On the river, Mikoto Uchiha held her right wrist with her left hand, assisting her in controlling her chakra.
In her right palm, a volleyball-sized balloon, as if containing a snake, bulged irregularly.
Seeing this, Li Anshi shook his head.
Mikoto was a little clever.
She knew to use her left hand to help control her chakra during practice.
This was similar in principle to Naruto using his shadow clones to help him form the Rasengan.
But unfortunately, she did not have much talent for controlling the rotation of her chakra.
After a week, her chakra still could not form an orderly rotation in the water balloon.
Of course, he also knew that this was related to her chakra reserves.
The Rasengan was, in essence, a ninjutsu that required countless repetitions to master the control of chakra.
Her chakra was much more than her peers.
However, it was only at the Genin level.
It was still far from a Chunin's.
Under these circumstances, her training of the Rasengan could not be sustained for very long.
Perhaps, after practicing for three minutes, she would need to stop and rest for several hours before she could refine her chakra again.
Otherwise, excessive consumption of chakra would cause irreversible damage to her.
In this situation, her progress with the Rasengan was truly touching.
He had also considered whether he should give up on having her train in the Rasengan and instead let her focus more on the ninjutsu of the Uchiha clan.
But as he got to know her, he discovered that her chakra natures were lightning and earth.
The Uchiha were best at fire-style ninjutsu.
Although, with the "copying" ability of the Sharingan, every Uchiha ninja had learned many other ninjutsu, their proud nature made them disdain to put the ninjutsu they had copied into their clan's scrolls.
Furthermore, the Uchiha had never intended for her to become a ninja in the first place.
So, although she was the daughter of an Uchiha elder, she did not have any impressive ninjutsu at her disposal.
After comprehensive consideration, he felt that even if it wasted some time, the Rasengan was still more suitable for her.
After all, with her hand seal speed, even if she learned a ninjutsu, it was questionable whether she could successfully release it in battle.
After observing her, he turned his gaze to Nawaki.
Compared to her, Nawaki was much better.
At this moment, he was holding a volleyball-sized rubber ball in his right hand.
Compared to the uneven balloon in her hand, his did not have such a problem.
After all, he was already able to use his chakra to drive the water in a balloon to rotate and burst it.
In the second stage of training, what he needed to do was to control the water in the rubber ball to rotate at a higher and faster speed, to the point where it could burst the ball.
The toughness of a rubber ball was much greater than human skin and muscle.
Even if a ninja could use chakra to strengthen their body, an ordinary ninja's physical strength could not yet reach the level of a rubber ball.
Unless they had already completed the training of chakra nature transformation and could imbue their chakra with various properties, such as the softness of water, the cutting of wind, the explosion of fire, the hardness of earth, the paralysis of lightning...
Of course, the nature of each element was not unique.
Some people's wind-style chakra had the property of cutting, while others' had the property of speed.
A thousand people, a thousand faces.
However, with the experience of their predecessors, subsequent ninjas, as long as they received careful guidance, could also cultivate a chakra nature transformation consistent with their predecessors.
But in this way, the thinking of the ninjas seemed to be stereotyped. Unless they were an unknown genius, they could only cultivate a chakra nature transformation that was within the established framework.
Otherwise, with a ready-made training method, who would be willing to explore an unknown path that might lead nowhere?
When Nawaki could directly tear a rubber ball apart with the rotational force of his chakra, then it would be considered that he had preliminarily completed the training of the Rasengan.
At that time, his Rasengan would also have a certain degree of lethality.
In fact, after completing the first stage of bursting the balloon, the training of the Rasengan could be considered complete.
However, at this stage, its lethality was not even comparable to a C-rank ninjutsu. Even if it hit a ninja, it would not cause much damage to an ordinary one.
Only when the high-speed rotating chakra could tear a rubber ball apart could this ninjutsu show its true power.
Of course, before completing the training of chakra nature transformation, a Rasengan formed from pure chakra could not yet compare to those B-rank ninjutsu in terms of power.
But because the Rasengan was a seal-less ninjutsu, it could be released quickly.
In close-range taijutsu combat, it could be released at any time to attack, which was something taijutsu simply could not compare to.
It could be said that as long as one was not like Gaara, who wore the Armor of Sand all day, or the Raikage with his Lightning Release Chakra Mode, or a Jinchuriki in their Tailed Beast Chakra Mode, any other ninja hit by a Rasengan would be either dead or severely injured.
And once the training of chakra nature transformation was completed and successfully integrated into the Rasengan, its power could be greatly enhanced.
For example, the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken, which incorporated the wind chakra nature transformation, and the Lava Style: Rasengan, which incorporated the fire chakra nature transformation, and so on.
Judging from Nawaki's chakra reserves, his training intensity was more than ten times that of Mikoto's.
From this point of view, his speed of training the Rasengan was dozens, or even hundreds, of times faster than hers.
There was no helping it. This was determined by the amount of chakra they had.
For a ninjutsu like the Rasengan, the difference between sustaining the rotation for three seconds and ten seconds was unbelievably large.
In three seconds, Mikoto could only try to maintain the rotation of her chakra.
But in ten seconds, it was enough for Nawaki to study how to make his chakra rotate faster, and how to make the chakra sphere in his hand more lethal.
