Minato’s face lit up with excitement at the words.

  What exactly was "basic training"?

  "Let’s go, the training ground for the morning isn’t here," Jiraiya said, taking slow steps forward.

  Without hesitation, Minato followed closely behind, and the two once again made their way to the streets of Konoha.

  Jiraiya raised his arm and extended a single finger. "First, you’ll run forty ps around Konoha Vilge. You need to finish before noon… or else, no training in the afternoon, and you’ll run an extra sixty ps. And no using chakra."

  Minato froze for a moment. He hadn’t expected that the basic training would start with something as simple as running.

  "Start now," Jiraiya reminded him from the side. Minato snapped out of his daze and gnced at the sun—it was already mid-morning, and there was barely less than six hours left before noon...

  "This is bad!" Minato muttered to himself, then took off running.

  He moved at an incredible speed, disappearing down the street in a matter of seconds. Jiraiya smiled faintly, and with a fsh of movement, vanished as well.

  The streets of Konoha were still retively quiet at this hour, so Minato didn’t face much obstruction as he raced through the roads.

  As he ran, he mentally calcuted the difficulty of this task.

  At his current speed, if he maintained a steady pace, he should be able to finish the forty ps around Konoha right on time.

  But that was just an average pace. Even as a shinobi, his stamina was not limitless, and as he pushed himself harder, fatigue would gradually set in.

  If he could use chakra to recover, that would be one thing… but Jiraiya had specifically forbidden chakra use.

  While calcuting, he also wondered what the actual purpose of this exercise was. Strengthening his stamina was one thing, but it didn’t seem to connect to the speed, reflexes, or other attributes Jiraiya had mentioned.

  He couldn’t quite figure out the logic behind it, but Minato was sure that Jiraiya had a good reason for this training pn.

  As a result, his gaze became more focused, and he turned his attention entirely to the task at hand.

  The first p took him less than eight minutes, which was faster than most chunin. But as the ps went on, his pace started to slow, and by the tenth p, a light sweat had already begun to form on his brow.

  His breathing, however, remained steady. Thanks to his previous training, Minato had grown accustomed to keeping his body in this kind of state.

  So the basic exercises he had done at the ninja academy didn’t make him feel tired at all.

  "If I keep this pace, I should make it," Minato thought to himself as he continued running.

  People on the street gave him strange looks, but Minato didn’t pay them any mind. Right now, any distraction would only waste his energy.

  The st thing he wanted was to fail the training and have to continue running in the afternoon.

  It wasn’t that he was afraid of the physical strain, but he was genuinely curious about what Jiraiya’s next training step would be.

  "Curiosity..." Jiraiya chuckled, sitting in a small tavern in Konoha, just as he had expected. No matter how meticulous Minato was, he was still just a child.

  And for kids, both encouragement and threats were less effective than piquing their curiosity and using it as motivation.

  The weather grew hotter, and Minato’s stamina began to drop. But he still tried to maintain his speed. By the time he had run almost thirty ps around Konoha, his legs felt heavier, and his body was starting to ache.

  For most genin, this would have been their limit.

  Even Minato, who was used to training at high intensity, felt his legs growing leaden and his pace slowing. But as soon as the fatigue set in, something incredible began to happen.

  His strength started to recover quickly, erasing the fatigue as if his body was responding to his determination.

  This somewhat unnatural recovery of strength wasn’t the first time Minato had experienced it. It had happened before during intense training sessions.

  There was no time to think too much about it. His speed had slowed, but it was still steady enough that he could finish the forty ps before noon.

  From a rooftop on the route Minato was taking, Jiraiya observed with mild surprise.

  He hadn’t expected Minato’s stamina to be so incredible. The intensity of this training was something even a chunin might struggle with, yet Minato was handling it without faltering...

  Jiraiya even began to doubt the Third Hokage’s information. Was Minato really just an ordinary child from a common family?

  Without any special bloodline, how was he able to push himself this far?

  "I was pnning to have him try this in a few days, but it looks like we’ll have to move up the schedule..." Jiraiya muttered with a wry smile before disappearing from his spot.

  Minato kept up his pace, now having completed thirty-five ps, and the noon sun was beating down harder with each passing minute. Many of the vilgers were seeking shade, trying to stay cool.

  But for Minato, running in the bzing sun made him stand out even more.

  The sunlight and his golden hair reflected off each other, making him seem like a shining beacon, his figure gleaming as the light hit his face. His delicate features were slick with sweat, but his clothes remained surprisingly dry.

  Just as Minato thought he was close to completing the morning training, a dark shadow shot past him.

  Whoosh!

  The shadow moved with incredible speed. In his fatigued state, Minato barely had time to react, but he instinctively dodged, the shadow narrowly grazing his ear and cutting a few strands of his hair.

  "Shuriken!" Minato’s mind raced. The attack had been a shuriken, there was no doubt about it.

  He could tell the person throwing the shuriken had better technique than Uchiha En. However, it didn’t seem like the intent was to harm him.

  There was only one person who could be behind this—Jiraiya-sensei.

  Minato scanned the area where the shuriken had come from, but it was empty.

  Frowning, Minato realized that Jiraiya didn’t intend to harm him. The purpose of the shuriken was likely...

  To interrupt his training.

  Before he could finish his thought, another sharp whistling sound came from behind him. This time, Minato was more prepared and dodged quickly.

  Two more shuriken whizzed past him.

  "I can’t afford to waste time!" Minato thought, even though he didn’t fully understand why Jiraiya was doing this, he knew one thing for sure.

  This, too, was part of the training.

  The goal was clear—Jiraiya wanted him to grow stronger.

  With that realization, Minato pushed himself to run even faster. His speed increased, and with each step, it felt like he was running faster than ever before.

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