Chapter 3

The playground was suddenly stirred, the children had excited looks on their faces as they approached a figure who was sitting on the bench by the entrance. Standing up, Ryuu saw a petite little girl circled by everyone. Her hair was a bright shade of purple and her eyes shone like deep blue pearls. From her mouth, a melodious humming spread out.

The music was incredible, the moment it fell in his ears, Ryuu felt like he had been pulled into an orchestra. The sound of various instruments played into his mind as her voice sounded once more.

It was a song about nature, about life, one that he had never heard before.

"Haha! We are so lucky!"

"Yeah! What are the chances that miss Hatsune Mai would come to the playground today?!"

Hatsune... Mai? Who is that? No, actually, what the hell is this song?! Why can I picture it so vividly in my mind? Is this... genjutsu?!

Staring at the charming figure of the small little girl in a white dress, Ryuu frowned deeply, never in his life had he heard of such an individual in Naruto's world. He couldn't understand the existence standing a few dozens of meters away.

After a while, an old man with long white hair in a kimono entered the playground. His face was stern and his eyes were sharp like the edge of a knife. There was a type of seriousness in him that most people didn't have. Maybe it was the wrinkles around his eyes, but Ryuu felt like he was the type of man who would frown quite frequently.

"Young miss, you shouldn't be here."

The girl, Hatsune Mai, frowned and closed her mouth. The moment she did so, the illusion of instruments faded together with the mysterious feeling the song gave to everyone in the playground.

Her eyelashes flickered as she stared at the old man, there was a feeling of mischievousness in her eyes as well as some anger.

"Old Yoshito, you're so boring. When will you stop doing this? All I do is train, I'm tired of it!"

Yoshito shook his head with disappointment. "Let's go, Mai, you can play with the other kids once you finish your studies." Having said that, the man approached and carried her up in his strong arms, not allowing the girl even the possibility of struggling as he took her away.

Ryuu didn't dwell on the matter and left as well, tomorrow is Monday and he couldn't waste his weekend thinking of the mysterious girl's abilities.

***

In a four-story building, a large signboard read '1st Ninja Academy/Hokage's Office.' Being the second biggest building in the village, its rooftop allowed for a privileged view of the whole Hidden Leaf Village. Standing on top of it, a man in his sixties wearing a white and red outfit stared at the distant Hokage Monument sculped at the wide side of a nearby mountain.

The streets, cars, and countless buildings that seemed to stretch over the horizon were all captured by his old eyes full of wisdom and experience.

"Hm..." The old man took a deep breath, inhaling the tobacco inside his smoking pipe. "Teacher, it's been forty years... What am I missing? What can't I see?" The question is one that he had been constantly asking himself over the last few years.

Sarutobi Hiruzen is the Hidden Leaf Village's Hokage, the highest symbol of authority as well as the benchmark that every ninja inside the village strived to surpass. Back when he assumed this role, the village's population was only 80.000. Many things have happened since then, and they have all changed in one way or another how the village worked.

Looking at the high walls of the village made of reinforced concrete and steel frames, he gave a deep sigh. In forty years, the village's population grew to almost 500.000, and while on the surface it may look like the existence of ninjas is becoming less of a necessity, only he, the higher authorities, and the many ninjas knew the threats that existed outside those large and sturdy walls.

Spiritual Beasts, Enemy Nations, Bandits... It's not easy for humans to develop without strong military might in this world. Although it looks like he does a good job, he can't help but doubt himself... and his old kind heart. "Hm... maybe I'm too softhearted for this job?" Hiruzen smiled dryly.

Perhaps, the hope of this village lay within the next generation. Turning down his face, he stared at the entrance gates where the students slowly entered the school grounds. When he saw the looks on their faces, he couldn't help but chuckle and reminisce about his childhood.

The end of the year assessment was approaching and together with it, anxiety slowly grew in the eyes of the students.

Ryuu who was frowning deeply as he stared seemingly at nothing, suddenly stopped in his tracks and slowly looked up towards the roof of the Ninja Academy. Beneath the cloudy blue skies, all he saw was the signboard of the academy.

"Weird... I thought someone was looking at me..." Scratching his head in confusion, he ignored this feeling and pressed forward towards classroom 1-C.

Sitting on his chair, Ryuu watched the classroom slowly fill as his attention turned back to the interface.

Name: Uchiha Ryuu

Age: 4

Class: Student (New) (Description: A student strives to better understand the world. This class grants you a permanent +1 Mind attribute and when active, increases learning speed by 10%)

Sub-classes: None

Attributes:

Body: 10 (+1)

Dexterity: 3 (+1)

Mind: 3 (+4)

Skills:

Leaf Concentration Technique Lv 7 - 0/200

Ninjutsu Lv 3 - 0/30 {

E-RANK

- Clone Technique Lv 7 - 0/200

- Transformation Technique Lv 6 - 0/100

- Body Replacement Technique Lv 5 - 0/50

}

Shurikenjutsu Lv 2 - 0/20

Genjutsu Lv 1 - 9/10

Taijutsu Lv 2 - 0/20

It's been almost a month since he came to this world, and since then he learned many new things about this world and his own system.

Unlike most game-like systems, he doesn't really have a level. In fact, this system is more like a learning assistant tool. It can convert proper studying into points that greatly shorten the time he needs to learn something.

In this period, he also realized what the mind attribute means and its effect on his body. As he practiced the Leaf Concentration Technique and his mind attribute grew, he noticed that together with the increase in mind points, the time he spent to acquire a single experience point reduced significantly. From the original 1 minute, it was reduced to almost 30 seconds.

Not only that, but this month of hardcore studying also allowed him to acquire a new class called Student. When he equipped it, the time he spends to gain an experience point using the Leaf Concentration Technique was further reduced to 18 seconds. Probably a mix of the increase in his mind attribute plus the 10% boost to his learning ability.

Other than that, it became clear to him that actual training is the only way to increase his attributes. For example, his dexterity only increased after practicing with Shurikens for many hours while his Body attribute only increased after practicing many hours of endurance training near the mountain area.

He also drew a few conclusions based on the effects of his training. For example. Things like Ninjutsu, Shurikenjutsu, and so on were only broad terms for the system... Without practicing an actual technique, the amount of experience he can gain when training is quite low.

Take his genjutsu as an example, because he can't use any technique yet and could only study the basics, it took him almost a week just to gain 9 experience points and that was only after hours of reading theory books and asking for guidance from some teachers.

Based on this alone, he imagined that if his mind attribute had been 3 points like the beginning, it would probably have taken double the amount of time...

Chuckling, Ryuu couldn't help but praise himself. The Leaf Concentration Technique was something all students would eventually start to practice so it could only be considered ordinary, but even then, the benefits it brought to him were endless. Had he chosen to practice something else, he might have hindered his development without knowing.

In his mind, he was already starting to consider the Mind Attribute the most important one.

Still, there was something he couldn't understand... "Why is my Body attribute almost triple the others? This doesn't make much sense..."

Scratching his head, he could only sigh dejectedly at the lack of information. In this month he had come to realize that this world already has some vast differences compared to the Naruto world he knew. The village size is one example, but another major example is the existence of the Hatsune noble clan...