Jiraiya

After the Spring Festival came February.

Another month passed after the Spring Festival.

Over that month, Hyuga Kazuya's strength steadily grew.

The Lightning Style Training Method stimulated and improved his physical fitness, enhancing his Taijutsu. At present, his Taijutsu was firmly at the peak of Elite Jonin level.

As for the Eight Gates, it was relatively easy to get started with, but the further one went, the harder the path became.

Thus, after a month, he had only reached the level of 2.7 Gates.

His chakra had successfully reached the level of five Kakashi units. Even among Kage-level fighters, that amount of chakra was not at the bottom.

As for Sealing Jutsu, by chance, while practicing Vacuum Arrow, Hyuga Kazuya caught a Ninja Beast in the Death Forest—a Wild Boar.

After thoroughly persuading the Wild Boar, along with a little bit of violence—

He successfully used it to practice Sealing Jutsu.

Naturally, aside from a few mistakes at the beginning, it did not disappoint Hyuga Kazuya afterward.

He had successfully mastered the Isolation Seal.

As for the Wild Boar?

Hyuga Kazuya naturally kept it.

And after obtaining a Summoning Scroll from Uncle, it became his Summoning Beast.

After all, Ninja Beasts as tough as this one were not easy to find.

It would naturally come in useful someday.

Because he had mastered the Isolation Seal, Hyuga Kazuya no longer needed to keep asking Kushina to reinforce the seal every few days.

In other words, aside from the Eight Gates, Hyuga Kazuya had more or less mastered all the ninjutsu he had acquired.

The Eight Gates manual only covered the first three Gates, and opening the Gates was an extremely time-consuming process, so there was no need to rush it.

The Lightning Style Training Method also required steady accumulation over time to improve his physical fitness. It was impossible to reach the Raikage's level in a short time.

The same applied to chakra.

In other words, for some time to come, Hyuga Kazuya's combat strength would continue growing steadily.

However, Hyuga Kazuya now had a major problem: his lack of combat experience.

To make up for the final weakness in his combat ability, he needed a great deal of battle.

And it had to be battles to the death.

Thus, Hyuga Kazuya wanted to take on village missions.

The old Hyuga Kazuya had not wanted to take village missions simply because he feared death.

But things were different now.

As his strength grew, his former way of thinking naturally changed as well.

Moreover, the Lightning Style Chakra Mode granted by the Lightning Style Training Method had astonishing defensive power, along with the defensive ability of Revolving Heaven.

In terms of defense, how could the word powerful possibly be enough to describe it?

He could not take a Rasengan to the face.

But once he activated Lightning Style Chakra Mode, taking ordinary Shuriken and standard C-rank or D-rank offensive ninjutsu to the face was not a problem.

Combined with the tremendous killing power of Hyuga Kazuya's bow and arrows—

And the Byakugan's natural advantage in reconnaissance, Hyuga Kazuya felt that as long as he did not provoke some old monster, the Three Sacred Places, or enter the interior of the major shinobi villages—

Everywhere else in the Shinobi World was completely safe for him.

Thus, in terms of raw strength alone, Hyuga Kazuya was no weaker than the Kage of any village. But in actual combat, he would definitely fall short by more than a little.

All because of his lack of combat experience.

So in the time ahead, taking missions would be an unavoidable path.

And by taking a large number of missions to rack up achievements, he could also improve his reputation in the village.

That would be even more beneficial when he made his move against the Hyuga Clan in the future.

There was also the Third Hokage's promise: once he advanced to Jonin, he would be given the manuals for opening the remaining Gates of the Eight Gates.

And to advance to Jonin, an impressive record was indispensable as well.

So these missions—

I'm definitely grinding them out.

But there was still one problem.

How was he supposed to tell Teacher Minato that he wanted to carry out missions alone?

After all, he was only a Genin. Genin could not take missions alone.

"Ugh, what a pain!!!"

Scratching his head, Hyuga Kazuya could not think of any good solution.

So he could only take things one step at a time.

Or he could simply ignore the issue and toss it to Minato Namikaze to solve.

