32 Chapter 32: Progress

--- Timeskip 6 months ----

Six months have passed since the start of the academy.

A grove near Ken's house was his training ground. Wooden targets were hung on

the cedar trees in the cluster surrounding him.

Each was about the size of a human head, with two black circles drawn on it.

Ken stood alone in the deserted wood, kunai tucked between his fingers.

Four in each hand, the eight kunai were his weapons of choice.

"Haah …" He closed his eyes and slowly pushed the air out of his lungs from the bottom of his stomach.

As he crouched down, he kicked at the ground as hard as he could. His body

danced into the air and flipped upside down. He held his arms to his chest, and

then shot them out to both sides, and eight flashes of light scattered in eight directions.

Thk! Thk! Thk! The sound echoed all around Itachi as he landed.

The sharp blades had pierced the centers of the targets on the cedar trees.

"This just feels so easy right now. Itachi's training really did wonders. Though I can't still glide them much in the air like Itachi does. He did say it would come with practice." Ken mumbled

During these six months, Ken had shuriken training lessons with Itachi once a week. Itachi was 'obligated' to teach him if he did not want to be 'burned' by Ken.

Nothing special has happened in the academy. They were still teaching kids the basics. Ken had enough of this child's play and had taken the study materials for future years to learn them as quickly as possible and then pass the graduation test to leave the academy.

Itachi, his only academy friend has also decided to have an early graduation. It was not a surprise for Ken as he knew that Itachi would take early graduation in Canon.

To resupply the number of genins and chunins in the village lost due to the third great ninja war and the nine-tails attack, the village had allowed early graduations. If your skills were sufficient enough for a genin, you are allowed to graduate early.

The requirements for early graduation were the same as normal graduation. You would not have to do anything extraordinary to get an early graduation.

Ken believed this was only a temporary measure to increase the number of Genins by his grandpa. Once they have a sufficient number of genins, the requirements for early graduation would increase.

He had left the study of the theoretical material to his shadow clones. The practical material was already mostly done before he even joined the academy.

His shadow clones have only managed to learn two jutsus but he was happy that they managed to reduce their hand signs to just 6 which was very less for a B-rank jutsu.

The two jutsus that his shadow clones have learned our Earth Style: Great Mud River and Earth Style: Earth dragon bomb.

He creates a shadow clone as he tests the first jutsu.

He formed the hand signs swiftly.

'Earth Style:Great Mud River'

The Earth turned in front of the shadow clone turned into mud and it swept the clone with high speed.

"Although it does not deal any damage. It's a good crowd-control skill. Next up is Earth Style: Earth dragon bomb" Ken mumbled as he used the mud that was created by the mud river jutsu to create a mud dragon head which fired mud bombs at the different dummy targets nearby.

He then used a fire rank jutsu to cover the mud balls in flames. The flaming mud balls struck the dummies, destroying them in seconds.

Ken was satisfied with these two jutsus even though he needed a mud source to use the second jutsu.

He has a jutsu that can create a mud source so he was not worried about it.

'Does it mean I now have a mud release kekkei genkai too? I don't think it exists though. Everyone with earth-style affinity can use mud jutsus.' Ken thought

He has been able to successively master the Rasengan. Although it took him one month more than what Naruto took since he had considerably less chakra than what Naruto had, he could not train nonstop.

He created a Rasengan in his hands in less than 5 seconds as he smashed a nearby boulder with it which resulted in the boulder being obliterated.

Nothing has been new in the academy. The classes still go on. They have taijutsu spars every week. Itachi is always Ken's sparring partner.

The record stood at 15-9 with Itachi winning. But Ken was happy that he at least could now sometimes win against Itachi in taijutsu spars.

It was not just him who was getting better at taijutsu. Even Itachi's taijutsu was a far cry from what it was at the beginning of the Academy.

While Ken was not good with his taijutsu skills, his physical strength and speed surpassed that of any other person his age by a mile.

This was due to his abnormal level of chakra which made his body stronger to sustain that amount of chakra.

Mukai also put him to do a lot of physical exercises to increase his physical might. The ash fist jutsu was another factor that helped him increase his speed and arm strength.

After Ken was done testing his jutsus, he went on to train with Shurikens next. He would follow that up with senbons.

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