Laying a Solid Foundation

Back in the woods, Riyue began another round of training. Next came practice throwing weapons.

Riyue thought weapon-throwing practice was important. After all, weapons were useful for ambushes, distractions, restricting an enemy's movements, and testing their strength. Suppose an enemy threw more than a dozen shuriken at you all at once. If you couldn't dodge, you'd have to expend a huge amount of chakra on one [Eight Trigrams Palms: Heavenly Spin]. But with excellent throwing skills, you could block the enemy's attack with the same number—or even fewer—of your own shuriken, saving a great deal of chakra.

Riyue didn't know the Uchiha Clan's trick of making shuriken collide in midair a second time and change direction. He could only start with the basics. First, he practiced hitting a single target. Once he could hit it reliably, he increased the number to three, then six, nine, and finally twelve. In Riyue's view, twelve was the maximum number of enemies who could surround someone and attack without getting in one another's way.

He then moved from throwing one weapon at a time to launching two kunai simultaneously, gradually working his way up to twelve. At last, he set up twelve targets at different heights around himself and managed to hit them all at once with a single throw of twelve kunai. Riyue followed this plan and practiced step by step. Finally, he replaced nine of the targets with moving ones to make the exercise more like real combat.

But what about enemies hiding in blind spots? Riyue pinned his hopes on shuriken. After all, a shuriken could spin through the air and follow a curved path. Once he'd mastered the basics, he began practicing all kinds of curved throws. Drawing on his understanding of fluid dynamics, he made his shuriken fly in increasingly tricky and unpredictable ways: S-shaped, J-shaped, C-shaped, spiraling, falling-leaf patterns, and more. Riyue couldn't help marveling that he'd learned these ideas from the God of Gamblers' legendary card-throwing tricks. Even the God of Gamblers himself probably wasn't as good at throwing shuriken.

The Three Basic Techniques were also crucial. They were the foundation of ninjutsu.

[Substitution Technique] was an excellent way to save your life. With an ordinary Substitution Technique, you could instantly switch places with a plant or animal to evade an attack. Master it well, and it could save your life. You needed to be able to use this technique instantly, at any time.

Just imagine: a dense volley of shuriken came flying at you. [Substitution Technique]! The shuriken all stuck into a wooden post. [Front Lotus]! You were about to be tied up in bandages. [Substitution Technique]! The one slammed into the ground was a wooden post. A Great Fireball came flying at you. [Substitution Technique]! You could even use it to find a place to hide. The Substitution Technique was even more effective when used alongside different Clone Techniques. Riyue demanded that he be able to use it in any situation, whether he was in midair, underwater, lying on the ground, or standing on his head. He practiced it in every position.

[Transformation Technique] let you turn into another person or a simple object, making it useful for confusing enemies. In a high-intensity fight, even a little trick could catch an enemy off guard. When people were tense, the simpler the trick, the more likely they were to fall for it. The simpler it was, the less they expected it. Just look at Naruto—he used the Transformation Technique with such flair... Ahem! Don't get the wrong idea! I mean Naruto turning into a shuriken, a kunai, a rock, Akamaru, or Sasuke. Ahem! Don't get the wrong idea...

The [Clone Technique] was useless? A dead-end technique? It was true that its clones were stiff and couldn't attack. They could only perform simple actions under the caster's control, and a single hit made them disappear. The Clone Technique and Shadow Clone Technique were worlds apart. But the Clone Technique was a training technique, like Tree Climbing and Water Walking. It was an excellent way to train a ninja's chakra control.

When using the Clone Technique, the clone and the original had to be as identical as possible so that no one could tell them apart. Use too little chakra, like Naruto, and the clone would collapse on the ground or come out tiny, making it obvious at a glance. Use too much, and you'd waste chakra, while the resulting cloud of smoke would be so large that it wouldn't fool anyone. The Clone Technique was a basic way to train chakra control. That was why the Ninja Academy's Graduation Exam tested it. Because of the interference from the Nine-Tails Chakra and his poor chakra control, Naruto kept failing the Clone Technique, again and again.

So the Clone Technique had to be mastered. Riyue planned to use as little chakra as possible while creating high-quality clones. Since the smoke could help confuse an enemy, he also wanted to control its size at will, without wasting even a bit of chakra. That would take his chakra control to a whole new level.

There are no useless techniques, only people who don't know how to use them properly, Riyue thought, then bent his head and continued practicing the Three Basic Techniques.

Riyue was also constantly exploring different ways to use chakra. For example, he could stick to a tree by channeling chakra into the soles of his feet. He could strengthen his arms by channeling it into them, or jump farther and run faster by channeling it into his legs. That was Ninja Footwork. Coating his body with chakra could also provide a measure of protection. As Riyue experimented, his chakra control improved considerably.

