The golden crow sank in the west, and the jade rabbit rose in the east.
The night breeze drifted softly.
Neji and Samui lay on the grass.
The Shinobi World had no environmental pollution, and the night sky was beautiful, with the bright moon hanging high overhead.
Who would have thought that the moon had been created by humans, with the Progenitor of Chakra—Kaguya Otsutsuki—sealed inside?
Samui suddenly chuckled, feeling a little wistful.
She hadn't had a chance to take a break from her busy life like this in a long time.
Just then, Samui saw Neji take her hand and play with it, clearly reluctant to let go.
Samui said nothing.
It was very impolite for a boy to treat a girl this way.
But when it was Neji, questions of politeness didn't apply.
Neji shifted closer, pressing his arm against Samui's. "Sis, what's so interesting about the night sky?"
"If you're going to insist on sleeping outdoors, what else are you going to look at? You?"
Samui rolled her eyes at him.
Propping his head up with one hand, Neji turned to look at Samui. "I don't care about the night sky. How could it compare to you?"
Anyone raised on the internet would have cringed at such a cheesy line.
But Samui's heart fluttered inexplicably.
Looking at Neji's youthful face, she moved closer as if in a trance and gave him a quick peck.
Neji was completely unprepared. By the time he came to his senses, Samui had already turned her back to him.
"It's late. Go to sleep."
"..."
Neji wondered how anyone could sleep after that.
He wanted to turn the tables and take charge.
He didn't dare.
After a moment's thought, Neji simply burrowed into Samui's arms.
"I can only fall asleep if you hold me, Sis."
Samui neither took the initiative nor refused. She didn't even make a sound.
Neji took that as her consent.
The leisurely vacation came to an end.
Neji resumed his intense, busy training.
Ten days later.
After running fifty laps around Tianyun Mountain, Neji found a quiet patch of woodland halfway up the mountain.
He wasn't there to rest. He wanted to train his Tenseigan.
Whether it was Lightning Release Chakra Mode or Black Lightning, even God Vacuum Attack, none of them mattered as much as the Tenseigan.
The Tenseigan was the foundation of his domination of the Shinobi World.
Ever since awakening the Tenseigan, Neji had spent two hours training it every day.
His progress was slow, but after being converted into stats, every training session brought tangible improvement.
[You practice the Tenseigan. Your related insights improve. Experience +1] [You practice the Tenseigan. Your related insights improve. Experience +1] ...
Two hours later, Neji could clearly feel his eyes growing tired and sore.
In the past, he would have stopped and switched to another kind of training. But with his Tenseigan on the verge of a breakthrough, he didn't interrupt his practice. Instead, he channeled even more chakra into his eyes.
[You practice the Tenseigan. Your related insights improve. Experience +1] [Congratulations! Your Tenseigan has reached Lv. 2 (1/1000). Skill learned: Chakra Beads] [Bloodline: Tenseigan Lv. (1/1000) Abilities: Curse Seal of the Mind, Chakra Beads]
As the panel's stats changed, Neji's Tenseigan leveled up for the second time, granting him a new ability.
Neji raised his right hand, and blue chakra surged from his body.
A black chakra bead took shape and floated above his palm.
The chakra bead formed by the Tenseigan looked very much like the Truth-Seeking Orbs used by a Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, but it wasn't actually a Truth-Seeking Orb.
When Neji tried to form a second chakra bead, the chakra inside him was instantly depleted. The second bead vanished before it could even take shape.
"That's still a bit too much. I have more than enough chakra to form one bead, but nowhere near enough to make two."
Neji flicked his wrist, and the little black sphere in his palm shot away with a whoosh, burrowing into a large boulder twenty meters away.
Boom!
At first, nothing happened to the boulder. A few seconds later, a muffled rumble sounded, and it shattered into countless fragments.
"Who would have thought an unremarkable little black sphere could pack such a punch? It's a deadly weapon that can catch an enemy off guard."
"Once the Tenseigan advances further, I'll be able to awaken two ultimate techniques: Silver Wheel Reincarnation Explosion and Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion. Both are performed using chakra beads. Since I've already awakened the beads, maybe I can try developing some other techniques, too."
After thinking it over, Neji decided to take up sword training again. In the future, he'd use chakra beads in place of Ninja Blades.
He took a Standard Longsword from his storage scroll and began practicing earnestly.
Swordsmanship, at its core, was a combination of thrusts, sweeps, and cuts.
Neji had created the Eight Trigrams Sword Style himself and was quite skilled with a blade.
But if he was honest with himself, he didn't consider himself a swordsmanship expert.
In his previous life, Neji had once heard a martial arts philosopher say that it was better to practice one move ten thousand times than to learn ten thousand moves.
At first, Neji had agreed without question, thinking it made sense.
Later, he'd decided it was nonsense.
It was obvious: none of the great fighters knew only one or two moves.
But now he thought it made perfect sense again.
Especially for shinobi with chakra.
Whether ninjutsu, Taijutsu, or even genjutsu, they were all fundamentally ways of using chakra.
As long as your chakra was strong enough, one signature move could take you anywhere.
Compared to the true monsters, Neji's chakra wasn't strong. It was downright weak.
But that didn't stop him from trying to master one move first. Once his chakra grew stronger, he could take it anywhere.
No one else could copy Neji's approach.
Because he had a cheat.
"With Heavenly Dao rewarding diligence, hard work always pays off. I wonder what kind of amazing changes would happen if I swung at empty air a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times."
Neji earnestly slashed at the air, one strike after another.
The woods were silent, and no one disturbed him.
After a long while, Neji suddenly stopped practicing.
He sensed that something was wrong.
It was quiet—far too quiet!
When he'd first come to the woods to train his Tenseigan, he'd been able to hear birds calling and leaves rustling.
Now he couldn't hear the birds or the wind. All he could hear was the swish of his longsword cutting through the air.
A barrier!
Someone had set up a barrier nearby.
Realizing this, Neji's expression changed. He immediately activated his Byakugan and warily scanned his surroundings.
To his surprise, however, the Byakugan revealed great swaths of chakra imagery all around him.
This was somewhat like being countered by another Kekkei Genkai in the Shinobi World—Red Eye.
But as far as Neji knew, the only Red Eye in the original story couldn't possibly be in Kumogakure right now.
Neji was just about to leave the woods cautiously when he stopped.
Someone was approaching from not far away.
The person wore a cloak and a mask that covered their head, leaving only a pair of deep-set eyes visible.
Not Red Eye?
Many shinobi from the Five Great Nations dressed like this.
So their clothes revealed nothing about their identity.
Someone sent by the Fourth Raikage?
Obviously not.
Then it seemed there was only...
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