It was too low.
His spiritual power was far too low.
Hyuga Hoshishaku had used the system's detection function countless times over the years, but this was the first time he had seen spiritual power this low.
Even the oldest man in the Hyuga Clan had had 85 points of spiritual power.
He was the person with the lowest spiritual power Hoshishaku had ever seen, yet Senju Yuto had only 40 points of spiritual power alongside 2,700 points of vitality. The two values were far too out of balance.
Combined with Yuto's account of how his waking hours grew shorter every day, it didn't take Hoshishaku long to identify the most obvious cause he'd found so far.
Yuto's spiritual power couldn't keep up with his physique!
But what good was finding the cause?
Hoshishaku thought with a troubled frown.
"Big Brother Hoshishaku, are you spacing out?"
Yuto waved a small hand in front of Hoshishaku.
Hoshishaku caught the hand and put aside his fruitless thoughts for the moment.
"Yeah, I was thinking about something, so I spaced out a little. By the way, what do you usually do when you're bored?"
Senju Yuto counted on his fingers and answered with a naive smile:
"Usually, I sleep, wander around the courtyard with Mother, or study Sealing Techniques with her."
Hoshishaku was a little surprised.
What a monotonous life.
He thought it over and decided to get closer to the mission target first, then figure out how to complete the mission.
So he decided to start by telling an adventure story.
Telling a story took no real effort, and it could pique a child's curiosity. Low cost, high efficiency.
"Then I'll tell you an adventure story. Want to hear it?"
Curiosity showed in Senju Yuto's eyes.
"An adventure story? Is it about a ninja adventuring during the Warring States period?"
Hoshishaku gave a disdainful snort. "Stories about adventures in the Warring States period are ancient history. I'll tell you a fresh story that appeared in one of my dreams."
Senju Yuto clapped excitedly. "Great! What's it about?"
Hoshishaku took a sip of the hot tea a servant had just refilled, then began slowly. "It's a story about a monkey who leapt out of a rock."
Inside the Hokage Building.
A water mirror was showing Hoshishaku telling Yuto the story in real time.
His childish voice came through as well.
"...Being the Handsome Monkey King was a lot of fun, but he also faced many complicated problems. So he began to wonder how he could protect his monkey friends forever."
"He realized he couldn't find the answers by standing still, so he said goodbye to Flower Fruit Mountain for a while and boarded a small boat headed for an unknown destination. He drifted across the perilous sea..."
The three adults listened in silence.
The worry on their faces, left over from their fruitless discussion, gradually eased.
"Even a little stone monkey knew he couldn't stand still when faced with a problem. How can I keep standing still?"
Senju Tobirama murmured to himself.
Beside him, Senju Hashirama listened with such rapt attention that his expression looked just like Yuto's in the water mirror.
Uzumaki Mito tried to reassure her brother-in-law. "You can't say you've been standing still. You've done everything you can for Yuto. Didn't you come up with all those advanced Medical Ninjutsu before?"
Senju Tobirama scratched his head. "But that boy Hoshishaku just said Yuto's spiritual power is lower than an ordinary person's. What does that even mean? And how does he know...?"
Uzumaki Mito thought for a moment. "Once Yuto falls asleep, why don't we ask him? After all, he's the first person to notice something was wrong with Yuto."
By then, Hyuga Hoshishaku's story had reached the Slanting Moon and Three Stars Cave.
Senju Hashirama glanced at the clock in the Hokage Office, and surprise gradually spread across his face.
Seeing her husband's reaction, Uzumaki Mito realized what was happening too and fixed her gaze on the water mirror.
Hoshishaku told how "the little stone monkey had struggled to reach the Slanting Moon and Three Stars Cave to ask for a master, only to be rejected again and again. After a long wait, his sincerity finally moved the patriarch."
Then he continued: "Afterward, he was given the name Sun Wukong, meaning he had been born from a stone and would one day command the power to overturn rivers and seas."
Next came: "Sun Wukong didn't start learning magical skills right away. He began with the basics: words and speech, how to conduct himself, and the difference between right and wrong."
Finally, more than an hour later, the story reached "learning the Seventy-Two Transformations and the Somersault Cloud in the middle of the night."
Only then did Uzumaki Mito cry out, "Yuto's collapse has been delayed by nearly two hours today!"
As she spoke, tears streamed down her face. She didn't break into quiet sobs until her husband wrapped his arms around her.
The Hokage Office fell eerily silent. All that could be heard was Uzumaki Mito crying and Hyuga Hoshishaku telling the story through the water mirror.
In the image, Senju Yuto's eyes shone brightly.
He seemed to have become the monkey himself, experiencing the fantastic adventures firsthand.
When he heard that Sun Wukong had been driven out of his master's school, his emotions surged. His eyes rolled back, and he fainted!
Hoshishaku's voice rose three octaves as it came through the water mirror. "Oh no! Yuto, what's wrong?!"
Senju Tobirama dispelled the water mirror and vanished from the spot.
Senju Hashirama comforted his wife. "It's all right. Yuto will be fine. Now that we've found the problem, Tobirama will be able to cure him."
Over in the Senju Clan Grounds, Yuto had only just fainted when Senju Tobirama came in, picked him up, and carried him to the bedroom.
Hyuga Hoshishaku followed anxiously. Only after seeing Yuto settled in did he turn to Master Tobirama and ask, "What happened to him? Why did he faint? Shouldn't we take him to Konoha Hospital?"
Senju Tobirama closed the door and sighed. "It's an old problem. He can only stay awake for a few hours a day, and that time keeps getting shorter."
After answering, he looked down at the worried child and said:
"Come with me. I need you to help me with something."
Hoshishaku followed his master into the room they had just left, and they began discussing Senju Yuto.
"I heard you can sense other people's chakra, vitality, and spiritual power?"
Senju Tobirama got straight to the point.
Hoshishaku nodded. "Yes, I can sense them."
Seeing no sign that he was lying, Senju Tobirama carefully asked Hoshishaku about his nephew's vitality and spiritual power, then fell into thought.
"What is spiritual power?"
He murmured unconsciously.
Hoshishaku joined in, offering his own guess.
After all, this was related to the mission he'd been entrusted with. There was no need for him to pretend to be an innocent, clueless child.
"Could it be related to Yin Release Chakra?"
He suddenly spoke up.
"Think about it carefully. The Yamanaka Clan's Mind Body Switch Technique uses Yin Release Chakra, and the Sharingan of the Uchiha Clan too. I suspect they rely on mental stimulation of Yin Release Chakra to awaken the eyes."
"So I think spiritual power might be related to Yin Release Chakra."
Senju Tobirama stared intently at Hyuga Hoshishaku.
He tapped the tabletop with his fingertips, thought it over, then asked, "So you think Yuto's spiritual power is too low, and he needs to increase it?"
Hoshishaku answered seriously, "I can't be sure, of course. I don't know enough. I can't even guarantee that such low spiritual power doesn't mean there's a problem with his soul."
"But I can say this with confidence: if spiritual power could be measured in taels, then every ordinary person I've met would have a hundred taels. Only very elderly people would drop to around eighty-five. You and Lady Mito have an astonishing several hundred taels of spiritual power, but Yuto is the sole exception, with only forty. It's unbelievable."
"His vitality is hundreds of times greater than his spiritual power. I think there's a high probability that this is where the problem lies."
Before you continue