Hinata Takes the Initiative

Just like Neji, Hinata spent the entire journey pondering the matter of Takasaki.

Even after arriving at the Training Room with Neji and changing into her training gear in the locker room, her mind remained fixed on Takasaki's earlier behavior.

"Since Takasaki has already mastered the Three Body Technique, why did he need to borrow my class notes?"

"Why go out of his way to come to our estate and ask me to teach him the Three Body Technique?"

Even up to the moment before she began sparring with Neji, Hinata had not managed to make sense of these two questions.

Right, Takasaki had written in his diary... that he liked her.

As if suddenly struck by a thought, Hinata's cheeks flushed a deep red. She was so shy that even upon entering the Training Room, she kept her head bowed, as if terrified that others might see her bashful expression.

Takasaki must like her; otherwise, he wouldn't have written in his diary that he hoped to marry her one day.

Just thinking about this made Hinata feel inexplicably happy.

However, the moment she remembered that Takasaki also wanted to marry other girls, she felt strange.

She even felt a bit annoyed.

Takasaki's affection for girls was clearly not very exclusive.

It was truly infuriating.

If she weren't afraid that Takasaki might write something unpleasant about her in his diary, she would have loved to give him a good beating just for his playboy thoughts.

Meanwhile.

Standing ten paces away, preparing to spar with Hinata, Neji saw her go from looking bashful to wearing an expression of irritation. He couldn't help but ask in confusion, "Hinata, this is sparring time. Stop letting your mind wander to trivial matters! Please focus. Treat me as your enemy and do not hold back; I can handle all of your attacks."

"Right!"

Hinata looked up, locked her gaze onto Neji, and raised her hands into a stance.

Whenever she thought about the philandering recorded in Takasaki's diary, she couldn't help but feel angry.

She decided to simply imagine Neji as Takasaki.

It was the perfect opportunity to test how much her strength had improved after the diary increased her chakra reserves by 10%.

Hinata closed her eyes, formed a few hand seals, and then snapped her eyes open.

"Byakugan!"

The flow of blood within Hinata's body accelerated sharply, especially around her eyes, where the rapid circulation caused the veins around her sockets to bulge visibly.

With the Byakugan activated, Hinata bent her knees and extended her arms into a starting position.

Imagining Neji as that philandering Takasaki filled her with high spirits.

She extended one arm toward Neji with her palm facing forward in an offensive stance, while her other hand hovered before her chest in a defensive posture. "Brother Neji, let's decide this!"

Hiashi Hyuga appeared at the entrance of the reception hall, watching Hinata and Neji spar.

To be precise, he was watching Hinata.

His expression was somewhat somber.

Under normal circumstances, Hiashi would be working at this hour, handling various clan affairs, and would not specifically come to observe his daughter's training.

The issue was that he had received a report from a clansman stating that Hinata had brought a classmate named Takasaki to the reception hall, treating him to a barbecue and personally teaching him.

This had delayed her sparring session with Neji, leading Neji to fly into a rage and drive Takasaki out of the Hyuga Estate.

Upon learning of this, he felt that Neji had acted correctly.

It wasn't that he forbade Hinata from bringing classmates home; it was simply that this particular classmate was utterly mediocre.

Without parents or a family background, he was destined for a life of insignificance.

It wasn't that Hiashi looked down on children from poor backgrounds.

If one's background was poor, one should strive all the harder to forge a path, for only one could truly help oneself.

But what about Takasaki?

He was lazy in his studies, seemingly unable to move past the pain of his parents' passing, and had become the "tail-end" of his class.

Given that, why should Hinata associate with him?

Especially when he learned that the content Hinata was teaching Takasaki was the Three Body Technique, Hiashi felt it was a complete waste of time.

Next Monday was the Ninja Academy's final exam. Takasaki hadn't studied properly, and now he was trying to cram by asking his daughter to teach him the Three Body Technique?

Had he known about this before Neji, he would have done exactly the same thing and kicked Takasaki out!

To prevent such things from happening again, he felt it was necessary to provide Hinata with some ideological guidance.

He had come this time to have a serious talk with her, to make her realize that her status was different from most of her classmates.

They were simply not in the same social stratum.

After graduating from the Ninja Academy, there was no need to maintain contact with classmates who couldn't match her status—unless they possessed truly astonishing talent—especially that boy named Takasaki.

His primary goal was to correct Hinata's way of thinking.

If one's mindset is not right, no amount of sparring will lead to improvement.

