"Everyone, get up!"
Kanda Rokuro was still half-asleep when a sharp shout jolted him awake.
He opened his eyes and immediately saw the Konoha shinobi from yesterday—the one who had tossed him back onto the bed.
From his inherited memories, Rokuro knew that this man was their instructor.
His name was Okamoto.
As for his surname, that was beyond what a child like him could know.
Training System… Training System…
As the name implied, it required constant training to earn experience points.
Although ordinary training didn't give nearly as much experience as completing missions, even a tiny gain was still a gain.
So Rokuro quickly climbed out of bed and followed Okamoto out of the room along with the other children.
Wash up.
Eat breakfast.
Under Okamoto's supervision, everything was carried out in neat, orderly fashion.
Afterward, he led them to a small training field, where they joined children from the other rooms. A quick glance told Rokuro there were nearly two hundred kids gathered there.
Standing at the front, Okamoto addressed the crowd.
"Children from Room Nine, stay here. Everyone else—follow your respective room leaders and begin training."
The moment he finished speaking, more than half of the children scattered.
Soon, only the twenty or so kids from Rokuro's room remained, all looking at Okamoto with confused expressions.
Okamoto's face was cold and impassive.
"You will officially begin training today," he said flatly. "Since you're new, your daily workload will be half the normal amount. After one month, training will return to standard intensity. Anyone who can't keep up will be sent back to where they came from."
The children immediately tensed up.
They all came from impoverished families—back home, they barely had enough to eat.
But here?
They ate well every day.
Even if the training was brutal, it was nothing compared to starving.
As a result, every child straightened up, staring intently at Okamoto.
Seeing this, Okamoto nodded in satisfaction.
However, when his gaze landed on Kanda Rokuro's calm eyes, he paused slightly.
Those eyes…
They were filled with confidence.
As if he already knew he would succeed.
A child with that kind of gaze was indeed worth cultivating.
Looking away from Rokuro, Okamoto continued, "Starting now, you'll run two laps around the training field with me. After that, you'll rest for thirty minutes before the next exercise. Anyone who fails to complete today's training will not get dinner."
With that, Okamoto started jogging at a steady pace.
The children hurried to follow.
Rokuro blended into the group and ran along with them, but his attention was elsewhere.
When he'd eaten breakfast earlier, he'd already checked today's missions.
Training Mission: Long-distance run — 10 kilometers
Random Mission: Teach Fukada Miya a lesson once
Today's training mission could overlap with the group run. Judging by the size of the field, two laps should be about five kilometers—meaning he could shave half the distance off the mission.
The random mission, however…
That was troublesome.
Fukada Miya was from a different room.
If Rokuro went looking for trouble and lost, or worse, got punished and expelled, learning ninjutsu in the future would become impossible.
This wasn't something to rush.
It needed careful planning.
As he ran, Rokuro suddenly remembered something—the experience points he'd earned yesterday hadn't been allocated yet.
Without hesitation, he dumped all of them into taijutsu.
He was still too young to learn ninjutsu anyway.
For now, strengthening his body to adapt to the training was the most important thing.
Yesterday's push-ups had left his arms aching for ages. He didn't want to be in that state every day.
If future training required upper-body strength and his arms were already shot, he might not even be able to finish the exercises.
But after allocating the experience points, something unexpected happened.
The lingering soreness in his arms faded away.
Rokuro froze in shock.
So increasing experience can relieve physical fatigue too?
If that was the case…
That was incredible.
In the future, he could save some experience points and use them to recover stamina when he was exhausted.
He decided to test this properly tonight after completing another mission.
With his thoughts sorted out, Rokuro refocused and continued training with Okamoto.
Ordinary training did increase experience—but painfully slowly.
After completing the two laps, his taijutsu experience had only gone up by two points.
The difference between regular training and missions was enormous.
It was honestly discouraging.
Still, if he wanted to earn Okamoto's favor and start learning ninjutsu earlier, he had no choice but to train seriously.
This was critical to becoming stronger.
The run ended.
The children rested for half an hour.
Then came a brutal sequence:
One thousand kicks.
One thousand punches.
One thousand side jumps.
By the time it was over, it was already noon.
The children collapsed onto the ground, completely drained.
Okamoto gave them ten minutes to recover before leading them to the cafeteria for lunch.
They were starving.
Everyone ate like wolves, paying no attention to anyone else.
Rokuro was no exception—he focused entirely on his food, not even noticing that his meal tray had one more large chicken leg than the others.
After lunch came two hours of rest.
At three in the afternoon, the entire morning's training routine was repeated.
Rokuro had no intention of sneaking out to train at night—it would draw too much attention from the instructors.
So he decided to finish the remaining five kilometers during the noon break instead.
The children were resting anyway.
They were lying beneath the trees by the training field.
If he went running now, he wouldn't be far from them.
Besides—
The training field wasn't empty.
A few others had the same idea and were still training on their own. They were probably like Rokuro—eager to become shinobi as soon as possible.
One more person wouldn't stand out.
After resting in the shade for a while and recovering some stamina, Rokuro glanced at the children already fast asleep, shook his head, stood up, and began running laps around the field.
Five kilometers wasn't that far.
For an adult, it would take about an hour.
But Rokuro was still a child, with much shorter legs.
It took him a full hour and a half to finish.
When the system notification appeared and the 500 experience points were awarded, he stopped and returned to rest beneath the tree.
At that point, only twenty minutes remained before afternoon training began.
"Rokuro, aren't you tired?"
As soon as he sat down, another child walked over and asked him.
Rokuro smiled lightly. "Don't worry. I know my limits."
The child shook his head. "Your stamina's amazing. I couldn't even move just now."
Rokuro simply smiled and said nothing more.
Leaning back against the tree, he closed his eyes to rest.
At the same time, he was quietly calculating how many experience points it would take to fully restore his stamina.
He had no time to deal with children's chatter.