Half a month later.
By the river in the forest.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Su Yu said, forming hand seals.
The next moment.
A huge fireball shot out and landed on the water.
It burned until the fireball disappeared.
Su Yu nodded with satisfaction.
Mastery-level Fireball Jutsu was enough.
Over the past half month,
his taijutsu had improved every day.
As for ninjutsu, he had learned all three techniques, and brought each of them to the mastery level.
In other words, he had gained a solid degree of proficiency in them.
Fireball Jutsu, Water Prison Jutsu, and Rasengan.
To be honest, he had been quite surprised when he saw how to train in the Rasengan.
But after thinking about it for a moment, he understood the Third Hokage's intentions.
His parents had served in the Hokage's ANBU, and he had been promoted to ANBU chūnin at such a rapid pace.
Giving him the Rasengan was both compensation and a reward from the Hokage.
Su Yu had spent a week training in the Rasengan.
Fireball Jutsu and Water Prison Jutsu were an offensive technique and a restraining technique, respectively. Neither was particularly difficult to learn.
The hardest techniques to learn were sealing jutsu and medical ninjutsu.
The sealing jutsu had surprised him, too.
Its name was Modified Adamantine Sealing Chains.
The original Adamantine Sealing Chains had been used by the Fourth Hokage's wife, Uzumaki Kushina.
She was a member of the Uzumaki clan and the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki. Her bloodline had been awakened to its fullest, so her chakra went without saying.
Even while gravely injured, she had been able to use the Adamantine Sealing Chains to restrain the Nine-Tails. That showed just how powerful the technique was.
The Modified Adamantine Sealing Chains Su Yu had received were derived from the original technique.
The principle was simple: generate a chakra chain and use it to bind an opponent.
Using the modified technique, Su Yu had worked backward and figured out how to use the original Adamantine Sealing Chains.
It hadn't been all that difficult, mainly because he had Uzumaki blood. The Adamantine Sealing Chains were, after all, a sealing jutsu unique to the Uzumaki clan.
The genuine Adamantine Sealing Chains could let Su Yu seal a tailed beast inside his own body.
His first thought was that there was a wild Three-Tails waiting for him to capture it.
Then he dismissed the idea.
Setting aside the considerable risks, the tailed beasts were the Akatsuki's main target. If he sealed one inside himself, he'd practically be asking to die.
Still, he could use the Adamantine Sealing Chains to seal away a portion of a tailed beast's chakra.
In other words, he could gain some of the Three-Tails' chakra.
As for medical ninjutsu,
neither the Healing Technique nor the Chakra Scalpel was particularly difficult.
The main challenge was controlling chakra with extreme precision.
Su Yu had already learned to control his chakra by walking on water and climbing trees.
After training in the Rasengan as well,
his medical ninjutsu was about as good as his taijutsu.
He had only left the Leaf Style Swordsmanship unpracticed.
After all, this was an era dominated by ninjutsu. It wasn't very realistic to expect swordsmanship to overcome ninjutsu.
Besides, the Byakugan and Sharingan were already enough to keep him out of danger.
For now, his goal was simple: upgrade his Sharingan as quickly as possible.
He had completed ten achievements, earning ten chances to draw abilities. He couldn't afford to miss out.
When Su Yu returned to the village of Konoha,
it was lunchtime.
During his days in the forest, he had brought plenty of food that needed to be cooked. His cooking skills had turned out passable.
As soon as he left the forest,
he headed straight for Ichiraku Ramen.
The moment he stepped inside,
he spotted Kakashi and the others.
Kakashi glanced at Su Yu and noticed the chūnin vest he was wearing. He paused in surprise.
"Jonin Kakashi, it's good to see you." Su Yu bowed respectfully.
"I remember you were a newly graduated genin, just like them, weren't you?" Kakashi asked, puzzled.
"Su Yu, have you already become a chūnin?" Sakura Haruno asked in surprise.
"Su Yu, you're amazing!" Naruto Uzumaki exclaimed, full of admiration.
Only Sasuke Uchiha snorted, looking somewhat disdainful.
"I passed the ANBU chūnin exam," Su Yu answered simply.
Kakashi was startled.
Having served in the ANBU himself, he knew how difficult its exams were. Even the chūnin exam wasn't open to anyone who lacked the necessary ability.
Anyone who was allowed to take the exam and passed it had to be at least an elite chūnin.
With that in mind, he looked at Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno.
"Do you three want to find out how strong an ANBU chūnin really is?"
"Can we?" Naruto's eyes lit up.
"Are the three of us supposed to fight Su Yu?" Sakura felt that would be a little unfair.
Sasuke, however, was eager for a fight.
"Su Yu, I'll buy you lunch. In return, would you test their abilities for me?" Kakashi asked him.
"Sure." Su Yu didn't refuse.
The main cast was still very weak at this point.
He had just learned some ninjutsu, so they were perfect for testing it out.
After a hearty meal,
the group headed to the training ground.
All the way there, Naruto kept asking Su Yu whether the ANBU chūnin exam was difficult, how he could become a chūnin quickly, and how Su Yu had gotten so strong.
Su Yu only said that the ANBU chūnin exam wasn't difficult. As for becoming a chūnin quickly, the answer was simple: work hard and get stronger.
And the way to get stronger was to train in taijutsu, keep training, and steadily increase the difficulty.
In fact, this training method only worked for people with Uzumaki blood.
It could awaken their bloodline to the greatest extent and increase their chakra.
At the training ground,
Su Yu looked at the main cast across from him.
"Don't worry about being outnumbered. I have teammates, too."
After saying that, he formed a hand seal.
Two shadow clones appeared beside him.
"Naruto, Sakura, you two can fight my shadow clones first. I'll see just how strong the Uchiha are." As soon as Su Yu finished speaking, his shadow clones charged forward.
Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno exchanged a glance and moved aside, leaving room for Su Yu and Sasuke Uchiha to fight.
Su Yu looked at Sasuke without saying a word.
Sasuke snorted and charged at him.
His taijutsu was indeed pretty good—at least at the mastery level.
Unfortunately, Su Yu's taijutsu was at the proficiency level.
Su Yu dodged Sasuke's attacks with ease.
That made Sasuke realize the gap between them, and he attacked even more fiercely.
Su Yu dealt with him without a hint of panic.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan.
With the Sharingan's help, he could finally see Su Yu's movements clearly.
Unfortunately, seeing them and being able to land a hit were two different things.
"The Sharingan is strong, all right. But your hands can't keep up with your eyes. Simply put, your taijutsu is terrible," Su Yu said.
"What did you say?" Sasuke snapped angrily.
Su Yu didn't answer. He lightly struck Sasuke with his palm.
Sasuke's body stiffened. He felt the chakra inside him go wild, and pain stabbed through him like needles.
"You can see it, but you can't dodge it. Useless," Su Yu said coolly.
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