Race Against Time

"Rat—Tiger Seal—Dog—Ox—Hare—Tiger Seal, Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"

Qian's hands spun in a blur, like butterflies weaving through flowers, forming six hand seals in succession. Then he drew in a deep breath and spat it out hard.

The next moment, clusters of flame flew from his mouth like balsam seeds, shooting toward seven or eight large trees ahead.

"Sharingan!"

With a thought, Qian activated his Sharingan.

In an instant, his pupils turned bloodred. A pitch-black tomoe surfaced within them, spinning rapidly like a windmill.

With the powerful insight granted by the Sharingan, Qian controlled those flames, sending them crisscrossing toward different trees.

Boom—boom—boom—

A string of explosions rang out.

The flames, after a series of irregular, dazzling arcs, struck several large trees with flawless precision.

The whole process was extremely visually striking.

It was not that Qian was deliberately showing off and making the scene so flashy.

Rather, the key point of this technique was blending feints with reality, using a dizzying barrage of attacks to conceal the true intent, thereby delivering a lethal blow to the opponent.

In fact, taken to an even greater extreme, it could also be paired with Shuriken for an attack.

At that thought, Qian formed seals again. The instant he cast the ninjutsu, he took out several Shuriken and threw them at high speed.

The flames struck the trees once more, but faster than the flames were the Shuriken hidden within them.

The Shuriken, burned red-hot by the intense heat, shot out and hit the tree trunks, instantly scorching the nearby bark black.

One could imagine what would happen if an attack like this landed on a person, and how a body of flesh and blood could possibly withstand it.

They would probably be seriously wounded and fall in an instant, or even lose their life outright.

Who said Fire Release could not kill?

With physical and magical attacks combined, anyone who took that hit would have a bad time.

The only real pity was that this method of attack wasted Shuriken terribly.

Basically, one use and the Shuriken were ruined, without even any value in recovering them.

However, the capacity of a Ninja Tool Pouch was limited.

Qian could not possibly carry too many Shuriken with him anytime and anywhere, so unless it was a crucial moment, he definitely could not use this move lightly.

Pulling back his thoughts, Qian stopped dwelling on it. With a thought, he opened the Proficiency Panel.

The next moment, the familiar pale-blue screen appeared:

[Name: Uchiha Qian

Age: 11

Physical Constitution: 7

Spirit: 9

Chakra: 1208 (3018→3210)

Bloodline: Sharingan · Single Tomoe (30/1000)→(50/1000)

Skills: Chakra Refining Technique: lv3 (322/1000)→lv3 (346/1000)

Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique: lv1 (50/200)

*Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique: lv1 (5/200)

*Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique: lv1 (1/200)

*Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique: lv1 (1/200)

*Body Flicker Technique: lv1 (10/200)

Mind Reflection Technique: lv3 (683/1000)

Ninja Tool Throwing: lv3 (1/1000)→lv3 (60/1000)

Chakra Control: lv3 (102/1000)

Three Body Technique: lv3 (0/0)

Basic Body Technique: lv3 (0/0)]

By now, ten days had passed since he had awakened his eyes, and three days had passed since he had begun training in Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique.

Thanks to having grasped Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique early on, his training in Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique could be described as advancing a thousand miles in a day.

Because the two ninjutsu had points in common, after repeating it only about thirty times, his Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique accumulated one hundred proficiency points, successfully reaching entry level and advancing from lv0 to lv1.

This process consumed roughly twenty-five hundred points of chakra.

Originally, it should have taken three thousand points, but his lv3 (102/1000) Chakra Control saved him 15.5% chakra.

So it became twenty-five hundred points.

Aside from that, there was Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique.

Because he had learned Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique and Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique one after another, Qian had gained a deeper understanding of Fire Release itself.

In the process, he had unconsciously grasped a little of Fire Release Chakra Shape Transformation and Nature Transformation.

And no Fire Release Ninjutsu could do without those two things.

So when Qian practiced Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique, he achieved twice the result with half the effort.

After barely forty attempts, he had accumulated enough—one hundred points of Proficiency—and successfully reached the entry level.

During training, after subtracting the chakra saved by Chakra Control, he had spent roughly three thousand points of chakra.

In total, the two ninjutsu had consumed 5500 Points of chakra.

And over three days, the total amount of chakra he could use was around ten thousand points.

Thus, he spent the remaining chakra practicing Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique and Body Flicker Technique.

The former was a Genjutsu tailor-made for the Sharingan, so Qian learned it easily. After repeating it only around twenty times and spending a little over a thousand points of chakra, he successfully reached the entry level.

During that time, Qian also discovered that the Sharingan's Proficiency growth rate had increased.

So Qian began analyzing and testing the key to it.

In the end, through enhanced control of Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique and Fire Release: Fire Dragon Technique, Qian figured out the reason.

In truth, the principle was simple: use it or lose it.

The more intensely he used the Sharingan, the faster it accumulated Proficiency.

How much faster, exactly?

By Qian's estimate, it was roughly twice as fast as simply keeping the eyes active and grinding out time.

Unfortunately, this method consumed chakra at an extreme rate. On average, it took a full thousand points of chakra to increase Proficiency by one point.

That was less than Mind Reflection Technique's seventeen hundred points, but far more than the three hundred points needed to grind time.

With his current Chakra Amount, he simply could not sustain such consumption.

Perhaps only after he had more abundant chakra would he be able to use such an extravagant method to raise the Sharingan's Proficiency.

And for that, the level of his Chakra Refining Technique could not be allowed to fall behind.

With his current Physical Constitution and spiritual attributes, as long as his Chakra Refining Technique level rose, the amount of chakra he could use each day would inevitably increase greatly.

At that time, he could try using this method to grind Proficiency.

In addition, this method had another benefit: it could simultaneously increase the Proficiency of the skills used in conjunction with it.

Wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth, Qian pulled back his thoughts and focused his attention on Body Flicker Technique.

Because it was only a D-Rank Ninjutsu, requiring as little as thirty points of chakra to perform once, Qian easily grinded it to the entry level.

However, after it reached lv1, its minimum chakra consumption had already risen to fifty points.

And if he wanted to move a longer distance, the chakra consumption would increase even further.

Of course, when grinding Proficiency, Qian definitely would not do that.

To him, as long as he could gain Proficiency, that was enough; on that basis, using even a little extra chakra would be a waste.

Tap—

A faint footstep came.

Qian's ear twitched slightly. Then he rapidly completed the hand seals, opened his mouth, and spat out a massive fireball.

The fireball shot out at high speed and smashed between several large trees ahead. Then it exploded with a boom, and surging flames instantly swallowed everything around it.