"Then it's settled. We're going together!"
Before Sasuke could refuse or agree, Lei Dou made the decision for him.
Yet Sasuke showed no annoyance. He simply snorted and silently followed.
With a stubborn little tsundere like him, there was no need to offer multiple choices. Just fill in the blank for him.
They arrived at the Ichiraku Ramen Shop, lifted the curtain, and sat down.
"My treat today. Three bowls of deluxe chashu ramen, sir. Thanks!" Lei Dou said generously.
Beside him, Naruto was still counting on his fingers, trying to figure out whether his pitiful allowance could feed three people. At those words, his eyes lit up like light bulbs, and his face blossomed into a grin.
"Whoa! Long live Lei Dou! Then I won't hold back!"
"No problem. Eat all you want! I brought enough money to fill that bottomless pit of yours!"
The moment Lei Dou finished speaking, he saw a terrifying green gleam in Naruto's eyes, as though he had transformed into a ravenous dragon that hadn't eaten in centuries.
Sasuke sat on Lei Dou's right, snapping apart his disposable chopsticks as he turned to look at him.
"You're clearly so strong. Why did you never show it at the Ninja Academy?"
Lei Dou merely smiled at the question.
"Why show off in a place where everyone just plays at being ninja? What would be the point?"
In truth, Lei Dou's strength had only begun skyrocketing over the past month. Even if he'd wanted to show off, he hadn't had a chance!
With graduation exams approaching, the academy hadn't scheduled any decent combat tests.
"You're hiding your strength so your enemies won't notice you, aren't you?" Sasuke supplied his own explanation.
Lei Dou was speechless. He couldn't understand why Sasuke always thought in terms of conspiracies.
"Hmph! You're frighteningly strong, but you pretend to be a dead last. That way, no one will target you. How sly!"
Sasuke gently clenched his fists, fierce determination blazing in his eyes. "But now I've noticed you, Lei Dou. I won't lose to you. I'll catch up soon, and even surpass you!"
Lei Dou nodded and lightly patted Sasuke's shoulder, his tone sincere. "I believe you can!"
After all, Sasuke carried Indra's reincarnated chakra. Once his cheats kicked in, his strength would shoot up like a rocket.
"Hey, stuck-up Sasuke! The first person to catch up to Lei Dou will be me, Naruto Uzumaki!"
Naruto shouted indistinctly through a mouthful of noodles.
Sasuke glanced at him. For once, he didn't argue with Naruto, merely replying coldly, "Wait and see!"
That simple remark instantly thickened the tension between them, and they began competing in silence.
Even their ramen-eating speed became a contest, with loud slurping rising from both sides.
Watching the two big eaters beside him inhale their noodles, Lei Dou suddenly grew nervous.
Lei Dou had more or less prepared himself for Naruto's appetite. Naruto alone was manageable, but now he had Sasuke too—a growing boy with a fiercely competitive streak.
Were these two planning to eat straight through my wallet?
When they left the Ichiraku Ramen Shop, Lei Dou stared miserably at his empty frog wallet, which looked as though it had been robbed.
Those two bastards definitely did that on purpose! More than a dozen bowls!
I'll have to tighten my belt for a while!
"Ugh!"
After a heavy sigh, Lei Dou resigned himself to his fate and headed out of the village.
Naturally, he was going outside to train. Even though he had gained a rough understanding that his current combat strength was around the level of an elite chunin, or even a special jōnin,
Lei Dou would never grow complacent and stop progressing because of it.
Against Kakashi as he was now, he should be able to hold his ground without losing.
Looking across the entire shinobi world, that meant the only enemies he really needed to watch out for were that small handful of Kage-level monsters.
But that was still nowhere near enough.
In a world overflowing with cheaters, he had to become stronger. He needed the confidence to crush anything in his path.
Arriving beside the familiar little waterfall, Lei Dou unfastened the ninja blade at his waist and casually wedged it into a crack between the rocks.
Then he leaped up, landing steadily on a large boulder in the middle of the river.
He raised both hands, his fingers flying as he formed hand seals.
"It's been sitting in the skill slots for a whole day. Let's see just how much Ice Release: Freezing Moment has improved!"
Ice Release, activate!
Within mere seconds, a bone-chilling cold erupted. Everything within nearly forty meters rapidly developed a thick layer of white frost.
The water's surface quickly hardened, gradually forming a thick, unbreakable sheet of ice.
Its power had indeed increased considerably, and the effective freezing radius had expanded to forty meters.
Not bad!
Another improvement he could see with his own eyes.
Lei Dou released the freeze, then turned his gaze toward Zangetsu on the riverbank.
