My week had been very productive!
For the last seven days my main source of entertainment had been training.
In a world without titkok, television or the internet, I had nothing to waste time on but training, so I decided to focus completely on that, and the results came!
At first I wasn't seeing the change in me in a very concrete way, but when I decided to use [Kankara Formula] during training, both to see my improvement and to try to optimize my training technique, I started to see the numbers go up.
This awakened the gamer in me from my previous life, my Player brain began to fry with "Number Go Up, Brain Feel Good!" as dopamine overwhelmed me.
Seeing how my body had become a real-life version of an Incremental Game motivated me even more to train non-stop, making the results get better and better.
Every time I trained, I would use the [Kankara Formula] even to make sure that the angle of the movement I was making was correct. After I got used to the correct way of training, I wouldn't waste energy on this skill again for a while, but every now and then I would still check it again.
As someone who had trained with a Persona Trainer in my previous world, I knew that although being able to do many repetitions of an exercise was important, doing that exercise correctly would give me even more results with less effort, which is why I took advantage of this skill so much during my training.
Not only in physical training, but I also used it to better adapt to magical training, using this skill to try to figure out where I was wasting Mana, where I was using less Mana than I should, and what I could optimize to improve the result without increasing the cost of it.
And that meant that even though my total amount of Mana hadn't increased much over the last few days, my efficiency in controlling it had increased by more than 20%.
Sure, even with so much training, I don't even know what my strength level is compared to a Genin, so I decided to test it out today.
As classes would be starting tomorrow at the Ninja Academy, I thought it might be better to get a sense of my real power so that I could better control myself at school, which would possibly be monitored by the Hokage.
If I had any members of the clan, I would try to test this with them, but being the last Kazuki alive, I needed to find someone else, and who better to do that than Kakashi?
So I got up early, with the sky still slightly orange, and prepared something light to eat. After tidying up the kitchen, I put on some loose-fitting training clothes and left the house, crossing the gates of the Kazuki estate.
The Hatake's house was on a small hill surrounded by trees, in a more private part of the village, but still within the main boundaries of Konoha.
The path was quiet, with the gentle morning breeze flowing through the leaves.
From a distance, I could already see the house, a dark wooden building with a sloping roof, solid and imposing, but with a welcoming feel, almost the same size as mine, which made sense.
Even though they were a small clan, the Hatake had a long history as Samurai, even before joining Konoha.
Arriving at the entrance, I knocked twice on the door and waited.
A few seconds later, it opened with a soft creak, revealing Sakumo with a surprised smile on his face. "Well, well... little Enzai! What an honor to welcome you, is everything all right?"
"Yes, sir," I replied with a slight bow. "Actually, I came to ask if Kakashi would like to train with me."
Sakumo blinked a few times, visibly surprised. Despite having heard me ask if I could train with Kakashi a week ago, he didn't seem to expect me to come with such a serious attitude, but he quickly made room and nodded with a smile.
"Of course, of course! He's been out in the yard training by himself since early morning. Come on, let's go there."
I followed Sakumo around the side of the house, crossing an open corridor that led to a large yard with a wooden floor reinforced for combat. Several marks on the ground showed that the space was well used.
Kakashi was there, delivering quick, precise blows to a wooden dummy using a training sword. Each attack was accompanied by a slight movement of his feet, and his rhythm was constant. At this time of the morning he was already sweating, showing that he had woken up even earlier than me to start training, but he didn't look tired.
'Now I can imagine the despair of the other children of our generation when they saw that not only was Kakashi more talented than them, but he also trained harder than everyone else...' I thought, but without letting myself get rattled, it wasn't because he started earlier that he trained harder than me, or with better quality.
His eyes moved quickly when he heard our footsteps.
"Kakashi, you have a visitor," said Sakumo, still with that curious smile on his face. "Enzai came to ask for some training."
Kakashi stopped, straightened his posture and looked in my direction with a neutral expression. For a moment, I thought he would refuse, but then he took a deep breath and replied without much enthusiasm. "Hm. If it's just taijutsu, that's fine."
"No weapons." I added as I looked at the sword in his hand. "Just hand-to-hand combat."
Sakumo crossed his arms, now visibly more interested.
Kakashi walked to the center of the training ground, took off his uniform top and stretched his arms.
I did the same, keeping my posture relaxed, but inside I was already beginning to analyze my opponent.
We stood face to face, Kakashi assuming a firm, orthodox base, showing that he was already proficient in taijutsu, not just a child who was going to play at punching.
I positioned myself with my guard down, legs apart and light, adopting the kickboxing stance I had practiced for a whole year in the other world.
This apparently surprised the father and son duo, who looked puzzled at my strange stance, which they had never seen before.
The first exchange of blows was quick.
Kakashi advanced with a direct punch and I narrowly dodged, countering with a low kick that he blocked with his forearm.
Our fight continued for several minutes, the two of us exchanging blows at an increasingly fast pace.
I soon realized that physically, I was superior. My muscles responded with more force, my movement speed was slightly greater, and my blows had enough impact to make Kakashi flinch at times.
But where I lost out was in reading.
Kakashi reacted with absurd speed for his age. It was as if he already knew where my blow was going to hit before I even moved. He would block, deflect or parry my attacks with clean movements, and counterattack with millimeter precision. It was frustrating and impressive at the same time.
For a moment I even felt like he was using [Kankara Formula] on me to try and read my movements.
Even so, my physical advantage prevented me from being completely overwhelmed. I absorbed the counterattacks, adapted, and used the [Kankara Formula] in brief mental flashes to correct my posture, strength and trajectory of the blows. Within minutes, my style was adjusting to his in real time.