Riyue kept building up chakra, then using it up. He might channel it into his legs and go for a long run, repeatedly use the Three Basic Techniques to expend it, or channel it into his feet and climb trees over and over. In no time, he'd use up all his chakra. Then he'd start refining it again, use it up, and refine it once more.

Meanwhile, Riyue had become invisible within the Hyuga Clan. He was too young to attend the clan's meetings. When it came to regular family gatherings or meetings called by the clan head, he made excuses such as being ill for a long time and stayed away. On the rare occasions he did go, he hid in a corner and kept an extremely low profile.

Neither the old Riyue nor the current one had much affection for the Hyuga Main Family. The Main Family's brainwashing naturally had no effect on him. The ones caring for Riyue were Mizuki and her family, who belonged to the Hyuga Branch Family. Mizuki's parents were ordinary people. They only told Riyue to treat his family well, love his home, and remember that the entire Hyuga Clan was his family.

Mizuki understood the pain in Riyue's heart. She would never tell him that he had to be loyal to the Main Family or that Branch Family members had to be ready to die for them. She didn't even believe that herself. The Branch Family had the Caged Bird seal carved into their foreheads from childhood and were ruthlessly controlled by the Main Family. Did that mean every one of them would serve the Main Family faithfully, like beasts of burden? Of course not! Plenty of Branch Family members disliked the Main Family, and some even hated them. They might not say it aloud, but they certainly felt no affection for them. Mizuki was no different. And she held Riyue's father in great respect, so she would never expect Riyue to devote his life to protecting the Main Family.

Riyue kept an extremely low profile and trained relentlessly every day, working on his physical fitness, weapons, chakra refinement, and the Three Basic Techniques. He ignored the tedium, practicing and repeating each exercise over and over until his body had completely memorized them and they were as easy as moving a finger—something he could do the instant he wanted to.

After several days of hard training, Riyue's chakra reserves slowly increased, and his body gradually grew stronger. With a balanced diet and sensible schedule that he, a doctor, had planned for himself, his body was developing well. His complexion was no longer pale, and he was much healthier and stronger than before.

Next, Riyue began incorporating these exercises into combat. After all, based on his past-life experience, whatever you learned in a lab eventually had to be put into practice in a clinic. It didn't matter how well you knew your work in theory if you couldn't perform it on the operating table. It was the same as being useless. And battles between ninjas were different from operating on a patient: a mistake in surgery could cost the patient their life, while a failed ninjutsu could cost you yours.

Riyue felt that he needed a teacher, someone who could instruct him, spar with him, and pass on more combat experience. But he wasn't in a hurry. Once Mizuki returned, he could ask her for guidance on the Byakugan, the basics of Gentle Fist, and combat experience. For now, he was better off working hard to build a solid foundation.

The days of hard work passed quickly. Before he knew it, two months had gone by. Apart from making a few trips to Mizuki's house for meals and going out a few times to buy necessities, Riyue had spent all his time training. Most Genin probably couldn't manage even half his level of dedication.

Riyue had become very proficient with the Three Basic Techniques. He could attack six targets at once with weapons. His physical fitness had improved considerably, too. Without using chakra, he could do forty push-ups—a remarkable feat for a four-year-old. His chakra reserves had grown as well, and he figured they might now be enough to perform one [Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique].

Riyue was now practicing Tree Climbing. He channeled chakra into the soles of his feet and slowly walked up a tree, all the way to the top. He had already gotten the hang of it. But since he was growing quickly, he had to adjust the amount of chakra in his feet every so often to accommodate his increasing weight. That was also good practice for his chakra control. Riyue planned to try mountain climbing later, ideally while carrying a load. He wanted to be like Jiraiya, who strapped a huge basket of rocks to his back and slowly climbed a mountain using his feet.

He approached Water Walking practice one step at a time. First he practiced in a pond, then in a river, a hot spring, a waterfall, and finally on a still lake. Actually, a still lake was the hardest. Riyue wanted to be able to run across the surface without creating ripples, as if he were running on a mirror. That meant his chakra had to provide enough buoyancy to counter his weight, his steps had to land steadily, and his chakra had to push back against the water a second time to smooth out the ripples caused by his feet. His steps had to be perfectly even, and his chakra control incredibly precise. Leave no trace in the snow; cross the water without a ripple. That was the standard Riyue set for himself.

Feeling his progress, Riyue kept working hard.

"Keep going, Hyuga Nichigetsu! No one in this world will ever bully me!"