Surely Minato Namikaze would have a way to handle it.

Without hesitation—

Hyuga Kazuya went to look for Minato Namikaze.

Since he did not know where Minato Namikaze was at the moment—

As usual, Hyuga Kazuya went to Minato Namikaze's home to find him.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Teacher Minato, are you home?"

Hyuga Kazuya knocked several times, but no one answered.

So he could only activate his Byakugan to look inside.

When he was in the village, Hyuga Kazuya generally did not activate his Byakugan.

There was no particular reason for it. It was simply because Hyuga Kazuya had his own moral boundaries.

He only activated it when he truly needed to, like now.

Hyuga Kazuya activated his Byakugan and looked around.

"So he isn't home. No wonder no one answered the door."

Hyuga Kazuya rubbed his chin, wondering where Minato Namikaze might be if he was not home.

After thinking it over, Hyuga Kazuya realized he truly did not know the answer.

"No choice. If I can't figure it out, I'll have to go find Master's Wife Kushina."

Hyuga Kazuya did not know where Minato Namikaze was at the moment, but he did know where Kushina was.

Kushina was a captain-level member of the village's Sealing Squad.

So during the daytime, she would usually be at the Sealing Squad's headquarters.

Even if she was not at the headquarters, her colleagues would know where she had gone.

Without hesitation, Hyuga Kazuya followed his memory toward the Sealing Squad headquarters not far from the Hokage Building.

The Sealing Squad was an open organization in Konoha, not the Anbu, so it had a visible headquarters—or rather, office space.

The Sealing Squad's office was located not far from the Hokage Building. It was an ordinary Konoha-style building, the sort that could be found everywhere in the village.

Because the Sealing Squad was one of Konoha's important departments, Hyuga Kazuya could only notify the guards at the entrance and wait outside.

Hyuga Kazuya waited outside for a while.

At last, Kushina came out.

"Master's Wife Kushina."

"Kazuya, what is it?"

Kushina asked curiously.

"Do you know where Teacher Minato is?"

"You're looking for Minato, right? Minato should be with Teacher Jiraiya right now. They should be at the Back Mountain Training Ground."

"Oh, Master's Wife, I've already mastered the Isolation Seal!" Hyuga Kazuya said, lowering his head slightly with a hint of embarrassment.

In his mind, taking two months to master a single Sealing Jutsu truly meant his aptitude was too poor and his talent too low.

"What? You said you've mastered the Isolation Seal?" Kushina asked, both startled and astonished.

Kushina could hardly be blamed for her surprise. For a complete beginner in Sealing Jutsu to learn it on his own using only Books and Scrolls was far beyond her expectations.

Even Minato Namikaze, who had always been called a genius, had only gradually learned some Sealing Jutsu under Kushina's careful instruction.

"Yes, that's right."

"No wonder you haven't come to me to reinforce your seal these past few days. So that's what happened." Kushina gave Hyuga Kazuya a thumbs-up before continuing.

"Then from now on, I'm your teacher too. Don't call me Master's Wife anymore. Call me Teacher!"

"Huh?" Hyuga Kazuya was a little dazed, but he quickly came to his senses.

"Okay, okay, Teacher Kushina! Then will Teacher Kushina teach me Sealing Jutsu too?"

"Give me a couple of days. I need to go back and organize some materials first. In a couple of days, I'll have Minato notify you." Kushina stroked her chin, thinking about what introductory books a beginner in Sealing Jutsu would need.

"Alright then. Thank you, Master's Wife—oh, no, Teacher Kushina. Then I'll go find Teacher Minato first. See you."

"Hehe, that's right, that's right. Teacher!" Kushina said with a happy smile.

Hyuga Kazuya then said goodbye to Master's Wife Kushina and left.

Konoha's back mountain.

Hyuga Kazuya did not need to put in much effort to find Minato Namikaze and Jiraiya.

"Teacher Minato, Jiraiya-sama."

Hyuga Kazuya did not know whether he should call Jiraiya Grandmaster Jiraiya, so he simply called him Jiraiya-sama.

That saved him the trouble of thinking about anything else.