Chapter 1 Opening Ceremony

September of the forty-fourth year of the Konoha calendar.

Although it is early autumn, the lingering summer heat has not yet dissipated.

On a scorching morning, the new semester began at the Konoha Ninja Academy.

"Where the leaves flutter, the fire will also continue. The flames will illuminate the village and make new leaves sprout again..."

On the high platform in the playground, the then Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, was giving a speech at the opening ceremony of the new school year.

The content is still the same old stuff.

It's nothing but clichés like the will of fire, the spirit of sacrifice, and we are all lumberjacks.

But the young ninjas in the audience who had never seen the world were still as excited as chickens with blood injected, their fists clenched tightly and their eyes filled with fanaticism.

I'm afraid that as long as the Sandaime gives the order, they will pick up kunai, shout "waaaaagh!", and rush to the front line of the battlefield without hesitation.

"Tsk tsk, the Sandaime's public speaking skills are getting better and better. If it weren't for the opening ceremony, I would have thought it was a pyramid scheme conference..."

At the end of the line of teachers next to the podium, a handsome young man with black hair in a high ponytail was watching the scene in front of him calmly, but he couldn't help but make a mocking sound in his heart.

There's no way, nineteen years have passed since he was reincarnated into this world as Kimura Hideki.

After years of struggling in the real and cruel ninja world, his feelings for the original work had long been worn away.

Although the Sandaime in front of him is not as cunning as described in the conspiracy theory.

However, having personally experienced all the unreasonable systems of Konoha, Hideki found it difficult to respect him.

Now, after listening to the opponent's speech on the Will of Fire, he was completely unperturbed and even felt like laughing.

All that remains in my heart is perhaps a little sympathy for the children in front of me.

Hideki couldn't help but look at the portrait of the first Hokage on the cliff in the distance.

"Alas, I wonder what the Ninja God would think when he sees this scene..."

"Wasn't his original intention of establishing the ninja village to allow children to study and play freely instead of going to the battlefield early?"

However, Xiu Shu's slight emotion soon turned into a silent sigh and dissipated into the hot air around him with the wind.

Because he actually didn't have much sympathy for the children...

As a dignified time traveler, Xiu Shu does not have amazing bloodline, nor does he have any extraordinary cheats. He is just an ordinary orphan.

The only commendable thing in his life was that he received half of a puppetry textbook from a white-haired jonin, and relying on the knowledge and imagination from his previous life, he successfully mastered the secret puppetry of the Sand Village through self-study.

Not long ago, he was even promoted to a special jonin by the village, becoming the object of envy and hatred of many civilian ninjas.

But Xiushu didn't feel very proud.

Because he knew that in the ninja world which would become more and more disastrous in the future, let alone the special jonin, even the real jonin would be nothing more than a slightly larger ant, whose life and death would not be in their own control.

Not to mention the distant future, the footsteps of the Third Ninja World War are getting closer and closer...

If Hideki doesn't want to lose his life in the great war that will engulf the entire ninja world in a few years, he must seize this last moment of peace and become stronger as soon as possible.

And the reason why Hideki appeared in the Ninja School at this time was precisely for this purpose.

The strength of a puppeteer depends largely on the strength of the puppet itself, in addition to his own skills.

The power of puppets comes from the accumulation of various resources, such as better materials, more sophisticated processing equipment and technology, more advanced mechanism design and rune spells...

This makes puppetry different from other ninjutsu I've thought of, and it's actually more inclined towards the technological side.

What matters is the cluster effect and collective wisdom, rather than relying on one person to work alone.

Even if one is as talented as the Scorpion of the Red Sand, it would be impossible for him to master such advanced puppetry at such a young age if he had not inherited the years of accumulation from the previous puppeteers of the Sand Village.

As the only puppeteer in Konoha, Hideki once improved his puppetry skills by stealing the skills of enemy puppeteers and their puppets on the battlefield of Sunagakure.

It's a pity that the bonus period is now over.

Ordinary puppeteers or puppets can no longer provide him with much reference value, and he dare not provoke powerful puppeteers easily, so he has fallen into a bottleneck period.

Helpless, Hideki had to turn his attention back to the Hidden Leaf Village that he loved and hated.

Because he has fully realized that if he wants to continue on this path, he cannot just rely on stealing skills and working in isolation, but must establish a puppetry research and development system centered on himself.

Therefore, helping Konoha to train more puppeteers and using this as a bargaining chip to leverage more talents and resources for his own use is almost Hideki's only option.

Becoming a teacher at a ninja school and teaching puppetry is the first step of Hideki's plan...

…

The Sandaime's lengthy speech continued.

Judging from the way he talks, I'm afraid it won't end anytime soon.

Xiu Shu managed to hold back a yawn with great difficulty, and decided to take this opportunity to continue polishing his plan to become stronger in his mind.

At this moment, someone suddenly approached secretly and poked his arm with his elbow, interrupting Hideki's thoughts.

Xiu Shu turned his head and saw a young man with red inverted triangle wrinkles on his cheeks making eyes at him.

"Senior, why are you here?" Hideki asked in a low voice with a hint of surprise.

The young man's name is Inuzuka Jaw, he is a few years older than Hideki, and is also a special jonin.

Hideki and the other party were teammates for a period of time, so the two of them have a pretty good relationship.

Hearing Hideki's question, Inuzuka Jab's smile suddenly fell, and he sighed and said,

"Don't mention it. I was doing well in the tracking class, but I was unlucky and was sent to be a training class teacher this year."

"Otherwise, is there anyone who would be so stupid as to volunteer to be a teacher?"

At this point, Inuzuka Jaw also asked curiously:

"By the way, why are you here, Xiu Shu?"

Xiu Shu smiled and said:

"What a coincidence! I am also here to teach puppetry, and I volunteer."

