Days at the ninja school passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, Shintaro had been at the school for a semester.
It was time for graduation at the end of the semester.
The ninja school system spanned five grades, and his class was still in the first grade.
The graduation season of Konoha 42 currently seemed unrelated to their class. It made sense that they would have to wait until Konoha 46 to graduate.
However, this class had a student who would graduate, Hatake Kakashi.
"Kakashi, do you really want to graduate early?" Rin asked worriedly.
"Yes, Hokage-sama agreed." Kakashi nodded.
"Hmph, what's the big deal?" Obito said jealously.
In fact, the news of Kakashi's early graduation had spread throughout the school.
The son of Konoha's White Fang seemed to be starting to show his extraordinary talent.
If Kakashi truly graduated this time, he would become the youngest genin in Konoha's history.
Next to Shintaro, Kurenai was also interested in Kakashi's early graduation. "Shintaro, do you think Kakashi can graduate early?"
"It's very easy for him to graduate early with his strength." Shintaro said, sharing his true thoughts.
In fact, when Kakashi first entered the school, his strength had already reached the level of an ordinary graduate. After a semester of training, his strength had surpassed the level needed to graduate successfully.
"Then why don't you take the graduation exam first? Isn't your strength the same as Kakashi's?"
Shintaro was silent for a moment before saying, "Graduating early might not be a good thing."
Kurenai didn't understand, but she nodded in understanding.
Their relationship had become quite close after a semester of getting along, and they had a mutual understanding.
Thus, Shintaro's ideas were often forward-looking, and it didn't matter if she didn't understand them for the time being.
In Shintaro's view, graduating early would certainly make Kakashi the youngest genin in Konoha's history, but becoming a genin came at a cost.
It meant losing leisure time for training and being burdened with numerous tasks. Shintaro had once visited Konoha's task collection office and saw that most of the tasks there were low-level and meaningless, such as catching kittens, feeding puppies, picking up trash, and patrolling.
Most of these tasks were carried out by genin and chunin.
Shintaro felt dizzy thinking about doing such tasks after graduation. It was just a waste of life.
And any task would take up time.
At his current age, this was the golden period for training, and the foundation for becoming strong in the future was laid at this stage.
If training time was consumed by various tasks at this stage, it would take more time to make up for the lost foundation in the future.
So Shintaro's current idea was to graduate honestly.
After successfully being promoted to genin, he would immediately try to be promoted to chunin to avoid as many low-level, meaningless tasks as possible.
The final exam and the graduation exam were held simultaneously.
After the final exam, everyone in the class waited outside the graduation exam room because Kakashi was still taking the exam inside.
While everyone discussed the difficulty of this year's final exam, they also discussed whether Kakashi could pass the graduation exam.
The consensus was that everyone believed Kakashi could pass the exam because he was Kakashi.
There was only one person who seemed dissatisfied with this, and that was Obito.
Shintaro didn't have a close relationship with his clan members, but he also knew that Obito and Kakashi had a bad relationship on the surface, but it was just awkwardness among kids.
The reason for this awkwardness was the little girl Nohara Rin next to Obito.
And there was another person who noticed this, Sarutobi Asuma.
Unlike Shintaro, who saw this through his experience and vision from a previous life, Asuma purely felt the same.
Asuma and Obito could be said to be in a heart-to-heart relationship at this point.
Both liked girls, Obito liked Rin, and Asuma liked Kurenai.
But the girls they liked both admired a genius, just as Rin admired Kakashi, Kurenai admired Shintaro.
However, unlike Obito's persistence, Asuma had let go of Kurenai in his heart.
He considered himself a smart person. After a semester of being ignored, he finally realized that it was impossible for Kurenai and him to be together.
Initially, he and Kurenai chatted quite harmoniously, and they stayed together every day.
Just when things were getting better, Shintaro came along, and everything changed, and Kurenai started to ignore him.
This difference really disappointed Asuma.
In his heart, he sympathized with Obito, but he also had admiration and envy.
Needless to say, admiration was for Obito's sincerity and dedication to Rin, which made Asuma feel ashamed.
And envy was just envy. Rin was actually very kind to Obito.
As the students outside were busy talking, the exam room door opened.
Kakashi, wearing a black top and a green scarf, with a mask on his face as usual, emerged. The only difference was a forehead protector with the Konoha logo on it.
The forehead protector symbolized becoming a ninja.
So it was certain that Kakashi had successfully passed the graduation exam.
Everyone congratulated Kakashi one by one.
Guy raised his hand enthusiastically and said, "Kakashi, you are worthy of being my rival. You've become a genin so quickly! It seems I need to train harder!"
Rin smiled gently and said, "Kakashi, congratulations on becoming a genin."
Kurenai and Shintaro stood together, clapping.
Asuma also clapped among the audience, but there was one person who didn't congratulate Kakashi, and that was Obito.
Kakashi took the initiative to approach Obito and looked at him, as if waiting for congratulations.
However, what he got was Obito angrily shouting, "I won't congratulate you!"
Then he ran off alone.
Most of the classmates didn't care about Obito, the weakest in the class, but they just felt it was very inappropriate for him to act like that on such an occasion.
Only Rin kept looking at Obito's back with a worried expression.
After congratulating Kakashi again, she left early, apparently to comfort Obito, who had run off in anger. All this was seen by Shintaro, but he didn't care.
He knew Rin's character and Obito's attitude towards Rin, so Rin would certainly manage to calm Obito down.