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Saying farewell to Might Guy, Kyomu savored the knowledge of the Eight Inner Gates he had just memorized today, returning home under the cover of night.
He was feeling somewhat weary, so after soaking in a hot bath, he felt considerably refreshed and quickly fell asleep.
The next day, the sun rose as usual, and Kyomu met up with Kakashi at the edge of the Death Forest, continuing their training together.
Kyomu's training regimen still focused on improving his speed, strength, and explosiveness in swordsmanship.
Just like the previous days, the subsequent exercises were not particularly sophisticated, instead emphasizing simplicity and directness.
Day after day, apart from occasional bickering and trivial matters, most of their time was spent on mundane and tedious training.
However, Aragami Kyomu didn't feel any problems with this; instead, he found joy in it.
Seeing his strength improve day by day was simply enjoyable for him.
At the end of the month...
Kyomu sheathed his sword and stood, looking at the chaotic scene before him and the ninja sword covered in cracks, feeling very satisfied with his performance just now.
With a simple swing of the sword, visible sword energy crisscrossed, which might be one of the ultimate dreams of a man, and also one of Kyomu's dreams.
However...
"The duration of the passive skill is still a bit too short. If only I had a year with it..." He shook his head. "Forget it, no use thinking about it. The urgent matter is still to give Kakashi a knock on the bamboo pole."
Glancing down at the ninja sword covered in cracks, which seemed like it would fall apart with a slight touch, a cunning gleam flashed in Kyomu's eyes.
However, Kakashi also noticed this and kept his distance from Kyomu like he was avoiding the plague, firmly refusing to give him a chance to knock his own bamboo pole.
It was understandable. Kyomu had been catching Kakashi off guard and taking advantage of him, once or twice was fine, but with too many times, Kakashi would naturally react strongly.
It was hard on him.
Turning his head to look at Obito who was foolishly smiling with Rin, Kyomu immediately set his sights on Obito.
The Uchiha clan's financial situation was still strong, even if Obito was not highly regarded within the Uchiha clan, they should not be too stingy with money.
"Obito, help me hold the ninja sword. I'm going to wash my hands by the river."
With such glaring loopholes in his excuse, Obito surprisingly didn't have any suspicions and naturally took the ninja sword thrown by Kyomu.
Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he had some evil ideas in his mind.
"Obito."
"What's up, Kakashi?"
"Take out Kyomu's ninja sword and let me see. I feel like something's off with his sword."
"There's nothing wrong with it." Obito drew out the ninja sword, but only the hilt remained. "Uh, this, it wasn't intentional, Kakashi, you should have seen, I just..."
"My sword!"
Kyomu happened to run over at this moment. "My sword, how did it break like this..."
"I'm sorry about that, I just wanted to take a look, but I didn't expect..." Obito scratched his head awkwardly. "I'll compensate you with a replica tomorrow, how about that?"
"This was a gift from Kakashi, although it's cheap, flimsy, not sturdy enough, and not sharp enough, but it means a lot to me, I..."
"Kyomu, give it a rest!" Kakashi rolled his eyes. "You didn't say that when you were freeloading this ninja sword."
Without thinking much, Obito patted his chest and declared, "Kyomu, I'll give you a better one!"
"I knew you're my best buddy!" Kyomu stepped forward and hooked shoulders with Obito. "Actually, I wanted to change the ninja sword long ago, but I didn't have the money..."
"I know about that." Obito smiled. "It's just a small matter, I don't mind."
"What are you minding then?" Kakashi quipped.
"Of course, it's you guys." Obito smiled shyly. "As long as you're both here, I can handle anything."
Kakashi didn't say anything further, Rin blushed and turned her head aside, while Might Guy was moved to tears.
"Don't get sentimental..." Kyomu interrupted in time. "Making it seem like a farewell between life and death."
Obito also timely changed the subject, knowing it was good to know about emotional matters but better to keep them to a minimum.
"In fact, it's like a farewell." Kakashi looked into the distance. "Tomorrow is the final exam, then it's New Year's Day, and then..."
