Uehara and Volkarin's spar had continued for a few hours after Uehara's joyful moment. Volkarin had pointed out to Uehara how he could utilise his enhanced earth-manipulation abilities to their fullest. He had also mentioned a few more strategies on how Uehara could've broke out of the water prison without having had to resort to using his bones.
Some of the methods Volkarin spoke of included fighting fire with fire by creating a dust prison filled with shrapnel around him. Another method would've included a simple but barbaric way of flinging earth projectiles at him from every direction.
Nonetheless, with their spar now over, father and son were back in the plains region. Both were leaning against the singular biggest tree in the region. Volkarin was in his base state, with spiky black hair that extended to his back like his son.
Uehara was still in his sage transformation state but his aura was less chaotic. Right now, he was currently meditating under the orders of his father, his goal being to be more in sync with his transformation.
The issue was Uehara's inability to utilise his ocular abilities in his sage transformations. The reason is his ocular abilities are mainly a result of his dark/yin chakra. But with his dark chakra being suppressed due to one aspect of his chakra largely increasing in ratio, his ocular abilities become mute.
So under the instruction of his father, Uehara now has to learn how to at the very least channel dark chakra to his eyes without destabilising his earth-sage transformation.
(AN: For those wondering why Uehara doesn't just increase the ratio of his dark chakra as well, remember that he nearly killed himself when he mixed fire and water chakra with nature energy. For those confused about how he doesn't explode when he enters sage mode, remember that the elements of chakra neutralise each other. Take away one element or aspect and mix the remaining elements with chakra, well…a continental explosion will occur if taking into account the current amount of chakra he possesses.)
Besides the risk of blowing up his eyes, Uehara finally remembered to ask his father about the addition of the concentric ring around his eyes.
Calming down his chakra, he opened his currently golden-yellow eyes.
"Father. I ask for your knowledge regarding a change in my eyes."
Lying down on the ground with one leg over the other, Volkarin couldn't be bothered to voice a response.
"Mm"
Humming his response, Uehara took it as an affirmative. Powering down from his sage transformation, he began channeling chakra towards his eyes. With the influx of chakra, his eyes turned red and with the continued chakra input, single black concentric rings formed around his pupils.
Feeling the change in chakra signature, Volkarin opened his eyes. Seeing the concentric rings, his eyes widened.
"Amatsugan? You actually awakened it?"
Getting up from his relaxed posture, Volkarin examined his son's eyes closely. After a while, a grin marred his face.
"There's no mistaking it. This is indeed the amatsugan."
Uehara's left eye slightly flinched due to how close his father's thumb was.
"Can you please tell me more, father?"
Even though his tone of voice was monotone, there was a spark of curiosity behind it.
"Of course son. You see, the amatsugan…"
Volkarin's eyes then turned into crimson-red geometric mandalas. His iris had the pattern of cris-crossing lotus petals with black outlines. The patterns were so numerous that they would disillusion anyone who stared into them.
"...is the precursor of the mandala. Specifically speaking, you have to manifest six more rings before you can awaken the mandala."
Uehara was really intrigued by the news.
"How do I go about manifesting the rest of the rings, father?"
Volkarin was silent for a while in contemplation. Eventually, he sighed as he stood up while deactivating his mandala.
"I can't say for sure son. For your average surin, they'd be able to manifest all six rings naturally by the time they reach their first millionth year in age. As for the seventh ring, it is a special case."
Unfortunately for Volkarin, Uehara had stopped listening at "millionth year".
"Million…?"
Seeing his son's lost look, Volkarin couldn't stop a grin from spreading on his face.
"Well, I said average. We won't be doing average. I initially thought that when you didn't awaken it when you were ten, you would never be able to awaken it. But now that you're showing it to me now, it changes things…many, many things."
Uehara tilted his head in confusion. He was about to ask what his father meant when Volkarin suddenly came out of his thinking state and looked at his son with a serious gaze.
"As soon as you destroy that Minamoto clan, we'll finish your earth-sage training. After that, we'll focus on unlocking atleast two more rings. But for now, get up."
"Huh?"
Uehara was confused. One minute he's told to sit down and meditate and the next he's told to get up.
"When you said you couldn't access your ocular abilities, I assumed you meant your original abilities. But with you now having the amatsugan, it will be much harder to activate it when in your sage transformation. With you now having the amatsugan, even the power of your original ocular abilities will increase, requiring you to use more dark chakra to activate them. Right now, you can't channel the required amount of chakra without blinding yourself."
(AN: For those who are confused, imagine it like this. Volkarin thought Uehara's eyes are like the engine in a Toyota Corolla. The fuel needed to power that engine wouldn't be much. Uehara would've been able to activate his ocular abilities with the small amount of dark chakra he would be able to harness. But now that Uehara has the amatsugan, that engine in the Corolla has now been switched out for the engine in a Mustang GT. That engine requires a lot more fuel, something Uehara can't pump without blinding himself. Due to the awakening of the amatsugan, his original 'dragon eye' abilities have improved, making it that to even activate those eyes will now require more chakra. It's like switching out the Corolla engine for the engine of a Range Rover SUV. Hope this clarifies things a bit.)
Volkarin chided himself internally for not monitoring the changes in his son's body as of late. He was still angry about how Uehara had severely damaged his body after fighting the titan overlord. So he had stopped monitoring his son's body in order to not have the urge to break him in half every time he monitored his injured body.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, he cracked his neck by tilting his head.
"If you want to have any chance of using your ocular abilities along with your sage transformations, then you'll have to master each and everyone of them to the same level as your flame-sage transformation. Out of six possible transformations, you only have three that you can access. Your flame-sage transformation is at an adept level of mastery so we can temporarily leave it at that. For your earth, you're at the level of an amateur. As for your water, I'm willing to bet your attendant is better at it than you and she's barely at the cusp of amateur level, just slightly above a novice."
Although Uehara's face was neutral at this point, a faint smile emerged on his face.
[Looks like I'm not wasting my time with her.]
Volkarin was amused but not disappointed at Uehara's reaction to the last part.
"Ho? I thought you'd be angry or at the very least, uneasy after what I just said."
Uehara looked up at his father with a slightly confused expression.
"Why? She is my attendant and will always be with me. If she's more adept at the water-sage transformation, it just proves she's talented and intelligent. In fact, the fact that she's become more proficient than me in the transformation makes me all the more gladder that I didn't kill her."
Volkarin smiled as he gave a nod of approval.
"You're proud of her. That's good. She has the potential to be one of the strongest water users in the multiverse."
Uehara's eyes widened slightly.
"Multi?"
"Yes, multiverse. Did you forget the existence of the multiverse already?"
"No father. It's not that. I'm just surprised her potential can be placed on the multiverse ranking. I thought she'd be in the universal rankings at most."
That statement got an eyebrow-raise from Volkarin.
"Oh? You had such high confidence in her?"
Uehara now had a slight grin.
"Of course. She's my attendant after all."
(AN: Apologies for not updating for the past two weeks despite implying that I would upload after a few days. Reason? Harvest season. For those who are farmers, they will probably understand how busy everything becomes when it is harvest season. When I had released the last chapter, I had assumed I would be leaving town with my father that following week to prepare the machinery, tractor, etc for the harvest, not the next day. So for the past two weeks or so, I've been at the farm with my father. My laptop was left in town, not that I could get in any writing anyway. Besides that, I will be in town for the next two or three days (probably) before I have to go back to the farm. Harvest season won't end until around late June.
As I've said numerous times before, this story will never be abandoned. I've put too much work into it and I've already written more than a hundred-thousand words. There will be no deliberate hiatus as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you)