Just as Hiashi Hyuga was about to call out and interrupt the sparring between Hinata and Neji, Hinata had already made her move.

She stomped her feet hard against the ground, took a step forward, and rushed rapidly toward Neji.

Hinata is actually taking the initiative in today's sparring? Neji hadn't noticed the clan head's arrival; his attention was entirely focused on Hinata, and he felt quite surprised.

Given Hinata's usual timid nature, she had never dared to attack first during their sparring sessions.

But it didn't matter.

With his strength, defeating Hinata was as easy as turning over his hand.

Just like now, facing the palm strike Hinata sent toward his face, Neji had no intention of dodging; he merely raised his hand instinctively, gathering hidden force to meet the strike.

He would first neutralize the force of Hinata's palm, then counterattack, and end the fight within a minute, just as he always did when sparring with her.

But the next second.

Bang!

A numbing sensation traveled from his palm throughout his entire arm.

Neji felt a fierce force follow Hinata's palm, slamming ruthlessly into his body.

It was truly caught off guard.

Neji didn't have time to launch another move; the flow of chakra within his body was disrupted, and he staggered back seven or eight steps before finally steadying himself, preventing a fall.

"How is this possible!"

Neji raised his hand to look at his palm; it was flushed bright red.

He had to mobilize his chakra in time to stop the numbing sensation from spreading up his arm.

Neji's eyes were filled with shock: I didn't manage to block Hinata's palm? Have I become weaker?

The next second, he realized something.

Neji looked up abruptly, staring at Hinata, his expression becoming unprecedentedly serious: "It's not that I've become weaker, but rather, Hinata has become stronger!"

At the entrance of the Training Room.

Hiashi Hyuga, who had been about to speak up to interrupt the sparring, was stunned by this scene and immediately swallowed his words.

Hinata was actually able to knock Neji back seven or eight steps with a single palm strike?

Such a situation, let alone Neji, was something even he, as the head of the Hyuga clan, found incredible.

He understood how brilliant Neji's talent was, and he also understood how vast the gap between Hinata and Neji had been.

In the past, such a thing would have been absolutely impossible.

In other words, his daughter had become stronger?

Hiashi Hyuga patiently continued to watch Hinata.

Originally, he had only intended to instruct Hinata not to associate with a dead-last like Takasaki in the future, but now he felt that, besides that, it was also necessary to ask Hinata how she had managed to become so much stronger in such a short period of time.

At this moment, Takasaki had already returned home.

Once his chakra was fully restored, he continued to grind his ninjutsu proficiency until his chakra was completely exhausted.

He opened his Control Panel to check his current ninjutsu proficiency.

[Level 3 Clone Technique Proficiency: 0/500]

[Level 1 Substitution Technique Proficiency: 2/100]

[Level 1 Transformation Technique Proficiency: 2/100]

"The proficiency for the Clone Technique has finally reached Level 3."

Takasaki formed hand seals with one hand, and four white puffs of smoke appeared around him.

As the smoke cleared, four clones identical to him appeared.

This far exceeded the requirements for the Clone Technique assessment at the Ninja Academy.

Takasaki was currently focusing his training on the proficiency of the Clone Technique.

He actually wanted to raise the proficiency of the other two ninjutsu as well, but the key was that his chakra volume wasn't enough.

He could only focus on improving one at a time.

Moreover, only when the Clone Technique reached Level 3 could he unlock the writing permissions for the next diary entry.

Overall, Takasaki felt that his rate of grinding ninjutsu was still a bit slow.

The main issue was his low total chakra volume and the high chakra consumption of the ninjutsu.

Even with Hinata's guidance, Takasaki's chakra consumption for these three ninjutsu had already been reduced by a third.

The problem was that if his total chakra volume didn't increase, the speed of grinding ninjutsu levels would remain slow.

How could he increase his total chakra volume?

The normal method for a ninja was to train diligently, day after day, year after year.

His current total chakra capacity was 20 points; if he trained hard for ten years, the accumulation might allow his total chakra to double.

However, Takasaki clearly had no intention of using the normal ninja method.

Why wouldn't he use a cheat if he had one?

He had specifically sought out Hinata today, not just to have her teach him how to improve his chakra efficiency with the Three Body Technique, but also to gather material for his diary entries.

With a flick of his mind, Takasaki opened the diary and tried to scribble a few strokes on the page.

Only after discovering that the diary permissions were unlocked did he feel at ease enough to write his second entry.