One Month

At dusk, inside the Uchiha Clan Grounds, in the Second Elder's residence.

"Absurd." The Second Elder, in a rare display, lost his temper at Kyosuke. Even his beloved teacup was smashed to the floor in one motion.

Kyosuke stood off to the side with his head lowered and said nothing, looking as if he was leaving the matter entirely up to him.

Although the Second Elder seemed angry right now, Kyosuke knew very well that since he still had the heart to scold him, it meant the matter was not that serious.

That was why Kyosuke was acting like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

Seeing him shamelessly playing rogue, the Second Elder finally could not keep his stern face up anymore.

"All right, all right. Come sit down." The Second Elder glared at the two of them irritably, then muttered to himself, "I never should have let you two go out. It was only the first day, and you already caused me such huge trouble."

Kyosuke and Nagisa simply pretended not to hear his muttering and obediently walked over to sit in the chairs across from him.

The Second Elder, who had been about to change to another teacup, suddenly froze.

He realized that at some unknown point, his precious granddaughter, who had always clung to him, had actually grown so close to this brat. Now even when sitting, she wanted to sit together with him.

The Second Elder, feeling rather sour inside, could not help but glare fiercely at Kyosuke again.

Kyosuke: "?"

"I already know the cause of the incident." The Second Elder held his newly changed teacup and took a sip of tea before looking at Kyosuke solemnly and saying, "I'll have your opponent's information sent to you later. Right now, I only want to ask you one thing. I hope you can answer me truthfully."

"Please speak, Second Elder." Hearing him say that, Kyosuke's expression also turned solemn.

"Just how confident are you? Speak plainly." The Second Elder stared straight at him as he asked.

It was not only him. Nagisa also turned her gaze over.

Because in her heart, the reason this had happened was entirely because Kyosuke had stood up for her, so she was also quite concerned about it.

"Right now, very little," Kyosuke said quietly. Then, without waiting for the two of them to speak, he continued, "But one month from now, I'll have a seventy percent chance of beating him."

Hearing this, the Second Elder smiled in relief, then said in an odd tone, "Do you know? The higher a person stands, the harder they often fall."

Kyosuke nodded, indicating that he understood the principle.

"Grandpa." Suddenly, Nagisa tugged at the Second Elder's arm and shook it, as if reminding him of something.

"Haha, Grandpa remembers." The Second Elder patted her little head, then smiled at Kyosuke and said, "From now on, the family's Ninjutsu library will be fully open to you. This is also your reward for not disgracing the family's reputation. You must cherish it properly, understand?"

"Thank you, Second Elder." Although Kyosuke had known there would definitely be a reward, this still exceeded his expectations.

Because of that, his thanks this time were completely sincere.

"Mm." The Second Elder answered faintly, then instructed the servants to begin serving the dishes.

After a pleasant dinner ended, Kyosuke prepared to take his leave.

Just as he turned to go, the Second Elder suddenly said to him in a low voice, "If... I mean if, you truly feel that you're no match for him, then even if I have to throw away this old face of mine, I can still help you cancel the duel. As for becoming Orochimaru's disciple, you can decide that for yourself."

Hearing the Second Elder say this, Kyosuke instantly stopped in his tracks. Only after a long while did he slowly speak. "Don't worry."

After saying that, he left the residence.

The Second Elder looked at his retreating figure and smiled. Then his voice abruptly sank. "Find out who is making trouble behind the scenes."

"Yes."

After bidding farewell to the Second Elder, Kyosuke went to the family's Ninjutsu room with a heart full of excitement. After greeting the guard, he plunged right in.

It had to be said that as a great clan from the Warring States era, the Uchiha's collection of Ninjutsu could already be described as dazzlingly extensive.

Fire, earth, lightning, wind, water, genjutsu, ninja taijutsu—every type of technique was available.

But after carefully sorting through them, Kyosuke only chose three.

"Earth Release: Headhunter Technique."

"Genjutsu: Sharingan."

"Genjutsu Explanation."

He chose earth release because besides fire, the chakra attribute that stood out most for him was earth.

