Twelve Palaces!

In the dim, spacious underground training ground, Shinji performed a series of strange-looking movements, as if stretching his body or loosening his joints.

Crack, crack, crack.

As he completed each movement, a string of strange sounds came from his body.

The sharper sounds came from his bones and joints, while the lower ones came from his muscles and organs. Along with the sounds, his body became more flexible.

As a ninja, he could already perform some extreme movements, but he couldn't do them as smoothly and fluidly as he could now!

After rolling his neck, he thought, Now that I've fused the twelve forms into one, my body really has undergone a tremendous transformation.

With Izanagi's help, he had completed the final—and most difficult—step.

Just as he'd expected, mastering the condensed and optimized Twelve Forms of the Breathing Technique had brought about a qualitative change in his body.

After warming up, Shinji glanced at the wooden training dummies scattered around the training ground. There were twenty of them, all made of ironwood.

Whoosh.

In an instant, Shinji moved!

Almost as soon as he stirred up a rush of wind, a series of booming impacts rang through the dim training ground.

Along with the booms came exploding wooden dummies and flying splinters!

Whoosh.

Shinji flashed back to where he'd started and began to breathe lightly.

"Seven breaths."

He counted the time in his head, the corners of his mouth lifting.

In just seven short breaths, he'd used taijutsu to smash all twenty wooden dummies scattered across the training ground!

Before he'd practiced the Twelve Forms of the Breathing Technique, he wouldn't have dared imagine achieving such a result.

Back then, even if he'd used Water Breathing with all his strength, it would have been difficult to smash twenty ironwood dummies with