Chapter 48: New Training Task

【Disciple Uchiha Obito's cultivation mission settings】

【Training Mission: Achieve First Place in the Ninja Academy Practical Exam for Your Grade】

【Reward: Determined by task completion level and power growth during the mission.】

【Disciple Might Guy Training Quest Set】

【Cultivation Mission: Achieve first place in the Ninja Academy practical exam for your grade】

【Reward: Determined by the degree of mission completion and the increase in strength during the mission period】

Watching the several pop-up windows that suddenly appeared, Mu Yue fell into deep thought.

Although I didn't know what had happened, the outcome was quite good.

With the dual cultivation mission plus the rewards from his exam results, he'd definitely break through to five-digit chakra by the end of the semester.

Unfortunately, the practical exam won't have a tie for first place; there will definitely be a clear ranking of first and second, meaning one person is destined to receive a slightly inferior mission reward.

"If one of them were to have an accident and be unable to take the exam, wouldn't it be better to reschedule for next semester?" Mu Yue pondered this question seriously.

Muyue hesitated somewhat, though he was confident he could handle this matter well.

But he couldn't guarantee this was the optimal solution, since there had never been a case where two cultivation tasks appeared simultaneously, and Mu Yue assumed a person could have at most one cultivation task.

If one of them delays completing the task until the mid-term exams next semester, there will be nearly three months during which no new cultivation tasks can be triggered.

Extending the mission duration might increase the base rewards, but is it really more beneficial to complete additional cultivation missions?

According to the cultivation mission trigger mechanism, it is not impossible for a disciple who came in second, still unwilling to accept defeat, to immediately trigger another mission aimed at securing first place.

Muyue decided to play it by ear, first mapping out the next training plans for Obito and Might Guy. After all, regardless of the outcome, greater strength would always yield more rewards—that much remained unchanged.

……

On Tuesday morning, Hongdou hummed an unknown little tune, her face filled with joy as she walked toward the ninja academy.

She hadn't been to school yesterday, Monday, having taken the day off, and with the weekend added in, she'd already gone three days without hearing Mu Yue's lectures or playing with her best friend.

So Hongdou was especially looking forward to going to school today.

"Will Miss Muyue think I'm sick and come to check on me? I wonder if Zitie Chuyun managed to win the prize money from the competition—how exciting!" The more Hongdou thought about it, the more she felt school had something truly worth looking forward to.

She must be Mitarashi Anko, one of the three members of that elite team.

"It's her. I remember her; she was ranked second in the practical exam last time."

"Second in actual combat—that's seriously impressive. It's just a shame his thought process is a bit... unconventional."

As Hongdou approached the school and the number of students increased, she noticed many people giving her strange looks.

"Is it possible that no one at the Ninja Academy ever takes leave? Did my request for time off really spread throughout the entire school?" Anko had assumed it was simply because she had taken leave.

Hong Dou muttered to herself as she walked toward the classroom of Class 1, Grade 1.

The closer Hongdou got to the classroom, the more strange, probing glances she noticed—and gradually, an unsettling feeling crept over her.

Walking into the classroom, she noticed something unusual; Steel Iron and Cloud Moon were not chatting as they normally would. Instead, they had their heads buried on their desks, seemingly asleep.

Whenever she came, the two of them would either discuss how to deal with Gangzi's stubborn and difficult-to-handle cousin, or talk about meeting girls.

Hong Dou was just about to return to her seat to wake the two of them up and ask what had happened when a girl she was on fairly good terms with called out to her.

"Hongdou, you've really become famous at the Ninja Academy these past two days," the girl said, covering her mouth as she struggled to hold back her laughter.

"Huh? I haven't been at school these past few days. It's not like taking a leave of absence would make me famous, right?" Hongdou scratched her head, unable to figure it out.

"Was that chair-summoning jutsu something you developed?" the girl asked, barely holding back her laughter.

"Turn into a chair? Do you mean a deception technique? Yeah, you could say that. I developed it with Koshi Teki and Izumo." replied Hokuto.

The girl could no longer hold it in and burst out laughing. "Haha, why don't you ask your two good brothers about that?"

"Kumori and Izumo, didn't you guys sleep well last night?" Becoming more and more puzzled, Kurenai chose to wake up her two good friends.

But you can never wake someone who is pretending to sleep. The two seemed to have fallen into a deep slumber, and Hongdou called out several times without rousing them.

Most girls would probably give up at this point—or maybe just poke it with a finger—but Hongdou was different.