"So, are you two planning to graduate early?" Obito lowered his head sadly. "Time flies, a semester has passed in the blink of an eye."
"Relax, we're just exploring ahead of you guys, not gone forever." Kyomu patted Obito's shoulder. "Of course, you also have to work hard."
"I will, but I just can't catch up with you two bastards." Obito grinned. "You may run ahead for a while, but wait, once I open my eyes, I'll catch up to you both. I'll have to beat you both a hundred times to make up for it."
Kyomu and Kakashi glanced at each other, both rubbing their hands in anticipation.
"Before you beat us, can we collect some interest?" Kyomu suggested.
"Damn it, no hitting allowed!" Obito protested.
Obito ran, while Kyomu and Kakashi chased after him, in a matter of seconds, they had already run far ahead.
Guy and Rin followed behind, laughing as the sound of their laughter gradually faded away.
...
The final exam arrived as scheduled on the last day of the month.
The exam composition remained the same, consisting of three parts: written test, ninja techniques, and sparring.
The written test part was easy, just answering questions, such as the relationship between chakra and the human body, and calculating the angle and strength when throwing shurikens, and so on.
"Haha, I got 93 points!"
With a triumphant wave of his exam paper, Obito said, "How many did you guys get?"
The classmates who had once mocked Obito as the shame of the Uchiha clan remained silent, while only Rin whispered her score to Obito.
"I got one point more than you."
"No wonder, Rin, that's like you!"
Kyomu and Kakashi couldn't stand Obito smug look and immediately stepped forward to strike back.
"93 points is quite high isn't i?, Kakashi. How much did you score?"
"I don't talk to people who can't score 100." Kakashi crossed his arms, showing a cold expression as he turned away.
"That's fine; we can compare answers. I also got 100."
Both Kyomu and Kakashi fell silent, while Obito and Rin stared at them with eyes full of resentment.
Soon it was time for the second exam. Since it was a comprehensive examination of ninja techniques, it took a while.
Nevertheless, Kyomu and Kakashi still stood out as the brightest stars, once again leading the field with perfect scores.
Guy also made progress, although his talent in ninjutsu was poor, and his efforts in this area were inadequate. He barely passed, but this impressed some people.
Obito and Rin's performance remained stable, with both of them scoring over 90 points, making them top students in the class.
The last part was a sparring exam, leaning towards practical combat, but unfortunately, the highly anticipated showdown between the strong did not happen, which was regrettable.
Teacher Shuzo had arranged it like this for a reason; he didn't want the two he favored to attract too much attention, nor did he want their outstanding performance to pressure or overshadow the other students in the class.
In conclusion, the final exam ended, and the title of the "Konoha's Twin Geniuses" was once again mentioned, with Kyomu and Kakashi becoming role models for other families' children.
The two didn't feel much about it, continuing to eat, sleep, and train as usual.
The only thing that fluctuated slightly was Kyomu's passive skill, which refreshed again in the early morning.
[Passive Skill: Golden Brilliance]
[Skill Description: The duration of the skill is based on the amount of money carried, passively enhancing learning ability, comprehension ability, and recovery ability by a multiplier.
Note: 10,000 ryo as the starting multiplier (1x), no upper limit]
[Skill Duration: 30 days]
[Parting Words: Money is power. You may not have superpowers, but you can't lack monetary ability.]
Kyomu suddenly fell silent.
This passive skill was great. If the wealthiest person in the ninja world obtained it, they could achieve many miracles in a month.
But...
Looking around his modest home, Kyomu felt desperate. Selling this house might not even fetch him 100,000 ryo.
He checked his wallet, "Well, I only have a little over 3,000 ryo in liquid assets, and the rest are non-liquid assets."
Then he looked at his passive skill and found that the multiplier was still zero, making Kyomu's mood even worse.
"It seems that real estate isn't included..." He looked up at the pitch-black night sky. "There's no way... I'll just have to tighten my belt this month... well, Kakashi's and Obito's."
(End of Chapter)