5 Konoha

For 3 month Yuta kept his usual routine of running and practicing leaf concentration exercise while sitting outside and acting as if he was thinking about something important. Also, Yuta started to try to develop the ability to sense chakra around him and he actually was able to sense chakra vaguely one meter around him recently. 

But sensing chakra around him is hard for Yuta and he needs to fully concentrate to sense it. Increasing the range is also hard so Yuta determined to spend at least 2 hours per day on developing his sensory abilities. Because he doesn't have a teacher and doesn't know how all of that should work, all he can do for now is to go in the dark and try things to find out what will work and what wouldn't. 

'My chakra reserves grew a lot in the past months, but it seems that the growth is slowing down now. Leaf concentration exercise is almost useless for me at this point. I can hold the leaf as long as I want to, and chakra wastage is minimal.' 

'Working on sensory abilities is hard and mentally exhausting, I can't do it for more than 2 hours a day even if I want to. For now, I can only sense someone else's chakra at the 1 meter radius around me and only when I concentrate on it, so it's not very useful for now at least.' 

'For my physical training I don't want to do any more than I already do. I'm still 4 and too much training might be unhealthy. So, it's just 2 hours of running every day and that's it for now.' 

Its 7 months before the academy. Recently Yuta managed to convince Chitose to let him go on a walk outside the orphanage on his own, but only for 2 hours in the afternoon. With that Yuta start's to go outside every day to explore the village. 

The village seems much bigger than Yuta expected. He wandered around in all directions from the orphanage, but no matter in which direction he goes, there is no end to the village. In one direction there are some fields and small forests that serve the purpose of training grounds. In other directions there are the village streets with houses, all kinds of shops, stalls and small markets. 

'In the Naruto series Konoha doesn't look so big than it is here! In some areas it looks like the small village with one or two stories houses, in other areas it looks like small town with 3-5 story buildings. And there are the training grounds every here and there that occupy a lot of the territory. And all of that is surrounded by a wall. Konoha is Huge!' 

'I came across some weapon shops that sell kunai, shurikens and stuff. And it seems that anyone can buy them freely. Normal kunai costs around 400ryo and shurikens are around 70ryo each. There are also explosive tags for sale, but only for formal shinobi for 700ryo each.' 

'Sealing scrolls costs 1500ryo. And there is a lot of other stuff like smokescreens, different kinds of weapons, ninja wires, mesh armor and many more things for sale in those stores.' 

'Prices for food in street food stalls are around 100 to 200ryo for a meal. Buying groceries and cooking the food by myself should be two times cheaper than that.' 

'I was told that if I enroll in the academy, they will give me a small apartments and an allowance while I'm in the academy, I wonder how much they will give me, I doubt it will be enough for comfortable living conditions. I already can see my future financial struggles up until I graduate and start going on a missions.' 

'But how can I even make money while I'm in the academy? And even If I manage somehow to get some money, it should be legitimate, or I will attract someone's suspicions for having it. Well, I can hide it and spend it in secret. The only way I can think of to make money at this early stage of my new shinobi life is through pickpocketing and stealing.' 

'Even if stealing is risky, I can time travel if caught. But what if I will be spotted and not directly confronted after that? What if some shinobi spots me stealing and just reports me without me even noticing? If I notice too late that I've been caught, I would not able to fix the problem with time travel if it's out of my current capabilities.' 

'Well eventually I will able to come back to that point when my spiritual energy will allow it, but I need to train it to be strong enough to be able to do so in the first place. So, stealing money is risky even with time travel.' 

In the coming days Yuta spent his time outside of the orphanage to observe the closest training grounds and eventually found a small forest training ground that is always unoccupied and desolate. This training ground is 20 minutes away from walking, and with 2 hours allowed for him for being outside, Yuta starts coming to this desolate training ground every day to practice tree walking exercise for more than an hour a day. 

At first it was hard for Yuta to find the right amount of chakra that he needed to concentrate on the soles of his feet to stick to the tree. If it's too little he falls on the ground, if too much – it will repulse him from the tree instead. 

The other difficult part of the exercise for Yuta is his core strength. It's hard for him to keep himself parallel to the ground, so this exercise also trains his physical body. Chakra-vice is also exhausting for Yuta. For the first month he started to practice, he was not able to practice for long, but eventually after a full month of efforts Yuta is able to tree-walk now for more than an hour straight. 

It still exhausts him by doing so and his chakra wastage is still big, but seeing improvements as a result of his efforts every day motivates Yuta greatly! 

After 2 more months of this routine there were 4 months left before the academy started and 2 months before Yuta becomes 5. Yuta mastered tree walking exercise to a degree that it's almost useless to practice it anymore. There is not a lot of chakra wastage right now and improving it is more difficult. 

With that Yuta decided to find a desolate training grounds with a lake in it, so he can try practicing water walking as the next step of chakra control exercises. 

Yuta managed to find the required public training grounds with a small lake but it's a little far away, so he will not have too much time to train in it with only 2 hours that is allowed to him to spend outside of the orphanage. And it is not always unoccupied, so Yuta can't always practice there but there is no better place around anyway. 

With that Yuta starts to practice water walking for less than an hour a day, there is only this much time he had left besides the running to and from the training ground. 

Water walking is pretty much the same thing as tree walking, just harder and requires better control over chakra to spread it on water surface and maintain it at a same level and changing it accordingly with the occasional movements of water, like water ripples that appear when chakra concentration is not stable and fluent enough or a little too much chakra is used than needed. 

With that new routine the remaining 4 month before the academy comes to an end and Yuta is mentally preparing himself for the academy. The next day the academy entrance exam will take place. 

'I can't wait for leaving this annoying place for good! I can't stand it anymore! The other children are annoying, the caretakers are annoying, I can't do what I want to do, and I'm forced to stay here most of the day and waste my time!' 

'Finally, some damn changes are coming. According to what I was told the academy will provide me a small apartments and I can finally move out of this hole and spend my time outside of the academy time as I want to, without this damn constant interference and annoyance!' 

'Besides me there will be 3 other children that will try enrolling in to the academy with me from my orphanage. Tomorrow morning Chitose will take the 4 of us to the academy for the entrance exam, I don't know what it will be, but it should be something simple.' 

'I doubt they will demand something too hard from the wannabe students, there will be a lot of civilians like me but not trained with chakra at all. So, I should easily pass the coming test.' 

'I would say that the problem for me is not to pass the test but to not pass it too good. I'm afraid that if I display too much of my capabilities after a year of training with chakra, it will raise some questions at best and will catch the certain eye of a certain bandaged person. And the attention of Danzo is the last thing I need!' 

'There is also a problem with my chakra reserve as it much bigger than it should be for an untrained civilian. But if someone senses it, he probably will think of me as some kind of a genius. But with time in the academy with my average talent as other student's start to grow their reserves I will blend in and will no longer stand out from the group.' 

'At my time in the academy I will try to work hard on training, but my priority should always be to find ways to grow my spiritual energy as it will strengthen my Time control that is my only and most important trump card.' 

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[AN: I will not go into much details about prices and what costs how much later on, it's just feels right to cover that topic a little bit because MC will struggle a little bit with insufficient finances early on so there it is.

And yes, finally it's the academy arc incoming!

Thanks to Carlllos, Druidpriest, Murod and Herbivore for the power stones!]