After leaving home, Sora jogged all the way to the training field.
The war had ended two months ago. Although Konoha was still somewhat desolate, things were steadily returning to normal. At the very least, there were noticeably more people on the streets now.
But Sora didn't pay much attention to such things. He quickly arrived at the training ground.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The moment he arrived, he spotted his target—a guy in a green bodysuit with a bowl haircut.
But what caught Sora off guard was that the one sparring with Bowl-Cut was none other than Kakashi Hatake!
At the side of the training ground, a girl was quietly watching the fight between Kakashi and Might Guy.
Though her features were a little blurry in his memory, Sora quickly recognized the girl.
"I didn't expect Rin Nohara to still be alive!"
In an instant, thousands of schemes and conspiracies flashed through Sora's mind.
"Let's do this!"
Previously uncertain about his future, Sora suddenly saw a clear path ahead.
He would secretly sway Obito to his side, protect those he cared about, and then do his best to keep the story progressing on track.
Thinking about the terrifying strength of those characters in the later stages—and the possibility of card drops at any moment—Sora practically started drooling.
But first things first, he had to build a good relationship with these three.
Tap tap tap!
With light footsteps, Sora approached Rin's side, pretending to focus on Kakashi and Guy's fight.
But his eyes were actually scanning the ground around them. There were quite a few cards lying quietly in the dirt.
"Hey there, little guy! Are you here to train too?"
Rin noticed Sora right away and asked cheerfully.
Yet from her expression, Sora had a strange feeling—like she was itching to reach out and squish his cheeks with her 'sinful hands.'
After taking a closer look at her beautiful face, Sora figured… if it's someone this pretty, maybe getting squished wasn't such a bad thing!
"Yup! My brother said Might Guy is an amazing taijutsu ninja, so he sent me here to train with him!"
Without hesitation, Sora tossed the blame onto Minato's shoulders, showing zero guilt.
"Kid, who's your brother?"
By now, Kakashi and Might Guy had finished their spar. As Sora and Rin chatted, the two approached from behind.
The moment he heard Kakashi's cold, emotionless voice, Sora knew—this Kakashi was still trapped in darkness.
"Hehe, my brother's Minato Namikaze—your Jonin instructor!"
Sora shrugged casually. Ignoring the strange looks from the three, he walked over to where Kakashi and Guy had just fought and plopped down on the ground.
With both hands, he started patting the ground, sweeping card after card into his pocket.
Just as he finished collecting them and was about to get up, he suddenly noticed a purple glow under his right foot.
Looking down, he saw a purple card under his sole—and his face lit up with pure joy.
"Hahahaha!"
Seeing Sora laughing wildly while sitting on the ground, the three others exchanged glances filled with sympathy.
Rin gently tugged on Kakashi's sleeve and whispered, "Kakashi… is this kid okay in the head?"
"Who knows." Kakashi gave a disinterested reply and walked off.
He needed to find Minato and ask whether what this kid said was actually true.
『Ding! Congratulations, host has obtained a white card: +1 Strength!』
『Ding! Congratulations, host has obtained a blue card: Fire Style – Great Fireball Jutsu!』
『Ding! Congratulations, host has obtained a blue card: +10 Speed!』
...
A series of system prompts rang out as Sora's stats experienced a massive leap.
[Host: Sora]
[Strength: 23]
[Speed: 25]
[Constitution: 19]
[Spirit: 25]
[Chakra: 5]
[Talent: Spatial Talent LV3]
[Skills: Basic Shuriken LV2, Basic Taijutsu LV3, Chakra Extraction Technique LV1, Great Fireball Jutsu LV5, Konoha Whirlwind LV4]
"Now for the best part!"
Sora glanced at his status screen, rubbed his hands together, and eagerly clicked on the purple card.
『Ding! Congratulations, host has obtained a purple card: +1000 Chakra!』
"Holy crap! HOLY CRAP!"
Seeing the system notification, Sora jumped up, overwhelmed with excitement.
A thousand points of chakra—that was Jonin level!
Just moments ago he was fretting over his chakra reserves, and now they were magically resolved.
Sora felt like the heavens had dropped a divine blessing right into his lap—it felt amazing.
Unable to resist, he eagerly admired his updated status panel.
[Host: Sora]
[Strength: 23]
[Speed: 25]
[Constitution: 19]
[Spirit: 25]
[Chakra: 1005]
[Talent: Spatial Talent LV3]
[Skills: Basic Shuriken LV2, Basic Taijutsu LV3, Chakra Extraction Technique LV1, Great Fireball Jutsu LV5, Konoha Whirlwind LV4]
"Hehehe…"
"Hey, Sora, you alright?" Just as Sora was drooling over his panel, Might Guy's hand landed on his shoulder with a loud smack.
The impact snapped him out of his fantasy of stepping on Madara and beating up Kaguya.
"No worries. I came to train with you," Sora said seriously after calming down.
The moment those words left his mouth, he already knew what Guy would do next.
Sure enough, the very next moment, Might Guy rushed over like a whirlwind and hugged him tightly, crying with emotion.
Just as Sora had expected.
Meanwhile, Kakashi had already confirmed Sora's background.
Once he confirmed that Sora was indeed Minato's younger brother, he dropped his suspicions.
Having temporarily earned Might Guy's trust, Sora began following him around, occasionally picking up the cards Guy dropped during training.
Watching his stats gradually increase filled Sora's heart with indescribable joy.
The only thing bothering him was that the ninja academy was about to start.
At this point, he had no interest in attending anymore. Hanging out with Minato and the others and collecting high-level cards was way more appealing!
But over time, Sora had come to understand how card drops worked.
The first method was intense training—it had a very low chance of generating card drops.
The second was combat, which had a much higher chance of dropping cards.
The third was random drops—whether eating or sleeping, there was a 0.01% chance of getting a card.
That gold card on Minato had dropped this way!
So, if he wanted to collect a large number of cards, he'd have to fight or observe others fighting.
But getting Minato and Kushina to fight in front of him? Not likely.
Sora had tried sparring with them before, but the system didn't even register it as a battle—he didn't get a single white card out of it.
Plus, due to Minato and Kushina's strong objections, Sora had no choice but to enroll in the academy.
"Huff… ha—ha—ha! I can't go on. Guy, you go ahead."
Thud! Sora collapsed to the ground, completely drained. His arms no longer felt like they belonged to him.
Back when he watched Naruto, he always thought Guy was a total maniac—but experiencing it firsthand, he realized it was even worse!
Right off the bat, five thousand push-ups just to warm up. Even with over 20 points in his attributes, Sora barely managed 500 before giving out.
Five thousand, seriously!?
Looking at Guy, who still looked perfectly fine, Sora couldn't hold it in anymore. "You really are a freak!"
"Hahaha! As long as you keep training, you can do it too!" Guy laughed heartily, giving him a huge thumbs-up with his right hand.
Meanwhile, his left hand kept going up and down nonstop—watching it made Sora's face twitch.
Afterward, he reviewed his stat gains. His strength had gone up by two points, now at 25.
His weakest stat—constitution—had finally broken 20 and reached 21.
The rest remained unchanged.
"Sigh… only three points total. That's way too slow."
Staring blankly at the sky, Sora let out a helpless sigh.
If not for that one point increase during training, his constitution would still be stuck at 20.