed his guess: the Healing Brand had limits the description didn't mention outright.
Cuts, bruises, shallow punctures, torn flesh—those healed beautifully.
More serious trauma took longer but still benefited.
But once the damage crossed a certain threshold, the effect hit a hard wall.
Severed limbs.
Destroyed eyes.
Massive bodily destruction.
Those could not be restored.
Not fully, not even close.
Ren accepted that calmly.
It was still only a C-rank technique.
Expecting it to regrow limbs would be absurd.
As far as he knew, even legendary healing techniques like the Strength of a Hundred Seal couldn't casually restore a body that had been fundamentally destroyed. That kind of regeneration belonged in the realm of monsters, forbidden methods, or Hashirama's terrifyingly unfair cells.
So Ren didn't complain.
A quarter increase in healing efficiency plus lingering recovery support?
That was already more than enough to make this technique terrifyingly practical.
But the real surprise came next.
The second technique to advance—
Was the Substitution Jutsu.
And when it evolved, it changed in a way that made Ren genuinely stop and stare.
---
[Substitution Jutsu – Favorability: 10/100 (Heart to Heart)]
Stage rewards obtained four times:
Physique +4
Trait – Simulated Instantaneous Transfer: Your Substitution Jutsu has been perfected. You may substitute with any object within 8 meters, completing the exchange within 0.2 seconds. If the target is a living being with chakra or an excessively large object, additional chakra is required.
---
For a long second, Ren simply looked at the description in silence.
Then he got up and immediately ran to the training ground.
He didn't even bother hiding his excitement.
Once there, he spent nearly an entire afternoon testing the upgraded technique from every angle he could think of.
The final conclusion was simple.
It was absurdly strong.
Not just strong—ridiculous.
This was no longer the ordinary Substitution Technique taught at the Academy.
This had become a crude imitation of a space-time swap.
A miniature version of something far beyond its rank.
At first glance, the range wasn't overwhelming. Eight meters wasn't much, especially not in a world full of monsters who could clear that distance in an instant.
But the true value wasn't range.
It was flexibility.
Previously, substitution required preparation. A log, a dummy, or some preselected medium had to be ready in advance.
Now?
Any object within eight meters could become the substitute.
A rock.
A pile of dirt.
A wooden stake.
A bucket.
A fish in the river.
A bird in mid-flight.
As long as he could lock onto it and it fell within range, he could swap with it almost instantly.
That was what made it terrifying.
Within those eight meters, the environment itself became Ren's escape route.
Within those eight meters, terrain stopped being scenery and started becoming ammunition.
He tested it with stones first. Then tree branches. Then scattered training tools. Then a drifting leaf, just to see if it worked on something light and moving.
It did.
He nearly laughed out loud.
Within an eight-meter range, this was a conceptual god-tier Substitution Technique.
Of course, it wasn't flawless.
Nothing ever was.
The first drawback was chakra cost.
The more complicated the target, the more expensive the exchange.
Swapping with an ordinary stone was cheap. Almost suspiciously cheap.
Swapping with a living thing, however—especially something with chakra—burned through several times the normal amount.
And if the target was too large, the cost rose again.
The second flaw was obvious.
Eight meters was still eight meters.
Useful in a close fight, amazing in an ambush, life-saving in a crisis—but not some universal answer to everything.
Still, Ren remained extremely satisfied.
The standard Substitution Jutsu already consumed very little chakra, and its "cooldown" in practical terms was negligible. If he repositioned smartly, one eight-meter swap could become another, and another after that.
Eight meters.
Then another eight.
And another.
Against most threats, that would be enough to create an opening to flee.
Unless, of course, his enemy was the type of nightmare who invalidated common sense entirely.
Someone like Minato Namikaze, whose speed made distance feel meaningless.
Or one of those lunatics with massive area-of-effect destruction that turned the whole battlefield into a death zone.
If he ran into an opponent like that, then whether the escape range was eight meters or eight hundred probably wouldn't matter much.
At that point, he would simply die more respectfully.
That thought didn't bother Ren too much.
No defensive method in the world worked against everything.
The important part was this:
Against normal danger, he now had a real trump card.
And that meant survival odds had climbed dramatically.
Because the evolved effect differed too much from a standard Academy-level Substitution Jutsu, Ren made a decision almost immediately.
He would hide it.
From now on, in ordinary situations, he would keep using the conventional version that required a prepared medium.
As for this upgraded ability—
He would treat it as a secret weapon.
A card to be played only when absolutely necessary.
Special effects like this were wasted if revealed too early.
He had originally planned to push both the Clone Technique and Water Release: Rampaging Water Waves to advancement as well.
But before he could finish that—
The graduation exam arrived.
---
The first phase was the academic examination.
For most Academy students, this was the annoying part.
For Ren, it was a vacation.
Language, mathematics, geography, intelligence transcription, basic tactical theory—none of it gave him any real trouble. Compared to the absurdity of training chakra control through social favorability mechanics, written tests were almost relaxing.
