Journey to the West: Life Simulation of Sun Wukong

The day's lessons had ended, and Sakura, Naruto, Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, and others left the classroom to train for an hour by the riverside before parting ways.

In the barbecue restaurant, after Sakura finished her day's work and received her pay, she said to the proprietor, "Ma'am, I won't be coming in tomorrow."

"What's the matter, Sakura? Is there a problem at home?" The owner was quite concerned about Sakura, thinking her family was in trouble.

"No, I want to try out other jobs."

"I see," the owner thought for a moment, then agreed to Sakura's resignation, "Well, I wish you success in becoming a ninja in the future. If you fail your graduation exam, you can always come back to work here."

Sakura said goodbye to the owner and her former colleagues at the barbecue restaurant and went to another street, where she found a tailor's shop. Thanks to her skills, she impressed the proprietor and was appointed the head seamstress of the establishment, earning a reward of two thousand taels for each garment she made.

At this tailor's shop, Sakura came into contact with even more people.

At the barbecue restaurant, she mainly encountered wealthy merchants and ninjas, thinking that the residents of Konoha Village led very blessed lives. However, at the tailor's shop, she experienced a different atmosphere.

Her customers included ninjas, but they were mostly Genin and Chunin, who always seemed pained when paying, their purses nearly empty.

Ordinary villagers were even more penny-pinching, haggling over fifty taels just to part with a little less of their money, and they could argue for half a day with the tailors. In the end, even if they managed to reduce the price by ten taels, they would look triumphantly joyful as if they had won a great victory.

This made Sakura realize a fact—

The gap between the residents of Konoha was truly vast; some people simply had to move their fingers in the right position to amass great wealth, while others, even if they slaved away all day, could barely make enough for basic sustenance.

"There must be some problem here."

Sakura thought about her own family situation, a family of three, where her father, a Chunin, barely earned enough from his mission rewards to keep them from going hungry.

The wealth of a ninja came from missions, and missions came from various requests made by people, mostly wealthy merchants, with the Land of Fire's greatest merchant being the Land of Fire's Daimyo.

It could be said that seventy percent of Konoha's mission workload came from the Land of Fire's Daimyo and nobility, twenty percent from the Land of Fire's wealthy merchants, and the remaining ten percent included some missions issued by locals of Konoha, while the rest came from other countries.

Through interactions with all sorts of customers, Haruno Sakura learned a lot, especially from the lower and middle-ranked ninja, from whom she gathered much news about other countries and ninja villages.

For example:

In the Land of Wind, according to a Genin who had been there on a mission, the region was almost entirely covered in sand and was very arid.

Despite living in the desert, the ninjas of Sunagakure dressed quite conservatively.

"Master Sun Wukong, you were right; I really should try different jobs to meet all kinds of people and broaden my horizons," Sakura said to herself as she saw off a customer.

"Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles," Sun Wukong said lightly, "You're still far from that. Start by reading enough books."

"But I'm only six years old!" Haruno Sakura pouted slightly.

"Indeed, it is a bit early for you, but you should find ways to earn more money. After all, your body is still growing and requires a lot of nutrients," Sun Wukong advised, "Even though this world possesses natural energy that can supplement your energy to a certain extent, it's too sparse."

"What exactly is natural energy?" Sakura asked.

"It's that more lively energy you feel when you practice the Great Void Four Seals, originating from the dissipation of the life force of living beings," Sun Wukong could sense that the natural energy of this world was not Spiritual Energy, but rather similar to life force, yet somewhat different.

As for how it's produced?

According to Sun Wukong's observations, it's an energy produced by some sort of change occurring under the joint effects of Earth's magnetic field and the magnetic field emitted by the sun, involving all life on Earth.

Earth originally had a lot of it, but because a certain tree absorbed so much, it became scarce. The remaining energy was occupied by so-called summoning animals.

Although natural energy is not Spiritual Energy, it is close to it and more easily perceived by carefree animals, hence those animals are more adept at utilizing natural energy.

"When you absorb this natural energy, it will merge with your Chakra, making your Chakra of higher quality and even producing divine effects."

"So, when you practice the Great Void Four Seals, you should try to absorb more of it."

"Of course, don't take this as your main goal. What's more important is to develop an indomitable spirit... hmm, that's a bit far off for you, but you can read more books to become knowledgeable and well-mannered, and then walk around Konoha to gradually cultivate your character."

Sakura felt overwhelmed by the information but still took note and then asked, "So how can I earn money?"

"That's up to you to figure out since your Chakra is your greatest asset," Sun Wukong hinted but did not explicitly instruct.

The skill to make money had been taught.

Finding ways to make money, that was for Sakura to discover on her own.

"Alright then."

In the blink of an eye, another month passed by.

It was time for the end-of-term exams.

The students had exams in the morning and free time in the afternoon.

