Being intelligent individuals, Ino and Shikamaru knew that discussing this matter between themselves was useless; it involved the distribution of benefits and required the coordination of their respective families.
Ninja do not engage in production or business; despite possessing power, due to various reasons, money is controlled by the Daimyo of the country, and Ninja can only complete missions and earn meager sums.
Even today, the Ninja profession is strictly hierarchical.
Not all Ninja can throw Water Release, Fire Release, or Earth Release at enemies in battle; most low-level Ninja simply do not have the conditions to learn, as Ninjutsu are held by the major Ninja clans and the Village's high-ranking officials.
Learning the Three Body Technique at the Ninja Academy, then engaging in close combat with Kunai and Shuriken, using Exploding Tags for long-range assaults, and smoke bombs for cover; when stamina is low, eating Choji's military rations, using Nara Shikamaru's medicinal herbs for hospital stays, and if one dies, their family must buy a bouquet from Ino's flower shop—this is the norm.
Low-level Ninja have low incomes, high expenses, and high mortality rates; if housing rentals form a large scale, it can easily lead to wealth disparity conflicts within the Village.
Shikamaru is highly intelligent, but limited by his age, he couldn't yet see the issue of wealth disparity; he only had an intuition that there was something wrong and needed to think about it more carefully.
Ino also felt that her words, spoken offhand as a 'specialist,' were not very reliable, and she did not delve deeper into the topic.
The ultimate goal of the Ninja Academy is still to train Ninja; Iruka Sensei is responsible for both theory and practical classes, and he lectured very quickly; by the time Ino and Shikamaru exchanged glances, he had already moved on to the next problem.
"This problem states: ignoring air resistance, using formulas for horizontal uniform motion and uniformly accelerated motion, Ninja A stands on a tree 7 meters high and throws a Shuriken at enemy Ninja B on the ground. We will now calculate the initial velocity of the Shuriken."
On the podium, Iruka Sensei was calculating rapidly; the weather wasn't hot, but he still broke out in a sweat. Copying from the textbook would undoubtedly be a good choice, but unfortunately, this conscientious teacher insisted on calculating it himself, and as a result, he confused himself.
"45.22 m/s?" Iruka looked at the blackboard, then stiffly turned his neck to look at the textbook in his hand.
He found that the answer in the book didn't match his calculated answer!
So, who was wrong? Iruka Sensei was incredibly embarrassed, but the students were indifferent—some were sleeping, some eating, some petting their dogs, some staring blankly. The classroom suddenly became quiet, and Choji's snack-eating sounds became very conspicuous. He stopped eating, looked around strangely, his gaze lingering on Ino and Shikamaru for two seconds each, as if wanting to ask them what had happened.
The eerie silence lasted for more than ten seconds. Just as Iruka Sensei was about to redo the problem, the classroom door was abruptly opened, and the hurried Mizuki Sensei ran to his side and whispered a few words.
The next second, Iruka ran to the window and looked in the direction of the Hokage Rock.
His actions caused many students to follow suit, craning their necks to look outside.
Ino also entered spectator mode as if nothing had happened.
She looked at the Third Hokage's face on the Hokage Rock. Hmm, an old man with two cartoon-like wide noodle tears under his eyes, adding two points of playfulness to his usual benevolence. Next time Konohamaru writes an essay titled "My Village Chief Grandpa," he should gain a lot of insight. However, the wide noodle tear under his left eye seemed to have a little too much paint; she must pay attention next time.
The graffiti on the First, Second, and Fourth Hokage Rocks was quite messy; a star on one face, a red lipstick on another. She hadn't noticed it last night, but now, looking at it again, it was truly unsightly, far worse than what she could draw.
As Ino secretly critiqued the Hokage Rock, Iruka Sensei trembled with anger.
"Naruto! It's your handiwork again! How many times have I told you not to deface the Hokage Rock indiscriminately!"
"Hahahaha!—You idiot, catch me if you can!"
Uzumaki Naruto, wearing dark goggles, with short blonde hair, blue eyes, and an orange jacket, had no idea that someone had been hiding in the dark last night, and after he finished drawing on the Hokage Rock, they used the Transformation Technique to turn into him and quietly added a few more strokes.
Seeing Iruka Sensei rushing over furiously to beat him, he didn't even think, taking three steps in two, he dashed to the door. It was a completely subconscious action; he sidestepped and burst out of the classroom, his legs like windmills, kicking up thick smoke as he bolted out of the school.
"Class, self-study!" Leaving this one sentence, Iruka Sensei also chased after him like lightning.
Self-study meant playtime. Regardless of whether they were top students or poor students, everyone in the classroom erupted in cheers, and some even shouted their thanks to Naruto from afar.
Uzumaki Naruto, Inuzuka Kiba, plus Choji and Shikamaru, these four were the class's veritable 'bad influences,' often pulled together for punishment and scolding. Through the scolding, their friendship grew, and in Naruto's hostile and deeply longing heart for acceptance, these three were his only friends.
At this moment, Inuzuka Kiba was quite excited. He was a Taijutsu master, the quickest in action, leaping to the window like a large monkey, cupping his hands to his mouth, and shouting to Naruto, who was about to run out of school: "Naruto, well done!"
His Ninja dog, Akamaru, perched on his head, also barked twice in response.
Hearing the cheers of his classmates, Naruto, who had run over a hundred meters away, broke into a brilliant smile. Had he finally gained everyone's approval? All these years of effort had finally paid off, how wonderful!
As he ran, he vigorously waved his arm towards the classroom, meaning, 'Don't be polite, this is what I should do!'
"How boring." Shikamaru picked his ear, tilted his head to the other side, and continued to sleep.
Choji tore open another bag of snacks and ate them as if no one else was there.
Ino had no interest in chitchatting with them. Seeing Naruto's joyful and delighted expression as he ran, she thought, he probably doesn't mind taking the blame, right?
She picked up a book, pretending to look down and flip through it, but her right eye, hidden by her bangs, subtly opened and closed twice, revealing a faint golden panel unique to her, to view her latest gains.
In the center of the panel, a cartoonish black pot was finally filled with energy. With a thought, a golden orb of light, which she called a "Pot Point," slowly rose from the pot.
Getting stronger by shifting blame—it sounds easy, but it's difficult to do.
First, she had to cause trouble, then find someone to take the blame, and most importantly, she couldn't expose herself. For a girl who was just 12 years old and lacked means, this was extremely difficult.
Over three months, including today, she had succeeded six times and failed twice. Both failures were discovered by ANBU Ninja from the Village. One time, she got away with it by being cute, and the other time, thanks to her cheap father's high status and power, plus the fact that breaking a window wasn't a big deal, she managed to pass through smoothly.
Now, she had finally found the most stable scapegoat for the current stage: Uzumaki Naruto! And now was the time for harvest.
Still the old rule, one update before the signing process is complete, then two updates, and three updates when it's put on shelves.