The Troubles of Happiness

Leaving his teacher's home, Hyuga Kazuya sensed his own condition.

The chakra circulation within his body seemed to be slightly sluggish, but otherwise, he felt nothing unusual.

"Great. This way, I won't need to hide myself anymore."

His chakra reserves would also undergo explosive growth in the time ahead.

Without lingering any longer,

Hyuga Kazuya hurried home.

He did not immediately begin refining chakra. Instead, he picked up the Sealing Jutsu Scroll he had received from Kushina, his Master's Wife.

Opening the Scroll, Hyuga Kazuya carefully read its contents.

"A sealing jutsu that uses a Cursed Seal to lock down an opponent's chakra. The sealed person will develop a sealing formula on their body. Sealing jutsu can be divided into Even Seals and odd-numbered seals, each with its own effects. Sealing jutsu is a mysterious art."

Hyuga Kazuya knew how wondrous sealing jutsu could be in the Shinobi World, ranging from Sealing Scrolls and storage scrolls to sealing souls and much more.

He had long yearned to learn sealing jutsu, but he had never had a suitable opportunity or reason.

That was why he had not learned any sealing jutsu until now.

He had not expected to acquire a sealing jutsu by chance this time. It was a completely unexpected delight.

As for whether he could learn it, Hyuga Kazuya had never doubted that.

Didn't he have Enlightenment as a safeguard?

A few hours later.

Hyuga Kazuya's lofty ambitions from earlier seemed to have completely vanished, leaving him scratching his head in frustration.

"This is way too difficult, isn't it? I actually have to calculate the contact area of the human body and chakra reaction values?"

Hyuga Kazuya studied the Isolation Seal, calculating the data described within it.

The more he calculated, the more his head throbbed.

Even after bringing out paper and pen, the pages soon became filled with densely packed writing.

"I'm an elite with a higher education, yet even I'm getting a headache just looking at this. How do the others in the Shinobi World learn this stuff?"

Chewing on the end of his pen without thinking, Hyuga Kazuya voiced a question from the depths of his soul.

What Hyuga Kazuya did not know was that the Isolation Seal was never meant for beginners.

Besides, who learned sealing jutsu by calculating those kinds of formulas?

Didn't everyone rely on intuition? Or, failing that, practice until they mastered it?

Only a blockhead like Hyuga Kazuya would actually try to calculate it.

Of course, Kushina deserved some credit for this too. Expecting Kushina to remember such tiny details would be underestimating the fearsome reputation of The Crimson Chili Pepper.

After a long while, once he had finished dinner, Hyuga Kazuya's brain had grown numb from all the calculations. He stopped and muttered,

"Looks like sealing jutsu really isn't something I can learn in a short time. I should relax my mind for now and learn something else first."

"I'll cultivate the Longevity Breathing Technique first."

After all, it concerned the length of his life.

When he had first obtained the Longevity Breathing Technique, Hyuga Kazuya had not thought much of it. But after carefully considering it over the past few days,

didn't this Longevity Breathing Technique resemble Sage Art?

Both absorbed Natural Energy, or natural chakra. There was an indescribable similarity between them.

The only difference was that Sage Art could enhance the power of all kinds of ninja techniques, while the Longevity Breathing Technique could not.

That was because the Natural Energy he absorbed slowly merged into his body, strengthening its vitality.

The benefits of having powerful bodily vitality went without saying.

Hyuga Kazuya sat in the open-air Training Ground, using a unique breathing method to absorb the Natural Energy in nature.

He sensed a mysterious energy in the air slowly being drawn into his body, then dispersing throughout every part of him.

His body instinctively craved more Natural Energy, greedily absorbing the energy flowing into it.

But Hyuga Kazuya, who controlled his body, knew that he could not absorb too much Natural Energy.

Perhaps it was due to the Shinobi World's unique ecology, or perhaps for some other reason.

The Natural Energy of the Shinobi World simply could not be absorbed for too long, or one would turn into a stone statue.

A warning from the depths of his soul told Hyuga Kazuya that he could not continue absorbing it.

Hyuga Kazuya immediately stopped and stretched his limbs.

"Awooo!!!"

Feeling his body's satisfaction, Hyuga Kazuya could not help letting out a delighted howl.

"This feels so good. It's like all the exhaustion from the day has disappeared. I feel completely refreshed."

"Feels great! Next, I need to refine chakra."

Hyuga Kazuya suddenly realized that because he had obtained so many ninja techniques through Enlightenment, every day of his schedule was packed full, leaving him almost no time to rest.

In the morning, he cultivated the Lightning Style Training Method and trained his Lightning Style Chakra Mode.

In the afternoon, he practiced the Eight Gates.

At night, he cultivated the Life Breath Technique to replenish his body's vitality.

There was also Vacuum Arrow training, but since it required a sufficiently large space, he had not practiced it these past few days.

He was already this busy, yet now he had to add sealing jutsu studies and set aside time to refine chakra.

For the first time, Hyuga Kazuya realized that knowing too much was also a kind of happy trouble.

"So this is the trouble of happiness?"

"Looks like I'll have to squeeze out some more time."

Thanks to the bodily pleasure and mental alertness brought by absorbing Natural Energy through the Life Breath Technique, Hyuga Kazuya realized that he might not need to sleep for so long each day.

He could cut down on some sleep and use that time to practice various ninja techniques.

All of a sudden, Hyuga Kazuya felt that this might actually work.

"Then that's what I'll do from now on. Keep it up, Kazuya. For the Shinobi World, and to see the stars filling the sky."

Hyuga Kazuya gazed at the countless stars overhead and encouraged himself.

"For these dazzling stars, for the boundless starry sky."

Looking at the stars blanketing the sky and the bright moon, his thoughts drifted somewhere far away.

As a young man from the twenty-first century in his previous life, who would not be interested in the starry sky?

Who would not want to see the vastness of space?

Naturally, Hyuga Kazuya wanted to as well. He could not do it in his previous life, but this world was different.

Leaving aside the truly existing aliens of the Otsutsuki Clan, the Shinobi World possessed so many bizarre ninja techniques that, with the aid of technology, interstellar travel might not be impossible.

They could take him into the vast starry sky and let him witness the magnificence of the universe.

But all of that had one prerequisite: peace in the Shinobi World. Perhaps absolute peace was not necessary, but things absolutely could not remain as they were now, with people fighting to the death over some incomprehensible sliver of profit.

In truth, he had little interest in unifying the Shinobi World. Or rather, unification was not the goal, but the process.

He only wanted a peaceful Shinobi World, then to guide the entire Shinobi World toward vigorously developing chakra technology.

It would provide nourishment for his growth and fuel for his dreams.

Although Enlightenment was powerful, he was not arrogant enough to believe that he alone could match the progress of an entire world.

The strength of one person was ultimately limited.

Technology had never been something a single person could fully master. Its fields and disciplines were so numerous that an ordinary person could not finish learning them in an entire lifetime.

Therefore, a complete and thriving civilization held tremendous value for him.

And the first step toward all those dreams was the Hyuga Clan.

The Hyuga Clan was only the first step. After integrating the Hyuga Clan, he could advance to attack or retreat to defend.

Once he controlled the Hyuga Clan, he could further control or guide Konoha, and then the entire Shinobi World.

But over the next two years, aside from increasing his own strength, his most important task was to gain immense fame in the coming Third Shinobi World War, establish prestige within the Hyuga Clan, and then lead its transformation.

No matter what happened during that transformation, as long as he did not die, it would never stop.