After confirming that her good brothers were pretending to be asleep, Hongdou directly gave each of them a punch.

"Is there something you two are hiding from me?" Hongdou said with a suspicious look.

Knowing they couldn't keep pretending, the two of them opened their eyes.

"It's all Zitie's fault. He made a fool of himself on stage and dragged us into it." Kamiizumo directly sold out his good brother and told Hongdou about the weekend competition.

"He deliberately said our full names out loud—his intentions are unforgivable!" Kamiizumo stood together with Hongdou, angrily denouncing Gangzitie.

Her fists clenched. She knew a one-day leave couldn't have caused such a stir. It turned out Gangzitie had made a spectacle of himself and thrown her under the bus.

Gangzitie saw Hongdou cracking her knuckles and quickly recounted Kamiizumo's brilliant plan from yesterday, saying:

"Hongdou, don't believe him. That kid Izumo has a rebellious streak. Yesterday it was him who suggested that since you weren't here, we should just pin everything on you and say you developed all the ninjutsu."

Hongdou:...

She turned her gaze to Kamiizumo, her eyes already filled with killing intent.

And here she was yesterday thinking that if the two of them won, they'd use the prize money to treat her to dango. Instead, these good brothers were backstabbing each other one after another.

"You two are no good—both of you are getting a beating!" Hongdou grabbed Kamiizumo with her left hand and Gangzitie with her right.

Knowing they were in the wrong, the two good brothers could only flee. For a moment, the atmosphere in the classroom became a bit more cheerful again.

It wasn't until Muyue arrived that this farce came to an end.

"Teacher Muyue, my reputation is ruined. Now instead of 'Genius Hongdou,' I'm just 'Talented Hongdou,'" Hongdou said dejectedly to Muyue.

"Since they're not calling you a mediocrity, it means everyone still recognizes your strength," Muyue said with a comforting smile.

"I still think 'genius' sounds better."

"Then prove yourself with your strength next time."

"If I do well on the exam, can I have some dango?"

"If you do well."

"Great!" Hearing that doing well on the exam meant dango, Hongdou instantly shook off her gloom and smiled again.

Just then, the class bell rang.

"Let's begin class." Muyue started today's lesson.

He tirelessly explained the three basic ninjutsu taught at the ninja school.

【Lecture completed】

【Evaluation: A】

【Reward: Water Release · Water Formation Wall】

【Under your instruction, the students of Class 1, Year 1 have made significant progress in ninjutsu. Reward received: Master-level Three Body Techniques】

After the lecture ended, in addition to the usual lecture reward, there was an unexpected reward that caught Muyue off guard.

"So it's not just lecture rewards," Muyue said, somewhat surprised.

Having taught for over two months, this was the first time he had triggered such a reward.

Even though it was just the Three Body Techniques, at least it was master-level. Even if he couldn't use it in real combat, teaching it to ninja school students was still good.

Muyue thought about it and found it quite reasonable. After all, this was a teacher system, not a simple master-disciple system.

As a teacher, he had been instructing a group of students. It was only natural for him to receive some rewards when the students' strength improved.

"If I teach slightly higher-level ninjutsu, would the rewards be better?" Muyue first thought about how to improve the rewards.

The idea was good, but Muyue knew it couldn't be realized for now, because the ninja school's rule was that in ninjutsu classes, apart from ninjutsu theory, only the Three Body Techniques could be taught.

Muyue could somewhat understand this rule.

With forty students in a class, each having different innate chakra natures, you couldn't expect a chunin teacher to master five chakra nature ninjutsu. Moreover, students' learning abilities had to be considered.

For Muyue, this was no problem at all, because not only did he master a large number of ninjutsu, but he also had the blessing of teaching skills, and his own lecture quality was decent.

However, for his own safety, Muyue certainly couldn't reveal that much.

"Perhaps I could consider applying to the Third Generation to let me also teach the physical arts class for Class 1." Mu Yue felt that the teaching quality for non-disciples could be given more attention.

He remembered that the students of First Year Class 1 were quite dissatisfied with their physical arts teacher, often saying that the physical arts teacher taught poorly and was boring.

If Mu Yue personally took charge of the physical arts class for First Year Class 1, the students' physical arts abilities would likely improve faster.

After finishing his meal, Mu Yue returned to the office while thinking about how to improve the strength of First Year Class 1.

In the office, what had happened last month was repeating itself.

"We're in a critical period recently, everyone, keep following daily, otherwise we'll starve to death..."