Single-Handed Seals

Hyuga Seisen unfolded the paper, and several bold words leaped into his eyes.

Medical Expense Statement!

Below was a small note: Please settle the expenses for this treatment before your next treatment.

Because of the nature of being ninja, many of them had no family.

Therefore, hospitals here had always treated patients first and waited for them to wake up before collecting payment.

The advantage was that it gave patients short on funds enough time to gather their treatment fees.

As for skipping out on the bill, it was relatively rare. After all, once someone owed money, the hospital could simply refuse to treat them next time.

Other than those with no hope left, most people would not choose to skip payment.

Below that were the surgery fee, sterilization fee, healing ninjutsu usage fee... and various other detailed charges.

The long list of dazzling items made his eyelids twitch.

He quickly scanned down to the total at the very bottom.

"E-eighty thousand ryo?!"

His eyes widened as though he had seen something even more terrifying than that burly man.

He had risked his life to kill three enemies, yet all the spoils he had scavenged only came to around fifty thousand ryo!

One medical visit had wiped it all out and cost him another thirty thousand ryo on top of that.

He suddenly felt a little dizzy.

Noticing that her grandson seemed unable to stand steadily, Grandma worriedly pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.

Feeling that it was cold and sweaty, she immediately asked with concern, "Seisen, are you still feeling unwell?"

"No, I'm fine, Grandma." Hyuga Seisen waved his hand.

"How do you feel? If you're uncomfortable, let's go back and have the doctor examine you."

As she spoke, the old woman tried to pull her grandson back toward the ward.

Hyuga Seisen was startled and hurriedly grabbed her.

"No need, Grandma. Let's go home. I'm hungry."

The moment Grandma heard that her grandson was hungry, she stopped dwelling on it and smiled.

"Then let's go home. Look at you, you've gotten thinner after going out. Grandma will make you a whole table of your favorite dishes."

"Thank you, Grandma!"

As soon as they returned home, Grandma rushed into the kitchen and began bustling about with a clatter.

Even Hyuga Seisen, who wanted to go in and help, was chased back out.

He was somewhat helpless, but it was a good opportunity to sort through his earlier gains.

He had been too busy trying to stay alive before. Even though a great deal of knowledge and information had entered his mind, he had not had time to process it.

He closed his eyes and let his consciousness enter his mindscape.

A string of messages popped up one after another.

[Defeating the strong while weak, triumphing through wisdom, punishing evil and eliminating wickedness—you have received a blessing.]

[Energy Crystals ×320]

[Water Style: Water Formation Wall (Proficient) ×1]

[Throwing Technique Experience ×1]

[Your Ninja Tool Throwing Technique has advanced to Expert level.]

[Kunai Combat Technique (Proficient) ×1]

He opened his personal panel.

Race Imprint: Quincy (Ordinary, Current Fusion Rate: 20.02%)

Talent Skill: Spirit Particle Gathering

Racial Skill: Sacred Arrow

Emblem: Innate Full Soul Power

Bloodline Limit: Byakugan

Chakra Attributes: Water, Lightning

Energy Crystals: 320

His gains were substantial!

Not only had he obtained Water Formation Wall, he had also gained an additional 320 Energy Crystals.

This time, he did not add them little by little. He dumped all 320 Energy Crystals into his fusion rate at once.

Since he had decided to prioritize increasing his fusion rate, there was no need to hesitate anymore.

As he continuously pressed the "+" after the fusion rate,

320 Energy Crystals brought Hyuga Seisen an additional 16% progress.

His Quincy fusion rate had risen to 36.02%.

In an instant, he felt his control over Quincy abilities strengthen once more.

Hmm...

More accurately, it had recovered.

It felt like he had originally possessed this level of strength but had been unable to use it for some reason. Now, part of it had returned.

It was like his best friend from his previous life, who normally had an hour's worth of combat power.

Then one day, after doing squats, deadlifts... and the like,

his testosterone would be diverted toward building muscle, and he might temporarily stand on the same level as the Barbarian King.

Of course, only temporarily!

He then shifted his attention to his chakra control.

His chakra control had also improved considerably.

Excited, he ran to the backyard to test the ninjutsu he had just acquired.

His hands rapidly formed seals according to the sequence in his memories.

"Water Style: Water Formation Wall!"

Water was drawn from the water vat beside him, and a curtain of water appeared on the ground, its water spinning at high speed.

He had really done it!

Across both his lives, neither his original body nor his previous self had ever used ninjutsu.

That made him extremely excited.

Like a child, he cast it several more times.

But in order to conserve chakra,

he controlled the amount of chakra he output, keeping the water curtain only knee-high.

As he cast it more times, he vaguely felt that—

"Perhaps..."

"Some seals aren't necessary. I can still use the ninjutsu without them."

The Quincy's almost instinctive, precise control over energy

allowed him to perceive every minute change in the flow of chakra within his body with exceptional clarity.

The purpose of forming seals for ninjutsu was to guide chakra along predetermined pathways, thereby releasing the corresponding ninjutsu.

But hand seals themselves were merely an auxiliary method developed by Indra for people who could not cast ninjutsu.

Indra himself did not form seals when casting ninjutsu.

That meant ninjutsu itself could be cast without hand seals.

"Then if I set aside hand seal guidance and directly control the chakra to flow, would that work too?"

Hyuga Seisen immediately began trying.

Using the Quincy's exceptional chakra control, he directly guided the chakra through his body along the fixed pathways of the ninjutsu.

For a ninjutsu like Water Formation Wall, the four seals each represented a route and also one stage.

Guidance—formation—pressurization—release.

Under Hyuga Seisen's control, water from the vat beside him was drawn out and slowly formed into a water wall on the ground.

When he tried to make it spin, the water wall collapsed.

"The idea is right, but my control still isn't good enough!"

His control had improved, but it was not enough to support casting ninjutsu without seals.

Even if he used hand seals to assist with the final two steps and reduced the original four seals to two,

it had little practical use in battle because the first two stages were too slow.

He suddenly came to an understanding.

Those jonin possessed such powerful chakra control that they might well be able to cast without seals. At the very least, low-level ninjutsu should not be a problem.

But in actual combat, whether simplifying or reducing seals, they would still form some hand seals.

That was because hand seals could greatly accelerate the speed at which chakra was guided through its pathways.

Conversely, they formed seals quickly not because their hands were fast, but because their chakra control was strong.

Otherwise, if they only had fast hands but the first stage of chakra control had not yet been completed,

while the seal in their hands was already assisting the chakra flow of the next stage, the ninjutsu would definitely fail.

Having figured this out, Hyuga Seisen gave up on the B-rank Water Formation Wall and switched to the two C-rank ninjutsu he currently knew.

He spent the entire afternoon experimenting.

The result was that he could cast C-rank ninjutsu with a single seal, but the casting speed was too slow to be very useful in battle.

However, while he could not reduce the number of seals, he could form seals with one hand.

Though it was not as fast as forming seals with both hands, it had great practical value in battle.

Especially Water Clone Technique.

Using one hand for Kunai Combat Technique while forming seals one-handed with the other was simply far too useful.