"What's your name?" Kakashi Hatake looked Zhao Yi Qianming over and asked.
For someone who hadn't even begun refining Chakra yet to outpace a crowd of clan heirs—Kakashi found that intriguing. Before enrollment, Kakashi's father had told him to take note of worthy rivals. For now, though, Zhao Yi Qianming wasn't one he truly regarded as such.
"Zhao Yi Qianming. And you?" Zhao Yi Qianming shot back.
Kakashi frowned and replied flatly, "Kakashi. Kakashi Hatake."
With that, he lost interest in further conversation. It wasn't arrogance so much as Zhao Yi Qianming's tone and expression—stiff enough to rub him the wrong way.
In his previous life, Zhao Yi Qianming hadn't been good at interacting with people—he was quiet to a fault. After crossing into the Naruto world, he'd gone years barely speaking to anyone at all. His speech had turned rigid, the kind that made listeners uncomfortable.
Soon, the two-hundred-lap test ended. Aside from a handful who failed, most passed the entrance exam—no surprise, since those who came here tended to have confidence.
Among the eliminated, one youth in a green skintight suit caught Zhao Yi Qianming's eye.
Might Guy! The man who would one day, by opening the [Eight Gates], pummel Six Paths Madara. Zhao Yi Qianming was tempted to befriend him—just not yet.
There would be plenty of chances over the next few years. They'd all be studying at the Ninja Academy together.
Many from this cohort were famous in the original timeline, and Zhao Yi Qianming was interested in all of them. They would be the future backbone of Konohagakure. Sharing a classroom with them would make many things easier down the line.
It was the same reason he'd approached Kakashi first. If he didn't know what Kakashi would become, he would never have initiated that conversation.
After receiving his admission notice, Zhao Yi Qianming returned home alone. He packed simply, grabbed some food, and headed for the forest behind the Hokage Rock.
Konohagakure treated war orphans humanely. Besides being assigned their own housing, they received monthly stipends sufficient for basic living. Luxuries like access to formal training grounds, however, were beyond a war orphan's reach.
So the vast forest behind the Hokage Rock became Zhao Yi Qianming's training grounds.
His regimen was simple: push-ups and the like—workouts that tempered raw strength.
Among Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu, Taijutsu was the least valued path, since Taijutsu specialists suffered against opponents who relied on Ninjutsu and Genjutsu.
Even though Might Guy would be overwhelmingly powerful later on, that was premised on using the [Eight Gates]. Without it, when Kisame Hoshigaki used the [Shapeshifting Technique] to create a clone with only thirty percent of the original's strength, Guy still had a hard time dealing with it.
Even so, Zhao Yi Qianming placed great emphasis on Taijutsu. Solid fundamentals were the root of using both Ninjutsu and Genjutsu well.
Part of this emphasis was by necessity. He simply had no access to the shinobi world's higher-tier methods and didn't know the formal training approaches.
In the original story, many top-tier ninja didn't rely on a Kekkei Genkai: the Third Hokage, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Minato Namikaze, and so on. None were Kekkei Genkai users, yet each reached great heights. Zhao Yi Qianming intended to find his own road by learning from the paths they walked.
The Ninjutsu path, the Forbidden Jutsu path, the Sage Arts path, the speed-type path.
For ninja without a Kekkei Genkai, only by mastering techniques strong enough to counter Kekkei Genkai users could they hope to fight them on equal footing.
And if he wanted to survive the looming Third Shinobi World War, he would have to keep growing stronger without pause.
For all his future plans, though, Zhao Yi Qianming was still just a kid who couldn't even refine Chakra.
Fortunately, the Ninja Academy would officially begin tomorrow. Zhao Yi Qianming was genuinely interested. The first step to becoming a shinobi started there.
The next morning, he got up right on time and reached the academy with only a few minutes to spare.
The moment he stepped through the gate, he felt several hostile gazes. It wasn't that he had keen sensory perception—those stares were simply too blatant. If this weren't the academy, he was sure they'd have jumped him already.
A glance told him everything: they were the clan heirs he'd overtaken yesterday. Being beaten by Kakashi was one thing; getting outpaced by a civilian and then scolded by their elders for disgracing the clan—that stung.
Withdrawing his gaze, Zhao Yi Qianming crossed the yard, entered the academic building, walked into his classroom, and sat down as if no one else existed.
He didn't spare the clan heirs another thought. If they came looking for trouble, then they'd fight. If he beat them, he'd naturally attract the attention of the higher-ups. If he lost, it would just be a beating—he'd train harder and win it back later.
The classroom's lively chatter clashed with Zhao Yi Qianming's silence—or perhaps it was that he clashed with the classroom. Noisy children filled every side; a few who'd recognized friends in the same class laughed and roughhoused with delight.
Among his peers, Zhao Yi Qianming had no friends, nor did he want any—there was simply no common ground.
"Teacher's here!"
Someone shouted, and the room fell silent at once.
The Ninja Academy curriculum wasn't the kindergarten playtime shown in the original timeline. What they taught here were the most fundamental shinobi basics; if you paid attention, you'd learn plenty of useful groundwork.
Especially in wartime, with tensions rising across the shinobi world, the village—fresh from the Second Shinobi World War—was desperately short of Genin and Chūnin, those expendables ground up by the front. The training cycle had been sharply shortened.
In peacetime, academy students had to reach twelve to graduate. Now, amid war, graduating under ten had become common. Monsters like Kakashi graduated at five and made Chūnin at six.
But shortening the study period inevitably hurt the quality of instruction. And with everyone still just children, it was hard to sit still and learn. The result was predictable: many died on the battlefield not long after graduating.
Wartime, however, never lacked for war orphans. One batch died; another soon filled the ranks.
For Zhao Yi Qianming, that grim reality was an advantage.
With an adult's mind, he could easily stand out among a crowd of children. So long as the higher-ups valued his displayed talent, he wouldn't be assigned suicide missions after graduation.
It wasn't fair. But who would care?