Book One: The Rise of the Blue-Haired Devil.

      I woke up to a less than pleasant sensation. I was doused in ice water from head to toe. It was Rico, and he had an unkind smile on his face. I wanted to be outraged, but I quickly suppressed the urge. I wasn't in a position to show my temper after all.       - Good morning, training time," he greeted me wryly.       - Mm-hmm. - I mumbled grudgingly, rising quickly from my seat. The man was already heading for the door. I hurried after him.       - You're the smallest of the lot. A year's difference isn't significant, but three or four makes a difference. You'll have to work three times as hard to match them in physical strength and speed. Yes, your stamina is at a decent level and your body is not badly built for your age. You're able to do more repetitions than the others, but they're just bigger, so they can't handle their weight as easily as you can. - Riko spoke thoughtfully as we approached the gate.       - ID? - The guard standing at the exit of the arena asked at the sight of us. My escort handed him a neatly folded paper without further ado. The guard quickly ran through the lines of the letter and then approached me.       I didn't understand what was going on. The man lifted the sleeve of my clothes. Then touched the scroll, infusing it with chakra, after which symbols began to appear on my arm. It tickled.       - You may pass. - The guard said, assessing his work. Rico walked quickly forward, and I followed.       - What was that? - I asked with interest, looking at my mentor's face.        Rico didn't answer immediately. First he took out his pipe and lit a cigarette.       - It's a precaution. It's necessary so you can't escape," he clarified rather monotonously.       - And how? - I decided to clarify this nuance, knowing full well that I might not get an answer. The man took another puff of acrid tobacco before answering me.       - Try to run away and you'll find out," the Baron's servant said indifferently. Somehow his words made me lose all desire to find out this information.       We walked in silence for about three minutes until we came to a clearing, in the centre of which was a small lake with a radius of about ten metres.       We started with a small warm-up. Five laps around the clearing, twenty squats, twenty push-ups, twenty abs and stretching. All of these exercises were designed to warm up my muscles so that they wouldn't get damaged during the main load. Rico didn't really say a word when he started doing all of these, and I just decided to follow his lead.       - Now listen to me," Sensei started to say after the warm-up and when he saw that I paid attention to him, he continued, "I don't think it's worth spending a lot of time on your fitness, so in order for you to catch up and overtake your opponents, you'll be wearing weights," the man said, but when he noticed my expression, he decided to clarify, "Weights are extra weights that you'll be wearing all the time. But I can assure you that apart from the weight, they won't interfere with anything, because you're lucky. I rummaged through the Baron's warehouse and was able to find some Fuin weights that haven't been used in a while. They'll increase your weight depending on the chakra you put into them. I will adjust them myself," Riko added. A smile appeared on his face, which I didn't particularly like.       He walked over to me, pulling out several pieces of paper from a pouch on his belt that were the size of his palm. Over the next few minutes he attached them to my body. Two were fixed on my legs around my hips, two more on my arms around my elbows, and the last one was placed on my stomach. I immediately tried to stand up. In fact, I instantly felt discomfort in the places where these weights were attached. As long as I was lying on the ground, it wasn't too bad, but when I stood up, it became very heavy. I felt like my body weighed about a third more.       - Is everything okay? Is there a balance? - He asked with interest. Apparently, he'd seen something like this before.       - Yes, it's perfectly balanced," I told him, nodding my head.       - Good. Let's start training. You've already awakened the chakra, I see, which means that we're going to control it. Your task for today is to repeat after me," the man mumbled, starting to walk down the tree with no hands. He had already smirked in anticipation of seeing my surprised face, however I only did the same to him in response. I tried to do the same as he did. After all, I had practised for a long time yesterday. But already on the first step, I fell. The bark of the tree broke with a ringing crunch.       - Apparently, you've been practising on camera. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Stone is harder than wood. So you'll have to learn all over again," Riko said with a grin, enjoying my failure. He threw a kunai at my feet as I got up from my painful fall. I stared at him questioningly, not sure why he'd given me a cold weapon.       - Run up the tree at a run. As soon as you feel yourself losing control, fix the height you've reached with the cut on the tree. You don't need to understand how this process happens. Your body will adjust to it on its own," Sensei clarified in an instructive manner, having read my mind. I began the exercise.       It wasn't easy to move around with new accessories, and I had to do chakra manipulation. Overall, the exercise was very challenging for me. I didn't watch the sun, so I only became aware of the current time when I noticed Riko innocently consuming his breakfast. I saw that two trays had been placed next to him, one of which clearly belonged to me. I was about to go grab a bite, but my mentor's voice dispelled my dreams.       - You're not eating breakfast until you're done," the man shouted across the clearing with a satisfied grin. I was a little upset, but I didn't argue, continuing the exhausting exercise. I was only a little way to the top of the tree. I redoubled my efforts and after half an hour I was standing at the top of the tree, watching the view around the clearing. Rico gave me a thumbs up from the ground and when I paid attention to him, responding with the same gesture, he pointed to my food. I quickly climbed down from the tree, heading off for a well-deserved rest. In a few minutes I had swallowed all the food.       - Now we're going to have a theory lesson," said the tutor, who had been smoking a pipe the whole time I was snacking.       - So, we will return to the arena so that others can also listen to your lecture? - I clarified.       - No, I'm your personal tutor. So everyone else will be taught theory classes by someone else," Riko clarified the situation in a calm manner. For about two hours Sensei gave me a lecture. There was a lot of not very useful information, but the lecture had some very important information about ninja clans. Today he decided to tell me about the major ones in the land of water.       The first clan I learnt about was the Hozuki clan. The distinctive feature of its members were sharp rows of teeth, as well as a special technique of the element of water, allowing them to turn into water. Roughly speaking, these ninjas controlled their bodies on a molecular level. Cold weapons could pass through them without causing damage. They settled specifically in the Land of Water because they required an abnormal amount of liquid to keep their bodies in such a state at all times. Such shinobi would have easily died in the Land of Earth or the Land of Wind, as there were very few water sources in those areas. The next clan I came across was the Hoshigake clan.       The ninjas of this clan spent a lot of time in water according to legends. They were forced to evolve to stand at the head of evolution in the water, so the members of this clan have gills on their faces and their smile resembles the grin of a shark, and in general these ninjas are similar in appearance. They are able to breathe underwater. Any battle on the water with such an opponent will be one-sided, and not in your favour.       Riko then told me about the Terumi clan, whose members possessed an interesting set of techniques related to their enhanced genome. This was the lava genome, which was a transformation of two elemental elements: earth and fire. This clan was very small in number, but their genome allowed them to fight on equal terms with other clans that outnumbered them many times over. There were two other clans that already specialised in close combat.       One of them was the Kaguya clan. They were perhaps the most dangerous opponents. These ninjas were trained from a very young age to become shinobi, turning into real killing machines. The members of this clan loved battle, and because of this, they valued only strong opponents. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, constantly travelling around the Water Country to find worthy opponents for themselves. In addition, their enhanced genome was also a danger. The members of the Kaguya clan could pull bones out of their bodies, turning them into real weapons. From the beginning, the strength of their bones was at a higher level than the others. Another clan that specialised in close combat was the Karatachi clan.       The ninjas of this clan developed their own style of taijutsu that only suited them. After each battle, they improved their close combat skills, picking up on weaknesses in their style. Thus, after just one generation of ninja, the Karatachi clan had become very dangerous. It was hard to compete with their clan style of combat.       Towards the end of the lecture, one of the servants in the arena came over to pass food to us. After the lecture ended, we ate. The lunch lasted for about twenty minutes.       - Training time. Let's continue to improve your chakra control. Your task is to learn to walk on water," Riko said, demonstrating a perfect execution of the exercise. He easily and effortlessly walked on the surface of the water as if it were land.       I, who had already realised that I wouldn't be able to do it on the first try, took off my outer clothes and then started the exercise. After about an hour of swimming, because there was no other way to call what I was doing, I realised that the water was in constant motion. Its particles were vibrating, unlike the particles of solid objects. This meant that chakra would have to be delivered not evenly across the foot, but elastically and flexibly, adjusting to the flow of the water and the fluctuations of the water surface. I clarified my hunches with Riko. He approved of my judgement on this, amazed at my knowledge. Until the evening I tried to fulfil this exercise. It was nearing seven o'clock when Rico stopped me.       I was beginning to suffer from chakra depletion. My chakra centre wasn't used to producing so much energy, so I was severely weakened. I had overexerted myself too much, causing me to be unable to move around on my own. Riko helped me to my room without further ado, laying me down on a bed. Dinner was brought to me. While I was eating, my mentor returned, handing me many new books.       I started to study the new material when Rico left me, wishing me a good evening and advising me not to train again tonight.