Hard? Just the Basics!

The office was so silent that one could hear heartbeats.

Fugaku slumped into the overturned leather chair, his chin nearly hitting his chest.

As clan head, he knew all too well the harsh price of the Sharingan's evolution.

One-Tomoe at six, Two-Tomoe at seven!

What kind of fucking human was this?

He was clearly a monster wearing human skin!

But no matter how outrageous it was, he was still an unparalleled treasure growing in the Uchiha's own field!

In this Shinobi World, where human lives were worth less than grass, a prodigy with such terrifying potential at the age of seven...

Hiss, he did not even dare imagine the Uchiha's future!

No matter how dangerous it was outside, the Uchiha's blades had to taste blood on a true battlefield!

Fugaku took a deep breath and slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the shock on his face had completely twisted into wild delight. The calculating clan head was instantly revived at full strength.

He yanked the chair upright, bent down to pick up the broken wolf-hair brush from the floor, and snatched the village-leaving application that Nohibi had scrawled like chicken scratch.

He opened a drawer, took out the clan head's special-approval seal, and pressed it firmly into the vermilion ink box.

Slap!

The bright-red Gunbai seal smashed heavily onto the paper, as though it wanted to stamp straight through the desk.

Fugaku's eyes gleamed as he slapped the desk and roared, "Going for a stroll at the border? Absolutely! Let him go out there and wreak as much havoc as he wants!"

Then he braced both hands on the desk, stared hard at Nohibi, and raised three fingers.

"Three rules."

"First, he is not allowed to lose a single hair."

"Second, he is not allowed to scrape a single patch of skin."

"Third, if he suffers even the slightest grievance, I'll twist your head off with my own hands and hang it over the Security Force gates as a wind chime!"

Nohibi puffed out his chest and shouted confidently, "Clan Head, put your mind at ease! If the sky falls, I'll hold it up!"

"Get lost!"

The next morning.

The sky was gray outside an abandoned watchtower east of the southern gate.

Ye leaned against a broken wall and lazily yawned.

"Hey!"

Nohibi emerged from the shadows in full gear, a Ninja Sword slung across his back and the zipper of his green vest pulled all the way up.

Holding the travel pass stamped with a vivid red seal, he nodded in satisfaction.

"Let's go! Big bro is taking you out of the village to broaden your horizons!"

The two walked side by side toward Konoha's southern gate.

The massive iron gates were open only a crack, and the Chunin in the guard booth was dozing off.

Seeing someone attempting to leave the village, the guard was about to step forward and question them according to procedure.

Slap!

Nohibi could not even be bothered with nonsense. He slapped the specially approved document onto the guard's desk, making the tea in the cup splash everywhere.

"Open your eyes and look carefully! Uchiha Police Force business—we're pursuing a roaming spy!"

"Clan Head Fugaku's seal is on it. Open the gates!"

The guard captain shuddered and hurried over.

His gaze passed over the bright-red clan head's seal and the Security Force's dual special approval, and he swallowed with difficulty.

When he looked up, he met Nohibi's cold, fierce face, as though Nohibi wanted to eat someone alive.

Then his eyes moved down and saw the little brat who was only as tall as the desk.

Ye said nothing. He simply stared at him calmly with those deep, pitch-black eyes.

The guard captain's scalp went numb. He immediately took two steps back and bellowed, "Open the gates! Let them through at once!"

"Good. At least you have eyes."

Nohibi snorted and swaggered across the threshold.

One after the other, they followed the cold wind and morning fog into the depths of the forest.

Only after their figures had completely disappeared did the guard captain let out a long breath and wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.

A new recruit beside him leaned closer and muttered.

"Captain, we're really just letting them go?"

"That's Uchiha Ye, the one everyone at the Ninja Academy has been talking about. A new student who has not even graduated is leaving the village..."

"What the hell do you know?"

The captain turned and shot him a fierce glare, his expression incomparably grave.

"When the higher-ups fight, ordinary people suffer. We can't stop this, but we absolutely can't fail to report it!"

"You, take the shortcut to the Hokage Building. Run fast! Report this matter to the Third Lord word for word!"

"Yes!"

The forest outside the village.

After walking for over twenty minutes, Nohibi took a deep breath of air carrying the earthy scent of soil and stretched contentedly.

"Ye, once we're beyond those walls, it's going to be real combat with real blades."

"Tell me, where do you want to train?"

"Within the Land of Fire, point wherever you want, and big bro will fight wherever you point!"

