The Student (1)

A/N: I'm going with the headcanon that there are still many policies yet to be formed about academies and thus their teaching structure is quite loose at the time.

***

While Kushina nervously fidgeted, Kai looked around curiously. It was the end of the month and Kushina alongside him was deposited into the Ninja Academy. The academy starts a new semester every new year and the students range from 5 to even 10. The academy itself has a flexible teaching schedule from what Mito explained to Kushina and him and their late entrance only meant that they missed the Hokage's speech, that's all.

The duo stood on the wide raised platform next to the teacher who leaned against the podium and smiled at the group of children sitting on the benches, "Everyone, these are going to be the new addition to the classroom and will learn alongside the lot of you. Go on, introduce yourself."

The teacher... who Kai deemed to be more than just a teacher with how better he moved than a merc smiled encouragingly and Kushina stepped up with a healthy dose of stage fright. Over these past few days... Kai had grown absolutely livid at this 'chan' calling devil who seemed to have no stop on her mouth... only he was allowed to irritate others by speaking non-stop!

She wore a yellow tunic with a mesh shirt underneath that was revealed through the cut-sleeved tunic and a pair of dark grey sandals alongside training pants. Kai didn't look any different... but only smaller.

"U-uhm... I'm K-kushina Uzumaki... I" she grew meek. Very much so when foreign gazes landed on her only for one slightly louder whisperer to snicker, "Psst, hey, why are her hair so red... that's so funny?"

'That's funny? Child, I worry about your future... a man with such abysmal sense of humor will die without a girl... but then again, it should be the norm for ninjas...'

"Hehe, yeah! How weird..."

"She is a red tomato!"

'Wow... my level of insults are godly then, damn... tomato is an insult here?' Kai seemed even more bored now.

"I will become the first female Hokage!" Kushina exclaimed, causing the class to fall into silence before loud snickers broke out.

"Ehm, enough now," the teacher frowned and put the calls in order before looking at the youngest student in the form of Kai and sighing internally, "Do introduce yourself, child."

"Yes," smirking jubilantly, Kai walked forward and bowed politely before speaking, "My name is Kai and I am Kushina-san's helper, dattebane!"

"Pfft!"

"What the! That's so..."

A string of laughter broke out again as Kai concluded his experiment— this year's students were hopeless in humor— while he looked at the stunned Kushina who seemed out of her shell now as she stared at Kai for a second only to see him smile even wider. This made... Kushina smile and then her expression turned furious. Her hair practically flowed up like Ruriko and the teacher's expression changed at what he felt but Kushina barked without any inclination of modesty, "I'll beat anyone who laughs at Kai-chan!"

'Oi... don't add 'chan'... I beg you...'

Her sudden glower did stun others, ceasing the laughter as she walked towards the nearest available seat while dragging Kai against his will and settling down with a lord nasal huff that made her anger and indignance clear.

Meanwhile, Kai looked at the new title he gained after introducing himself alongside a little something extra.

[Student: Opens the Academy Skill Tree and reduces the requisite condition of leveling an academy related skill by 10℅]

Kai blinked before he zoned out the teacher and checked his status.

[Name: Kai

Age: 4

Title: Student

Gamer Traits: Skill Tree; Sleepless Gamer

Rank: Academy Student

Hit Points: 100℅

Stamina: 100℅ (0.1/min)

Chakra: 308 (103→ 112*175℅) (4.5/min)

Physique: 5/1000

Mental: 8/1000

Perception: 6/1000]

[Skill Tree unlocked.]

Kai looked at the chart spread in front of his gaze and found the skill tree divided into four categories.

[Taijutsu] [Ninjutsu] [Genjutsu] [Weaponry]

'Hmm... so Taijutsu is physical attacks for the most part. Genjutsu is related to illusions but maybe the academy will clear more of it for me. Ninjutsu, according to Kushina is everything that is not Taijutsu and Genjutsu so aside from farting thunder and crackling lightning, many things are a part of it.

With an eager gaze that made the teacher feel that Kai was more taken to the lesson just by the first sitting, the boy opened the Taijutsu tab and found two skills.

[Konoha Basic Taijutsu (0/10): Basic taijutsu skill passed down to every aspiring ninja. Training in this skill passively trains the body. Improve physique by 1 point at each level and increased mobility while using this skill. Stamina Consumed: 2/min]

[Unlock: 5 SP]

Aside from this, there was another skill in taijutsu block— [Basic Chakra Enhancement (10/10)]— that could be bought for 10 SP. Kai only had a total of 47 skill points so he didn't think of using SP to purchase skills that could be learned from the academy.

On the other hand, genjutsu only had one skill, that, too, blocked and other ninjutsu skills were blocked, too, revealing that there was a prerequisite skill that must be trained at the beginning of the ninjutsu section.

[Leaf Sticking Exercise (0/25)]

[Overlapping skill detected. Mitigating the description for prompt accuracy.]

[Leaf Sticking Exercise (0/25): Chakra is controlled within the body to move around the surface of the skin and keep a leaf stuck to the body. Each level up reduced chakra wastage by 0.6℅, increases the chakra recovery rate by 3℅, and increases the chakra capacity by 3℅. Current Chakra Capacity: 103]

[Unlock: 10 SP]

Kai did a mental calculation and realized that the basic chakra enhancing skills similar to the chakra spiral technique and the leaf sticking exercise belonged to one category just that the former was limited and the latter was more general and expansive as noted from the higher level cap. BUT, he already had a semblance of chakra control that the Leaf Sticking Exercise would have provided and now that he already had it, the improvements made in each level up would be smaller than before and these foundational skills should be useless in growth once he hits 25℅ reduced wastage of chakra, 250℅ boosts in chakra reserve and enhanced passive recovery of 125℅.

