Special Training Ends

After dinner, the three teachers each cast genjutsu on the children, letting them experience the sensations within the illusions. Then Uchiha Zepha cast a group genjutsu on them. Only when the three kids were nearly played to death did the day's training finally come to an end.

Early the next morning, Uchiha Saka taught them again. The content was much the same as yesterday's, except there were fewer Shadow Clones and more emphasis on chakra control. After yesterday's training, the ninjutsu lesson went quite well today. The teacher taught happily, and the students practiced happily.

After lunch came swordsmanship training. They first continued their basic exercises for a while, then were told to leave behind clones while their real bodies went with Uchiha Zepha to practice traps and mechanisms. "Today, you only need to take notes. After this week, I won't have much free time to teach you. Write down the key points. I'll guide you whenever I have time, and you must also supervise one another diligently. You may spar appropriately to hone your skills. A master of the blade must have sufficient wrist strength and flexible wrists. The strength in your wrists must be enough to fully control the blade in your hand, but that alone is not enough. You must also possess explosive force in the instant of a snap, shake, or jolt, and you must be able to sustain that shaking continuously. Being able to jolt it only once is far from enough. Your wrists must be nimble and relaxed, yet resilient as well.

"The body's stance when using a blade hinges on the waist and hips, connecting downward to the feet and supporting the body above. Its movement is not merely the movement of the upper body, but the coordinated movement of the entire body as one. Otherwise, you become duckweed without roots—unsteady and powerless. Though you move, you will not move with agility. The movements of the body stance are: drawing, contracting, swaying, springing, advancing, retreating, sidestepping, evading, and spinning.

"Blade footwork must become one with the whole body and blade techniques; this also involves coordinated posture. Becoming one with the blade means integrating body, hands, footwork, and blade into a single whole, moving with exceptional agility. It is neither the person controlling the blade nor the blade leading the person. Rather, neither controls the other; it is instinctive and natural. Footwork must be able to move fast and slow, start suddenly and stop abruptly, shift unpredictably, and stomp or charge.

"The power of the blade is the power of the whole body. Wrist and arm strength alone are far from enough. Body strength, leg strength, footwork strength, groin strength, and hip strength must be integrated as one, and only by borrowing the momentum of movement can they become blade power. At that point, the blade's power is fierce, savage, sharp, and heavy, but it lacks agile force. Agile force is not the force of killing moves, but a kind of quick, living force. The transitions between killing moves, the connection between a killing move being unleashed and not yet unleashed, the activation of footwork and body stance while the blade stance gathers power—all of these require agile force.

"The instinct and reaction of the blade should be 'act without thinking, strike without thinking.' Reaching a state where movements become instinct depends on proficiency gained through daily practice and the rapid response of the nervous system. Reaction is the manifestation of the nervous system's swift and sensitive stress response. Therefore, you must strive to move in an instant, training every part of your body to act in perfect unity.

"Uchiha-style Swordsmanship has been passed down for a long time. Sword-Leaping Flame, Sun Halo Dance, Gale Sword, Flash Cutter, and others are all Uchiha-style Swordsmanship. Combined with the Body Flicker Technique, they can unleash incredibly fast slashes that are impossible to guard against, with the power to kill in a single strike. That's enough notes for today. Get up and continue your basic practice. I'll keep an eye out and correct your mistakes."

Walking ahead, Uchiha Zepha said to his disciples, "Today, I'll lead the way. I'll tell you where the traps are, which ones are decoy traps, where the true killing move lies, why they are arranged this way, and how many ways there are to break them. Starting tomorrow, two of you will set traps while one breaks them. At night, we'll continue training with genjutsu. Depending on how well you absorb it, I'll consider teaching you a hidden trump-card combination genjutsu. Hurry up and keep up."

Time flew by, and seven days passed in the blink of an eye. The three achieved remarkable results. In ninjutsu, they learned "Earth Release: Underworld Swamp" and "Earth Release: Rock-Stealing Staff." Their coordination between Fire Release and Wind Release ninjutsu also became increasingly seamless. Any two of them could casually perform combination ninjutsu, each fulfilling his own role with perfect coordination. They could even use the three-man Fire-Wind combination technique, "Fire Release: Great Flame Technique" and "Fire Release: Flame Tornado." In swordsmanship, they could all independently practice the basics and put together a few small combos according to their own preferences. They were still very immature, but they had already set foot on the path forward. When it came to setting and discovering traps, Uchiha Retsu displayed talent far beyond the other two. The other two performed ordinarily, but the situation was exactly reversed with genjutsu. Uchiha Yo was better at casting genjutsu, while Uchiha En was better at detecting and breaking it. Uchiha Retsu, meanwhile, could only be described as terrible. Either he discovered genjutsu but could not break it, or the genjutsu he cast lacked realism and was easily detected and broken. He was probably an Uchiha with virtually no talent for genjutsu even after awakening his eyes.

The three knelt and bowed deeply before the three teachers. They could never repay the grace of being taught, not even in a lifetime. The three masters gladly accepted their disciples' formal bows, offered a few final instructions, then used the Body Flicker Technique to leave. Hoisting their packs onto their backs, the companions set out on the road home. This training would take them a long time to digest. In their hearts, the three silently swore that they would make their masters look at them in a new light.