TPMITWON Chapter 44: Souta's Progress Over Seven Months at the Ninja Academy

Amidst the commotion, a boy sat quietly, staring blankly at the table in front of him. His hands were folded on the table, and his gaze seemed unfocused, as if his thoughts were drifting far away from this place.

The boy was about five years old, with short, slightly messy dark blue hair. On either side of him sat a little girl. The three of them shared the same table, but only two of them appeared to be engaged in conversation. The boy, Souta, remained silent in his daydream.

Seven months had passed since Souta first set foot in the Ninja Academy. During that time, many things had happened. Souta had gone through various physically and mentally exhausting training sessions, but each new challenge seemed to be more difficult than he had imagined.

Currently, Souta was practicing walking on water. Previously, he had successfully mastered the technique of walking on walls using both hands, and he could even do it with both feet while balancing several leaves on his forehead. However, walking on water turned out to be a much more difficult and complex challenge.

When practicing walking on walls, Souta only needed to make his chakra have a suction effect to stick firmly. The chakra flowing to the soles of his feet would grip the surface of the wall, allowing Souta's body to remain upright without falling. However, walking on water required a different technique. Souta had to make his chakra repel, pushing his body up from the surface of the water to avoid sinking.

The problem was that water did not have a solid structure like a wall. If too little chakra was used, Souta would immediately sink. Conversely, if too much was used, the water would be pushed away too forcefully, causing Souta to lose his balance. As a result, Souta often found himself plunging into the water after just a few steps.

Every day, Souta tried repeatedly. His legs often trembled as he struggled to find the right balance, and his body was submerged in the cold water of the bathroom tub multiple times. Despite this, Souta did not give up. He had made some small progress—now, he could stay afloat for five minutes before finally falling. But that was still not enough.

In addition to training his chakra control, Souta also kept himself busy with another experiment—trying to create Chakra Threads.

At first, Souta thought that after mastering the technique of walking on walls with leaves on his forehead, creating Chakra Threads would be much easier. He already had better chakra control, so it should just be a matter of channeling chakra to his fingers, right?

However, the reality was not as simple as Souta had imagined.

When Souta tried to release chakra from the tips of his fingers, instead of forming thin and flexible Chakra Threads, his chakra would only clump together briefly before disappearing. Sometimes, he could feel the flow of his chakra moving to his palms, but it never reached his fingers steadily. Every time he tried, the result was always the same—his chakra vanished before it could take the desired shape.

The more Souta tried, the more he realized that his chakra control was still far from perfect. If he couldn't control his chakra with high precision, it would be impossible for him to form stable Chakra Threads.

That was why, lately, Souta had been spending a lot of time thinking. Too much. Even in class like now, his mind was still filled with calculations and analyses on how to improve his technique.

"Hey, Souta!"

Someone's voice suddenly broke Souta's reverie.

Souta jolted, as if he had just returned to the real world. He then turned to his left and found a little girl with reddish-brown hair and sharp eyes staring at him with a pouty face.