At this rate, he estimated that Nawaki would be able to complete the second stage of the Rasengan in a month at most.
After observing Nawaki and Mikoto, he turned his gaze to Rin.
Unlike the other two, who needed to consume chakra to train the Rasengan, her training of the Little Li's Flying Dagger was mostly technique and did not consume much chakra.
Therefore, her training time was also much longer than theirs.
Under his gaze, she threw the dagger in her hand.
Swoosh!
Thud!
The sound of the wind being cut and the sound of the dagger embedding itself in the tree trunk reached his ears at almost the same time.
It could be seen that her throwing of ninja tools already had a considerable amount of power.
Although she had not yet reached the point of completely mastering the dagger technique, just this power was already very threatening to an ordinary Chunin.
Overall, it seemed that among the three, her progress was the greatest so far.
"Sensei Li!"
The first to notice him was Mikoto, who was resting after her chakra had been mostly depleted.
Hearing her cry of surprise, Nawaki and Rin also quickly ended their training and rushed over.
"Sensei!"
Compared to her "Sensei Li," their address to him was a more intimate "Sensei."
Seeing them bow to him, a trace of envy flashed in Mikoto's eyes.
But she quickly suppressed it.
Although she was an Uchiha, she was not keen on fighting.
Even now, her imagination of the future was to be a housewife, supporting her husband and raising her children.
"Not bad. It seems that in a little while, you will be able to complete the training I've assigned."
"Sensei, is there something you've come to see us for today?"
Although Nawaki was also very happy about his praise, he also knew that he was a person who disliked trouble.
If there were no special circumstances, he would basically not leave his woodcarving shop.
If they had any questions during their training, Sensei Li would have them go to the shop directly, and he would answer their questions there.
"Yes."
Taking out a mission slip from his pocket, he handed it to Nawaki.
"Training requires a balance of work and rest."
"These past few days, I've seen that your training intensity has been too high, so I've taken a mission for you to relax."
Hearing this, Nawaki couldn't help but roll his eyes.
Listen to that. Is he even human?
What kind of ninja would consider doing a mission a form of relaxation?
However, thinking of his identity, Nawaki had to admit that for someone who was cooped up in his shop all day, perhaps taking on a mission and carrying it out was indeed a form of relaxation for him.
After all, with his reputation in the ninja world, there was no ninja who would dare to sabotage a mission he had accepted.
Perhaps they would give up the mission at a faster speed and then stay a hundred meters away from him.
When he saw the mission recorded on the mission slip, he deeply repented for his previous thoughts.
And here he had thought that Sensei Li had really thought they were tired and wanted to let them relax.
It turned out he was just using them as laborers!
Collect softwood?
The properties of softwood meant that it could not be used as a building material, firewood, or furniture...
If he remembered correctly, the only person in the entire Konoha who needed to use softwood was Sensei Li.
It seems that Sensei's stock of softwood in the shop is gone. He went to post a mission, and then accepted it himself to make us do it.
He remembered that when a squad leader led their subordinates on a mission, even if they did nothing, they would take half of the mission reward.
In other words, for this eight-hundred-Ryo mission, after deducting the village's commission and the share taken by the teacher, the three of them would probably get a hundred Ryo each in the end.
This was equivalent to Sensei Li getting what he wanted for less than the price of a single low-level mission.
"Sensei, aren't you being a bit too stingy?"
"Heh—"
Hearing his complaint, he snorted coldly.
"Brat, do you think that for all these years, your sister has never asked for a single cent from the family?"
"If I'm not a little stingy and save a little more money, do you believe that even the entire Senju family's assets wouldn't be enough for your sister to lose?"
"Er..."
Hearing this, Nawaki was speechless.
He knew his sister no less than Li Anshi did.
However, he had never imagined that there was such a relationship between his teacher and his sister.
And here he had thought that Sensei Li had agreed to his sister's request because of his grandfather.
But from his tone now, it seemed that even without the backing of his grandfather and the "Senju" name, his sister could still have gotten him to agree to be his squad leader.
"Alright, this mission is up to you."
Patting him on the shoulder, he said, "When you've collected the softwood, just send it directly to my shop."
"At that time, I'll give you the mission completion slip."
"I know."
Nawaki rolled his eyes, "Rin, use your Byakugan to see where the most softwood is."
"This time, we'll get a little more, so that Sensei doesn't have to bother us so often."
For both of them, they wanted to master everything their teacher had taught them as quickly as possible.
This was the best way for them to achieve their dreams and take control of themselves.
If he were to give them a mission every few days and delay their training, it would not be worth it.
"Mm."
Rin nodded. Whether it was to carry out a mission or to help her teacher, she would not refuse.
"Byakugan!"
With a shout, she activated her Byakugan and used its telescopic vision and 360-degree field of view to check where the softwood was.
"Found it."
"It's over here."
With that, she was the first to run in the direction she had found the softwood.
"Mikoto, let's go!"
Nawaki called out to her and then followed close behind.
"I know."
Seeing this, she didn't care that her chakra had already been depleted and immediately refined more, following behind the two of them.
The future was the future.
But at least, for now, she was still a member of this squad.
No one would care if she slacked off a bit during training.
But when there was a mission, she still needed to complete it with them.
Seeing the three of them set off on their mission, he put his hands behind his back and walked back towards the village.