My Gentle Fist is a Little Different

The morning session at the Training Camp was basic training, something you could do alone, while the afternoon sessions were more varied. Morito showed up on time every single day.

He stood up, brushed the sand off his clothes, and headed toward the academy.

As he left, he didn't notice the trail of slender footprints on the beach.

Before he knew it, night had fallen.

The bright moon hung in the sky, its light falling on Morito. He looked up at the stars, a deep confidence flickering in his eyes.

The overwhelming confidence brought by the awakening of the Byakugan.

He wasn't planning to go back to the dormitory tonight, because the forced Chakra drain happened not only at noon but also at midnight.

Morito urgently wanted to know whether the Chakra would still be forcibly drained after the Byakugan had awakened.

And his training after the White Zetsu awakening needed to go further too.

After the day's Training Camp classes ended, Morito went to the cafeteria, ate and drank his fill, and even secretly packed a portion to take with him.

Then he slipped into the Back Mountain Forest.

Marineford was an island with three major building complexes.

In front was Marine Headquarters, behind it the residential area, to the side was the Naval Academy, and surrounding the island were mountains and forests.

Morito's destination was the Back Mountain Forest.

The forest naturally had plenty of beasts. These cute little creatures were usually the training targets for the Training Camp students.

But the training targets for the Reserve Navy weren't here, because these beasts were too weak.

Marine Headquarters wouldn't catch powerful monsters and keep them in their own backyard either.

Of course, strength was relative. For Morito's training goal tonight, these cute little creatures were more than enough.

There were plenty of beasts in the Back Mountain Forest—birds, beasts, snakes, insects, ants, all kinds.

The Naval Academy would occasionally catch some beasts and throw them in, maintaining the area as a wild, natural ecosystem.

That way, it was convenient for the students to train.

Not long after entering the forest, Morito encountered a brown tiger about three meters long. In the world of pirates, this kind of big cat was just at the bottom of the food chain.

"You're it!"

Morito gathered Chakra at the tips of his fingers, assuming the starting stance of the Gentle Fist!

There was still a long time until midnight, so Morito decided to test the Byakugan's effects on the big cat in front of him.

The Gentle Fist was a martial art that involved injecting one's own Chakra into the enemy's body, damaging their Chakra pathways, meridian system, and internal organs.

It could only unleash its full power when paired with the Byakugan, which could see the meridian system.

Because internal organs couldn't be trained, even the strongest experts were often fatally wounded if hit by the Gentle Fist.

The Gentle Fist was undeniably powerful.

But one thing had to be clarified: the Eight Trigrams Palm within the Gentle Fist. Morito felt the Eight Trigrams Palm was purely for visual effect.

Those in the know could see you were killing an enemy; those who didn't would think you were putting on a show!

Striking a hundred or so palms just to seal the enemy's acupoints?

The Gentle Fist's acupoint-sealing techniques definitely had to be practiced, but that whole Eight Trigrams hundred-something-palm nonsense was just ridiculous.

Aiming for a fatal point and killing in one strike—wasn't that better?

Even if the enemy was on guard and you couldn't easily hit a fatal point, you only needed to seal a few easily hit acupoints to restrict their movement.

Meeting someone and striking a pose, then hitting them with a few hundred palms—

You'd probably exhaust yourself to death before killing anyone.

The human body had about fifty-two single acupoints, three hundred and nine paired acupoints, and fifty extra-meridian points, totaling seven hundred and twenty acupoints.

Among them, thirty-six were fatal points, commonly called death points.

Morito had memorized these thirty-six death points.

Animals had different body structures from humans, but they also had death points, and the general correspondences were roughly the same!

Ordinary people couldn't accurately locate these acupoints, but Morito was different.

He had the Byakugan, which could see through flesh!

Locking onto the Striped Tiger, Morito burst Chakra from his feet and charged forward in one swift step. The Gentle Fist was a type of martial art.

Close-quarters combat is the essence of physical techniques.

