After his initial shock, Kaseki desperately tried to calm himself down. "Just someone using basic tactics—there's really nothing to fear!"
Seeing his opponent charging toward him again, Kaseki quickly stepped backward, hoping to create some distance between himself and Kabuto.
But Kabuto stuck to him like a festering wound on the bone, not giving him so much as a second to form hand seals.
Damn it! This bastard is sticking way too close! Kaseki cursed inwardly. He hadn't learned how to form hand seals while moving yet. If he stopped now, he had serious doubts about completing them before his opponent closed in.
No choice—I have to risk it all! With a powerful leap, Kaseki maximized the space between them, immediately turned around, and hurled several shuriken before starting to form hand seals at top speed.
[Shuriken Barrage Technique] — Kabuto danced past it effortlessly, then resumed sprinting toward him with graceful strides.
As Kabuto steadily closed the distance, Kaseki's heart hammered in his chest, sweat rolling down his forehead. Faster! Just a bit faster!
Under pressure from Kabuto, Kaseki pushed his hand-sealing speed to the limit, nearly messing up several seals along the way—but finally completed the jutsu.
[Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!]
"Huff! Finally finished!" Watching Kabuto approach within less than two meters, Kaseki felt his legs grow shaky. But he couldn't let his guard down yet—while his opponent was evading, he needed to get ready for the next ninjutsu hand seal in advance... Wait, what? Is this guy suicidal?
Right before Kaseki's astonished eyes, Kabuto didn't dodge or sidestep—he punched straight through the incoming Wind Blade. His blood-smeared fist smashed into Kaseki's face, sending him flying away with brutal force.
This guy might look frail on the outside, but he's shockingly brutal inside! Several upperclassmen following behind Kaseki started panicking—the battle wasn't developing anything like they'd imagined.
A real battlefield-hardened warrior! A Ninja Academy instructor sighed quietly to himself; Rasa lagged far behind Kabuto in terms of timing control, combat experience, and mental resilience.
He's completely inherited my old fighting style! Interesting… Seiki thought with amusement while displaying an apologetic expression on his face. "Sorry about this—it got more intense than expected."
"Ha ha, don't worry about it," Rasa replied, having already anticipated such situations. He stared at Seiki with hungry enthusiasm. "So, you're telling me this kid has only trained under you for a year?"
"A little over a year, actually."
"A full year and he's already become this strong?" Rasa marveled deeply. And he knew how busy Seiki was—it was impossible for him to spend all his time on training alone. Which meant the actual instruction period must've been significantly shorter.
Although he'd already seen examples like Shin and Dan, seeing Kabuto's growth with his own eyes still left Rasa awestruck. At that moment, crazy thoughts even crossed his mind—what if he kidnapped Seiki and locked him away in Sunagakure forever?
Back on the battlefield...
"That's all you've got?"
"Kabuto let out a disappointed sigh," he said. "His power isn't great to begin with, and his willpower's surprisingly shaky too! If you're going to fight, you should have the guts to bet everything on it!"
"Goo goo goo..." Kaseki tried to protest but as soon as he opened his mouth, his face twitched uncontrollably — it sounded just like a pigeon cooing.
"Ohhh!" Kabuto nodded as if suddenly realizing something. "So we keep fighting until one side can't ever get up again? I see; I underestimated your determination, senior!"
Everyone exchanged confused looks. Are you sure that's what he meant?
"This bastard actually wants to kill me!" Seeing the cold look in his opponent's eyes, Kaseki's legs began shaking. Overcome by fear, he stumbled backward while making more strange noises — "Goo goo goo!"
"What an embarrassment!" Everyone present was deeply mortified by Kaseki's shameful behavior.
Although they'd never really supported Kaseki's troublemaking from the start, challenging someone and then running away without a fight was simply disgracing Sunagakure!
"Killing his spirit before his body!" Ren and Mist gave approving nods. For someone like him, being socially crushed could be even scarier than real death.
"Was this senior really an outstanding student at the Ninja Academy?" Kabuto asked, puzzled. "How could he be this weak? To be honest, I've never even attended school or received formal training. I only learned some basic Medical Ninjutsu from Seiki-sama occasionally over the past year. Someone like me shouldn't be this strong at all!"
Hearing Kabuto's words, everyone around him was deeply shaken.
To go from being an orphan less than a year ago to surpassing Kaseki now — just how powerful must Seiki-sama truly be?
Realizing this, no one paid attention to the loser Kaseki anymore. Instead, they stared hungrily at Seiki with glowing green eyes, which made Seiki feel extremely uneasy.
"What are they...?" Seiki turned to Rasa, only to meet another pair of glowing green eyes.
Seiki fell silent. Had he walked straight into a pack of wolves?
...
After this incident, everyone became even more interested in Seiki's class.
As a result, when the lesson started, both inside and outside the classroom were packed with people.
Seeing this, Rasa waved his big hand and declared, "Clear the auditorium for Seiki's lecture."
Then the crowd marched forward toward the auditorium in full force.
Once relocated, Seiki calmly stood at the lectern and began speaking. "For all of you still in school, high-level ninjutsu remain distant matters. Mid-to-lower level techniques will be taught by your academy instructors. So instead, how about I spice things up and show you something totally fresh?"
"Something totally fresh?" The students and observing teachers in the auditorium were somewhat puzzled. Learning's just learning, right? What kind of wild tricks could there possibly be?
"Cultivation is actually a very boring process because we can't visually perceive our progress. Day after day, you might feel like you've accomplished nothing at all. Over time, naturally you'll lose interest in cultivation, treating it as a dull and tedious chore!"
Don't let chakra's mystical vibe fool you — your strength still grows so slowly it's barely noticeable.
For example, the Chakra Reserves Amount is generally only roughly judged by the number of usable ninja techniques. With these kinds of calculations, results naturally don't show up quickly.
Mastery of jutsu works the same way. There's no system like proficiency levels to tell how well you actually know ninjutsu. Even if you get a technique right once, it doesn't mean you've truly mastered that jutsu.
Everyone nodded as if they understood—but didn't truly understand. Isn't that just how cultivation is? This was how things had been done for centuries in the [shinobi no sekai]!
Seiki smiled and said, "That's why I've developed [Stabilized Genjutsu] that visualizes cultivation progress numerically—the [Dream World]!"
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