Rest and Recuperation

After the four left the battlefield, Kitsuchi bandaged the wound on Yichen's lower abdomen. Fortunately, it was not deep.

Then Kitsuchi and the other two made a stretcher and carried Yichen toward the Land of Earth.

The four hurried along for quite a distance before stopping to rest in a forest.

Each of them took out a Soldier Pill and spent some time recovering Chakra.

Then Kitsuchi and the other two arranged the watch schedule.

As for Yichen, he had already been the most exhausted one over the past five days, and now he was wounded as well, so he was not assigned a watch.

The previous battle had put Yichen under immense pressure. In particular, Shinohara had nearly been killed by ice spears several times in a row, leaving Yichen deeply shaken.

Now that everything was over, the combined effects of mental exhaustion and physical injury made Yichen fall asleep very quickly.

When Yichen woke up again, he found that their hiding place had changed.

He did not know how long he had slept. It seemed that while he had been unconscious, everyone had traveled another stretch of road.

Seeing that Yichen was awake, none of the other three said anything. They only explained the situation after securing their new hiding place.

It turned out that Yichen had unknowingly slept for an entire day and night.

Shinohara and Tana carried Yichen onward for more than ten consecutive days before Team Five finally returned to the village. By then, Yichen's injuries had nearly healed.

Because there had been too many unexpected developments in this mission, Kitsuchi directly gave the members of Team Five ten days off.

He told everyone to return home and sort through what they had gained from this mission.

Kitsuchi himself took several Sealing Scrolls to the Tsuchikage's Office Building.

How the village intended to extract intelligence from those Kirigakure Ninja had nothing to do with Yichen.

He could use these ten days to deal with the pile of matters he had put off.

Yichen truly had quite a few things to do. The most time-consuming was the research being conducted by the Barrier Team. Yichen decided to spend a few days taking part in it. After all, his injuries had only just healed, so he was not yet suited for physical training.

After resting at home for a night, Yichen returned to work at the Barrier Team early the next morning.

He first carefully read through the Barrier Team's research results, then participated in several experiments. He treated it as a chance to refresh his Sealing Jutsu knowledge and keep himself from getting rusty.

But there was still too little time. In the blink of an eye, five days had passed.

Once he felt that his body had fully recovered, Yichen resumed physical training.

After recovering, Yichen no longer went to the Barrier Team. Instead, he visited the Exchange Office and used Contribution Points to exchange for intelligence on Kekkei Genkai.

His encounter with Yuki Kagami of Kirigakure had taught Yichen a painful lesson. It was downright embarrassing for a transmigrator—one of the chosen few—to have been caught so completely off guard by Ice Release.

The core secrets of Kekkei Genkai were naturally classified village information, but there was still plenty of intelligence within the village regarding Bloodline Ninja from other countries, and it required very few Contribution Points to exchange for it.

After all, the village could not ask its own people to risk their lives just to keep the secrets of Ninja from other countries.

So, without spending many Contribution Points, Yichen exchanged for a large stack of documents. He obediently spent an entire day studying the Kekkei Genkai intelligence of the whole ninja world.

After reading it, Yichen slapped himself. His understanding of Kekkei Genkai had always remained stuck in Konoha's perspective from the original work—or, more precisely, the protagonist's perspective.

At the protagonist's level, he had come into contact with far too many Kekkei Genkai.

And all of them had belonged to the most outstanding members of their respective Bloodline Limit families.

But in reality, Kekkei Genkai were still very rare. Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Sunagakure did not have many, while Konoha and Kirigakure had a great number of them.

Moreover, the Bloodline Limits possessed by those two villages were powerful ones.

The definition of a Kekkei Genkai in the ninja world was not simply the combination of two attributes.

Rather, it was a special ability that could be passed down to descendants through one's bloodline.

For example, the Uzumaki Clan's enormous Chakra Amount was also considered a type of bloodline limit in the ninja world.

Likewise, the ocular bloodline limits of clans such as the Uchiha and Hyuga Clan were not gained by combining two attributes.

Then there was Kirigakure's Kaguya Clan. Their Shikotsumyaku was similar to the Uzumaki Clan's trait—it could be inherited through bloodlines, but could not be explained through attribute fusion.

In the ninja world, many Kekkei Genkai were not particularly useful, or only had supporting functions. Red eyes, for instance.

But most Kekkei Genkai could grant Ninja an enormous increase in strength.

However, there was one point Yichen had never understood.

That was, among Kekkei Genkai formed by combining two attributes, even the same bloodline limit could be developed to different degrees.

Generally speaking, there were two stages to developing a Kekkei Genkai.

The first was to master two attributes, then fuse the Chakra of those two attributes outside the body, thereby allowing one to perform Bloodline Ninjutsu.

The second was to fuse the two attributes within the body, altering one's constitution and allowing the bloodline limit to be inherited through bloodlines.

The intelligence stated that this distinction in development level mainly applied to the first person to develop the Kekkei Genkai.

For that person's descendants, most either directly awakened the bloodline limit, skipping the first stage and reaching the second immediately, or could never awaken it at all, unable to even reach the first stage.

Then Yichen saw the part that stirred him the most.

If a Kekkei Genkai reached the second stage, it would gradually improve the body's constitution. That improved constitution would allow a Ninja to possess a large amount of Chakra and stronger taijutsu.

It could be said that this was a path that altered a Ninja's body at the Genetic Level.

Yichen carefully recalled his battle with Yuki Kagami that day. The other party had first performed a B-rank Ninjutsu, creating tens of thousands of ice needles, then forcibly performed Ice Prison Jutsu, which consumed Chakra equivalent to a B-rank Ninjutsu.