{A/N: I know this looks a bit technical so call me on it if anything confuses you.}

With that noted down, Kai also realized that these numbers aren't essential to achieve any ninjutsu but his trait was related to gamer and it just devised the most optimal distribution of stats and knowledge for him to work on it.

With that settled, Kai happily attended the classes, bored out of his wits when subjects like geography and mathematics came in front of him related to shinobi business but... at least, he wasn't as blatant as Kushina, the aspiring leader of the village, who slept soon after. Her snores were loud enough to irk their veteran shinobi teacher who snapped the chalk towards the girl as it landed right on top of her head, making her yelp and sit straight with an embarrassed expression.

And when others laughed, oh boy!

Kushina snapped... and was sent out of the class to hold buckets in her hands. Endurance training if you will.

Meanwhile, Kai was busy learning everything he could. Being 4 didn't stop him from learning the concepts present. But as flexible as the teaching of shinobi is... sadly, for the first month, they focus on theory just so they can give practicals their attention fully later on. Fortunately, Kai and Kushina joined at the end of the month just around for the juicy bit...

And to their despair... Mito had her own teachers waiting in the compound to drill theory in their heads once they returned.

---

Training, grinding, sweating, eating, and then rinse and repeat. Kai was... in ecstasy. He never knew grinding felt this good. To see the number of his stats increase while his skills made him powerful relatively quickly. Gamer Mind really took a lot out of grinding back then. The past's chore was the present's joy!

A month passed soon after and it was only in the servant's quarter he felt respite from Kushina... but who was he kidding. The kid was a menace and he liked every bit of punches she unleashed on the round bully the first day he had the galls of teasing her in a teacher's absence... and it helped both of them when Kai began kicking alongside. A bonding experience, if you may. They made a friend out of this, of course, but also a punishment to run around the ground for four hours! The teacher was foolish! He only blessed him with the grind!

As such, after a month of training, Kai's stats looked something like this:

[Name: Kai

Age: 4

Title: Student

Gamer Traits: Skill Tree; Sleepless Gamer

Rank: Academy Student

Hit Points: 100℅

Stamina: 100℅ (0.1/min)

Chakra: 654.5 (112→ 187*250℅) (6.75/min)

Physique: 5→ 9/1000

Mental: 8→ 9/1000

Perception: 6→ 8/1000]

[Leaf Sticking Exercise (25/25): Chakra is controlled within the body to move around the surface of the skin and keep a leaf stuck to the body. Each level up reduced chakra wastage by 0.6℅, increases the chakra recovery rate by 3℅, and increases the chakra capacity by 3℅. Current Chakra Capacity: 187]

However, it was painfully obvious even to Kai that his chakra was... only starting to catch up to others now. His tender age made sure that his godly skills doesn't depress the children around him but aside from that, he was quite good. Acing theoretical, and performing well in the month-long chakra training exercise alongside chakra theory. Now, the third month of the academy would be having revisions on theory and active taijutsu training followed by a month of chakra training revision and weaponry training.

Genjutsu was apparently set aside by the teachers for later when the children have finer control of chakra.

With that, everyone was brought out to the training ground. The redhead next to him practically bounced with her violet eyes sparkling as a slightly awkward greeting caught their attention, "Hello..."

"What is it?" Kushina snapped promptly, making the spiky, blonde-haired youth scratch the back of his head. Minato, a civilian. By now, Kai was well aware of many things including geographical and political, and knew what the Shinobi villages are, their general structure with Daimyo, and the fact that Kushina was a princess and Mito a queen. He's been serving royalties!

Minato, on the other hand, was like him. Orphan, and civilian. Well, a civilian who had ninja parents and their heritage which allowed him to gain access to their knowledge and wealth. The boy was smart, too. Talented and frugal was a quality rare to be found simultaneously.

"Um, Kushina-san, Kai-san, I was hoping if we could train together—"

"Nope," pointing her nose high in the sky, flicking her hair and crossing her arm with a royal snort of her, Kushina turned to her heels and rejected, "I promised Mikoto-san we'd train together!"

Kai fell into a dilemma. Should he follow her to the pit of 'chan' that her friend, another clan princess of sort by the name of Mikoto had gotten around?

Nope.

He stayed and appraised Minato who blinked and then smiled appreciatively. Geniuses huddle together. Contrary to belief, the weak bully the strong! Minato and Kai were considered geniuses if their top scores and chakra control were to go by anything but Kai could somehow sense when close to Minato that his chakra reserves were easily double his own and increased every day. Just because Kai progressed didn't mean others stagnated. Not to mention, Kushina had an immaculate chakra control despite the bottomless pit her reserves happened to be and what she lacked, in theory, was made up with her instincts of being a kunoichi. Truly, it was disheartening just how much chakra Kushina had...

Kai still didn't know why she had such a chakra though. Oh, well.

"Let's practice when Sensei teaches us the," before Kai could muster politely, making Minato happier by the second, a hand grabbed the back of his neck as Kushina proclaimed, "I said WE will practice together, right, Kai-chan?"

"Oi—" struggle as he might... he was dragged away. Pitiful 4-year-old body... but then again, unlike the gorilla-faced Kushina... Mikoto was pleasing to look at. As a child... wait, no matter what the phrase, it just sounded wrong.

And thus, Kai was trapped. Today the teacher would demonstrate the Konoha Basic Taijutsu so other clan children must also follow these techniques instead of their better clan taijutsu skills.

But he was waiting...

Ever since he accepted the special quest from Mito, there was no confirmation of failure. But Kushina seemed plenty settled and even had a friend and a guy to reject. You can't be more settled than this! Which only meant that the mission would come to a success soon enough and wanted to see what kind of title and skill tree he would get in return!