The tiger resting on the rock was highly alert; hearing the swift wind in the forest, it immediately perked up its ears and pinpointed the direction of the attacker.

In the animal world, size determines strength.

Though not always the case, it holds true most of the time.

Watching Morito charge at it with fierce momentum, it was a bit confused—had this scrawny monkey been drinking fake booze, or was it still half-asleep?

Did it know who the king of this forest was?

Without a hint of hesitation, the Striped Tiger raised its thick paw and swiped at the charging Morito.

A tiger's paw carried immense force, easily capable of ripping a person open.

"Pretty quick reflexes."

Morito hadn't hidden his presence when approaching the tiger; his goal was to test the Byakugan's effectiveness in real combat, not to win through a sneak attack.

As he neared the tiger, his focus sharpened entirely on the beast.

Every movement of the tiger, from lifting its paw to striking, was caught by Morito's eyes.

Since he knew the trajectory of the tiger's paw, dodging it wasn't hard. Morito stomped a foot on the ground, forcefully halting his forward momentum.

A bloody gust of wind brushed past the tip of his nose.

The tiger's paw struck empty air.

Morito seized the moment and jabbed a finger forward, the Chakra at his fingertip piercing like an invisible needle into the side below the tiger's paw.

It wasn't a lethal point, just an ordinary acupoint.

But even ordinary acupoints had their uses. With the point blocked, the tiger's paw instantly went numb, as if it no longer belonged to it.

It was mid-swing, and suddenly losing the support of one front paw, its massive frame couldn't stay balanced.

With a crash!

Under inertia, the tiger tumbled sideways to the ground.

"Not bad results!"

Morito's eyes narrowed slightly. As the tiger lay on the ground, he locked onto an acupoint on its neck.

Similar to the Renying Point on the human body, located at the carotid artery's pulse point on the Stomach Meridian. When struck, it caused qi stagnation and blood stasis, leading to dizziness.

Just like the classic TV trope of a hand chop knocking someone out.

In reality, knocking someone out with a hand chop isn't about hitting the back of the neck, but the Renying Point on the side of the neck at the carotid artery.

The Renying Point is one of the Thirty-Six Lethal Points.

A light hit causes unconsciousness; a heavy one can be fatal.

Seeing the 'little monkey's' hand reaching out, the dignity of being the forest king wouldn't allow such a weakling to violate it.

The Striped Tiger opened its massive maw and bit straight at Morito's hand.

A very correct choice—attacking instead of defending.

Too bad.

Gentle Fist wasn't limited to releasing Chakra from the fingertips; Chakra could be emitted from any acupoint in the body's meridian system.

A burst of Chakra erupted from the back of Morito's hand, jolting the tiger's gaping maw to a halt.

Seizing the moment, he jabbed down with his finger.

"You lose!"

Morito's movements were faster. The three years, then another three, then another three in the Training Camp hadn't been wasted.

Before the tiger's teeth could clamp down, Morito's fingertip had already struck its neck.

The tiger, fierce just moments ago, rolled its eyes back and instantly collapsed like a pile of mud, lying motionless.

Life slowly drained away.

It breathed its last and died.

Morito looked down at his finger. The force he'd used wasn't strong, yet the three-meter-long robust tiger had died in an instant.

That showed the power of driving Chakra into a lethal point.

Even the thick-skinned Striped Tiger couldn't withstand that single finger strike.

"Life... is so fragile."

In the time that followed, Morito continued roaming the forest, encountering many other types of beasts.

Same method, same experiment.

Using the Byakugan to coordinate Chakra strikes into lethal points, Morito easily took down every beast he came across.

Before this, he'd often come to this forest for practical training.

He could win, but never with such ease.

As midnight approached, Morito arrived at a platform on the cliff face, one of his usual cultivation spots.

Though surrounded by wild beasts in the back mountain, it was a safe place.

Morito didn't cultivate. Instead, he lay down on the platform in a comfortable position, gazing up at the bright moon and stars scattered across the sky.

Tonight's starry sky was beautiful.