"…"

Inuzuka Jab's expression froze when he heard this.

I didn't expect that the fool was right next to me...

The so-called training course is actually a special course set up by the school.

At first, this was just part of Princess Tsunade's plan to promote medical ninja reforms.

That is, additional courses are offered in ninja schools to screen and train students with talent in medical ninjutsu at an early stage, so as to shorten the time of training medical ninjas.

The ultimate goal is to have a medical ninja on every team.

Although the planner's plan was not entirely successful, the system continued.

Even now when manpower is increasingly scarce, various departments have begun to imitate medical classes and offer courses in schools in order to compete for and cultivate talents in advance.

In addition, the school also opened various courses such as agriculture, court etiquette, and flower arrangement to help students disguise themselves as specific identities and occupations when performing tasks in the future.

After this series of developments, the current training course system was finally formed.

The reason why Hideki was able to open a puppetry class in the school so smoothly was thanks to this system.

Since training courses are much more professional than subject courses and only have two classes per week, each department usually sends people to serve as part-time teachers.

It was obvious that Inuzuka Jaw was captured by his tracking team and had no choice but to come to the school to teach.

He was deeply disgusted by this and naturally did not believe that Hideki did it voluntarily. He even imagined an old-fashioned plot in his mind where the Konoha high-level officials persecuted a civilian genius and demanded that he hand over the inheritance.

But he was also a nobody and couldn't do anything about it, so he could only say something nice to comfort Xiu Shu:

"It's good to teach puppetry~"

"Hideki, you were sent to teach at the school. This means that the village should take puppetry very seriously."

"If you can train a few more puppeteers for Konoha, then it won't be impossible for you to establish a new puppetry department and become the head of it in the future!"

"Senior, you are so far ahead. I haven't even started my first class yet."

Xiu Shu waved his hands humbly.

"And puppetry is not that easy to learn. I am still worried about whether I can teach my students."

"That's right..."

Inuzuka Jab suddenly seemed to think of something, and stroked his stubble and said,

"Come to think of it, Sunagakure's puppetry probably doesn't have a very good reputation in school."

"If you want the children to be willing to learn puppetry, Xiu Shu, you may have to put in more effort..."

Hideki was slightly stunned when he heard this, but he quickly understood what Inuzuka Jab meant.

As a puppeteer, he naturally knew that puppetry had a bad reputation in Konoha and even in the ninja world.

After all, traditional puppeteers all have eerie patterns painted on their faces, and their fighting style is to hide in the dark, controlling scary-looking puppets to kill enemies with hidden weapons and poison.

It's impossible not to be disgusting when one takes vulgarity to the extreme.

However, since Inuzuka Jab has specifically reminded me of this, it means that this problem might be even more serious in the ninja school...

That's right. During the Second Great Ninja War, the Sand Village puppeteers led by Chiyo caused Konoha a lot of trouble.

And it turns out that the parents of today's students were the main force who participated in the war at that time.

Children have been exposed to puppetry since childhood, and some even have relatives who died at the hands of puppeteers, so naturally they have a very bad impression of puppetry...

After figuring out all this, Xiushu couldn't help but wipe away a cold sweat in his heart, and at the same time secretly felt lucky.

If Inuzuka Jaw hadn't reminded him, he would probably have to wait until tomorrow when he saw the empty classroom before he could truly realize the seriousness of this problem.

Although this type of training course will give students a one-month selection period, they can freely visit various training courses and then choose which courses to take.

But Xiushu knew the importance of first impression, and the success or failure of the first class largely determined the outcome of the course.

You know, his entire plan is based on this puppetry class. If it fails, then the subsequent plans cannot proceed normally.

"Alas, it seems that the previously planned course content needs to be revised..."

Xiu Shu pondered in his heart.

"The first thing is to change everyone's prejudice against puppetry and create a new style of puppetry that is different from the gloomy and terrifying style of Sunagakure and has Konoha's characteristics."

"This was actually already in the previous plan, but now it seems that we need to step up our efforts."

"But prejudice is like a mountain. It is impossible to completely change it in a short period of time."

"So in this process, it seems that we have to make the courses as novel and interesting as possible in order to attract and retain more students."

"In that case, maybe we should still use the method of combining education with entertainment..."

Xiu Shu sighed inwardly, seeming a little hesitant.

Adding more interesting activities to teaching and letting students learn through entertainment is indeed a good way to stimulate everyone's enthusiasm for puppetry.

But in terms of efficiency, this is obviously not as good as serious hard work and practice, otherwise it would have been widely promoted long ago.

It's only a few years away from the Third Ninja World War. Hideki is racing against time to advance his plan to become stronger. It's really hard for him to have the patience to reduce his efficiency and play house with the little brats...

However, thinking of Hideki here, his eyes unconsciously looked at the little ninjas not far away.

For some reason, seeing those childish little faces, Xiu Shu's slightly restless thoughts gradually calmed down, and he breathed a long sigh of relief.

"Well..."

"The efficiency of learning through entertainment is indeed not high."

"But in the long run, keeping children passionate about puppetry may be the best way to cultivate true puppetry talents."

With this in mind, Hideki couldn't help but look at the portrait of the first Hokage on the cliff in the distance again.

It's a pity that it's very difficult for me to help realize Hashirama Senju's beautiful vision of not letting children go to the battlefield.

But if it is just to let the children gain a little happiness in the process of learning and add some bright colors to their gloomy childhood, he can still do it.

When Xiu Shu finally made a decision, the opening ceremony was just coming to an end.

"...Then I declare that from today, the new school year of Ninja School officially begins!"

As Sarutobi Hiruzen finished his words, there was a burst of warm applause from the audience below the stage.

And Hideki's new teaching career officially begins at this moment...