Midnight Pebbles and a Thrilling Misunderstanding

The night was as dark as ink that could never be diluted.

At the edge of Training Ground 44, hailed as a "reserve meat grinder," the occasional beastly growls from beyond the barbed wire were enough to scare ordinary Genin into wetting themselves.

Ye Tian curled up inside the hollow of an ancient thousand-year-old tree, trembling as if someone had dumped a basin of ice water over him in the dead of winter.

Within the system space, the century-old Purple Lingzhi had already been reduced to scraps. In its place was a violent, magma-like torrent of heat that burned its way down his throat and windpipe, all the way to his dantian.

"Damn... this stuff packs way too much punch."

Ye Tian clenched his teeth, his fingernails digging deep into the bark.

The seniors of the cultivation world had not lied. Swallowing this stuff whole instead of refining it into pills was like scrubbing one's meridians and marrow with a steel brush.

"Hold... steady!"

He roared inwardly, mobilizing the meager spiritual energy within him to slowly nibble away at and assimilate the violet energy, like encircling bandits.

Boom!

A soft sound rang out deep within his mind. His once-shriveled meridians were forcibly widened, while a faint blue-violet glow flowed beneath his skin.

"Cough, cough... pfft!"

Ye Tian suddenly bent forward and spat a mouthful of pitch-black, foul-smelling stagnant blood onto the grass.

Once he spat it out, the swelling sensation that had nearly made him burst vanished at once, replaced by a clear, almost transcendent feeling.

Qi Refining Fourth Level. Breakthrough.

He opened his eyes, a flash of brilliance appearing in them that only cultivators could perceive.

"Divine Sense range... eight hundred meters." Ye Tian clenched his fist. His senses had sharpened by more than double. He could even sense a spider several hundred meters away agonizing over whether to eat the fly caught in its web.

Suddenly, a restless signal entered the edge of his Divine Sense.

"Who's working overtime out here in the middle of the night?"

Ye Tian frowned slightly. His body became a shadow as he silently slid up along the trunk.

In a clearing four hundred meters away, moonlight spilled down like silk.

Hinata Hyuga was mechanically swinging her palms. Her loose training clothes were soaked through with sweat, clinging translucently to her curved figure.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

The young girl's clear voice carried a sobbing undertone.

At that moment, Hinata looked nothing like the timid, submissive girl she had been at the academy. Her eyes were filled with unwillingness.

She was practicing the Gentle Fist. Yet every palm strike was just slightly off in strength and angle.

Bang!

Her palm struck the wooden post, but the rebound sent her sprawling onto the grass.

"Am I useless... Father's eyes... Naruto..."

Hinata lay facedown on the ground, her slender shoulders trembling violently.

Ye Tian crouched on the treetop and watched coldly.

By a cultivator's principles, he should avoid this sort of karmic trouble whenever possible. But the worried look in this girl's eyes during the class assignment earlier that day suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Forget it. Who told me to be softhearted?"

He casually grabbed a handful of pebbles from around the tree roots. With a slight release of spiritual energy from his fingertips, every stone was instantly imbued with the spells "Thousand-Pound Fall" and "Tracking."

In the clearing, Hinata gritted her teeth and rose again. Her eyes became determined once more, though she still looked so pitiful and delicate.

"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams..."

Just as she was about to strike, her elbow instinctively lifted three centimeters too high.

Whoosh!

A pebble streaked through the air like a meteor and precisely struck her Quchi acupoint.

"Ah!"

Hinata's wrist went numb, and her arm was forced down three centimeters.

Bang!

That mere three-centimeter correction turned her originally limp palm strike into one that produced an explosive burst of air. A crack instantly erupted across the back of the wooden post.

"What... what was that just now?" Hinata froze. She instinctively activated her Byakugan and scanned her surroundings, but all she saw were tree shadows covering the ground.

Ye Tian concealed himself in the darkness like a cold, merciless puppet master.

"Your center of gravity is too far back. The point where your legs exert force is shifted too far left."

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two more pebbles flew out. One struck her Weizhong acupoint, while the other tapped her waist.

Hinata cried out in surprise. Her body involuntarily stumbled forward, but it happened to form a perfect attacking stance.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Over the next hour, rhythmic impacts and the whistles of pebbles slicing through the air echoed across the clearing.

Hinata went from initial panic to sudden realization. Though she did not know who was helping her, every pebble landed exactly where it corrected a flawed stance she had accumulated over years.

This method of "muscle memory" was crude and direct, yet astonishingly effective.

The moon rose high overhead.

Hinata took a deep breath, blue light blazing around both her palms.

"Eight Trigrams... Thirty-Two Palms!"

Her violent palm shadows fell like a torrential storm. When the final palm landed, the sturdy iron birch post before her let out a crack and completely shattered from within into splinters.

"I... I did it!"

Hinata stared blankly at her hands. She had never experienced such strength before.

She turned toward the deathly silent forest and gave a deep bow.

"Thank you... thank you, Senior, for your guidance!"

Deep within the forest, a mountain wind swept through.

"Cough... cough cough cough! Cough cough!"

An extremely distinctive, desolate coughing fit suddenly rang out, as though someone were about to cough up his lungs.

Hinata's face turned pale, and her Byakugan instantly locked onto the source of the sound.

Behind the dense overlapping tree shadows, she vaguely saw a hunched figure supporting himself against a tree with one hand, shaking violently in pain. There was even... a horrifying puddle of dark violet-black blood on the ground.

"That silhouette..."

Hinata's pupils contracted sharply.

Before she could rush over, the figure vanished without a trace like smoke scattered by the wind.

Hinata ran beneath that tree. Looking at the puddle of black blood on the ground, which carried a fishy stench and the aura of powerful vitality, she stood there completely stunned.

That sickly cough... that seemingly weak yet aloof silhouette...

"Was it... Ye Tian?"

Hinata covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes.

Her mind automatically filled in an entire drama: a terminally ill genius with little time left, enduring the agony of his collapsing body in order to protect Konoha, silently guiding a bottom-ranked student like her late at night.

What a noble soul!

"Ye Tian..."

Hinata tightly gripped her collar, her gaze changing from confusion to unwavering resolve.

"Your secret... I will protect it with my life!"

At that moment, Ye Tian, already washing his face by a stream several hundred meters away, had no idea that he had been labeled a "tragic hero."

"Ha—feels great!"

He washed the blood from the corner of his mouth and felt the unceasing spiritual energy of the Qi Refining Fourth Level within his body.

"Did I go a little overboard with that act just now? Whatever. As long as I can fool these simple-minded natives."

He glanced back at the distant forest, a teasing curve rising at the corner of his mouth.

"Tomorrow, I heard Ebisu is taking me to deliver some documents? Hopefully, I'll run into something more thrilling than Purple Lingzhi."

He stretched lazily, his bones cracking all over.

"Cultivation has a much brighter future than being a ninja."