Chapter 29: Racing Against Time

"Rat - Tiger - Dog - Ox - Rabbit - Tiger, Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!" Seimei's hands moved swiftly, like a butterfly flitting among flowers, forming six hand seals in succession. Then, he took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. In the next moment, clusters of flames shot out from his mouth, resembling the seeds of a phoenix flower, hurtling towards seven or eight large trees ahead. 'Sharingan!' With a thought, Seimei activated his Sharingan. Instantly, his pupils turned blood red, and a pitch-black tomoe appeared within them, spinning rapidly like a pinwheel. With the aid of the Sharingan's powerful insight, Seimei controlled the flames, guiding them to intersect and fly towards different trees. Boom! Boom! Boom! A series of explosions echoed. The flames, after a series of irregular dances, accurately bombarded several trees. The entire process was visually striking. It wasn't that Seimei was deliberately showing off, making the scene so flamboyant. Rather, the essence of this technique was to combine illusion and reality, using dazzling attacks to conceal the true intent and deliver a fatal blow to the opponent. In even more extreme cases, it could be combined with shuriken attacks. With this in mind, Seimei formed hand seals again. At the moment of casting the jutsu, he took out several shuriken and threw them swiftly. The flames once again hit the trees, but faster than the flames were the shuriken hidden within them. The shuriken, heated red-hot by the high temperature, flew out and struck the tree trunks, instantly scorching the surrounding bark black. One could imagine the devastating effect such an attack would have on a human body. Flesh and blood would be no match for it. In an instant, one would be severely injured and fall to the ground, possibly even losing their life. Who said Fire Style couldn't kill? The combination of physical and magical attacks would be unbearable for anyone on the receiving end. The only pity was that this attack method was very wasteful of shuriken. Basically, one use and the shuriken was ruined, not even worth retrieving. However, the capacity of a ninja tool pouch was limited. Seimei couldn't carry too many shuriken with him at all times, so he definitely couldn't use this move lightly unless it was crucial. Collecting his thoughts, Seimei stopped dwelling on it and opened his proficiency panel with a thought. The next moment, the familiar light blue screen appeared: [Name: Uchiha Seimei Age: 11 years old Physique: 7 Spirit: 9 Chakra: 1208 (3018→3210) Bloodline: Sharingan - Single Tomoe (30/1000)→(50/1000) Skills: Chakra Refinement Technique: lv3 (322/1000)→lv3 (346/1000) Fire Style - Great Fireball Technique: lv1 (50/200) *Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique: lv1 (5/200) *Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique: lv1 (1/200) *Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique: lv1 (1/200) *Body Flicker Technique: lv1 (10/200) Heart Reflection Technique: lv3 (683/1000) Shuriken Throwing: lv3 (1/1000)→lv3 (60/1000) Chakra Control: lv3 (102/1000) Three Body Techniques: lv3 (0/0) Basic Taijutsu: lv3 (0/0)] It had been ten days since he awakened his Sharingan, and three days since he started practicing the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique'. Thanks to having mastered the 'Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique' early on, his progress in the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' was remarkably fast. Because the two techniques shared similarities, after only about thirty repetitions, his 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' accumulated one hundred proficiency points, successfully reaching the入門 stage and advancing from lv0 to lv1. This process consumed about 2500 chakra points. Originally, it would have been 3000 points, but his lv3 (102/1000) 'Chakra Control' allowed him to save 15.5% chakra. So, it became 2500 points. In addition, there was the 'Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique'. Having successively learned the 'Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique' and the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique', Seimei had gained a deeper understanding of Fire Style itself. In this process, he had subconsciously grasped some basics of fire-style chakra's shape and nature transformation. And any fire-style ninjutsu was inseparable from these two aspects. Therefore, Seimei's practice of the 'Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique' was also twice as effective. After less than forty attempts, he accumulated enough proficiency points to successfully master it. During the practice, excluding the chakra saved by 'Chakra Control', he consumed about 3000 chakra points. Thus, the two ninjutsu combined consumed 5500 of his chakra points. And in three days, the total amount of chakra he could use was around 10,000 points. Therefore, the remaining chakra was used to practice the 'Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique' and the 'Body Flicker Technique'. The former was a genjutsu tailor-made for the Sharingan, so Seimei learned it easily. After about twenty repetitions and spending over a thousand chakra points, he successfully mastered it. During this time, Seimei also noticed that the Sharingan's proficiency growth rate had increased. So, he began to analyze and test the key factors. Finally, through enhanced control of the 'Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' and the 'Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique', Seimei figured out the reason. In fact, the principle was simple: use it or lose it. The more intensely he used the Sharingan, the faster its proficiency accumulated. How much faster? According to Seimei's estimation, it was about twice as fast as simply keeping his eyes open. Unfortunately, this method consumed a lot of chakra. On average, it took a full 1000 chakra points to gain one proficiency point. Although less than the 1700 points required for the 'Heart Reflection Technique', it was far more than the 300 points for passively accumulating time. With his current chakra reserves, he couldn't sustain such consumption. Perhaps when he had abundant chakra, he could try this extravagant way to increase his Sharingan's proficiency. And this required him to keep up with the level of his 'Chakra Refinement Technique'. With his current physique and spirit attributes, as long as the level of his 'Chakra Refinement Technique' increased, the amount of chakra he could use each day would inevitably increase significantly. At that time, he could try using this method to gain proficiency. Moreover, this method had another advantage: it could simultaneously increase the proficiency of the skills used in conjunction with it. Wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth, Seimei pulled his thoughts back and focused on the 'Body Flicker Technique'. Because it was only a D-rank ninjutsu, requiring a minimum of 30 chakra points to cast once, Seimei easily mastered it. However, after reaching lv1, its minimum chakra consumption had increased to 50 points. Moreover, if he wanted to move a longer distance, the chakra consumption would increase further. However, when gaining proficiency, Seimei definitely wouldn't do that. For him, as long as he could gain proficiency, using any extra chakra was a waste. Tap~ Faint footsteps approached. Seimei's ears twitched, and he swiftly completed the hand seals. Opening his mouth, he spat out a massive fireball. The fireball flew out rapidly, smashing between several large trees ahead, then exploded with a boom. The surging flames instantly engulfed everything around them. (End of Chapter)