"Then I look forward to your work!"
Torifu Akimichi's mouth was practically watering. Who knows what dishes were running through his mind, but for Akaba this scene unconsciously brought back memories of Shokugeki no Souma.
The Akimichi clan members always managed to burst out of their clothes...
Oh man, save me from this!
Akaba shivered involuntarily, which only strengthened his resolve to draw Chuugakkou Shodenshou.
Of course,
Chuugakkou Shodenshou had many elements unsuitable for the Fire Shadow World. However, considering One Piece already featured numerous bizarre place names, it shouldn't raise too much suspicion if he adapted it.
The more Akaba considered it, the more realistic the idea became.
As for length, he didn't plan to make it too long. Plot-wise, he leaned toward adapting the anime's ending style. As for what came afterward, should it be well received, he could always adapt other classic culinary-themed manga.
Simply put, Chuugakkou Shodenshou would serve as a trial project.
"Hmm, the clones will still need to maintain updates. Guess I'll have to handle this one personally."
After seeing off Torifu Akimichi, he returned to the shop.
After finishing a couple chapters of One Piece, Akaba sat down to contemplate the culinary manga's plot. Truth be told, Konoha did have quite a few delicacies, but compared to Huaxia's diverse cuisine, its dishes appeared rather inferior.
After reminiscing for a while, he began drawing.
Due to memory discrepancies, some details differed slightly, but overall, the result was nearly identical. He emulated the art style of Chuugakkou Shodenshou.
With limited content, even his usually lazy main body could finish it in just a few days.
While working on these drawings, Akaba still couldn't stop updating the other two manga series — those tasks would be left to his shadow clones.
For two or three consecutive days, Akaba immersed himself in drawing Chuugakkou Shodenshou, barely leaving the manga shop's break room except for meals and sleep.
Meanwhile, as the plots of the other two manga gradually reached exciting points, more and more villagers gathered by the shop entrance discussing them.
Sasuke's defection arc was undoubtedly one of the most captivating story segments during the early phase. Every character possessed unique traits and moving moments. They all felt vividly real instead of mere background characters.
As crowds grew larger, so did commentary. Following Akaba's suggestion, Sakuma Yunlang placed up a comment board titled 'Today's Manga Comments' at the entrance. People regularly left messages there, and within half a day after an update, numerous comments had already accumulated.
Every new customer entering the shop glanced curiously at the comment board.
"Is Akaba around? Huh, what's this?"
Sakumo read through them carefully.
"I really worry about Kiba and others. Sigh, I just don't understand why, as Hokage, someone would send a chunin and four genin to pursue such a dangerous enemy."
"Don't say that. Nobody expected Sasuke to have backup. Besides, Konoha had just gone through a major war. The jonin and chunin were probably already out on missions."
"Genin? Except for Shikamaru, which of them fights like a regular genin?"
"The previous point makes sense."
Nearby, many spectators simultaneously read the manga and observed these comments.
Sakumo read through them carefully.
This experience felt incredibly fresh. Reading the manga while looking at these stickers gave him the feeling of sitting together with a group of people discussing the plot.
Still, Sakumo couldn't help but feel it was a pity that there weren't many comments about One Piece in the review section.
In Konoha, Naruto Ninja was clearly the dominant series.
"Sakumo? The young master's been drawing lately. He's working on a new manga volume themed around gourmet food and has been pretty busy. Both the One Piece and Naruto Ninja updates are handled by his shadow clones."
Sakuma Yunlang explained.
"You say it like he used to do the updates himself before. But since he's personally working on a new manga now, that really caught me off guard. Then I'll just stay here reading for a bit and wait."
Sakumo searched around the store and picked out several updated manga volumes he hadn't read yet.
He started with One Piece—that was always his routine.
Within these couple of days, One Piece had released fifteen new chapters. Luffy and the others had officially entered the Grand Line and already engaged part of Baroque Works in battle.
Baroque Works seemed like a fairly strong organization.
A slight sense of anticipation toward the sea arose within Sakumo. Unfortunately, during this trip to the Land of Whirlpools, he'd been too busy fighting to have any time to enjoy the ocean scenery, not to mention go on an actual voyage.
"Some day I'll definitely set sail and check out the Land of Water too. I heard it's an island country—wonder if there are places there as amazing as those in the manga?"
Sakumo silently mused.
After several minutes, he finished reading the updates.
Worth criticizing though, was the fact that Luffy actually got into a serious fight with Zoro over just one meal.
Although it looked like Luffy simply wanted to fight Zoro for fun, he still felt sympathy for Zoro.
Thinking for a bit, Sakumo found himself unable to hold back his opinion. He grabbed a sticker and wrote a comment about One Piece:
"Life with Luffy as your captain must be so tough—sometimes you'd probably get so mad you'd want to slice him in half!"
Looking at what he wrote, this should be the first comment regarding One Piece.
It was the truth.
Though Luffy was entertaining and performed rather adequately as a captain overall, some of his daily behaviors were extremely infuriating.
As a reader, Sakumo enjoyed the story immensely, but putting himself in Zoro's shoes...
Man, Zoro's got it rough!
After leaving his comment, Sakumo sighed. Another update for One Piece was done for now—time to read Naruto Ninja first.
The story of Naruto Ninja was great too—emotional and super gripping. Still, he looked forward more to the bold, imaginative elements present in One Piece—something completely absent in reality.
