*Da-da-da*
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed.
An Iwa ninja was sprinting through the forest, glancing back from time to time, his eyes filled with nervousness and unease.
His name was Akiko, a Chunin. Today, he and three teammates were ordered by their superiors to harass the Konoha ninja who had occupied their village's base.
Everything had been going smoothly. At the cost of one teammate sustaining minor injuries, they had surrounded and eliminated a Konoha Chunin and a Konoha Genin on the outskirts of the battlefield.
But just as they were about to clean up the battlefield and leave, a figure suddenly appeared. In an instant, he took down their strongest member.
Then, in close combat, he moved like a ghost, continuously dodging their attacks and quickly defeating two more of them.
In the end, only Akiko managed to escape.
Recalling the battle scene, Akiko couldn't help but shiver. "As expected, there's a reason for his nickname."
"Demon Sword Seimei..."
Akiko gritted his teeth, his voice filled with hatred and unconcealable fear.
"What? Are you looking for me?"
Suddenly, a voice came from above, carrying a hint of amusement and mockery.
"What?"
Startled by the voice, Akiko instinctively looked up.
Then, he saw a pair of blood-red Sharingan.
*Thump*
Hit by the genjutsu, Akiko fell to the ground.
Seimei used the Body Flicker Technique to approach him, formed hand seals, and skillfully severed the muscles and nerves in his limbs with the Chakra Scalpel, rendering him unable to escape.
After that, Seimei said to the back, "Alright, come out."
Two shadow clones appeared. One was holding an Iwa ninja in each hand, while the other was holding one in its right hand.
Clearly, these were Akiko's three teammates.
Now, including him, the entire four-man team was here.
Seimei tossed Akiko to the second shadow clone and said, "You can go now. Be careful on the way and don't get spotted."
"Okay."
The two shadow clones nodded and left without any further words.
After they left, Seimei scanned the area, confirming that no one was watching and no traces were left behind, then disappeared from the scene.
...
That night, inside the base.
Seimei left a shadow clone to deal with any potential emergencies. His main body carefully avoided the patrolling Konoha ninja and quietly headed towards the secret base.
Well...
Calling it a secret base was a bit of an exaggeration.
It was actually a hidden cave in the mountains, which Seimei had cleaned up. It was about seventy to eighty square meters in size.
He didn't plan on enjoying himself there anyway; having a place to stay was enough.
As he approached the base, a figure quietly appeared. It looked exactly like Seimei - it was one of his shadow clones.
The two exchanged glances, and the shadow clone dispelled, transforming into chakra and memories that flowed into Seimei's mind.
He quickly browsed through the clone's memories, confirming there were no abnormalities, and then entered the cave.
Looking at the seven unconscious people on the ground, Seimei nodded in satisfaction.
This was his harvest for today, a total of seven Iwa Chunin. If he pushed them to their limits, he could extract seven to eight thousand chakra points from each of them daily.
Of course, he wouldn't exhaust their resources completely.
Even considering sustainable development and reducing the pressure on these captives, he could still extract five thousand chakra points from each of them per day.
So, seven people meant thirty-five thousand points, which was more than half of the twenty-one thousand chakra points he could recover daily on his own.
Although this wasn't a huge number, it was definitely not small. With proper allocation, it could significantly accelerate his strength improvement.
However, he wasn't in a hurry to allocate the chakra yet. It had been ten days since he learned the Mystical Palm Technique and Chakra Scalpel.
Now, his Chakra Refinement Technique was on the verge of leveling up. Seimei planned to raise it to Lv5 first before allocating his daily usable chakra.
With that in mind, Seimei went to the training room his shadow clone had specifically prepared, sat down cross-legged, and silently circulated the Chakra Refinement Technique.
As a skill he had mastered from the very beginning, coupled with daily practice, he could now perform it effortlessly.
He used his consciousness to extract strands of physical energy from his cells, then skillfully mixed them with spiritual energy, finally transforming them into chakra points.
These chakra points then flowed into his meridians, circulating along with his other chakra.
At this moment, Seimei was like an observer, silently watching this process, his mind free of any distractions, simply observing.
Time seemed to slow down, making him unaware of its passage.
Suddenly, Seimei's mind jolted, and he gained a new understanding of the process before him.
With a thought, the process of physical and spiritual energy mixing to form chakra suddenly accelerated. The time it took to refine the same amount of chakra was shortened by more than half.
Seimei knew that his Chakra Refinement Technique must have leveled up.
He stopped his training and glanced at the panel.
As expected, his Chakra Refinement Technique had increased from Lv4 (1998/2000) to Lv5 (1/5000).
Recalling the process of refining chakra just now, Seimei felt that his natural chakra recovery speed had more than doubled.
If expressed numerically, it had gone from recovering eight hundred chakra points per hour to two thousand per hour.
At the same time, the maximum chakra he could gain per hour using the Chakra Absorption Technique had also increased from sixteen to thirty-two.
The only downside was that the Lv5 Chakra Refinement Technique put a greater burden on his body. If his "Physique" and "Spirit" attributes didn't improve, he could only maintain it for a maximum of six hours per day.
Nevertheless, his total chakra recovery had increased from twenty-one thousand points per day to twenty-seven thousand points, a significant boost of six thousand points.
His chakra limit had also increased from a maximum of one hundred and forty-four points per day to one hundred and ninety-two points.
Based on these calculations, in about a month and a half, he could fully tap into his body's potential and reach the theoretical chakra limit of thirty-five thousand points.
However, this was assuming his potential didn't increase further.
But given the current situation, this was almost impossible. His "Physique" attribute was bound to improve within a month and a half.
After all, through dedicated practice over the past week, his Mystical Palm Technique and Chakra Scalpel had both reached Lv4.
The former's proficiency was now Lv4 (350/2000), and the latter's was Lv4 (25/2000).
Now, when he used the Mystical Palm Technique to condense Yang Release chakra to strengthen his body cells, Seimei could feel a noticeable improvement.
It now depended on when his "Physique" attribute would increase.
(End of Chapter)