"Sakura, how do you think you did?" Ino asked, "I think I did alright, probably got around eighty points."

"Me? It should be about the same as usual," Sakura casually replied, "A perfect score is certain. Naruto, how do you think you did?"

Naruto said excitedly, "I'm sure I passed!"

He had been studying really hard these past days to catch up with Sakura!

"Hmph! You're definitely still failing!" Sasuke walked over with a mocking look.

"What are you talking about?!" Naruto was so angry his teeth itched. This Sasuke, always showing off in front of the teachers, surely he liked Sakura as well and wanted to impress her.

But this time, Sasuke was the one who was doomed to lose!

He'll definitely pass!

"Say you didn't pass, you bottom dweller!" Sasuke sneered.

"Damn it!" Naruto cursed loudly, "Sasuke, you must be jealous that I passed, so you want to knock me down. I, Naruto Uzumaki, tell you that it's impossible!"

"Tch, as if I care about you." Sasuke scoffed.

"What did you say? You stick figure!" Naruto retorted rudely.

"You're not any better, a blockhead who bulks up by mooching meals!" Sasuke hit where it hurt Naruto the most, "And to mooch off a woman, that's disgraceful."

"How could that be? Sakura and I are boyfriend and girlfri—"

"Bang!" Kee*p+ us go^i-n$g by rea!d$i#n!g on M#V_#LE#M$_P.Y!R.#

Sakura's fist landed on Naruto's forehead as she said, "You can eat whatever you want, Naruto, but be careful with your words or someone could get hurt."

"Sorry, Sakura, my bad." Naruto covered his head, tears in the corner of his eyes.

"Is that all?"

Sasuke watched Naruto with a mocking gaze, disdain written all over his face.

"Sasuke, don't make fun of Naruto. He has been improving too. Although his written test scores aren't as good as yours, in the ninja games, except for shuriken throwing, he's better than you in all the other events." Sakura said seriously, making Sasuke bow his head, as her height of one meter fifty in a class with an average height of around a meter was quite imposing.

Hmph!

Just you wait, he'll grow tall too!

"Sakura, the term is ending soon and then it's vacation time. What are you planning to do?" Yamanaka Ino asked.

"Me? Probably the same as always, I guess." Haruno Sakura considered for a while and added, "But first, I should finish the term summary report assigned by Mr. Iruka."

"We should write the term summary report together." Yamanaka Ino wanted to discuss with Haruno Sakura how to write it, since she didn't have much time to listen in class and had to rely on Sakura.

"Count me in," Shikamaru said, speaking up first.

"Since you guys are writing it together, I'll join you too, albeit reluctantly." Choji took out his chips, offered them to the four present, and held up a finger, "I'll treat you to chips, but everyone can only have one."

"Choji, you're way too stingy." Naruto complained as he reached into the chip bag, grabbed a big handful, and shoved them into his mouth, "You have so much; you won't mind, right?"

But Naruto didn't see the murderous look in Choji's eyes, red with rage.

"Give me back my chips!" Choji dropped the bag of chips, stood up from his seat, grabbed Naruto by the neck, and shook him fiercely.

"Ah, let go, I'm going to die!" Naruto yelled.

"Humph! Childish!" Sasuke watched all this with a secret mutter, but his eyes couldn't help revealing a hint of envy.

Just then, Mr. Iruka walked in carrying the test papers.

"Everyone, the results are out. I'll call your names, and you come up to get them."

"Sakura, 100 points."

Sakura stood up, walked to the podium, took her test paper, and thanked Mr. Iruka: "Thank you, Mr. Iruka."

"No, it was your own effort." Mr. Iruka was filled with satisfaction, happy to have such excellent students.

"Uchiha Sasuke, 95 points."

"Thank you, Mr. Iruka."

"Yamanaka Ino, 90 points."

"Hyuga Hinata, 89 points."

"Shikamaru Nara, 85 points."

" ..."

"Akimichi Choji, 62 points."

"Naruto Uzumaki, 61 points."

"Yeah!"

Naruto Uzumaki, with a triumphant face (＾－＾)V, skipped forward over the desks of others in the front row, reached Mr. Iruka, grabbed his final exam paper, and shouted to everyone, "I, Naruto Uzumaki, finally passed!"

"Clap clap clap!"

Sakura led the applause, and the others followed suit.

Everyone had seen Naruto's efforts.

Though behind his back he was called "the demon fox," once he changed his somewhat slovenly appearance, and really started studying seriously in the latter half of the term, people went from suspecting he had cheated to seeing him get called up by Mr. Iruka in class to solve problems and managing to get nearly half of them right.

His classmates gradually started to believe in him.

Seeing everyone's applause and smiles, Naruto's eyes grew a little moist.

"Is it really that simple to get people's approval?"