At this moment, Akaba opened the door of the private chamber.
Within these two or three days, he finally completed all the update content for The Story of Zhonghua Xiaodangjia (a famous Chinese-style chef anime series). Although some background details and place names had been slightly modified, the core content remained unchanged.
"Oh? Sakumo, don't you have training today?"
Akaba noticed Sakumo outside reading manga and couldn't help but pause in surprise for a few seconds.
Training?
Sakumo remained speechless without knowing what to reply. Did this guy totally forget that he himself was the training instructor for the Preparatory Division?
Well, considering how busy this guy had been lately, maybe it's forgivable.
He sighed, "I'll have Shishio cover me at the training field for a day. And did you even remember? The one-month special training is almost done. Did you finalize the final test?"
"The final test? Oh right!" Akaba slapped his head and casually handed a [Chef Boy] volume to Sakuma Yunlang. "Yunlang-ge, can you take this to the Factory? Let them print it out. This manga can be distributed across all commercial channels."
"I understand."
Sakuma Yunlang nodded.
Then Akaba walked together with Sakumo, leaving the manga shop.
Honestly, he had grown too complacent lately and almost forgot that he was still a Training Instructor at the Preparatory Division. Judging from the training results, the children seemed much more enthusiastic about Sakumo's methods.
"Everyone has been working hard during this period and improved significantly. Basically all have met the requirements. Do we still need elimination rounds for the final exam?"
They began discussing post-training issues as they walked down a quiet path.
"No need. One hundred trainees combined from both sessions isn't that many. The Preparatory Division serves as ninja reservists, not directly frontline combatants, so eliminating anyone isn't necessary."
Akaba shared his thoughts, "Still, letting everyone just pass without any pressure isn't a good idea either. We still want them to feel some pressure. So here's what I'm planning..."
He explained the plan he had come up with earlier to Sakumo.
Sakumo kept nodding approvingly as he listened.
An illusion test at the beginning and another at the end, plus setting a 'three failure attempts only' condition to motivate students to keep trying harder.
After thinking for a moment, Sakumo added, "The village might need personnel reinforcements during this period, so they'll form some four-member squads from outstanding ninjas. How should we select those individuals?"
"You didn't know about this?" Akaba raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.
"You've isolated yourself for two or three days straight," Sakumo said somewhat exasperatedly. No wonder the Third had approached him directly yesterday instead of going to Akaba — apparently realizing this guy had become a complete hands-off supervisor, he simply gave up trying to find him.
Akaba smiled awkwardly and asked, "How many people does the village need?"
"At least five teams, so about fifteen people in total."
As he spoke, Sakumo pulled out a record page from his robe.
Akaba took it and glanced through. It was a manga volume, admittedly rough in style but quite impressive for beginners. The story depicted war events in the Land of Whirlpools from the perspective of Sakumo's squad.
After flipping through a few pages, he closed it, "Well, I'll go over this and come up with a storyline. We'll use these questions for the upcoming test. In the meantime, please have the instructors intensively teach battlefield knowledge and skills to the students, so they won't get eliminated."
"Alright."
Sakumo naturally responded, then turned toward the Preparatory Division.
But as soon as he turned, he suddenly realized something — since when did he become Akaba's subordinate?
"I'm designing the illusion tests, hehe. A little understanding goes a long way, right?" Akaba pointed at the Land of Whirlpools war manga.
"Tch!"
Sakumo scoffed in disdain.
He trained every day and still had to assist with the training. At the same time, he also had to keep updating the manga about the War of the Land of Whirlpools. Did he ever complain—even when buried in work?
If you're slacking off, just admit it. Hypocrite.
"Come on, otherwise I'll stop updating One Piece first and focus on planning the Illusion Test instead. Then I'll have my Shadow Clone handle the Preparatory Division?"
Akaba grinned shamelessly.
"You've gone too far!"
Sakumo grew angry. This was coercion—an open, shameless threat!
The next second, he formed a hand seal, activated Vanish in an Instant, and used his own speed to vanish from Akaba's sight in the blink of an eye.
Out of sight, out of trouble—so he thought.
Akaba gave a low whistle, shaking his head with mock sympathy for Shishio.
Shishio had just returned from outside the village, hadn't even had time to show off his recent promotion before realizing all his teammates had nearly reached the same level as him.
He hadn't rested for several days when, immediately after completing the Chunin promotion, Sakumo dragged him over to substitute in the training—Shishio really had it rough.
Fortunately, there wouldn't be much left to do soon.
Once this round of training was over, the trainees' abilities would have somewhat solidified. As long as they maintained this momentum and continued their training and education, they'd be able to take on easy missions.
If the team had a Jonin, even missions below B-rank shouldn't pose too much trouble.
However, the Preparatory Division wasn't just composed of standard ninja units—it also contained the Genjutsu Class, Taijutsu Class, and the newly added Medical Team. These three specialized ninja classes required special arrangements.
Thinking like this, "I've got to start compiling the Genjutsu Class textbook soon. Man, I'm gonna be so busy!"
<><><><><><><><>
Thank you for reading! Your support will keep me updating!
~ Every 50 Powerstones = **4 Bonus Chapters** this weekend!
<><><><><><><><>
~ 100+ Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon!
~ More *Free* Chapters and Books Available on Patreon!
patreon.com/Tansnovel
<><><><><><><><>