He was roughly fifteen meters from the ninja blade.
Lei Dou formed hand seals with one hand, his piercing gaze fixed firmly on the weapon.
The next second, a layer of crystalline frost instantly covered the blade. Sharp ice crystals visibly climbed and spread up it from bottom to top.
In just three seconds, the entire ninja blade was sealed inside a huge block of ice. Cold radiated from the weapon, rapidly freezing the surrounding ground as well.
In less than ten seconds, everything within forty meters seemed to have been paused, gradually freezing once again.
Lei Dou released the jutsu and nodded in satisfaction.
"This level of control is pretty good! Within fifteen meters, Freezing Moment can instantly cover a target in heavy frost. Anyone a little slow to react will be frozen into an ice sculpture before they can struggle more than once or twice."
"Next up for testing is... Ice Release: Snow World!"
Lei Dou closed his eyes and operated the interface in his mind, replacing the two low-level Ice Release Ninjutsu in his skill slots with [Ice Release: Passive Boost].
Now he could cast Ice Release without any cost.
Lei Dou maintained Freezing Moment's low-temperature field, ensuring that the ice crystals within forty meters wouldn't melt.
Then, in the next instant!
His eyes snapped open, a blizzard seeming to howl within his pupils. Snow World activated!
An invisible surge of chakra burst forth, intensifying the freezing around him yet again. The moisture in the air instantly crystallized, producing countless white snowflakes.
Large, fluffy snowflakes drifted down from a sky without a single dark cloud.
Excitement gleamed in Lei Dou's eyes. He raised a hand and gently curled his fingers at the falling snowflakes.
Instantly, the snow filling the sky swept toward him as though answering a general's command, dancing merrily around Lei Dou.
With a thought, Lei Dou made the snowflakes accelerate, then swung his hand sharply toward the distance.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!
A small tornado of ice and snow abruptly formed, charging into the distance with a shrill howl.
Its tremendous impact shattered a Giant Boulder in its path, and the swirling snowstorm furiously sliced through the broken chunks.
Those seemingly delicate snowflakes contained ice crystals as sharp as knives, easily cutting the hard stone into tiny fragments scattered across the ground.
At the sight, a cruel smile touched Lei Dou's lips.
He turned toward a tree on the other side. Frost covered a third of it, and its roots, branches, and leaves were laden with icicles and snowflakes.
The next second, Lei Dou controlled the snowflakes forming out of thin air, turning them into a long snowy dragon that lunged straight at the tree.
Ice and snow swallowed the tree instantly, then the snowflakes rapidly dispersed.
Lei Dou waved away the remaining snow, leaving only the dead tree, which the terrifying cold had thoroughly penetrated.
Under Lei Dou's gaze, the tree suddenly gave off a teeth-grating sound. Crack... crack, crack...
Its branches and leaves fell at the slightest tremor. One frozen leaf hit the ground and shattered like glass.
Lei Dou flicked a piece of ice the size of a fingernail at the trunk. That light tap alone made the entire tree collapse like a toppled stack of blocks, breaking into countless fine shards of ice that scattered on the wind.
"At extremely low temperatures, the molecular structure of any object becomes incredibly fragile!"
"That's the true destructive power of cold!"
It wasn't just trees. Even steel, once the cold penetrated deeply enough and its temperature dropped far enough, would become more brittle than a biscuit.
His control over ice and snow had essentially reached a workable level. The effects he could achieve bore a striking resemblance to Gaara's sand manipulation.
Now!
The only thing Lei Dou remained somewhat dissatisfied with was its range!
A forty-meter radius was still too small for a real battlefield!
"Looks like Freezing Moment and Snow World will have to settle into my passive skill slots for a long, long stay!"
"Ice Shield!"
"Snow Impact!"
"Ice Shuriken!"
"Ice Release!"
Like a child with a new toy, Lei Dou experimented with ice and snow, constantly developing different ways to attack.
Ice Shield instantly formed incredibly hard ice around Lei Dou, creating an absolute defense. It could take the form of a thick ice wall or an ice sphere enclosing him completely, with no gaps from any angle.
Snow Impact condensed ice and snow into a small, high-pressure storm that blasted a chosen target. It packed a powerful physical impact, while the large snowflakes formed from ice crystals were as sharp as knives and had excellent cutting power.
Ice Shuriken, as its name suggested, instantly condensed moisture in the air into shuriken, providing unlimited ammunition ready to fire at any moment.
Beyond shuriken, as long as Lei Dou had enough imagination, he could shape the ice and snow into any weapon he wanted.
