The next day.
Morning.
Seimei woke from his sleep.
He got up, freshened up, and popped a few enhanced soldier pills to fill his stomach. Without wasting a second, he headed straight to the center of the island to kick off a new day of training.
Thanks to yesterday's work organizing his shadow clones into new groups, he didn't have to overthink anything today. He could just focus on training with all his heart.
And that kind of focus made time fly.
Before he knew it, nearly ten hours had passed.
It was mid-afternoon.
Poof, poof, poof!
Seimei dispelled his Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu once again.
In an instant, every shadow clone—on the island and beyond—vanished.
At the same time, a flood of memories rushed into Seimei's mind.
Steadying himself, he sifted through them, absorbing and processing the training experiences they contained, converting them into skill proficiency.
Time ticked by, second by second.
At first, as he took in the experiences from clones practicing other techniques, Seimei didn't feel anything unusual.
But when he absorbed the memories of the clone training Katon: Jūen Geki (Fire Release: Flame Strike), a sudden spark of clarity hit him.
In that moment, he didn't need to check his status panel to know—his Katon: Jūen Geki had leveled up.
He kept his eyes closed, sinking fully into that moment of insight.
One second, two seconds, three seconds.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes.
A full fifteen minutes later, Seimei finally opened his eyes.
They were brimming with excitement.
After so many days, his Katon: Jūen Geki had finally accumulated that last bit of proficiency, making the final leap from Level 9 to the perfect Level 10 (0/0).
This gave him another powerful offensive technique in his arsenal.
But that wasn't even the best part. The real win was that this breakthrough deepened his understanding of fire chakra nature transformation.
Just like yesterday's breakthrough with Raiton: Raikiri (Lightning Release: Lightning Blade), this pushed his grasp of fire chakra to the point where he could start blending it with other chakra natures to develop a kekkei tōta.
How could he not be thrilled?
At the same time, he let out a long sigh of relief.
Sure, he'd had a hunch this would happen based on his experience with other ninjutsu, but until it actually did, there was always a chance his assumptions were off.
Now that he'd pulled it off, he could finally relax.
Calming himself, Seimei refocused on the technique itself.
Reaching the perfect Level 10 (0/0) had brought some serious changes.
With that thought, he stood up, hopped down from the massive boulder at the island's center, and in a few quick flashes, arrived at the spot where he'd tested Raiton: Raikiri yesterday.
He eyed the tree a hundred meters away, pierced clean through by Raikiri, and the low hill behind it. Raising his hand, he formed the seals and unleashed Katon: Jūen Geki.
In an instant, a blinding red beam shot from his fingertip, slicing precisely through the hole in the tree and striking the hill beyond.
The hill was scorched, a thumb-sized hole burned into it, its depths pitch-black and impossible to gauge.
With a thought, Seimei activated his Byakugan, using its x-ray vision to inspect the hole.
It was about ten meters deep.
That might seem shallower than the fifteen meters he'd achieved at Level 8, but back then, he'd been standing right in front of the hill.
Now, he was over a hundred meters away.
Add in the fact that the beam had threaded perfectly through the hole in the tree, and the improvement was undeniable.
Plus, at Level 10 (0/0), he wasn't limited to a single high-temperature beam anymore. By pumping in more chakra, he could fire multiple beams.
With that in mind, Seimei formed the seals again and cast Katon: Jūen Geki.
A fireball formed between his palms.
Then, five thumb-sized protrusions appeared on its surface.
The fireball swelled, then contracted sharply.
In the next moment, the protrusions burst, and five finger-thick high-temperature beams shot out, each angled slightly, aiming for different targets.
But when Seimei saw the results, his brow furrowed.
The beams had missed their marks by a fair bit.
Clearly, increasing the number of beams had cost him precision.
After a moment's thought, he formed the seals again, casting the technique once more.
This time, he activated his three-tomoe Sharingan.
With its enhanced perception, his accuracy improved.
But still, one beam missed completely, and another veered off course.
"Not good enough," Seimei muttered.
He activated his Mangekyō Sharingan, formed the seals, and cast the technique again.
No surprise—every single one of the five beams hit its target dead-on.
He even had a gut feeling that, with the Mangekyō, he could control even more beams.
No time like the present. Seimei didn't hold back on chakra, forming the seals and casting the technique again.
This time, it took a bit longer, but he fired six high-temperature beams.
Just as he'd predicted, all the beams hit their targets perfectly.
He pushed further, trying seven beams. They were still manageable, though the precision dipped slightly. Eight beams, though? Total chaos.
Even so, this was a seriously impressive trick.
Katon: Jūen Geki compressed a massive amount of fire chakra into a single beam. Think of it like Suiton: Suidanpa (Water Release: Water Severing Wave)—that kind of concentrated power.
And the speed? Insanely fast.
If he played his cards right, Seimei could attack from a hundred meters away, weaving a net of six beams to take out a jōnin with ease.
Against chūnin or genin? He could wipe out a whole squad in one go.
But since he couldn't reveal his Mangekyō Sharingan lightly, he tested the limits with his three-tomoe Sharingan.
After some experimenting, he figured out he could reliably manage three beams. Any more, and the accuracy tanked.
Still, the most practical approach was sticking to one beam.
With a single beam, his attack was lightning-fast and sneaky. A flick of his finger could unleash a concentrated burst of chakra, forming a searing fire thread to hit the target.
The enemy would have almost no time to react. Anyone less skilled would get dropped instantly.
He'd already proven this during a mission supporting Konoha's ANBU squad against Iwagakure's infiltration team.
Back then, he'd taken out two enemies with this technique.
And that was when Katon: Jūen Geki was still Level 9.
Now, at Level 10, it'd only perform better.
That was the rundown of the changes to Katon: Jūen Geki at perfection.
On top of that, reaching perfection freed up an extra 750,000 points of chakra he could use daily.
Add in the 936,000 points saved from perfecting Raiton: Raikiri, and that was a whopping 1,686,000 points.
Figuring out how to allocate that chakra was his next big focus.
(Chapter End)