NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 – Academy plans
Before heading to school I head to a small shop tended by an old man without any ninja training.
The second part of testing my hormone control was discovering if it works on others.
The results look promising, seems I can detect his hormones from up to 3 meters away, I reward-test my little guinea pig by lowering his cortisol, the stress hormone.
This relaxes him a tiny bit but the chakra drain is pretty bad. I keep it up while heading towards him to pay for a couple bags of chips and the efficiency seems to improve as I get closer.
I can work with this, some range and no outward sign of it being active means I can make it work in the academy, though I'll still need to test if the target's chakra can weigh in on the equation.
With this, I can see some plans being possible.
Lessons start at the academy and I have to say. Hormones are amazing.
A tiny dose of dopamine keeps me more motivated and energetic than ever to pay attention to class.
A little serotonin also goes a long way toward keeping focus.
These are known as the reward hormone and the feel-good hormone. With these I can make even the most boring drivel on the history of Takigakure feel like the most immersive scene in a fantasy movie. The lesson ends before I realize it.
Since we are in the last year of academy the very basics such as reading/writing and math arelong over but there are still plenty of other boring stuff like ninja history and basic anatomy to go over in the morning theoretical classes.
Classes in the afternoon are then divided into 2 days for taijutsu, 2 days for ninjutsu and a day for shuriken-jutsu.
I find this last one the least important, I don't remember shuriken and kunai techniques ever helping with anything but weeding out small fries but I guess they are taught for the cannon fodder genins.
Get 100 genins to throw a kunai before they die and even a Kage will have to consider it a threat, get 10000 genins and chunnis and just like what happened to the Raikage in the 3rd ninja war, a Kage will die.
We head outside for some break mid-morning.
It's time to make and break some friends.
I stand in a corner open my pack of chips and it doesn’t even take 2 minutes for my target to offer himself.
"Can I have one"
"Sure, we haven't talked much before. I'm Yami Yuumo", I point the open pack towards him.
"Choji Akimichi" - He says as he stuffs his hand full of chips.
I hang out with Choji making some small talk and it doesn’t take long for Shikamaru and Kiba to show up.
"That class took forever, why are we even being taught such useless stuff? I'm not staying for part 2. You coming, Choji?"
This guy…. his dopamine production is completely fried. I guess boredom leads to chronic illnesses for a genius.
That reminds me if he's such a genius how come he never graduated early like Itachi or Kakashi? The story got wrong a lot of stuff like how could Itachi possibly graduate at the age of 6 when it's common knowledge chakra can't even start being used before one is 12.
Even then, shortening a 6-year curriculum into only 6 months remains in the realm of fiction.
Maybe he's been held back just for the sake of the Ino-Shika-Cho combo team.
"Sure Shikamaru. Meet Yami, he's a nice guy.
Wanna join us Yami?"
"Nah, I'm sticking to classes but thanks for the invite. If you want I can tell you what you're missing out on tomorrow?" - I reply
"Yeah... huh… don't worry about it. The afternoon class is just gonna be throwing some kunai at targets until our arms hurt or failing 100 times trying out a useless new trick so that one's a pass as well"
They head out along with Kiba who remained silent the entire time. My mission for the day was a success.
15 minutes was enough for today. I feel tired but there are more pieces I need to set in place first.
Shuriken class is just as predicted useless for anything besides letting Sasuke brag about his clan's specialties.
I eye my targets to the side, Ino and Sakura admire Sasuke's handiwork while Hinata sulks in a corner.
Naruto seems to have taken the gang's lead and skipped class as well leaving Hinata with nothing to do mop around as a ball of depression. Her clan would never allow her to miss classes but apparently they didn’t mind her being bullied when she was just starting the academy.
Going one step further, maybe they thought it'd build up her character, go two steps further and they bribed the kids to do it.
I chuckle internally at my own thoughts as I head towards Hinata.
"Hey, Hinata right? I'm Yami, wanna practice together"
Like a scared rabbit she locks down and tries to avert her eyes and it takes most of the chakra I have left just to hold back her fight-or-flight response.
I prevail in the end.
"Sure" She meekly says.
This will do for now.
While Hinata is known for not having any friends she is also very approachable, just held back by her shiness at a time where kids only care about being and doing fun stuff.
This first step was the hardest, but without an excuse to reject me, I make it past her defenses
At the end of the day, I lie down in bed and start my last task.
From what I know the only way to increase chakra storage besides growing up is by just using it constantly, preferably to the point of exhaustion but not forcing it past that.
I don't know who came up with the name for each hormone.
Most seem based on some old dead language but for this hormone in particular they just call it the growth hormone. It's not like the name matters but for once the effects are obvious to tell from the name alone.
It promotes growth through cell division.
More cell division means my muscles repair faster and my body will physically age faster.
I make it a routine to spend the last minutes and chakra I have every day increasing my growth hormone production, increasing its production while preventing my cells from developing tolerance.
I add just a dash of testosterone as well.
While growth will make me taller and hopefully increase my chakra reserves, testosterone will help me put on some muscle and develop attractive male characteristics like a squarer jaw.