Madara sat leisurely on a stone stool, his right hand lightly holding a steaming cup of tea. His calm gaze rested on Qile, who was a short distance away, struggling to swing his sword.
Qile gripped the hilt with both hands. Every swing seemed to take all the strength he had, and sweat streamed down his forehead, soaking his clothes.
When Qile struggled through his two-hundredth swing, Madara finally nodded slightly and said, "All right. From now on, two hundred swings a day will be enough. Rest for a bit, then practice Hand Seals. And remember, train before meals."
Hearing Madara's words, Qile let out a long breath. Then he collapsed onto the ground like a deflated ball, sitting down heavily. This time, he didn't try to tough it out. He really didn't want to pass out again.
He didn't care about appearances. He quickly wiped the bead-sized drops of sweat from his forehead and panted heavily.
Just then, a figure quickly approached Qile like a gentle breeze. It was Yeling, holding out a towel to him.
Qile gave Yeling a grateful glance, took the towel, and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. Once he was done, Yeling took a piece of paper from her clothes.
"This is Chakra Induction Paper. You can use it to test your chakra nature. Just channel your chakra into it," Madara explained.
Curious, Qile took the ordinary-looking paper and examined it closely. But no matter how he turned it around, he couldn't find anything special about it.
So Qile didn't hesitate. He took a deep breath, focused, and slowly poured his chakra into the seemingly unremarkable test paper.
The very next moment, the paper in his hand suddenly split down the middle without warning.
The crack was tiny at first, but in the blink of an eye it rapidly widened, as though some invisible force were tearing the paper apart.
Then the whole sheet began to wrinkle. Its once smooth, flat surface looked as if it had been squeezed hard, turning uneven and misshapen.
Finally, the paper burst into flames!
At the sight, Madara gently set down his teacup and explained, "It looks like you have three different chakra natures: lightning, fire, and wind." He paused slightly, seeming somewhat surprised by the result.
Among the Uchiha Clan, those who successfully learned to use chakra were most likely to have a fire nature, with lightning as the next most common. Wind, by contrast, was quite rare.
"Besides that, you should know that in addition to the chakra natures you were born with, you can also learn and master other chakra natures through training. But what you learn later will never be as compatible with you as what you're born with..."
Madara paused briefly, then glanced at Qile, who was still staring blankly at the burning paper, and continued:
"These are things you can think about later. For now, the most important thing is to decide on a path for your training. I suggest either fire as your main focus or lightning. What do you think?"
Snapping out of it, Qile quickly looked away from the paper, which had burned down to ash, and turned to Madara. After hesitating for a moment, he cautiously asked, "Um... can I focus on both fire and lightning?"
"You can, but you'll have to spend twice as much time training as usual, perhaps even several times more," Madara replied with a slight nod, agreeing but making sure to warn him.
At that, Qile simply nodded and said nothing.
What he was really thinking was that, with a master of Fire Release like Madara around, learning Fire Release was a must.
But he couldn't bear to give up Chidori and the related techniques, either, so he might as well train in both.
"All right, let's practice Hand Seals. You should know that unlike standing exercises or sword swings, Hand Seals must be performed correctly," Madara said. He then picked up the long, thin whip from beside him and gently laid it on the table.
At the sight, Qile's eyes widened. His gaze shifted from the whip on the table to Madara, who was leisurely sipping his tea. After a long while, he finally stammered, "Um... could you show me the correct way? To be honest, I don't know all the Hand Seal positions..."
Madara seemed to have expected Qile's request. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly as he turned to Yeling, who had been standing quietly to one side, and called out, "Yeling!"
"Huh? Yeling, you know Hand Seals too? Does that mean you're a ninja?" Qile cried out in surprise, his voice full of disbelief.
He stared at Yeling, unable to believe it.
A ninja working as a maid? He couldn't understand it...
The huge contrast was difficult for him to accept. He had always thought Yeling was just an ordinary girl.
Faced with Qile's astonishment, Yeling only smiled faintly and bowed slightly. Then she stood quietly beside him and began demonstrating the Hand Seals.
Qile took a deep breath, steadied himself, and tried to copy Yeling.
For a beginner, copying the motions wasn't hard. The hard part was that after only a few repetitions, his hands would start cramping, and his seals would become sloppy.
That was when a black-snake-like whip would flash through the air, followed by a searing pain across his back—he'd been whipped again.
Though the sudden punishment made Qile grimace in pain, he knew it was part of the learning process.
Fortunately, Qile had a pretty good memory to begin with.
After Madara's strict whip-based instruction, it didn't take him long to clearly memorize all the correct Hand Seal positions.
All that remained was to practice day after day until the movements became more fluent and natural.
Madara, who had been watching all along, saw that Qile had mastered the correct Hand Seals and nodded in satisfaction.
He slowly set down his teacup and stood up. "All right, that's enough for today. Take him to the medicinal bath." Before he'd even finished speaking, Madara was already turning to leave, leaving Qile and Yeling behind.
"Hey, hey, Madara, wait—ah! Don't hit me, don't hit me! I was wrong, I was wrong! Clan leader!!!" Seeing Madara about to leave, Qile blurted out the wrong thing in his haste.
But all his shout earned him was two merciless lashes across his poor butt.
Qile grimaced in pain and clutched his backside, hopping around and baring his teeth. It clearly hurt a lot.
Madara turned around, his expression blank, and silently stared at Qile, waiting to see what he would do next.
Seeing this, Qile ignored the burning pain in his backside and plastered on a fawning smile. Bowing and scraping, he said, "Heh heh... Clan leader, could you give me a little spending money? Not much, just a tiny bit..." As he spoke, he held up his right index finger and thumb, leaving only the tiniest gap between them to show how little he needed.
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