Ye put on a show of taking out a map. His finger slid across it and stopped precisely at the northwest.

"I heard there are plenty of abandoned camps near the Land of Earth border. The terrain is complicated, it's suitable for real combat, and the game is fat."

"Brother Nohibi, want to take a look?"

Nohibi glanced at it without taking it seriously. "The border? It's a little far, but we can get there in two days if we move quickly."

He slapped Ye's back with one broad hand and grinned.

"Sure! With big bro watching over you, as long as we don't run into Iwagakure's main force, you can swagger anywhere you want!"

The two picked up speed along the woodland trail.

Half an hour later, the forest grew increasingly deep and secluded.

Walking ahead, Nohibi could no longer suppress that urge to act like a teacher and elder.

Even if this kid had a Two-Tomoe Sharingan and powerful Chakra, he was still a newbie who had never left the village.

How could the test-taking tricks taught at the Ninja Academy compare to the fine control one learned by licking blood off a blade on the battlefield?

He had to properly show off the operational foundation of an Elite Jonin before this peerless prodigy!

Ahead stood an ancient tree so enormous that five people could barely encircle it, its trunk rising straight into the sky.

Nohibi suddenly stopped, cleared his throat, folded his arms, and strutted over to the base of the tree.

"Little Ye, in wilderness combat, terrain is your second life."

"Today, big bro will teach you a move: 'tree climbing'!"

"Precisely adhere Chakra to the soles of your feet. This is advanced fine control!"

Nohibi lifted his right foot and stepped directly onto the vertical tree trunk, then followed with his left.

Completely ignoring gravity, he walked upward with his back to Ye while beginning his practical lesson in an extremely world-weary tone.

"Control the Chakra beneath your soles. A little too much and you'll crush the bark; a little too little and you'll fall."

"Those teachers at the Ninja Academy could never teach a trick like this."

Nohibi strolled all the way up to a thick branch ten meters above the ground, planted one hand on his hip, and put on an excellent display of showing off.

The morning sunlight fell on him at just the right angle, making him gleam gold.

He looked down at the ground, a confident, experienced smile on his lips.

"Did you understand? Even ordinary Chunin have to stumble through weeks of practice for this move."

"Back when your big bro was nine..."

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

Several exceptionally steady, faint sounds of footsteps brushing against the tree trunk came from below.

Nohibi's words caught in his throat, and his eyes bulged out.

Ye had both hands in his pockets, his body perpendicular to the ground as though he were strolling through his own backyard.

He slowly walked up the tree trunk.

There were no hand seals and no running start.

The Chakra beneath his feet was controlled at a textbook level. He had not even rubbed away a patch of moss from the bark, and his steadiness was enough to make one's scalp tingle.

Ye stopped on the branch opposite Nohibi, looked at him with exceptionally innocent eyes, and asked in a crisp voice:

"What happened when you were nine, Brother Nohibi? The wind was too loud, so I didn't hear you clearly."

A deathly silence fell over the treetop.

Nohibi's confident smile completely collapsed, and his face twitched uncontrollably.

"You... you haven't even graduated, nobody taught you this move, so how the fuck do you know it?!"

Nohibi's voice cracked outright.

Ye spread his hands and sighed.

"Is this hard? I watched you do it once just now, and my feet got the feel for it right away. Anyone with hands can do it."

In truth, Ye was lying to Nohibi. He had suffered quite a bit when he first taught himself how to climb trees.

Buzz!

Nohibi's brain exploded.

The fuck did he mean, anyone with hands could do it!

The fuck did he mean, he learned it after one look!

Back when he was eight and teaching himself this move, he had fallen thirty-seven times and broken two ribs.

The day he learned it, the clan had even set off a string of firecrackers and praised him as a genius!

Before this seven-year-old little monster, his pride was simply a joke!

[ Ding! Guard-Break Points from Uchiha Yehuo: +777! ]

[ Ding! Guard-Break Points from Uchiha Yehuo: +888! ]

Listening to the system notifications flooding in, Ye was delighted.

Nohibi took several deep breaths and forcibly swallowed the mouthful of old blood rising to his throat.

He gritted his teeth and desperately tried to save face. "Ahem! That was just the basics. Keep moving! There's a river ahead!"

No!

The dignity of a Jonin absolutely could not be lost!

Tree climbing was a fixed target. The next technique, "water walking," was the true advanced skill.

This time, he had to let this kid see what a real gap looked like!