"Don't get your hopes up. If I had to go and rescue you, but you couldn't even hold on until I arrived, that would be a real joke."
Mikoto Uchiha and Rin Hyuga looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between them as they nodded.
Then, in unison, they said to Li Anshi, "Sensei, please give us special training!"
"Ah, that's what I came for today."
With that, Li Anshi raised the index and middle fingers of his left hand in front of his chest.
Swoosh!
Silently, Mikoto and Rin suddenly found that their location had changed from the village riverbank to a dark and terrifying forest.
"Huh?"
"Mikoto, Rin, what are you doing here?"
A familiar voice reached their ears. They turned to see Nawaki sitting cross-legged on a wooden plank, his hands clasped together, seemingly deep in meditation.
"Sensei Li brought us here."
"But, Nawaki, what are you doing?"
"Is this some kind of special training?"
Mikoto answered his question, then asked her own, her curiosity piqued.
From their position, they could clearly see that the plank Nawaki was sitting on was balanced on a rounded stone.
If his body moved even slightly, the plank would shift, and he would fall off.
"This is a training exercise Sensei Li specially prepared for me."
"He said it makes it easier to quiet the mind and can enhance my sensory abilities."
This training method was something Li Anshi had imitated from Naruto Uzumaki's sage mode training for Nawaki to try.
It wasn't exactly a lie.
If Nawaki possessed the talent to sense spatial fluctuations, calming his mind and heart would indeed help him perceive them more quickly.
Even if he didn't have the talent, completing this training would be very effective for when Li Anshi taught him "Senjutsu" in the future.
That's right. Regardless of whether Orochimaru could help Nawaki awaken the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai, Li Anshi planned to teach him how to train in "Senjutsu."
Of course, this wasn't the kind of senjutsu from the three great sage regions.
Rather, after breaking through to the Xiantian realm, he planned to organize a method based on his own situation that would allow a person to cultivate "senjutsu chakra," and have Nawaki try it.
If Nawaki succeeded, he could then modify it based on his results and have Tsunade train in it, further increasing her strength.
After all, the future enemies of the ninja world possessed the "Truth-Seeking Orbs," which could defend against all five elemental ninjutsu. Only pure taijutsu or senjutsu chakra could harm them.
Without cultivating senjutsu, even someone as strong as the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, could only play a supporting role, unable to interfere in battles above the pseudo-Six Paths level.
As Nawaki was speaking, he lost his balance.
The plank beneath him wobbled left and right, and finally, with a series of panicked yells, he fell from the stone, landing in a very unflattering heap in front of Rin and Mikoto.
"Haha, haha..."
"That was a mistake, a mistake."
Seeing the doubtful looks in their eyes, Nawaki couldn't help but scratch the back of his head and laugh sheepishly.
"Very good. Since the three of you have gathered, let's begin the next stage of training!"
Just as Nawaki was clowning around, Li Anshi's voice appeared in their ears.
Following the sound, the three of them looked up and saw him, hands clasped behind his back, his white robes fluttering in the wind.
His style seems a little different from ours, doesn't it?
For some reason, this thought popped into their minds.
However, Li Anshi's next words quickly made them focus.
"You should all be aware that the current situation in the ninja world is like oil on a raging fire. It only needs a single spark to instantly explode into a war that will engulf the entire world."
"In order not to have you die so easily in the coming war and tarnish my name, I have decided to give you three special training in the time that follows."
"For this period, your training will be to survive while I hunt you."
"Alternatively, you can use everything you have learned over the years. Including but not limited to ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu... traps, camouflage, stealth, assassination... And any other means to kill me in return."
"Now, I will give you half an hour to run. After that, I will begin the hunt. If you die at my hands once, then you will really be dead!"
With a smile on his lips, Li Anshi spoke words that sent a chill down their spines.
"After all, if you die at my hands, others will only say I am a responsible teacher. In the future, in order for their own children to become stronger, they will all send them to be my subordinates."
"So, are you ready?"
"How is that possible?"
"Sensei Li, you are the strongest in the world! We are just genin who have recently graduated from the Academy. How could we possibly escape your hunt?"
Nawaki exclaimed.
"And you have spatial marks on us to locate us. You can use the Flying Thunder God Technique to appear by our side at any time."
"This isn't fair!"
"Nawaki, you are too naive. Where is there any fairness in this world? The essence of the world is the law of the jungle! The strong have everything; the weak can only be dominated and exploited."
"So-called 'fairness' is nothing more than the ultimate genjutsu that the strong cast upon the weak."
"However, as your teacher, I am willing to give you some preferential treatment. From now on, I will only use taijutsu when I hunt you."
"And I will not use the Flying Thunder God Technique in the process. So, are you ready now?"
"If you are, I'm about to start the timer."
…
"Damn it!"
In the forest, Nawaki cursed while looking around, leading Mikoto and following behind Rin as they fled.
"Rin, have you found anything?"