Moreover, this "Headhunter Technique" was still very useful when facing lower-level enemies.

As for choosing Genjutsu: Sharingan and Genjutsu Explanation, it was because his Spiritual Power had been growing increasingly quickly recently, so he selected them.

The reason, naturally, had to do with the fusion of two souls.

He believed that as long as he mastered these techniques, and added his own hard work over this month, beating that Hyuga boy should not be a problem.

Soon, the one-month deadline was almost here.

During this month, aside from his scheduled daily Patrol, Kyosuke spent almost all of his remaining time learning these two Ninjutsu.

In the end, he spent six days mastering the Headhunter Technique and two days mastering Genjutsu: Sharingan.

After that came a great deal of practice, and for this, Fugaku had served as his guinea pig more than a few times.

Next, the Patrol mission that could be repeatedly accepted every day provided him with as many as 450 Experience Points.

These Experience Points successfully raised his personal level from level 2 to level 10, with 10 Experience Points left over.

With the remaining 10 Experience Points, he first took out 3 points to raise Chakra Control to level 2. Then he added the remaining 7 points to Hand Seal Training. Although it did not level up directly, his hand seal speed still improved a little.

Aside from these gains, he also swept through a large number of low-level Instance Dungeons and once again obtained a pile of miscellaneous odds and ends.

Setting aside the useless items and the ones he could not use for the time being, his real gains amounted to raising his Kunai Throwing Technique, Shuriken Throwing Technique, and Substitution Technique to levels 5, 3, and 3 respectively.

At this point, aside from his physical attributes other than spirit, where Kyosuke might still fall somewhat short compared to a normal Chunin, he was no longer much worse in any other respect.

In fact, when it came purely to the Kunai Throwing Technique, even Itachi of the same age group probably would not be much stronger than him.

Ordinary Chunin and even Jonin, if they did not specialize in this area, would at best be on the same level as him, or might even fall short of his level 5 throwing.

Kyosuke, who had checked his opponent's detailed information, was certain that he now had at least a sixty percent chance of winning.

But these preparations alone were not enough. He still had to make one final push.

As for what he was going to push for, it was naturally to challenge a higher-difficulty Instance Dungeon.

Moreover, the Instance Dungeon he chose this time was a very special one called "Strongest Challenger."

As the name suggested, this kind of Instance Dungeon did not have all those messy original-story plots. What he had to do was very simple: kill the enemy in a one-on-one fight.

As for why he chose this kind of Instance Dungeon, there were three reasons.

First, this kind of Instance Dungeon determined the final reward according to the challenger's level.

In other words, if Kyosuke waited until he reached Kage-level strength before coming back to challenge a low-level "strongest," then the final reward he obtained would only be three kunai or shuriken.

Therefore, he had to challenge it when his strength was roughly equal to the Instance Dungeon character's. Otherwise, this kind of "Strongest Challenger" Instance Dungeon would basically be wasted.

Second, the rewards obtained from this kind of Instance Dungeon were very fixed: three abilities would be randomly extracted from the "strongest" he defeated.

This was also very different from ordinary story Instance Dungeons.

For example, if Kyosuke cleared the "Land of Waves" Instance Dungeon, then three abilities would be randomly extracted from the four members of Team Kakashi, Zabuza, Haku, and even those samurai. If his luck was bad, it was possible for him to draw anything.

So although there were many ways to clear story Instance Dungeons, and there were no difficulty restrictions, the chance of obtaining high-quality loot was honestly far too low.

At the moment, when Kyosuke urgently needed to increase his strength by a large margin, this kind of Instance Dungeon was not a good choice.

Third, and most crucially, even if his luck exploded and he obtained an Ice Release Kekkei Genkai or a ninja tool on the level of Kubikiribōchō, he still could not openly use it in the real world. At least, the current situation did not allow it.

Therefore, it was better to selectively choose "strongest" opponents to challenge. The abilities he obtained would also have a high probability of being ones he could use right now.

Taking all three points together, it was not strange that Kyosuke would prioritize choosing a "Strongest Challenger" Instance Dungeon at this time.

And the first one he chose was a young powerhouse from the same Uchiha clan.