The Chunin Exams Begin

The week of training which was given to the Genin by their sensei went by in a flash.

Mizuki gave his all during this week and dived headfirst into focusing all of his efforts on his Fuinjutsu.

He redistributed all three of the shadow clones that he normally summoned and instead focused all of them, and himself, on his Fuinjutsu.

In total, Mizuki and his clones staued up for six days without rest, only taking breaks to run off to the washroom or to quickly warm up some instant noodles before throwing themselves back into their research.

Luckily for Mizuki, as the sixth day drew to a close, so too did his workload as at last, he was able to complete the project that he had been working on for the past few months.

Mizuki: {Finally Finished}

Mizuki got up and looked outside, noticing that it was dark out.

Mizuki: "*Phew*, I was able to finish this thing off just on time, eh?"

Mizuki said aloud to nobody in particular, his voice sounding labored and dehydrated, as he had neglected taking care of himself in favor of focusing on his jutsu over the past week.

Mizuki then let loose a large and resounding yawn as his lack of sleep over the past week quickly caught up with him.

Mizuki: "*Sighs* Well, time to get my ass in bed"

And so, Mizuki got into bed and quickly fell asleep, confident in his chances of being promoted with this new jutsu.

.....

The Following Morning.

Contrary to the trend that had been developed over the course of Mizuki's entire time spent in the Shinobi world, today was the day where he woke up early.

Not only that, but he did so perfectly naturally as well, waking up before his alarm even went off.

Mizuki took his time getting ready, anxious about how this would be the most important moment in either of his two lives to date.

In a timely manner, Mizuki finished getting ready and eating breakfast, before quickly getting up and walking out the door, onwards towards the chunin exams.

Mizuki, Anko and Idate, alongside their Sensei, Orochimaru, all met up outside the location of the first test.

Unlike most years, where the first test was written down and a sort of mind game played between the proctor and the genin, as they were in wartime, the first test for this chunin exam was combat base.

The test would be similar to the second and third fazes of the exam in that focus, as that was what the village felt was most important in times like this.

Orochimaru: "I can expect that you have spent the last week effectively?"

Mizuki, Anko and Idate: "Yes Sensei!"

Orochimaru: "Excellent, I await the news of your passing the exam."

And with that, Orochimaru dissapeared in a puff of white smoke, leaving the three genin to fins their way to the testing site.

Luckily for them, it did not take a genius to find the testing site, as they mearly had to follow the other genin who were running towards the testing site.

Unfortunaetly, the joint village chunin exams in the anime, were not a system that was employed in Mizuki's time. Especially now that there was about to be a war between Konoha and litteraly everybody else[1].

Glancing around, Mizuki counted roughly 300 genin, a large number justified by the fact that every able bodied genin was enrolling in the exam.[2]

In the anime, only the fourty fourth training ground was ever seen. This then begs the question, what happened to the remaining fourty three?

Of all of the known training grounds, the vast majority of them are Anbu exclusive, leaving only two that genin have accsess to.

The first of these is the previously mentioned fourty fourth training ground, or forest of death, which was commonly employed in order to test the survival skills of genin.

However, there is an additional training course that had recently been made availiable to the genin, in particular for the upcoming war.

The twenty second training ground, also known as the jagged range[3], was a training ground specifically designed to teach Shinobi how to fight in Iwa terrain, as they were historically one of Konoha's greatest rivals.

The training ground itself was ten miles in any direction from the centre, and contained the rocky terrain that was commonplace in Iwa and even in some areas of Kumo[4].

Regardless of any of this, Mizuki's thoughts, and the loud chatter that sounded like a constant hum, quickly came to a close as in a puff of smoke, their proctor appeared.

Proctor: "*yawns* alrighty..listen carefully to what I am *yawns* about to say because I am to lazy to say it more than *yawns* once."

....

[1] The participants of the 3rd ninja war are kind of vague, but we know that it was Konoha vs Iwa (Evidence of this can be seen in how Team Minato was sent to sabotage a bridge in Iwa), Konoha vs Kumo (Evidence of this can be seen in how Minato fought both Bee and A) and Konoha vs Kiri (as seen by the seven ninja swordsman vs guy). I'm adding Suna to the list of enemies because I can't see any way that some members of Suna (such as chiyo, who had her son slaughtered by konoha) being buddy buddy with them. Plus, its what some other fanfics are doing, so im doing it too.

[2] there are 153 canidates in the chunin exams in naruto for his chunin exam, im baiscally doubling this becuase it is ALL able bodied genin in konoha, and Mizuki's test is simply the one for his age group (made up this last part so that he will not be facing Duy at all)

[3] yes yes, I know I have a garbage naming sense, If any of you have a better name for the twenty second training ground, I am all ears :)

[4] This is clearly seen in areas such as the valley of clouds and lightening (https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Valley_of_Clouds_and_Lightning)