Time flew by like a fleeting horse.
In the blink of an eye, ten days had passed.
During these ten days, the E11 district under the responsibility of Seimei's team was quite peaceful, or rather, the entire western defense zone was very quiet.
The reason was simple: everyone's attention was not here.
Currently, whether it was Sunagakure, Konohagakure, or spies from other forces stationed nearby, all eyes were focused on the two strongholds on the front line.
The fighting there was intense, with the strongholds changing hands several times. Both Sunagakure and Konohagakure were frantically sending reinforcements.
As far as Seimei knew, Konoha had already sent three waves of support.
Now this was the fourth wave.
That's right, just a moment ago, Seimei had escorted the fourth wave of Konoha's reinforcements out of the defense zone.
Watching their departing figures, Seimei thought to himself, "I wonder how many of these people will survive?"
Clearly, those two strongholds had become some kind of symbol. Whether they could be recaptured would determine Konoha's choices when facing Suna's attacks for a long time to come.
If they could be recaptured, it would show that Konoha still had the strength to fight.
In the future, when encountering similar situations, they would also respond proactively.
But if they couldn't be recaptured, it would mean that Konoha was no longer capable of maintaining the current battle line.
In that case, they would have to gradually abandon the outer strongholds and shrink the entire defense line.
During this process, the resistance wouldn't be too strong.
Precisely because of this, the fighting there was so fierce.
After pondering for a while, Seimei withdrew his gaze, shook his head, and stopped thinking about it further. These matters were not his concern.
What he needed to focus on was whether he would be transferred there, and if he were, how to ensure his survival.
These matters concerning his own life were what he should be considering.
Fortunately, Seimei had not received any transfer orders.
...
Another two days passed in a flash.
It was now early October.
This afternoon.
After finishing his patrol, Seimei routinely started practicing the 'Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique'. Once, twice, thrice...
Finally, after casting this technique for the twenty-seventh time, Seimei suddenly stopped, closed his eyes, and stood still for a long time.
Time passed by, and after a full fifteen minutes, Seimei finally came to his senses. The moment he opened his eyes, a flash of realization crossed them.
With a swift motion, Seimei drew his short sword from his waist.
Then, without any visible movement, the short sword changed from snow-white to dark red.
Obviously, he had infused Fire Release chakra into it, but unlike before, there were no flickering flames on the blade.
This didn't mean his Fire Release had weakened.
On the contrary, it had become stronger.
The reason those flames appeared before was that he didn't have enough control over the Fire Release chakra.
But now, that problem no longer existed.
As for the reason...
It was simple. He had completely mastered the Shape and Nature Transformations of Fire Release chakra, so naturally, there would be no more leakage of power.
How did he achieve this?
The answer was also simple. His 'Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' had leveled up, from lv4 to lv5, reaching perfection.
Through this, he successfully mastered the Shape and Nature Transformations of Fire Release chakra, and his understanding and control of Fire Release chakra directly reached a new level.
At this moment, Seimei had a premonition that when he practiced other Fire Release ninjutsu, he should be able to achieve twice the results with half the effort.
With this thought, Seimei immediately raised his hands, swiftly forming the six hand seals 'Snake - Ram - Monkey - Boar - Horse - Tiger'. He opened his mouth and spat out a fireball with a diameter of about one meter.
The fireball flew straight out, hitting a large tree not far away, igniting a blazing fire.
However, Seimei didn't even look at the effects of this technique. He focused his mind, opened the panel, and directly checked the proficiency behind 'Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique'.
Without any surprise, just from casting it once, its proficiency increased by five points.
This made Seimei very excited. He thought to himself that his strategy of prioritizing the improvement of one ninjutsu was correct.
Afterward, he tried a few more times. Although the increase in proficiency fluctuated slightly, it basically remained between four and five points, which was undeniably fast.
Additionally, he also tested the 'Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique', and the effect was the same as the 'Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique', with proficiency increasing rapidly.
In light of this, Seimei made a decision on the spot - he would divide the thirteen hundred chakra points originally allocated to the 'Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique', which he himself provided, equally between the 'Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique' and the 'Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique'.
This way, their proficiency could increase by about forty points per day.
In this way, it would only take about ten days for these two ninjutsu to level up from lv2 to lv3, and their practicality would definitely increase significantly.
The only regret was that even though his 'Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique' had reached lv5 (0/0), he still couldn't perform single-handed seals or cast it without seals.
Seimei estimated that to achieve this, he might need to raise his 'Chakra Control' by another level.
After all, the essence of hand seals was to assist ninjas in mobilizing the chakra within their bodies. If a ninja could do this on their own, they could completely simplify or even omit this step.
With this thought, Seimei opened the panel and looked at 'Chakra Control'.
After practicing these days, its proficiency had increased by over a hundred points, and it was now at lv3 (810/1000)!
However, at this point, the boost from the two-tomoe Sharingan was almost gone. If there were no new methods, he could only rely on gradual progress.
"New methods..."
Seimei murmured, thinking of the two puppeteers imprisoned in the depths of the cave.
Wasn't one of the reasons he initially captured Chiya to borrow the puppet secrets he mastered and accelerate his 'Chakra Control' training?
It was just that Chiya had been unwilling to hand them over.
'It's been so long now, I wonder if he has changed his mind?'
Seimei pondered and went to a deserted corner. He raised his hand and performed the 'Shadow Clone Technique', creating a shadow clone.
After nodding at the clone, Seimei quietly left the area and headed towards the entrance of the underground cave.
This time, even if Chiya was unwilling, Seimei was confident he could get his hands on the puppet secrets.
The reason was simple. After these days of observation, he was certain that Chiya was the weakness of Safo's puppeteer subordinate.
Using this as a breakthrough point, it shouldn't be difficult to obtain the puppet secrets.
Moreover, he didn't want everything, just the methods for condensing, dividing, and controlling chakra threads.
As for the puppet creation and control techniques that Chiya valued, he wasn't very interested.
In this way, there should be a way to find a breakthrough.
Thinking this, Seimei had already arrived at the entrance of the underground cave. He looked around, confirmed no one was there, and immediately went in.
(End of Chapter)