While Arashi was thinking about all that happened in these five years, Naomi sensei entered the classroom. Everyone returned to their own seat and greeted her.
"Good morning sensei."
"Good morning class. Are you all excited about the upcoming graduation test?"
"Yes!" Everyone in his class were all pretty excited about it. They had been talking about it since a week.
"That's nice. Today we will be discussing about the graduation test. As all of you know, being in the advanced class you will get the chance to become a chunin directly. As you all have completed several D-ranked missions inside the village already, you all will be able to go in C-rank mission directly after team building trainings."
Yes, you heard her right. For the last two years academy students were allowed to form their own team under the supervision of a teacher or a jonin and you could go on D rank missions to earn extra credits to get jutsu and scrolls.
This had helped the village in freeing up more slots for more missions. Except genin who had not advanced to chunin, most of the D rank missions were completed by the academy students. This had helped civilian children to earn extra for themselves. Now a days, this had helped students to learn more about how to work as a team while in the school.
They didn't need to wait for graduation. Also these teams were built in a balanced way. You would have to have a medic ninja and two other shinobi in your team. Without a medic in your team, the team would be disqualified.
As medic was added to the curriculum, many students had taken this course. Though they had to train extra hard for this, this allowed to prepare themselves for the future.
Arashi, Kushina and Kana had formed their own team. Kana's talent for medic ninja was comparable to Tsunade. With her new Byakugan, she found it extremely easier to treat patient. Though Arashi and Kushina had also trained as a medic, they preferred to be an attack ninja.
Their team leader was Naomi sensei herself. She was very satisfied with their performance. In fact she had told them that, they might become an official team after graduation. With all the experience gained while completing D rank missions, their record was pretty good. They had used Shadow Clones to complete record number of missions in their time period.
"Now as you may become chunin, your test will be some what different. Rather than a single examination, you will be tested in two different exams. The 1st one will be in one month and the other one will be held one month after that.
In the first test all of you will give a written exam. I am going to remind you that along with academic questions, some special questions will be added. Be prepared for that. They may be scenario based questions.
After that you will have survival test. We have already trained you how to live in forest during your academic period. So this time you have to survive 4 days inside the forest without any outside help. Those who choose to give up the test during these 4 days, you will not be able to pass. Also you will be given a mission. As for the mission details, you will be given on that day.
Those who managed to survive and complete the mission, they have to fight against others in an one on one match after one month in the village stadium. I have to remind you guys that that they you will be fighting in front of the whole village and guests. So try to prepare yourself. Also there will be a special challenge match for everyone. If you want you can challenge any chunin or jonin from the village. This is special event to show our village's strength to the important guests.
As all of you may have guessed, war is coming. So to gather more funds, Lord Hokage has decided to use this to win over more support. So this way we can have more provisions. Also this is an opportunity for you guys. If someone manage to defeat a jonin, you will be given a special status as a reward.
One thing I have to remind you that the events of the first exam will be team based. So if you have any problem with your current team, solve it yourselves. Lord Hokage has decided to keep the teams as it is for now."
Everyone showed mixed emotions for the announcement. Though most of them had guessed that their teams would remain the same, some of them were frustrated.
Arashi and the girls didn't show any frustration. Arashi had guessed that as their teams were already been active for more than a year, any changes to the team that could be made had already been made during this time. 3rd hokage clearly didn't want to break the bond and start a new team according to old custom. They had already made many changes. This one didn't make any new wave.
Arashi knew that due to the new curriculum, the standard of academic graduation had drastically improved in these five years. Now a days, everyone at least knew three jutsu along with the basics. Many had already mastered their nature transformation for a single element.
Before students had a lot of free time during their classes and some choose to graduate early. But such situations had become zero after the new curriculum. Now a days, students could learn so much that if they decided to graduate early, they would be losing their precious time doing missions. Although they gain battle experience, but the death rate of genin was very high. This situation had been brought down to a new low.
Though students had to train hard, this in turn had saved many lives. Arashi was sure that even if a war broke out suddenly, these students would not be mere cannon fodder but they could easily overwhelm their enemies.
