New Assessment Standards

Half a day later.

Lin Chuan stood in the center of the room with his eyes closed. Chakra surged throughout his body, accompanied by faint waves of spiritual energy. The next moment, his eyes snapped open. The veins around them bulged, and his Byakugan activated. He then spread his stance and assumed the opening posture of Gentle Fist.

"Sage Art: Gentle Fist!"

At Lin Chuan's low shout, he began darting around the room. Senjutsu Chakra coursed through his palms, its pale purple glow clearly visible as it gave off a distinctive crackling sound.

Lin Chuan moved faster and faster. Every punch he threw stirred a faint sonic boom. As his speed increased, his body seemed to become a blur, filling the entire room, while his fists moved even faster—he could throw more than a dozen punches in the blink of an eye, leaving anyone watching dazzled.

After more than ten minutes, Lin Chuan finally slowed down. He stopped practicing Gentle Fist altogether, then dropped to the floor and panted heavily.

He had expended a great deal of stamina. Sage Mode enhanced his movement and striking speed so much that his frail body struggled to keep up. But the boost Senjutsu Chakra gave to Gentle Fist was just as obvious. If Lin Chuan reached the first layer of the Qi Refining Stage, he would be confident of defeating a cultivator at the sixth layer.

"I've really managed to develop Sage Mode. It just takes time to enter it, and once I'm in, I can't absorb spiritual energy from the outside world. That means I can only use the energy in my own dantian. If I use too much, I'll automatically exit Sage Mode."

"But it's all worth it. Sage Mode gives my jutsu a huge boost. Even though I've only just started practicing it, it can already multiply their power. It might even let me use some jutsu that aren't too difficult at this stage!"

After resting for a while, Lin Chuan slowly got to his feet, then sat cross-legged on the bed and began cultivating spiritual energy.

Gentle Fist was the foundation of the Hyuga Clan's other jutsu, so Lin Chuan had been practicing it every day. While improving his strength, he was also working to develop other unique techniques of the Hyuga Clan, such as Tenketsu, Rotation, and Eight Trigrams Palms.

But those techniques required a great deal of chakra and precise control. For now, Lin Chuan could only develop their basic forms and wait until he met the requirements before practicing them.

Another reason Lin Chuan was so fixated on Gentle Fist was the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack! It was the powerful taijutsu used by Kaguya Otsutsuki, and it was clearly the ultimate form of Gentle Fist. Once Lin Chuan fully awakened his Rinne Sharingan, Gentle Fist could become the Kekkei Mōra technique, the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack. There was no question about its tremendous offensive power.

Naruto described the technique as: "A fist that shakes the heavens with sage power, combining offense and defense, striking without mercy!"

Just thinking about it made Lin Chuan envious.

For the next four days, Lin Chuan trained intensely. Whenever practicing Gentle Fist left him exhausted, he returned to bed to rest and cultivate spiritual energy, while also making time to develop jutsu.

Though he called it developing jutsu, most of the work was really just recalling them. Since he had been a Naruto fan in his previous life, Lin Chuan had even carefully studied the Naruto guidebooks. He knew the Hand Seals and activation requirements for many techniques by heart. Combined with his status as the Progenitor of Chakra, in a certain sense, after consuming the Fruit of the God Tree, he could develop most of the techniques he knew in a short time.

He was especially familiar with frequently used jutsu like Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu and Rasengan.

But all he had done was develop these jutsu; for now, he couldn't actually practice most of them. As for forbidden and secret techniques like Dead Demon Consuming Seal, Flying Thunder God Technique, and Impure World Reincarnation, they were completely out of reach. He could only wait until he grew stronger and see if he could figure them out.

Time flew by. The four days passed in the blink of an eye, and at last, the day of the Lin Clan Assessment arrived.

Early that morning, staff members came to the area and gathered all the disciples who had to take part in the assessment. Lin Chuan took a quick look. There were more than three hundred of them, not counting the members of the Lin Clan's main family.

"There sure seem to be a lot of people in this world!" Lin Chuan muttered, curiously looking around. The more than three hundred candidates had already been divided into groups of three, and Lin Chuan was naturally grouped with Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi.

That was much like the group assignments in Naruto. Even more similar was the fact that most groups consisted of two boys and a girl. It reminded Lin Chuan of the various teams in Naruto, which were almost always made up of two boys and one girl. He had once been so exasperated that he'd thought Kishimoto must have done it to make it easier to write more love triangles!

Seeing Qin Lang and Bu Lianshi in the distance, Lin Chuan walked over. During the past half month, the two had spied on Lin Chuan training more than once. They thought they were being very careful, but under the Byakugan, it had all been pointless. Still, they hadn't meant any harm. It seemed they had only wanted to see whether Lin Chuan was training diligently.

"Lin Chuan, don't worry. We'll definitely pass this time! Since you've been training so hard, I'll make sure to get you through the assessment with us!" Qin Lang said, putting an arm around Lin Chuan's shoulders as if he were looking at his own son, who had finally grown up. A pleased smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Lin Chuan's mouth twitched. We'll see who gets whom through this. But he couldn't be bothered to argue. He wriggled free of Qin Lang's arm and gave Bu Lianshi a broad smile. "Thanks for everything these past few days. If it weren't for you, I'd probably have had to train on an empty stomach!"

"It's no trouble. We're on the same team, after all!" Bu Lianshi replied with a faint smile, her voice as soft as ever.

Lin Chuan smiled and patted Bu Lianshi on the shoulder, thinking that she seemed sweet and easy to win over! But he quickly put that wicked thought out of his mind. After all, she was only eight!

"All right, everyone, listen up! I'm going to explain the rules for this assessment!" A booming voice rang across the grounds, drawing everyone's attention.

"This assessment will be different from the ones held before. The rules for passing have been changed!" The supervisor's announcement immediately stirred an uproar among the crowd.

"Quiet!" The supervisor roared, and the crowd quickly settled down. He continued, "All of you will be heading to Hunting Ground No. 44. There, you'll find Spirit Beasts from the first to the tenth layer of the Qi Refining Stage. Kill one and obtain its Spirit Core. Killing a first-layer Spirit Beast earns ten points; killing one at the second layer earns twenty, and so on! The assessment will end after seven days. The ten groups with the most points will pass. Everyone else will be eliminated!"