He finished each paper with insulting ease.
The only part that required real effort was the essay question.
And unfortunately, the topic was exactly what he had feared:
The Will of Fire.
Ren stared at the prompt for several seconds with a completely dead expression.
Then, with the calm resignation of a man sacrificing his dignity for stable grades, he lowered his brush and began writing.
He wrote a long, overly sincere, aggressively sentimental essay full of childlike admiration and patriotic warmth.
The Hokage's kindness was immeasurable.
Konoha was a great family.
Every leaf in the village carried the spirit of inherited fire.
The village protected everyone, and everyone must protect the village.
Children were the future.
Sacrifice was noble.
Unity was beautiful.
And so on.
By the time he was done, even Ren himself felt mildly nauseated.
But from a political standpoint?
It was perfect.
Sarutobi Hiruzen loved this sort of thing.
The old man practically breathed in ideological essays the way other people breathed air.
Judging by the Hokage's public speeches at the Academy, this paper would probably please him immensely. Ren even entertained a fleetingly dark thought—
If the Hokage happened to be so moved by the essay that he called Ren to the Hokage Tower specifically to write this kind of propaganda in the future…
That actually wouldn't be the worst job in the world.
It beat dying on a mission.
Two days later, the academic exams ended.
Then came the practical portion.
And this—
Was where the real tension began.
---
The individual tests were all there.
Kunai and shuriken throwing.
The Three Basic Techniques.
A five-kilometer obstacle run.
Identification of wild edible and medicinal materials.
Simple but cruelly comprehensive.
The Academy during this era was far stricter than it would become in Naruto's generation. Back then, passing with a clean Clone Technique might have been enough.
Now?
Not a chance.
Graduation required real capability.
And beyond the basic tests, there was always a large-scale combat assessment.
That was the part everyone feared most.
The format changed constantly.
Some years it was one-on-one combat.
Some years, three-man team battle.
Other times, wilderness survival exercises or multi-stage tactical scenarios.
The teachers almost never repeated the exact same style two years in a row.
Which meant the students couldn't properly prepare in advance.
And that uncertainty created chaos.
As the practical exam approached, rumors exploded across the classroom.
"I heard this year is going to be a free-for-all!"
"A free-for-all? What does that even mean?"
"It means a group brawl, obviously. Last year they tested team battles, so this year they'll probably change the format."
"That's not a rule. They've repeated one-on-one duels for multiple years before."
"No, no, this is definitely a smokescreen. The teachers are testing our intelligence-gathering ability. The real exam has already started!"
"Then what's the point of telling people that?"
"To see who believes it!"
Children argued with complete seriousness, each one convinced they had cracked the secret.
Ren listened from his seat with an almost fond sense of detachment.
At his side, Rin Nohara leaned closer and nudged him lightly.
"Ren-kun," she whispered, "what do you think? About the exam rules?"
Ren turned his head toward her.
Then smiled faintly.
"I will win."
Rin blinked.
"…What?"
She tilted her head, clearly not understanding.
Ren didn't elaborate.
The joke was wasted in this world anyway.
So he added, "It doesn't matter. We'll know when we get there."
And that was the truth.
He was prepared.
No matter what form the practical exam took, he was confident he could secure second place at minimum—and if things went well, fight for first.
There was no need to be anxious over possibilities.
From the back row, Obito suddenly leaned forward between the desks.
"Rin! Why don't you ask me?"
Rin turned toward him and smiled politely.
"With your adaptability, Obito-kun, I don't think these objective conditions would affect you that much."
The wording was gentle.
The meaning was not.
Even if Obito knew the rules in advance, he would probably still find a way to trip over his own feet and lose in a dramatic fashion.
His talent for performing below his real level was almost supernatural.
Ren kept that thought to himself.
Barely.
Then the clock struck ten.
Teacher Oki led the class out of the room and toward the Academy training grounds.
The playground outside had been completely transformed.
A massive area had been cleared, and various obstacles had been erected using ninjutsu: dirt mounds, rock formations, high wooden platforms, and shallow puddles placed at irregular intervals. The layout resembled a simplified battlefield, rough but realistic enough to test movement, awareness, and adaptation.
As soon as the students saw it, the chatter around Ren quieted.
The mood changed.
This was no longer rumor.
No longer review.
No longer preparation.
The graduation exam had truly begun.
Then—
A white-haired figure stepped into view.
Tall for his age.
Cold-faced.
Calm.
Instantly recognizable.
For a heartbeat, the entire group froze.
Then someone blurted it out in disbelief—
"…Huh? Is that Kakashi?!"
And just like that, all eyes turned toward the prodigy standing ahead of them.
End of Chapter 36
--------------------------------
"Free readers are still behind… but Patreon members are already ahead 😏
Catch up now [patreon.com/Samurai492 ]"
__________________________________