Over this past year, the range of his Chakra Field has also grown considerably.
Its radius has expanded to 180 meters.
Without Hand Seals, it reached 162 meters, and while running at a normal pace, it could reach 135 meters.
His Chakra reserves also grew exponentially. Physical training and Meditation themselves were a huge boost.
In addition, he practiced Body Flicker every day until exhaustion.
Over the past nine months, he had performed tens of thousands of Body Flicker exercises.
His Chakra reserves now exceeded Senju Teru's.
Compared to the upperclassmen, he found his reserves far surpassed the average level of that class, very likely placing him in the top ten.
Only two students, likely from the Senju Clan, were significantly higher than him.
Even so, he was confident that in another year, his Chakra level would surpass theirs, he thought.
“I think it’s time to consult Hiruzen about the Shadow Clone Technique.”
He could see the improvement in his Chakra level when he was finally able to burst rubber balls, which meant he was finally making progress in the second stage of Rasengan training.
However, he could only barely shatter them. He still needed more Chakra to truly unleash the Rasengan.
His Shuriken throwing skills had also improved.
He could now hit target boards while running and also hit moving target boards.
To help students practice this, the school used to hang a target board from a tree branch and swing it.
It swung like a pendulum.
However, when he himself ran and threw, he still found it difficult to hit the moving target board.
Feng Zheng decided that after he successfully achieved this, he would begin practicing attacking his clones with Shuriken, as this would better simulate combat scenarios.
During his practice in many of Konoha's small forests, Feng Zheng discovered some scattered Shuriken and kunai.
He collected a total of 23 Shuriken and 11 kunai.
Seven of the Shuriken and four of the kunai were severely damaged, leaving him with 16 Shuriken and 7 kunai.
He carefully collected these weapons, not directly touching any of them, in case they were poisoned, he thought.
“This is convenient. Although these are secondhand weapons, they are still useful. However, I need to clean them thoroughly to remove the scent of previous users and prevent any toxic substances from sticking.”
However, he had spent so much time in these forests yet found very few.
Feng Zheng guessed that everyone must retrieve them after use, as they were not cheap.
Perhaps there were others like him who were also searching around and collecting them.
He sighed.
“However, these should be enough for my practice.”
---
Soon, it was time for the second-year exams.
As Feng Zheng expected, their class's grading system had been completely revamped.
He was curious if the same would happen in the elite classes of other grades.
For the comprehensive exam, the written test was 100 points, the Leaf Concentration competition 20 points, the Shuriken throwing competition 20 points, 10 points for each of the Three Basic Ninjutsu, and the Taijutsu tournament 30 points.
In the written test, he noticed it had 5 sections. Each one was more difficult than the last.
While it wasn't too difficult for him, he had no doubt that an eight-year-old from his previous world would not be able to pass this exam.
Seeing how difficult the exam was, he deliberately answered two questions incorrectly, each worth 2 points.
For the Leaf Concentration test, the same grading system as the previous year was used.
Uchiha Rai and Hyuga Hodaka dropped at the 45-minute mark, Shimura Shin at 56 minutes, Senju Teru at 59 minutes. Hyuga Hana surpassed 1 hour and held on for another 4 minutes.
Knowing that this year's written test was harder, Feng Zheng didn't expect anyone to get a perfect score, and after 1 hour and 11 minutes, he let his leaf drop.
The Shuriken test also had multiple levels, just like the written test.
The first round was throwing 8 Shuriken at a stationary target board.
The second round was alternately running right and left into a circle drawn on the ground and throwing while running from within the circle.
The third round was hitting a target board suspended and swinging like a pendulum. Each stage was worth 4 points.
The final round, worth 8 points, involved Genshu launching plates into the air; the plates spun so fast that they couldn't move along a fixed path and had slight deviations.
Uchiha Rai, Senju Teru, Suzuki Kazemasa, Shimura Shin, and Hyuga Hodaka scored the highest in the first 3 rounds.
Hyuga Hana performed poorly in the second round but scored full marks in the first and third rounds.
But the fourth round was very difficult.
Nineteen students didn't hit even one target. Six people, including Hyuga Hana, hit only one target.
Feng Zheng guessed that most of them hit by sheer luck.
Feng Zheng had been observing these plates, trying to find a pattern.
He found some patterns, but not enough, he thought to himself.
“Ah, if only I had a Sharingan!”
Hyuga Hodaka and Feng Zheng hit only 2 targets. Shimura Shin hit 3, Senju Teru successfully hit 4, and Uchiha Rai successfully hit 7 out of the 8 plates thrown by Genshu.
Feng Zheng was impressed by Uchiha Rai's performance, especially considering he hadn't awakened his Sharingan yet.
After the competition, Uchiha Rai returned to his smug demeanor.
In the Ninjutsu exam, Transformation Technique and Substitution Technique were both supervised and graded by Genshu.
For Clone Technique, the score was marked based on the maximum number of acceptable clones a student could create.
Senju Teru created five clones.
Feng Zheng looked at his Chakra reserves and knew that no one could surpass him.
So he created 4 clones.
Feng Zheng concealed his strength in this exam because he knew that Hyuga Hana was not very good at this, and besides her, no one else could come close to his score in the written test.
The Taijutsu competition was similar to last year. The only major difference was that Inuzuka performed much better, and Feng Zheng's body was much stronger.
Now he could apply the Sealing Jutsu to 5.3% of its maximum pressure, which greatly enhanced his physique.
He defeated most of his opponents. This time, he met Senju Teru in the semifinals and successfully defeated him.
Hyuga Hodaka defeated Hyuga Hana in their match. Uchiha Rai defeated Shimura Shin for 5th place, and Senju Teru defeated Hyuga Hana for 3rd place.
Finally, the match against Hyuga Hodaka was very intense. To Feng Zheng's surprise, his physical advantage was not that great.
Ultimately, he still lost to Hyuga Hodaka.
Feng Zheng wondered if he also used something like Sealing Jutsu to enhance his body?
Hyuga Hodaka's Ninjutsu performance was not as good as his Taijutsu, and looking at previous years' results, his written test performance was even worse.
Feng Zheng guessed that he might have focused entirely on Taijutsu training.
Meanwhile, Feng Zheng's main energy was focused on Ninjutsu training. No wonder he couldn't defeat him.
After the scores were compiled, the top 5 scores were:
Suzuki Kazemasa: 96+20 + 14+23 + 29 = 182
Senju Teru: 81+17 + 16+30 + 28 = 172
Shimura Shin: 86+16 + 15+28 + 25 = 170
Hyuga Hana: 91+18 + 12+21 + 27 = 169
Uchiha Rai: 79+14 + 19+28 + 26 = 166