On top of that, he had casually performed several C-rank Ninjutsu.

Even so, the other party's Chakra had been nowhere near depleted.

This also confirmed that the other party's Chakra Amount was truly enormous.

The intelligence also mentioned the matter of power. A powerful Kekkei Genkai like Ice Release could roughly raise the power of a Ninjutsu by an entire rank.

Yichen had experienced just how terrifying that was that day.

Yuki Kagami was not much older than them, yet with his Chakra Amount and Ice Release, his strength had reached the level of a Chunin.

And that was not all. His enormous Chakra Amount allowed him to learn B-rank Ninjutsu. Although he was highly unskilled with that B-rank Ninjutsu and had likely only recently learned it—

The B-rank Ninjutsu performed by a Chunin like him surpassed most Jonin and possessed A-rank power.

Many Jonin did not even know A-rank Ninjutsu.

Although there were still S-rank Ninjutsu above that, S-rank Ninjutsu were techniques Kage-level fighters used when risking their lives. An S-rank Ninjutsu could seal the Nine-Tails or defeat Orochimaru.

Even for Kage-level fighters, B-rank Ninjutsu were what they used most in battle. When the opportunity arose, they would perform a few A-rank Ninjutsu.

So a Ninja whose strength had only reached the Chunin level could, given enough preparation time, perform a Ninjutsu more powerful than that of a Jonin.

That alone showed just how frightening Bloodline Ninja could be.

And all of this only applied to Kekkei Genkai created through the fusion of two attributes. The strongest bloodline limits in the ninja world were not those, but the Sharingan, the Senju Clan, the Uzumaki Clan, the Hyuga Clan, and the Kaguya Clan.

None of these were bloodline limits created through attribute fusion, yet they undeniably stood at the pinnacle of the ninja world.

Setting down the intelligence scroll, Yichen felt deeply moved. No wonder Orochimaru had become obsessed with research into bloodline limits and similar subjects in his later years. They were simply too overpowered.

To say nothing else, take two equally gifted Ninja. Someone like Orochimaru was already extraordinarily brilliant, but his upper limit was only Kage level. And without considering Giant Summoning Beasts, his Combat Power was not even particularly strong among Kage-level fighters.

But when he encountered someone like Itachi Uchiha, whose talent was no weaker than his but who possessed a Kekkei Genkai—one of the very best, at that—he was completely outclassed.

Having read the intelligence, Yichen was also filled with longing for Kekkei Genkai.

Because he had a general feeling that no matter how hard one worked, one's upper limit was predetermined. Compared to any single person, one might not necessarily be inferior, but compared to the entire ninja world, the children of those bloodline families simply had a higher ceiling.

Yichen was still in his growth period. He could not even guarantee victory against an ordinary Chunin, so he did not feel it too strongly.

But once Yichen discovered that his strength could no longer improve, he would not be able to stop himself from thinking that the geniuses of those bloodline families would one day surpass him.

Just thinking about that suffocating, stifled feeling was already hard to bear.

After putting the scroll back, Yichen left the Exchange Office, muttering as he walked, "Kekkei Genkai... Kekkei Genkai..."

He returned to his residence in a daze and sat foolishly on his bed for quite some time before finally coming back to his senses.

He slapped himself several times in succession. He was a transmigrator, after all. So what if he did not have a Kekkei Genkai? Could he not develop one himself?

Ōnoki had not possessed Dust Release at the beginning either. He later learned Dust Release, not through bloodline inheritance, but through acquired training. That showed that Iwagakure had methods for cultivating Kekkei Genkai.

But Yichen also understood that setting aside how he could obtain such a method, even if he got it, learning it would not be easy.

Still, the village certainly had cultivation methods for ordinary bloodline limits, or at least related theories. It was just that, like advanced Sealing Jutsu, those methods probably required a certain level of authority and could only be exchanged through sufficient merit.

He would first save up Contribution Points. The next time he had the chance to perform a great service, he could bring it up to Ōnoki.

Given how much the village valued him now, such a request would not be excessive.

Having made up his mind, Yichen stopped dwelling on the matter of Kekkei Genkai. Over the next few days, he would first become more proficient with Earth Style: Earth Rising Spear and Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall.

The hand seals for his two Water Style: Water Line Jutsu had already been reduced considerably, but Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall and Earth Style: Earth Rising Spear, his main techniques in the early stages, still required too many hand seals.

The remaining four days were neither particularly long nor particularly short. With Yichen's Chakra Control, along with the fact that his Chakra Amount was no longer low—

He should be able to gain something from them.

Speaking of which, Yichen had invested heavily over the years in physical training and food, so the treatment he received was actually no worse than that of a child from an ordinary Ninja family.

Thus, Yichen's constitution was among the better ones for his age.

It was only because the companions around him were all standouts of their generation that his Chakra Amount seemed like a weakness.

Yichen deliberately slowed his Hand Seal Speed and carefully felt the flow of Chakra when performing Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall and Earth Style: Earth Rising Spear. Then he began analyzing which steps could reduce hand seals and be replaced with superior Chakra Control.

To improve efficiency, Yichen followed the methods used in Sealing Jutsu research and made a list, recording every idea for reducing hand seals before testing them one by one.

Sure enough, the results of this method were obvious. In just four days, Yichen directly reduced the hand seals for Earth Style: Earth Rising Spear from twelve to ten, and Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall from ten to nine.

Moreover, Yichen could clearly feel that this was far from his limit. As long as he had enough time, he could definitely simplify them further.

Yichen also felt that if he used this method to carefully analyze his two Water Style: Water Line Jutsu, he might be able to improve them as well.