Aftermath of Evolution Hides a Second Reward

"The recovery rate is off."

Chiba pressed his palm beneath the desk. The Bone Wood Vine emerged barely half an inch before stopping. Its pale inner framework had already formed, yet the chakra consumption was ten percent lower than he had estimated last night.

Naruto leaned over from beside him, nearly smacking his forehead against the corner of the desk.

"What are you trying now? Iruka-sensei said you can't train today."

"Reading."

"You don't even have a book in your hands."

"That's why I told you not to look."

Naruto reached beneath the desk to grab the budding vine. Chiba closed his fingers, and the Bone Wood Vine withdrew into his sleeve, leaving only a shallow hole beneath the desktop.

"Are you hiding some new Wood Release again? Show me. I promise I won't tell anyone."

"You promised that yesterday too."

"Kiba forced me to say it yesterday."

Kiba turned around from the front row, and Akamaru poked his head out from his collar.

"Who forced you? You shouted so loudly the whole field heard you."

"I was warning everyone that Chiba is poisonous."

"Fake."

Chiba opened his notebook, shutting out their voices behind its pages. Three connected branches had already been drawn on the first page.

Toxins were on the left, Root System Water Absorption occupied the middle, and skeletal reinforcement extended upward from the third node. Beside them were notes on the battle intensity and sample types required for evolution.

Iruka walked over to the desk and tapped the notebook with a finger.

"No researching toxin formulas during class."

"These are Wood Release records."

"Then let me see them."

Chiba closed the notebook.

"They involve a Kekkei Genkai."

Iruka's hand hung in midair before he instead took away the taijutsu exercise sheet at the corner of the desk.

"Fine, I won't look. But today, you can only sit to the side and take notes during training. No matter who asks you to join, you are not allowed to agree."

Sasuke looked over from the other side.

"I won't challenge you while you're weakened."

"You can't beat me as I am now."

"Want to test that?"

"Iruka-sensei hasn't left yet."

Iruka took two steps back and tucked the grade board under his arm.

"You're not allowed to test it even after I leave. Sasuke, lead the first group in practicing the Substitution Technique. Chiba, record the number of mistakes."

Sasuke picked up his ninja tool pouch and left a sentence behind as he passed the desk.

"Once you recover."

"Get in line."

The students gradually headed toward the training field. Shikamaru lingered at the back, glancing at the notebook Chiba had pressed against the desk.

"You've counted the time seven times since this morning."

"Six."

"That was the seventh."

Chiba turned to the last page and recorded the formation time of the Bone Wood Vine.

"The same length took three seconds yesterday. Today, it takes two and a half."

"Isn't recovering faster a good thing?"

"The system gave a twenty-four-hour weakened period. The deviation shouldn't exceed half an hour."

Shikamaru put a hand behind his head and leaned against the doorframe.

"So you suspect your body did something else while you slept?"

"It suffered a second attack."

When the parasitic Cursed Seal invaded in reverse along the Bone Wood Vine, the cost of evolution had already begun to take effect. That chakra had touched his meridians several times, only to be driven back by his skeletal framework and toxins.

Chiba had initially considered it nothing more than trouble left behind by Bai Ye. But looking at the recovery records now, the timelines overlapped perfectly.

[Detected a record of a high-risk attack during the evolution weakened period.]

[The host survived the invasion of unknown parasitic chakra.]

[Hidden adaptation conditions have been met.]

Shikamaru could not see the system panel. He only saw Chiba's pen pause on the paper for a moment.

"Something new appeared again?"

"Surviving an attack during the weakened period permanently increases the Sage Body's recovery speed by five percent."

"Sounds pretty worthwhile."

"Provided you survive."

"You're not planning to find someone specifically to beat you up, are you?"

"No."

Just as Shikamaru was about to leave, Chiba added a line of tiny writing after the five percent.

"Only the attack intensity needs to be controlled."

"I knew it."

Naruto's shout came from the training field, followed by Iruka ordering him to dispel the Shadow Clone Technique. Shikamaru rubbed his ears and left the classroom first.

Chiba looked alone at the World Tree panel. New branches had split from above the skeletal reinforcement node into two paths.

[Next evolution condition one: Defeat a target at quasi-jonin level.]

[Next evolution condition two: Obtain living cells containing special elemental chakra.]

[Once either condition is met, the fourth evolution preview may be activated.]

There were quite a few people within Konoha who possessed special chakra, but making a move against them would draw the Hokage's and every clan's attention to the Senju Clan Grounds. The gains were far lower than the cost.

There were more options outside the village.

The Ninja Academy archives contained wanted notices from the Land of Fire's borders. One bounty hunter had repeatedly attacked merchant caravans over the past two months. He specialized in infusing steel wires with Wind Release chakra, and his mission rating had already approached quasi-jonin level.

His name was Yaqu.

Chiba wrote down the target's range of activity, then listed the border patrol routes and Konoha's procedures for leaving the village beside it.

Before school ended, Iruka returned the training records. Seeing the densely packed numbers on the paper, he flipped through two pages with his fingers.

"Are you recording your classmates' mistakes, or preparing to assassinate someone?"

"Both."

"Chiba, schoolwork doesn't require you to write out escape routes."

"You need routes to come back alive."

Iruka returned the notebook. When he saw the wanted target on the final page, his expression darkened as well.

"Yaqu has killed three chunin. You are not allowed to go looking for him."

"I'm only analyzing."

"When you analyzed Neji, you also said you had only prepared poison powder."

"So I won."

"This isn't about winning or losing. Your chakra hasn't even fully recovered yet."

Chiba put away his notebook, his gaze falling on Iruka's sleeve. A small patch of dust clung there, dust that did not belong to the school storage rooms and carried traces of unfamiliar chakra.

"Where did you go today?"

"I inspected Storage Room Seven this morning. Why?"

"Someone went in."

"The teachers on duty go in every day."

"I mean a ninja."

Iruka lowered his head to glance at his sleeve and brushed the dust into his palm.

"The storeroom lock wasn't damaged, and the number of ninja tools matches."

"Don't go home alone lately."

"You should worry about yourself first."

"I'm recovering faster than planned."

"Still no."

Chiba picked up his bag and walked to the door, but Iruka pulled the page with the wanted target out of his notebook.

"I'm confiscating this. Think about bounty hunters after you graduate."

"Remember to return it."

"After you stop planning to test hidden mechanisms with your own body."

Chiba did not slow down. Roots had already burrowed from beneath his shoes into the training field's soil, spreading outward along the direction Iruka had left.

Five percent was not worth trading his teacher's life for, but the chakra in that patch of dust had clearly chosen someone's next crisis for him.