Ice Release drew its inspiration from anime he'd watched in his previous life. It primarily used cold on a microscopic scale, sending countless tiny snowflakes to attack a target from all directions, much as Byakuya Kuchiki controlled Senbonzakura.
In reality, however, the technique's main killing mechanism was the cold invisible to the naked eye. It rapidly subjected the person or object under attack to terrifyingly low temperatures, making them brittle and fragile.
Human cells would die in an instant, and the body's structure would be utterly destroyed.
Of course, if his opponent protected their body with dense chakra, they should theoretically be able to resist for a while.
But if they couldn't escape immediately...
Then, in a battle of chakra attrition within Lei Dou's Snow World domain, he would be unbeatable.
After all, Lei Dou had a cheat that eliminated his costs, while his enemy would be burning through their reserves every second.
Once Snow World activated, Freezing Moment would shift into a supporting role, maintaining the ultra-low temperatures within its range so Lei Dou could use Snow World's abilities more efficiently.
Without activating the domain, Freezing Moment could concentrate all its power on a specific point when first cast, freezing it instantly.
But if that strike failed to seal his opponent, Freezing Moment had little capacity for follow-up attacks.
It would become nothing more than a passive aura maintaining the low-temperature environment.
That was roughly where Lei Dou's development of Ice Release stood.
"For a starting point, this is already pretty good!" Lei Dou was quite satisfied with his current progress.
In Lei Dou's view, with these two abilities, once an opponent entered his domain in a one-on-one fight, their defeat would be only a matter of time.
Within this low-temperature field, enemies would need to continuously expend enormous amounts of stamina and chakra just to maintain their body temperature and keep their bodily functions from freezing up.
At the same time, they would have to divide their attention to deal with his all-pervading cold and physical ice-crystal attacks. It was a nightmare!
"With the skill slots as my cheat, these two abilities will eventually evolve into something even more terrifying!"
"When their range expands to several kilometers and their freezing power reaches absolute zero, they might really become every bit as powerful as the First Hokage's Wood Release!"
Lei Dou's heart filled with anticipation as he imagined these two jutsu growing powerful enough to devastate heaven and earth.
He returned the two Ice Release jutsu to his passive skill slots to continue their "idle leveling," then prepared to study his newly acquired chakra nature.
Lightning Release!
Although Lei Dou personally loved Lightning Release's savage destructive power, and its speed boost was very appealing too,
the other four basic nature releases currently lagged far behind his Water Release, which had already reached a modest level of mastery.
Getting them to catch up with Water Release wouldn't happen overnight. If he relied only on leaving them in his skill slots, it might take forever.
So unless necessary, Lei Dou had no intention of developing the other nature releases in depth for now. Biting off too much would only slow him down.
Still, Lightning Release was worth spending a little effort on.
After all, Lightning Release and Water Release could form powerful combination jutsu, using water's conductivity to greatly increase their attack range and paralyzing effects.
At the same time, Lei Dou had a question he'd long been curious to test.
"Great Sage, can you analyze how the Sharingan works?"
[Great Sage: Unable to analyze. Note: this is not a technical inability to analyze it, but an inability to do so under current conditions.]
So it wasn't impossible to analyze?
"What kind of answer is that? Why can't you analyze it now?"
[Great Sage: The Sharingan dōjutsu is not merely an application of chakra nature transformation. Its most essential component is the Uchiha Clan's unique bloodline power. Without obtaining and understanding the underlying secrets of that bloodline, reverse analysis is naturally impossible.]
"Tsk. So you're telling me I can't rely on you to get the Sharingan kekkei genkai for free!"
Lei Dou pursed his lips, feeling a little disappointed.
[Great Sage: Not necessarily. If active skill 1 is fully repaired, the host can use it to directly obtain the Sharingan bloodline, or even the original bloodline of the Ōtsutsuki Clan.]
Active skill 1?
"What exactly is that active skill 1 that's always grayed out?"
[Great Sage: Active skill 1-Glutton.]
Lei Dou froze for a moment, then chuckled in spite of himself. He should have guessed. Hadn't he vaguely glimpsed the word "glutton" when looking at his status panel back then?
But because it had always been damaged, he hadn't paid much attention to it!
[Great Sage: Glutton can prey upon and devour any target, storing it within an internal space for me to analyze comprehensively. This will allow the host to obtain any desired kekkei genkai.]
"Holy shit! That's amazing!"
Lei Dou nearly jumped off the rock in excitement. Glutton practically gave him the potential to evolve without limits. It was a shortcut to godhood.
"Wait!"
Lei Dou suddenly calmed down. "Great Sage, even you haven't been fully repaired yet. When will Glutton become available?"