Chapter 10: The First and Second Trials
Inoichi had never taught his daughter, but he had taught subordinate Genin, and knew that he couldn't let his daughter become arrogant at this time. Though excited in his heart, he still maintained a casual tone.
He thought for a moment and said, "Hmm, not bad. You barely meet the prerequisites for cultivating the family's secret technique. Let's start cultivating the Mind Body Switch Technique today."
Ino's expression was serious, her hands on her knees, sitting upright.
Inoichi raised a finger: "The Mind Body Switch Technique is a secret ninjutsu that uses the caster's mental power to seize and occupy the target's body. Once successful, victory is immediate. This secret technique of the family has obvious advantages, but it also has disadvantages. First, it requires a special hand seal. Second, once the body is occupied, if the body is injured, the caster will also be injured. Finally, the attack range of this technique is also very limited."
Worried that his daughter would back down, he quickly retracted his words: "Of course, this is because the Mind Body Switch Technique is still very basic. At the Mind Body Disturbance stage, these problems won't exist."
Inoichi coughed: "Let's first try to cultivate the first stage of the Mind Body Switch, which is to concentrate."
It could be seen that he had been preparing for this day for a long time. At this time, he unsealed his carrying scroll and took out five cards from it.
What are these?
The cards were drawn with a large number of irregular lines. Ino glanced at them, just one glance, and felt upset, as if something was about to jump out of her heart.
She knew very well that these were just some irregular lines, there was no "unnameable thing". She looked at Inoichi, waiting for the following explanation.
"The Ino-Shika-Chō alliance has lasted for over two hundred years, but the history of the Yamanaka family can be traced back to the era of the Sage of Six Paths before the Warring States period." It could be seen that Inoichi was very proud of his family history.
Konoha is amazing? The village only has sixty years of history. Senju and Uchiha were awesome, but they are gone now, Yamanaka is still here! This is the advantage. Those who survive to the end can laugh to the end.
Ino gave him a strange look, not knowing what good things her father was thinking about.
Inoichi laid out the five cards in order, and Ino immediately noticed the problem. The first card caused her the least discomfort, and the last one the most.
"Without specialized training, a ninja's mental power is loose and lacks strength. To penetrate the enemy's inner defenses, our mental power must have sufficient penetrating power. Look at these five cards in order. If you can see the pattern and text in the center of the card, you pass."
Inoichi also took out a bowl of cool ointment and handed it to Ino: "Apply it to your temples, then remember the formula I say: 'Nourish within, quiet and void, originally hidden and clear, inner illumination drives form. Upper closure is called existence, lower closure is called non-existence. Non-existence serves the above, where the divine resides.'"
Ino applied the ointment to her left and right temples. After two seconds, she felt a surge of energy, and many distracting thoughts in her mind dissipated. Inoichi's voice reciting the formula was very soft and sounded ordinary, but with the ointment and her current state of high concentration, in a trance, it seemed that something detached from matter was gathering in her brain.
She didn't understand the meaning of the formula at all, and Inoichi didn't explain it, but Ino still gained something indescribable from it.
She picked up the first card. Countless intricate but extremely simple lines converged before her eyes.
At first glance, due to the visual difference, she even felt that the lines on this card were rotating at an irregular speed.
When she had distracting thoughts, looking at this thing would make her dizzy. Now, temporarily forgetting about shifting blame, taking the blame, and smashing other people's windows, her heart was clear. Her sight focused on the center of the card, and she quickly saw the answer.
She said with certainty: "It's the character '悟' (enlightenment)."
Inoichi nodded, motioning her to continue.
The first four cards seemed relatively easy. The fifth one was particularly difficult. Inoichi was quite nervous. Ino squinted her eyes, wishing she also had Byakugan or Sharingan. She stared at the center of the card. The more she wanted to see clearly, the more blurred things became, and her mental power was being consumed at an extremely fast rate.
In less than thirty seconds, she felt a faint pain in her temples, which was an external manifestation of excessive use of mental power.
Inoichi reminded her: "Don't stare at one point. When the image is swirling, don't resist, go with the flow."
After looking for a full five minutes, Ino kept reciting the formula, keeping her heart calm, suppressing the boiling feeling in her brain. When the effect of the ointment wore off, her mental power was about to reach the critical point, and her body was about to faint, Ino finally completed the task.
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she said: "I saw it clearly, it's the character '神' (God)."
Inoichi laughed. He was very satisfied. His daughter's talent was even higher than he expected. It took him a month and a half to pass this test. Every failure required ten days of recuperation to recover the consumed mental power. He failed three times before and after. On the fourth time, he used self-harm, cutting seven or eight wounds on his arms, desperately trying to pass.
Ino seemed to be struggling to pass this test, but in fact, the boiling and fatigue were all the brain's self-protection, and she hadn't reached her limit. As an expert in mind control, Inoichi still had this much discernment.
Ino was also relieved. She almost gave up just now.
She had miscalculated. She originally thought that the Yamanaka family's secret technique was still ninjutsu after all, so she added points to ninjutsu. But what was the result? This first trial had nothing to do with ninjutsu, nor with the eight aspects of ninja arts. It was more like testing mental strength and soul strength.
Calming down, the more she thought about it, the more she felt something was wrong.
This Yamanaka family gave her a "you practice martial arts, I cultivate immortality" kind of feeling, the style was strange.
"Rest for ten minutes, then we'll continue with the second step of cultivation."
"Okay." Ino's cheeks and neck were covered in sweat. Without bothering to wipe it off, she sat cross-legged, using meditation to recover her mental power.
According to her guess, the next step was probably to use this opportunity of her mental power being depleted for pressure training. This trick wasn't new.
Ten minutes later, Inoichi brought Ino a stack of books more than a meter high. She was dumbfounded.
What was this for? She flipped through a few pages and found the content of the books obscure and difficult to understand. There were some characters she didn't even recognize.
"This is?"
Inoichi didn't play dumb: "Read, read quietly, concentrate. Don't rest tonight, finish reading these books."
Ino's eyes rolled twice. She probably understood. The key to this stage wasn't actually the books, but concentration.
At least she had the mind of an adult, not a child. She had enough self-control.
Ino sat at the desk, picked up the top book, and started reading from the first page.
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