Hidden Emperor Of The Naruto World

After the end of the battles, the higher-ups quickly went back. If not because it would have been impolite, Minato reckons that they would have left directly after his battle.

The students finally passed the last test: Ninjutsu.

Bunshin, Henge, and Kawarimi were the three basics Jutsu taught at the academy from the second year onwards. Thankfully, Jiraya became the 'sensei' of Minato a month after the first Taijutsu battle at the academy, and so he gave him the scrolls for those three Jutsu. Without knowing them officially, it would have been a pinch for Minato to graduate.

Apart from the basics, he did not teach him anything more. The rest of the time he deigned to check upon him were spent with Jiraya begging to let him use Inazuma characters into his Icha Icha series. Even if there are no real author rights in this world, it would be unbecoming of Jiraya to steal without asking for permission. Minato was unwilling to let his personages play in a third rate p.o.r.n book, but at the same time not willing to offend Jiraya by refusing him completely. Even if he appeared to be a good-natured guy in the anime, in the end, he doesn't know him personally well enough to ascertain it. And he will not make such a rookie mistake as thinking that because he was a good guy on TV it was ok. Kakashi is a good guy...Kakashi killed hundreds. In the end, they were good to Naruto, not him, so he can't confuse it.

They came to a consensus. Minato will help him with character design while he promised to never use his manga characters.

While waiting for his turn, Minato was thinking of his battle against the Chunin instructor.

'All those hours spent doing mental battles were truly useful. Even if I didn't fight anybody in real, this battle allowed me to see that it was the same. I spent most of my time doing it, thankfully all this time was not wasted. In the end, battle experience is the most important thing, even Kaguya, who was by far more powerful than anyone lost. If she was good at fighting, she would have completely decimated them with her level of chakra. I spent the majority of those ten months on that, so the rest of my ninja arts did not improve so much, but at least the most important, my taijutsu is top-notch.

Now that I have hitten a plateau in all things concerning my body, I can begin to truly focus on other things. My clones trained in those arts but it can't compare to me doing it directly because my chakra is too thin when I make some. With my mental and physical regeneration, which means chakra regeneration, if I train myself it will be far faster. And a chunin training can't compare to a genin. Using the backlash of numerous Kage Bunshin to increase my mental energy begins to lose its efficiency too. Even if it was still useful, now that I'm not in the academy and will do missions outside I can't do this sort of training anymore'

---

Later this day, having aced the last exam, Minato went to celebrate his success with his mandem at Yakiniku Q.

"Haha, it was hilarious how you trick them all Minato, everybody was thinking that you were going to use ninjutsu out of frustration because you were on the losing end, but it was just a diversion!" Tsume laughed, banging on the table recalling the expression of the chunin, when he finally realized that he was tricked before being knocked out.

"But how did you know the Fireball Jutsu?" Inquired Mikoto, he did not have a clan to teach him Jutsu, so he should not know any...Well, maybe it was from his clan records.

"I don't know it. I just know the hand signs because I saw them multiples time, it's a widespread Jutsu here in Konoha. I don't even have fire affinity, there is no way I will lose time to learn such thing" Denied Minato, waving his hand.

When he will begin his elemental training, it will be with his affi...Er, now that he remembers, he has all the five basic affinities. He even forgot about it 'Should I have a clone learn them in the end?... Nop, it would not help me to save my hide in the war to come but just paint a bigger target. If people see that I don't use ninjutsu, they will underestimate me. They did it for the Dai, Gai, Lee trio, some of the more powerful ninja of all times. For them, true shinobi must breathe fire, rubbish. A true ninja is stealthy, and kill without being seen. If I had Naruto's chakra, I would have learned it long ago, each of his clones has more chakra than me when I don't make any...'

"Ne Minato, when do you think we will be as strong as you?" Sulked Kushina. Seeing him manhandled a chunin made her realize that even with all the progress they did with the harsh training regimen that he gave them, it was far from sufficient to catch up to him.

"Truthfully I don't know, the academy takes a lot of your day so you can't train to your full potential. But if you graduate now it will be dangerous for you. I think after you graduate will be the time when you will make reals progress. Even I begin to stagnate, my body is already at its peak and it's difficult for me to grow stronger with such a small body without harming my future" Explained Minato. In the end, he has the body of a soon to be nine years old, so he is limited. The best age for training begins at 12 years old, and finish at 20 years old. It's during those eight years that people will do real progress, and catch up to the geniuses.

Thinking up to that, he frowned internally. If he wants to progress now that he is at the peak of his natural body, he must stimulate himself with weights. But doing so could have a detrimental effect on his growth. Before the end of puberty, people's bones are malleable. It means that if he forces his body to support weights, his bones will not grow well and he will forever be small. So, having a kage level body before the end of the puberty is just a foolish dream that could forever halt his growth, a thing he was unwilling to do.

Having caught on the fact that he will not continue to pull far ahead of them because of his still-growing body, they were determined to catch up to him, so when their bodies have developed they could stand with him and grow stronger at the same time. Seeing him inside his thoughts, they decided to let him be for the time being and discussed between them.

'Even if Itachi was Kage level at thirteen, his body was barely Jonin-level. It's just that the Mangekyo Sharingan gave him a ton of spiritual chakra, and that he had perfect control over it. In the end, my body has hit a plateau. The only thing I can train now is my spiritual energy.'

Learning different elements will indeed help him increasing his spiritual energy, but he was unwilling to focus on it for the time being. It is better to focus on preserving himself during the war because he will only be at cannon fodder level. He could also kill one of the girls to have the Mangekyo Sharingan and gain a huge boost of mental energy, but this thought has not even crossed his mind once. If he must sacrifice people he loves for power despite all the knowledge that he has, he would faster kill himself than to live in such a disgraceful manner. People deemed him as a ruthless monster without emotions back then, but it was because he had no loved ones to act soft with.

Seeing that Minato has stopped frowning and came back from the land of thoughts, Mikoto asked: "So, what will you do now that you've graduated Minato?" She was curious about this. Minato told them that a war was coming and that his perverted teacher that taught him nothing will be busy during it.

When he was going to answer them, an Anbu appeared before them. "Hokage-sama is asking for you, follow me please"

"Well, I must go, let's catch up at Kushina's later" Having said his piece, he followed the Anbu outside the restaurant. Said guy put a hand on his shoulders and body flickered them at jonin-speed to the Hokage tower. Thankfully he was used to that sort of speed because he is as fast as that when using the shunshin, if a bit linear. If not, he would have been for a rough travel 'What a bastard manhandling me like that, if not because I was abnormal compared to people of my age, I would have retch my meal' Grumbled Minato internally, unaware of the surprise of said Anbu, who thought that Minato had a pretty good resistance for high-speed movements.