Naomi sensei started giving tips to all students about the upcoming graduation exam. Everyone seemed to be excited about it. She declared that till the exam, students were free to do what they wanted. They didn't need to come to the academy. They could come if they wanted to consult any teacher. Otherwise they train at home.
Soon all other classes went by. Every teacher gave their respective tips and advices. As the day came to an end, Arashi and Kushina along with Mikoto and Kana came to Senju compound to do their daily training. They all didn't have any tension for the upcoming exam. As they reached the compound, they were greeted by an excited Mito.
"What happened grandma? Why are you so happy?" Arashi couldn't help but asked her. It's been a while since he last her this happy.
"Arashi, Kushina, Mikoto, Kana, welcome back. As for why I am happy, today at last I finally managed to complete the seal that we have been working for so long." Mito replied. She was clearly excited about it.
"What! you managed to complete the seal. This is amazing!" Kushina ran to Mito and hugged her excitedly. All of them had been working on a new improved version of 'Four Symbol Seal'. Finally it seemed Mito had completed it.
"Wow! I thought it will take another year for us to complete it. Can we see it?" Kana was looking forward to it.
"Of course. Everyone come inside. Tsunade is already in the lab further testing the seal. Let's go." Soon everyone followed Mito to the lab. There they saw many complex sealing lines and words drawn on the floor of the lab.
"Welcome back everyone. You all came at the right time. Grandma and I are going to be activate it." Tsunade was checking the seal for any error. Excitement was clearly seen on her face. They had been working on this seal for almost five years now. If they were successful, they could open the door to new possibilities.
After checking everything minutely, Tsunade and Mito nodded to each other.
"Ok everyone come with me and stand inside a circle and perform the hand seals that I and Tsunade are going to do. Remember it and do it simultaneously. We will first synch our speed and hand signs before activating. Though it only require 20 hand signs. As soon as you complete the hand sign put your both palms on the ground and apply as much chakra as you can." Mito showed them the hand signs and all of them started to practice it for a while. After so many years of training, all of them could remember the hand signs easily and achieve perfect synchronization with others.
Soon everyone was ready and stood in their respective circles. After performing the hand signs, they simultaneously slammed their palms on the ground.
A blinding light engulfed all of them. They couldn't feel anything changing in their surrounding. After the light faded, they couldn't notice anything unusual about the room.
"Did the seal fail to activate?" Mikoto couldn't help but asked. She couldn't find any change.
"No it is already activated. The seal creates a pocket world using the area on which it is drawn upon. This way it is bound to this world but it is in another dimension. You cannot interact with the dimension from the outside. But you need to be inside to change it.
This is like the 'Four Symbol Seal'. Rather than using a human body to use as an anchor, this seal can be anchored to anything. Also using some area of the world has it's merit. This way we don't have to worry about not being in contact with the world. You can enjoy the sun and moon like you do outside, inside the pocket space.
You can control whatever you want to allow through the seal. I also added nature energy drawing seals inside this which will constantly draw nature energy from the outside world in to the space. Like the 'Four Symbol Seal', you have a connection to it, so you can draw nature energy from it constantly. Also if you want to seal a tail beast inside this you can create a separate space for it and you can draw it's chakra whenever you want. I improved this seal in such a way that whoever performed the seal, will be connected to it. Later you can add others.
As for changing the environment inside, you can use your chakra. Also you can increase the space inside. If you have enough chakra, you can built a world inside it, but the outside space remains the same. You can teleport inside whenever you want using the connection. This way, you can escape from any difficult situations.
But the only drawback is that, you have to use large chakra quantity just to activate the seal. The quantity increases as you increase the area it is drawn upon."
After Mito explained how the seal functioned and it's uses, everyone tried to feel the connection between them and the pocket space. Soon everyone could feel a connection and with just a thought they were standing inside the pocket space. They could see everything from the outside. Instead of being same size as the lab, this space was 5 times bigger.
"As you can see, from the outside, the size of the space doesn't show any sign of change but once you are inside, you can see the space is much more. Now you can try to change this space as you like." This time Tsunade did the explanation. Without waiting for others she performed the hand signs of a jutsu.
"Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence"
Soon trees began to fill up the space. As they continued to grow up, they reached the roof of the lab. Tsunade applied more chakra to a tattoo in her hand and the height of the roof began to increase.
"You just have to think clearly and apply chakra to this tattoo and you can change the dimension of the space. This tattoo is the symbol of the seal. You can change the design and position if like. Just think about it and add chakra."
Everybody searched their arms and they could see a rhombus shaped tattoo on their left arm. They began to change its design and position.
"Okay everyone, lets go outside." Mito vanished from the space and she was already outside. They could see her from the inside. Everyone followed her.
"This is incredible. This technique is super useful." Kushina was excited from the demonstration.
"Yeah, I cannot see any change from here. The lab is same as before." Kana observed the space where the seal was before. She had tried to see if she could find any way to locate the space. But she couldn't. If not for he connection, she wouldn't even know there was a pocket space here in this lab currently.
"It seems our effort is not in vain. Though I knew some of the features, I am impressed to see it working in real life. Just imagining the number of uses this has, makes me feel it was worth it to spend all this time on this seal." Though Arashi had worked on this seal, he didn't have the full knowledge of how the seal was functioning. Nature energy absorption seal that he had invented to be used by the girls for gathering and storing nature energy quicker, had been used in this seal. He had to acknowledge that Mito was truly a gifted seal mistress. Even if he had all the knowledge from the scrolls, he didn't have much experience in using them.
"From what I have gathered from tests, the only way to find the space is to forcefully cut open it or if someone opened a portal to this space. But without proper coordinates, this is nearly impossible. I have already added anti-teleportation barrier inside the space. So if one wanted to go inside using 'Flying Thunder God' jutsu they will be unable to go. In fact once you are inside the space, any spatial marker becomes invalid." Mito explained the security feature she had added to the seal.
"That's really amazing. So we have hidden base all for ourselves. We can do whatever we want inside it. In fact I am thinking of using this space as our training room. This way we can use all our jutsu without having to hide anything." Mikoto was already planning to use this for her training.
"Yes you can. But before that we have to find a suitable location to anchor the seal. I mean we can't have it inside the lab. This will block us from getting sunlight. Our space doesn't have any natural source of light. We have to find a location in an open area. This way we can enjoy outside weather." Tsunade explained everyone.
"If you are thinking about a suitable location, how about we use Uzushiogakure?" Arashi suggested. He was planning to rebuilt the village after some years. But this way they could use that location for a major purpose.
"Yeah. We should use that as our anchor. We all know that our old village has the best natural and artificial arrays to hide it from everyone. We can just upgrade those seal arrays and we will not have to worry about someone finding it. Even though Kiri, Kumo and Iwa ninja had known the location before, after we upgrade the security, even they can't find it again." Kushina also agreed with Arashi and recommended it to everyone.
"We can use that location. I think it will be perfect." Mito also agreed with them. She wanted to do something for her old village after its destruction. Now that she had the chance to do it, she readily agreed.
"Ok then it is finalized that we will use Uzushiogakure as our secret location." Tsunade, Mikoto and Kana also agreed with the proposal.
"But it will be difficult to go there and draw the seal. We have to cover the whole village with sealing array to use the entire space for our pocket world. This way we don't have to use much chakra to expand the place later." Tsunade started formulating a plan to complete this mission without anyone noticing it. "All this has to be done while maintaining privacy. Does anyone has any idea."
Everyone thought for a while. They definitely didn't want anyone to know about their activity. Going outside of Konoha without anyone's notice would be difficult.
"How about we use Shadow Clones and cover them with nature energy. This way we can hide them from any sensory ninja. If someone is not familiar with it. They cannot sense them. I have tried this method before. It actually works." Arashi came up with an idea. While training to control nature energy in a more delicate manner, he had come up with this idea. Later when he tried, he was invisible to naked eyes and sensors.
"Very good then. We will use this method and complete our seal. Then we will have our world." Tsunade had a large smile on her face. After five years of waiting they could finally let loose their power. She had been itching to use her jutsu in a fight for a long time. After their rituals, everyone didn't have use their new found powers to do any serious training to avoid detection. Finally they could train to their heart's content.