Nawaki looked up and asked her.
Ahead of him, the veins around Rin's eyes were bulging, giving her a slightly fierce look.
This was the state of the Hyuga's Byakugan when it was activated.
In this state, she had a 360-degree, unobstructed field of vision, long-range sight exceeding a thousand meters, and an insight that was in no way inferior to the three-tomoe Sharingan.
Although the three of them knew that with their abilities, it was almost impossible to escape from their teacher's grasp, just as he had said, a ninja was a profession that "made the impossible possible."
Only by accomplishing great deeds that others could not could one be called a "great ninja."
Moreover, as a ninja, even if one knew a mission was difficult, it was not an excuse to give up.
Instead, one had to use every means at one's disposal to complete the impossible task.
And so it was for them now.
However, their mission was not the previous one of finding lost cats and dogs, cleaning river garbage, or playing with children at the orphanage...
It wasn't even clearing out bandits outside the village.
It was, after running for half an hour, to survive at the hands of the current strongest ninja in the world.
"Nothing."
Rin did not turn back.
Although normally Nawaki was the center of their three-person team, and both she and Mikoto would follow his arrangements in battle, at this moment, they had reformed their formation with her at the center.
There was no other choice.
If it were a battle, as the only man on the team, Nawaki would unhesitatingly charge to the front line.
But what they needed to do now was to survive their teacher's hunt.
Therefore, Rin, with her Byakugan that possessed the strongest reconnaissance ability, had become the center of the three. Both he and Mikoto had to follow her orders to escape their teacher's pursuit.
"No news is the best news," Nawaki said in a low voice. "Even Sensei Li can't hide from your Byakugan."
"Next, we'll set some traps here. We might not need them, but when we do, we can't be without them."
"Alright."
Rin nodded and was about to stop to set traps with them.
However, Nawaki stopped her.
"Rin, right now, you are the hope for the three of us to survive. So, you don't need to do anything else. You just need to keep an eye on your field of vision at all times."
"The moment you see Sensei Li enter your sight, warn us immediately. Even for him, a thousand meters is not a short distance. And he doesn't have a convenient ability like the Byakugan. Within a thousand meters, it won't be an easy task for him to find us."
While explaining to her, Nawaki quickly set traps with Mikoto's assistance.
However, due to the lack of time, the traps he set had considerable flaws.
An experienced ninja could easily spot them.
And this was the best he could do at his fastest speed.
"Nawaki, Mikoto, Sensei Li is here!"
…
"Time's up!"
At the top of a tree, Li Anshi opened his eyes.
In order to give Nawaki the "fairness" he so valued, he had closed his eyes when they had started running.
"Heh, you're really naive, Nawaki..."
He chuckled softly, his gaze turning in their direction.
"Didn't I already give you a hint?"
"So-called 'fairness' is just the ultimate genjutsu that the strong cast upon the weak they dominate."
"The moment you start chasing so-called 'fairness,' you've already fallen into that genjutsu."
"What you are hoping for right now is that the strong will be willing to play by the rules, to play with you within those rules. However, when the strong are unwilling to play by the rules, this genjutsu is useless against them."
After saying this, he leisurely started to move in their direction.
It was true that he had followed the rules. He had not looked at the direction they had fled when they had started running.
But that didn't mean he didn't know where they were.
What a joke.
For their safety, he had left spatial marks on all three of them.
And in just half an hour, their escape range was only within the Forest of Death. How could they possibly be outside his sensory range?
Indeed, he had told them that he would not use the Flying Thunder God to appear by their side when he was hunting them.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't use the marks to determine their location.
"Hmm, they've stopped now. Are they setting traps?"
"A little clever, but not much."
Because he knew about Rin's Byakugan, he also knew that the moment he appeared within her line of sight, he would surely not be able to escape her eyes.
Although he could perfectly conceal his chakra signature, because the internal energy-chakra in his body was constantly circulating, the Byakugan, which could see chakra, could pinpoint his location at the first moment.
That unique chakra was something that no member of the Hyuga clan would ever forget once they had seen it.
After all, in the current ninja world, with the exception of Jinchuriki, almost all ninjas only refined chakra when they needed it.
Chakra, the supernatural power that was a fusion of physical and spiritual energy, was considered the very source of life.
Consuming chakra, for most ninjas, was also considered exchanging life for power.
Normally, life energy would slowly recover over time.
But once one's chakra was completely depleted in an intense battle, it meant that the ninja's life had come to an end.
In the eyes of the Hyuga, Li Anshi was an existence that was constantly consuming his own life force.
However, what surprised them was that after so many years, not only had his chakra not been depleted, but it had actually increased year by year.
They had once speculated that he had mastered a chakra refining technique that was even more profound than the standard one, and that this technique had also discarded the weakness of the normal method, adding the ability to store chakra.
It could be said that, besides his flying dagger, if this news were to get out, there would be one more thing about him that others would covet.