Fortunately, my ability was visible only to me, so I could use it at any time without exposing myself.
And as much as Kakashi tried to maintain that cool, calculating posture, I could see that he was starting to get excited.
His eyes took on a different shine, his attacks became more creative and stronger. And I could see from his eyes that he began to smile, slightly, between one exchange and another under his mask.
Sakumo, off to the side, was watching with his arms crossed and a proud smile on his face, visibly pleased with what he was seeing.
In the last exchange of blows, Kakashi tried a spinning kick that I blocked with my forearm, responding with a direct punch to his shoulder, causing him to take two steps back.
As he retreated, he smiled openly for the first time. "You're stronger than I thought..."
"And you're faster than you look," I replied, gasping slightly.
We stood there for a few seconds, sweating, but with discreet smiles on our faces. It was a good feeling.
Training with other people in my Kickboxing classes was fun, which is why I trained for a year, but training here against a monster like Kakashi, while trying to learn, analyze and improve during the fight with quick uses of [Kankara Formula] was even more exciting!
When we were ready to return to the fight, Sakumo clapped his hands once, breaking the silence. "That was excellent! You two have plenty of potential. I'd be surprised if you weren't the two best in class."
Kakashi looked away, but didn't object.
I just bowed my head in thanks, satisfied with my performance.
After all, I now had a clear idea of where I was... and where I needed to go.
With Sakumo's interruption, we decided to stop fighting and start practicing other points.
Kakashi's suggestion was Shurikenjutsu training, which I had no practice in.
Kakashi walked to the side of the yard and picked up a small wooden chest.
As he opened it, several carefully positioned wooden shurikens glinted in the sunlight. He took one of them and turned to me with a slight frown as he asked. "You know how to throw a shuriken, right?"
"In theory." I answered truthfully, crossing my arms as I watched him rotate his arm slowly, simulating the throwing motion. "But I've never really practiced it apart from when I was 'playing ninja'."
His expression froze for a second. He looked confused, as if he couldn't process the idea that someone our age still didn't know the basics.
"What do you mean you've never trained? That's the bare minimum. Everyone learns at least the basics of that before entering the academy." Kakashi insisted, now really staring at me, as if trying to understand if I was lying.
"I didn't have anyone to teach me." "So I just focused on what I could learn on my own and waited to be taught the correct technique at the Ninja Academy."
It was as if a light bulb went on in his head.
He looked away, stared at the ground for a moment, then let out a low sigh. "Ah... Yeah. My dad said that... you've lost everyone in your clan."
The empathy was subtle, but I could feel it. It was as if, for a moment, I was looking at a real five-year-old, and not a little adult as he always acted.
"Okay." He threw one of the shurikens up in the air, catching it with the same hand. "Then I'll show you."
He positioned himself in front of a wooden pillar with circles drawn in black ink. His feet stood firm and his body leaned slightly as his arm made a clean movement, with the twist of his fist finishing the thrust.
The shuriken flew like a straight line cutting through the air, spinning smoothly until it hit the center of the target with a dry sound.
"You don't have to throw hard." He explained. "It's about the spin and the fluidity of the movement. If you can spin it well, it will fly by itself."
He took another one and held it out to me. "Try it."
I held the shuriken. The weight was more balanced than I'd imagined, but still awkward in the small hand of a five-year-old.
I tried to imitate his movement.
The shuriken came out in a chaotic spin and hit the ground sideways before bouncing weakly against the base of the pillar, a completely chaotic throw.
"Something like that..." Kakashi muttered wryly.
I smiled a little embarrassed, but tried not to let myself get flustered.
So I activated the [Kankara Formula].
In my internal vision, numbers began to appear like simplified physics calculations. Angle of the arm: 43 degrees. Force applied: 36%. Rotation time: unstable. Variation in wrist position: 7 cm over the course of the throw.
So I asked. "One more."
Kakashi passed it to me without question.
This time, I corrected my positioning, adjusting the angle of the arm and the torque of the wrist to the millimeter, and threw.
The shuriken was better. Although it still didn't hit the central target, this time it turned correctly and hit the top edge of the pillar with a satisfying sound.
"That was fast." Kakashi commented, surprised. "Have you really never practiced before?"
"That's the first time I've really made an effort to learn it." I replied, with a discreet smile.
One more, and one more.
With each attempt, I saw the mistakes in real time and listened to Kakashi's advice, then I corrected and tested again.
The learning curve was absurd, not because of my genius, but because the [Kankara Formula] was really helping me to understand what I was getting wrong and what to change in order to get it right on the next attempt.
In less than twenty minutes, I was consistently hitting the inner circles of the pylon. The only bullseye I hit was by luck, but I started to become consistent enough to make Kakashi stop practicing and just look at how I was doing.
"If you keep this up, you'll be better than many Genin in no time." He said with a tone of voice that sounded a little offended, but I could feel a slight smile at the corner of his mouth as he spoke.
"Thank you for teaching me." I said sincerely, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my arm.
"You're still holding the shuriken too tense. Relax your ring finger and pinky." Kakashi corrected, stepping closer. He adjusted the position of my hand himself. "Like this. Now try again."
I did as he asked.
The spin was perfect, and the shuriken stuck hard right in the center.
Kakashi let out a small sound of surprise with a discreet laugh. "I think you just gave me a hard time..."
Before I could reply, Sakumo's firm voice echoed from the balcony of the house.
"Boys! Come and wash your hands. Lunch is ready!"
Kakashi turned around immediately, as if obeying was automatic. But before entering, he looked over his shoulder and said good-naturedly.
"After lunch, if you want to train again... I'm up for it."
I smiled.
"Sure. That would be great."