The idea of Lady Tsunade to train those with very small chakra reserves up to become employees at the hospital for low-level injuries and help mixing common medicine, next to other jobs that don't need much chakra was very good.
This way, the children don't get their hopes up too much about being a ninja, but still doing something valuable for the village."
...
Naruto nodded, while watching how the last groups left the school grounds. Tsunade, as one of the advisors of the Hokage, specifially in charge of the overhaul of the hospital, had given Kakashi many suggestions for how they could firstly reduce genin casualties in the field, and secondly, increase personnel in lower level jobs, which still couldn't be given to pure civilians. It was one of the new projects the Fifth Hokage had started.
They lacked properly trained personnel for many jobs, which fell under the jurisdiction of the ninja side of the village.
Some was covered by the clans, who sold things to the general public, like the Nara were known for herbal remedies and the Akimichis for long-lasting travel provisions, but they were quite expensive, as they were created on a case-by-case base normally. The clans only had limited means to do this.
Other things were in administrative positions, which required having taken oaths to keep secrets, which normal civilians wouldn't be allowed to do.
Many of those that would have dropped out of the academy and the whole military before, could now be redirected early on and trained to take up these normally hard to fill positions.
Some retired ninjas worked in them, but most of the time the active ninjas had to do them on top of their normal jobs, as they simply lacked numbers.
Kakashi also already planned, but which hadn't been announced to everybody yet, Naruto only knew because he was told to look out for a certain type of student for a pilot project while teaching at the academy, to set up specialised branches of low-level ninjas that were only there to do D-ranks that came down to assist with physically taxing jobs, which could be made easier with chakra.
Like the missions that team seven had taken in the beginning, like painting storage halls, tiling swimming pools, cleaning out fields for farming and so on.
Ninja craftsmen teams would mean that the village wouldn't have to rely on professional craftsmen from the outside. The plan was to have local craftsmen take on several trainees to teach them their craft to a point that any type of normal repairs could be performed by the teams.
The fully trained craftsmen would be in charge of larger projects and over a period of about ten years, the Hokage wanted to have enough teams running around to cut that part of D-rank missions out of the roster completely.
Genin, while they needed to have a way to earn money, shouldn't have to be forced to do D-rank missions all the time. They should train to be ready for C-rank missions in at most six months, normally it should take three months for the easier types of C-ranks, which were basically D-ranks, just outside of the village.
If the village had teams that were trained for craftsmen jobs, which made up basically sixty percent of the D-rank pool each month, they could ask for more money, as the jobs would be done to higher standards.
The craftsmen genin, the current working title, would be paid with a basic salary each month, plus standardised commissions, depending on the type of job and the number during that month.
The base salary for genin, which all genin would be getting for the first four years of their time as genin, was just enough to pay for rent and utilities each month, for a small apartment that didn't have much space.
Anything more had to be earned. But it at least allowed a genin to participate in things like chunin exams away from the village, which was currently a real problem for some that didn't have a family to fall back upon. The current system was that genin would only get the payment for the missions they did, which, considering that most teams mainly did D-ranks, wasn't that much.
Kakashi had delegated working out procedures and financial concerns to the Third Hokage and the two elders, Koharu and Homura. The three had promised to have it done by the end of the month, to start the pilot phase.
"How are you going to prevent that the students tell other years about the test once they are done for today?" Atakuro asked.
"I have put a seal onto the 'mission scroll', meaning the papers in the envelopes, which prevents them from talking about it for two weeks. By then, all years will be done," Naruto replied.
"That's ingenious. Can that also be applied for normal missions?" Atakuro was curious.
"It already has become standard for missions that the jonin and ANBU take. I mainly know about it, as I am one of the people that supply the Hokage with the needed discreetly prepared paper. The seal is written in invisible ink, which means, you need a seal master to draw it, as you can't check it over for mistakes," Naruto explained.
"I take it the other person to make them is Dark Phoenix," Atakuro stated.
"I assume the same. I don't get informed about all people involved in projects that deal with fuinjutsu, as long as the teams don't get a place to exchange their ideas and work on them together.
That has also happened in the past, but isn't the standard procedure. Mainly because you don't want to have all your sealing specialists in one place regularly to prevent targeted assassinations."
"True, seal masters are always top priority targets when enemies want to harm a village," Atakuro agreed. This was standard knowledge for those of rank chunin and higher.
"Well, I will better go and observe my part of the test area. I will also replace deactivated seals for following groups," Naruto grinned.
"It would otherwise be too easy anyway," Atakuro nodded and Naruto left with a body flicker.
...
Naruto grinned silently while watching how the kiddies from the academy faced his 'missions'. He had done this the simple way. It was a modified capture the flag situation. Each group had been given the location of one item. Three items of different colours made a set, which needed to be brought back to the academy within the time limit.
8This meant, it was impossible that all teams succeeded in the mission. Two thirds would fail. At least. All items were secured with seals, which the groups had to deactivate or trigger in a way that didn't harm them. And he had added storage seals that held knock-out gas in them.
Tsunade had been nice enough to give him a version that wouldn't do more than knock the kids out for a few hours without side effects. He had taught them how to check for the contents of a seal.
Contrary to what many thought, there were ways to find out what a seal held without opening the seal. And the kanji declaring the item inside the seal didn't always have to be truthful. Many of his knock-out gas canister seals claimed to hold kunai. Some actually did, as it was a legit way for the groups to add to their normal supplies.
But it would drive home to never take anything for granted, especially not seals that you didn't make yourself. If the groups were smart, they would use the masks that were part of the first-aid sets.
They had seals on them that filtered poisonous gases, including any kind of sleeping gas. And he had covered those in class, while introducing the students to everyday uses of seals in Konoha. If they had checked their equipment properly, they would know it, otherwise, well, they needed to hold their breath and get creative.
If a team triggered the gas and was fully knocked out, one of his shadow clones would secure them and leave them in the hospital room of the academy, meaning they failed the test. They could still have gained some points, but it would be a mission failure, as the gas was set to last the full duration of the mission simulation.
He had warned his sensei about this, to avoid angry parents coming down on him. Once the test was over, an antidote would be given, which would have the children fully awake after ten minutes.
To not make it too easy, each team had to decipher a simple code about the location of their item. To make it fair, each item was only the target of one team.
Once the item was secured, the team would get a second message, which was located with the items he had hidden, which would inform them of the need to have three different items at the end of the day and that they could only be found with the other teams.
As they were just the beginner class at the academy, Naruto had included a list which team had which item. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get it done.
If they had paid attention which team was which, they would be able to plan properly. Another lesson that they needed to learn early on. Any kind of information could become vital on a mission, even if it was the set-up of rival teams or allies.
After all, nothing stopped them from allying themselves with a team that had the same item they had and attack a team with the needed item with superior numbers. As long as they could agree that they would attack four teams overall as a group of six, they would manage to pass the test.
He had a points sheet, which each of his clones had with them. On it was a list of things he was looking out for and which would be used to decide the final marks for this test.
It could happen after all that you failed a mission, but still won something. And this was a learning experience for his students.
They were beginners, thus the requirements weren't as high as they would be for the higher classes, which would include harder hiding places, like up in trees, next to more advanced seals.
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