The Bet

Tsunade clicked her tongue when she saw Hyuga Mirai. "I never expected you, kid, to actually succeed, even if it's only a Semi-finished Product."

In Tsunade's eyes, the method for making this type of Healing Tag was neither sophisticated nor refined—rather, it was quite crude. Its only merit was the novelty of the idea. Yet for such a simple thing, the entirety of Konoha had only one boy under ten who could think of it.

"Thank you for the praise, Tsunade-sama."

Hyuga Mirai did not know what else to say, so he could only give a generic response to brush it off.

Vice-Director Kimura spoke from beside him. "Mirai-kun, Hokage-sama's orders are for us to improve the Healing Tag in the shortest time possible. At the same time, he asked me to bring you some Sealing Technique scrolls. I'll give them to you later."

Hyuga Mirai was delighted inside, though his expression did not change as he said, "Vice-Director, improving the Healing Tag is simple. We only need a Ninja proficient in both Sealing Technique and Medical Ninjutsu to make some adjustments. If we can't find someone like that, then I'll need ten days to study Sealing Technique."

"Heh, Kid, what do you think Sealing Technique is? Some C-rank jutsu you can learn in ten days? If you can actually do it—"

Kimura suddenly interrupted with a quiet reminder, "Tsunade-sama, Mirai-kun learned the Mystical Palm Technique in less than ten days."

He had learned the Mystical Palm Technique in ten days.

Tsunade's expression froze. This brat had always spoken to her in the tone of an adult, sometimes even with a hint of disdain, which had left her thoroughly annoyed. That was why she had taken a jab at him—but she had forgotten that the one standing before her was a genius.

"So what if he's a genius? Sealing Technique isn't the same as Medical Ninjutsu."

Tsunade said this without much confidence, her voice growing quieter and quieter. But then she caught that look in Hyuga Mirai's eyes, and anger immediately flared within her. She slapped the table and snapped, "Kid, don't look so unconvinced. Want to make a bet? If you can't learn the Sealing Technique needed to improve the Healing Tag within ten days, you'll run errands for me for half a month. If you do learn it, you can come ask me anything about Sealing Technique from now on."

Forget it, Tsunade-sama. If you want to win, you'll have to sacrifice a relative!

Naturally, Hyuga Mirai only thought that to himself. He was not particularly opposed to the wager. He had great confidence in himself, and his goal was to perfect the improved sealing method for the Healing Tag within seven days.

Besides, being able to ask Tsunade about Sealing Technique was a good opportunity. In Konoha, there were probably fewer than five people who surpassed Tsunade in Sealing Technique.

After giving it some thought, Hyuga Mirai slightly bent at the waist and said to Tsunade, "Then I'll be relying on Tsunade-sama's guidance."

"Hah! Do you think you've already won!?"

The sight of Hyuga Mirai's calm expression made Tsunade grit her teeth in irritation.

"Damn brat, if you lose, I'll make you run to the Konoha Tavern fifty times a day!"

Hyuga Mirai did not respond further to provoke Tsunade. He would not have accepted the bet without confidence.

Afterward, Hyuga Mirai received a whole box of Sealing Technique-related scrolls from Kimura and headed to his own office. Vice-Director Kimura had arranged it specifically for him. Once Hyuga Mirai perfected the Healing Tag, the merits he had earned would be enough to promote him directly to Medical Jonin.

The evaluation for Medical Jonin was entirely different. It was assessed and tested by the director and vice-director of Konoha Hospital. Once they passed, they would submit a report to the Third Hokage, and the promotion was basically guaranteed.

However, although both were jonin, Medical Jonin might not have as much influence in the village as other jonin. After all, Konoha placed great importance on mission experience, unless one had earned achievements on the battlefield great enough to draw attention, like Tsunade.

After returning to his office, Hyuga Mirai shut the door and began studying Sealing Technique.

"Shadow Clone Technique."

Since he had made a bet with Tsunade, he directly created three shadow clones. Including his original body, that gave him four times his usual learning speed.

There were several dozen scrolls in total. Hyuga Mirai divided them evenly into four portions, then began reading together with his shadow clones.

If he did not read them in order, he might not understand the more advanced Sealing Technique knowledge later on. However, Hyuga Mirai intended to memorize everything in the shortest possible time, then dispel the clones and create new shadow clones to practice Sealing Technique.

A single scroll did not contain an excessive amount of Sealing Technique knowledge, roughly equivalent to a book. However, knowing that Hyuga Mirai's Sealing Technique foundation was weak, Vice-Director Kimura had practically emptied the Sealing Team's collection of scrolls, from beginner-level material to intermediate and advanced applications of sealing runes.

There were also many annotations from Sealing Team members, which would be of great help to a beginner's studies.

With Hyuga Mirai's memory, calling it photographic memory might have been an exaggeration, but if he read a scroll carefully two or three times, he could memorize it all.

In just over a day, Hyuga Mirai had memorized every Sealing Technique scroll Vice-Director Kimura had brought.

"Release!"

As the shadow clones dispersed, the immense volume of memories flooded into Hyuga Mirai's mind. It was his first time receiving the memories of three shadow clones at once, and for a moment, his head felt swollen and painful.

But after a while, he had sorted through the shadow clones' memories.

"So that's how it is. Sealing Technique runes use odd and even numbers as the foundation for layering, while different chakra attributes require different odd-even sealing combinations."

After absorbing the memories of the three shadow clones and reviewing them in his mind, Hyuga Mirai began to understand the principles of Sealing Technique.

Thinking about it now, the seal on his Semi-finished Product Healing Tag really had been ugly.

"Stability, precision, and completing it in one smooth motion. The more advanced the Sealing Technique, the more it demands speed in drawing as well. If the final Sealing Rune hasn't been drawn before the first one starts to dissipate, the Sealing Technique may fail."

Hyuga Mirai pondered this internally. It seemed he still needed to run more experiments before he could refine the Yang Release Chakra in the Healing Tag to its most stable state.

"I'll try it first."

"Shadow Clone Technique!"

Bang!

Hyuga Mirai directly created a shadow clone, then slammed his palm against the ground.

Fourfold Binding Seal.

Sixteen Sealing Runes spread out from Hyuga Mirai's palm, instantly forming an array on the ground that enveloped the shadow clone.

"Oh, as expected of the original body. You immediately thought of improving the binding array. I can feel all the chakra in my body—"

Before the shadow clone could finish speaking, the array on the ground vanished with a Bang!

Hyuga Mirai shook his head and concluded, "I thought it would be simpler than it was. My chakra control meets the requirements for Sealing Technique, but I still need to think more about stability."

"It's also a problem that you know too few Sealing Techniques. These are only applications of Sealing Runes. Altogether, you know fewer than five Sealing Techniques."

The Shadow Clone suggested, "Take a look at the Sealing Runes on Exploding Tags. Maybe we can apply for more Sealing Techniques."

"Then we'll probably need to produce some results first. Those Higher-ups won't act unless there's something in it for them."

After saying that, Hyuga Mirai thought it over and decided to finish perfecting the Healing Tag as soon as possible, then use it to make further demands of Konoha Village.

There was also the report on the genetic cell research. He could release that information as well. If Orochimaru had already begun researching it, he should come looking for him.

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