Two months of medical-nin training passed in the blink of an eye, consumed by Tachibana's tireless study.
If it hadn't been for the reminder yesterday to pack up at the end of the training, Tachibana might not have even realized that two months had already gone by.
"Tachibana, what are you planning to do now that the training's over?"
A young genin, only a couple of years older than Tachibana, greeted him with a casual question.
"You ninja are probably going back to your original teams. As for Tachibana, I bet he'll be returning to the hospital with us to wait for the village's assignment, right?"
The one speaking this time was a young man in a plain white short-sleeved shirt, who looked like neither a doctor nor a ninja, yet spoke up on Tachibana's behalf.
"What do you mean by 'you ninja'? You're a ninja now too. Don't go embarrassing us, the Bloody Mist."
Seeing that the two were about to start arguing, Tachibana quickly stepped in to cut it off.
"I plan to go home first. After all, I haven't been back in two months. Then I'll go to the village to complete my ninja registration. What comes after that depends on the village."
Before coming here, Tachibana hadn't expected this training to be a closed, residential-style boot camp.
On the very first day, all participants were taken to a small island near Kirigakure. Aside from trainees and a handful of supervisors, there was no one else around.
This session, more than anything, was meant for mutual learning between the doctors and the ninja trainees.
In the end, a few experienced doctors and jōnin oversaw and taught the core curriculum.
Initially, because Tachibana was still technically a ninja academy student, many looked down on him.
But after only a few days, everyone realized this nine-year-old boy had real talent in both medical and ninja arts.
Later on, to everyone's astonishment, they discovered that one of the medical ninjutsu taught in class , Water Release: Flow Ring , had actually been developed by Tachibana himself, despite not even graduating from the ninja academy.
Of course, Kirigakure didn't have any rules requiring ninja to surrender original jutsu to the village. Otherwise, half the clans with secret arts would probably revolt.
However, since Flow Ring wasn't exactly a high-level technique, Tachibana, after discussing it with Saigyouji Keiko, decided to offer it up to the village as a foundational medical ninjutsu for training purposes , using it as his own calling card.
After that, Tachibana's popularity on the island suddenly surged.
Everyone who came to this training , whether ninja or doctor , had personalities that set them apart from the cold, detached norm of Kirigakure.
Since there was no real competition involved and everyone was learning together, bonds formed naturally over those two months.
"No time to chat , I'm heading out!"
The moment the small boat bringing the trainees back to port docked, Tachibana scooped up Lan-chan and dashed home.
"That kid… Is it really that urgent to go home?"
Of course it was. Tachibana still had 4,120 gold coins saved up , he was itching to get home and do two ten-roll draws immediately.
Because the training on the island was so isolated, he had only managed to try one ten-roll early on when he'd scraped together enough.
He had avoided the general pool since, while it had great items, it also had a lot of junk skills like [Tail Wagging] or [Clapping Hands], which were borderline useless. Getting one of those would make anyone cough up blood.
At his current level, it was smarter to focus on the Water attribute pool, which offered more stable progression. So, that's exactly what he did.
But afterward, Tachibana realized that suddenly acquiring a bunch of odd items without ever leaving the island would be difficult to explain.
In the end, he only claimed a single purple item , [Mystic Candy] , and ate it. The rest he left unclaimed, since once the items materialized, there was no way to undo it.
And as long as he hadn't cleared his inventory, he couldn't continue drawing.
Thankfully, daily tasks and achievements weren't affected. The system even generously offered tasks like [Chop Five Trees], [Catch a Pound of Fish], or simple training and study , all doable on the island.
So Tachibana spent those weeks anxiously watching his coin total rise, unable to convert it into power.
Back home, he took a deep breath to calm his excitement.
"Let's start by claiming the rest of the old prizes."
Other than the [Mystic Candy] he'd already consumed, the other nine items were:
[Sonic Bomb] (Blue item: Throws to the ground to produce a deafening sound, disorients enemies and deals minor sonic damage.)
[Big Pearl]
[Rattata Fang]
[Six-Tails Fur]
[Blue Mail]
[Yarn Ball]
[Orange Teacup]
[Oil] ×2
Tachibana glanced over them and set them aside. He planned to sort everything out after he did his two ten-rolls.
After all, he had already memorized every detail about these items during the boredom on the island.
He rubbed his hands together and offered a silent prayer, then opened the Water Attribute Up Pool again.
Click , twenty-roll draw!
The familiar prize-light animation appeared , this time with two purple orbs dancing together. However, the glow was clearly weaker than the last jackpot he'd hit.
Three colors of light shot out, materializing into twenty new items:
[Technique Scroll: Water Release – Flying Water Shuriken] (Purple item: Water-style ninjutsu. Forms high-speed water shuriken after hand seals. Highly effective at long-range. Reduced chakra cost near water sources.)
[Technique Scroll: Water Release – Stream Jet] (Purple item: Water-style ninjutsu. Creates a powerful water jet underfoot after hand seals, allowing for high-speed movement. Reduced chakra cost near water.)
[Strength Ankle Weights] (Blue item: Reduces movement speed but increases training efficiency.)
[Antidote] (Blue item: Neutralizes most harmful toxins.)
[White Sea Lion Whisker]
[Horned Goldfish Horn]
[Insect-B-Gone Herb]
[Young Bamboo Shoot]
[Sweet Honey]
[Wood] ×2
[Energy Cube] ×3
[Berry] ×6
Tachibana claimed all the items, his eyes gleaming with joy.
He raised the still-confused Lan-chan, grabbed its little paw, and high-fived it without warning.
"Ha! Offense, mobility, healing , I've got it all now. Call me the ultimate warrior!"
"And look, Lan-chan , I learned your signature move before you! Jealous much?"
"┑(￣Д￣)┍ Ribbit~"
The little frog gave a resigned croak, playing along with its eccentric owner.
After his excitement settled, Tachibana focused on studying the two ninjutsu scrolls.
Although the system only provided the basics, and mastering them would take further training, it was still far easier than learning from scratch. Plus, it gave him a good idea of each technique's nature.
As for the rest , the [Strength Ankle Weights] were a decent training tool, much like the ones Rock Lee used. Despite being just a blue item, they likely offered solid benefits.
Tachibana strapped them to his ankles for a quick test.
His speed did drop a bit, but not enough to interfere with daily life. Since it helped his growth, he decided to wear them regularly. Any item that improved his strength was worth keeping.
"Too bad I'm a pure water-style ninja right now. My combat power plummets away from water."
"With my current chakra reserves, I probably can't use these jutsu more than a few times without a nearby water source."
Even after consuming two [Mystic Candies], Tachibana estimated his chakra still wasn't up to that of an average chūnin.
"No surprise. I don't have any special bloodline, and I'm still too young. Chakra capacity is going to be a bottleneck."
"I really need a jutsu that generates water. Techniques like Water Colliding Wave or Water Wall would be ideal… but they're a bit too chakra-intensive for now."
Tachibana slightly regretted not trading Flow Ring for another jutsu when he handed it over to the village.
Back then, he had felt that the C-rank techniques offered were too weak. With water-style jutsu obtainable through the lottery, and medical ninjutsu covered by Saigyouji Keiko, he chose a monetary reward instead.
He hadn't expected that he'd be stuck without a way to generate water now.
"Worse still , I don't even have a teacher. I'm technically not a registered ninja until tomorrow. I don't even have a way to learn new jutsu."
Tachibana mulled things over while tidying up.
"But… even with all the shortcomings, this two-month wait was absolutely worth it."