By the time darkness fell, Mori Yasuko hurried home.
Yakumo had seen it clearly: the bruises on both her arms had almost completely disappeared, leaving behind only a few insignificant marks.
Good grief.
The Senju clan’s physical constitution really is terrifying.
Yakumo remembered something someone had once said on a forum in his previous life: marrying Tsunade would undoubtedly be wonderful, but an ordinary man’s body probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.
At that moment, Yakumo deeply agreed with that fellow’s assessment.
As usual, he submitted his completed missions.
Warm energy flowed through his body, gradually reducing the redness and swelling in his arms.
Unfortunately, when the energy dissipated, about half the swelling remained.
After washing up briefly, Yakumo sat down at his desk and resumed grinding through his missions.
Diary entry.
Ten minutes.
Complete.
Personal reflection.
One hour.
Complete.
Book review.
Two hours.
Complete.
More than a dozen reviews of medical books had already accumulated on Yakumo’s desk.
He had even reread some of those books several times.
He had no intention of becoming a mission-executing shinobi after graduating.
Instead, he planned to join Konoha Hospital, distance himself from danger, and continue improving himself while conserving his strength.
In other words, he wanted to cultivate quietly, build up his abilities, and stay out of trouble.
That night, Yakumo lay in bed beneath the orange-red glow of his lamp, staring at the wooden ceiling and counting its rough grain patterns.
The naturally formed lines branched out in countless directions, twisting and turning along their individual paths.
Yet every one of them eventually led to the same destination.
It was much like people’s lives.
Everyone had different circumstances and grew up in different environments, but in the end, they all headed toward death.
Yasuko’s condition sounded remarkably similar to a bloodline disease.
Such illnesses were like curses imposed by heaven upon bloodline clans.
Everyone knew that shinobi suffering from these diseases rarely lived long, and their final years could be unbearably painful.
Kimimaro was one example…
And Uchiha Itachi was another.
Or perhaps I’m just overthinking things?
At that moment, a trace of sorrow suddenly welled up inside Yakumo.
A girl as beautiful and charming as Yasuko might die of an illness at the very peak of her youth.
Sigh…
His breathing gradually steadied, and Yakumo drifted off to sleep.
By the following morning, the swelling in Yakumo’s arms had disappeared completely.
That was one of the advantages of having a high Constitution.
He recovered like a cockroach that simply refused to die.
When all was said and done, most shinobi were essentially high-speed, high-damage assassins.
Perhaps the only ones with truly formidable physical bodies were the muscular brutes of Kumogakure, whose heads seemed to be filled with nothing but muscles.
Over the following days, Yakumo spent his daytime hours borrowing medical books from the library.
Because of Yasuko, he specifically sought out books on bloodline diseases, including An Overview of Bloodline Diseases, Strange Curses, A Brief Discussion of Bloodline Curses, and The Curse of Blood.
Perhaps because doctors had been powerless to treat these conditions for so long, earlier physicians had believed they weren’t diseases that could be cured at all.
Instead, they regarded them as curses inflicted by the gods upon bloodline clans.
Some bloodline clans had existed for a thousand years.
Bloodline diseases, as difficult and mysterious ailments, had troubled physicians in this world for thousands of years.
Initially, their symptoms were extremely mild.
This stage was known as the stable phase.
After several years, the disease would enter a period of rapid progression.
During this phase, sufferers would experience excruciating pain before eventually dying from internal bleeding.
Yakumo suspected that bloodline diseases originated from genetic defects.
The wonders of nature had somehow given ordinary people traces of the Ōtsutsuki clan’s bloodline.
However, this inherited bloodline was incomplete and extremely unstable.
He guessed that Yasuko’s strange combat state might be an early symptom of a bloodline disease.
He simply hadn’t asked her about it.
Or perhaps, deep down, he couldn’t bring himself to accept the possibility that Yasuko might die soon.
During the evenings, Yakumo either practiced with his ninja sword or sparred with Yasuko.
He had to admit that she made an excellent training partner.
She wasn’t afraid of getting hurt, and she seemed never to tire.
Over the past several days, Yakumo’s close-combat abilities had steadily improved.
He could now fight Yasuko on roughly equal terms.
July 18.
Sunday.
Clear skies.
Yakumo was in an excellent mood.
After casually fending off Yasuko’s attempts to distract him, he immediately began writing his diary and completing his final book review.
Within an hour, both of his weekly missions were ready to be submitted.
“Ding!
You have obtained 150 Gold Coins.”
“Ding!
You have obtained 150 Gold Coins.”
“Ding!
You have obtained 500 Gold Coins.”
Of course, there were no actual notification sounds when he received the coins.
Those sounds were entirely products of Yakumo’s imagination.
〖Personal Skills〗
Passive Skill: Chakra Extraction Technique [Acceleration]
Active Skills:
Water Bullet — Perfected, 570/600 [Acceleration]Perfected: Water Bullet power increased by 60%.Perfected: Activation time reduced by 50%.Basic Swordsmanship — Proficient, 80/200 [Acceleration]Hatake Secret Art — Beginner, 340/400 [Acceleration]
Remaining Gold Coins: 850
Yakumo collapsed onto his bed and lay flat on his back.
He deliberately adopted this position to prevent himself from falling over if his body lost control while absorbing the memories associated with a skill breakthrough.
『Acceleration』
『300 Gold Coins deducted.』
『Create happiness with care.
We wish you an enjoyable gaming experience.』
Under the effect of the burning gold coins, Water Bullet’s proficiency rapidly increased.
580…
590…
600!
Active Skill: Water Bullet — Perfected, 600/600 [Breakthrough]
Yakumo looked at his skill panel again.
The word Acceleration had disappeared, replaced by Breakthrough.
At that moment, he had finally reached the same Perfected stage that the ancestor who originally created Water Bullet had envisioned when designing the technique.
“Huff… huff…”
Yakumo quickly regulated his increasingly heavy breathing.
Then he placed his finger over the Breakthrough button.
Technically, he could have activated it with a mere thought.
But at that moment, he felt that using his finger gave the process a greater sense of ceremony.
It was like an ancient ruler signing his name to a decree.
Only when his signature was written would the decree officially take effect.
〖Warning: This process is irreversible.〗
〖Yes〗 〖No〗
Yakumo raised his finger again and solemnly pressed Yes.
In the next instant, his mind seemed to explode like a bomb.
He saw himself attempting to improve Water Bullet countless times, only to fail again and again.
As time passed, the version of himself in his memories grew older and older, until his hair turned completely white.
Then another lifetime began.
Once again, a child of barely three or four years old picked up the task left behind by the previous generation and continued trying to improve Water Bullet.
Time flew by.
The child grew, eventually becoming the middle-aged man Yakumo knew so well.
At that moment, four water spheres, each about the size of a fist, floated above the man’s hand.
With incredible speed, the four spheres shot toward four different directions.
Four enormous boulders, each two meters tall, were instantly pierced through.
Every stone was left with a clean, transparent hole running from one side to the other.
The middle-aged man smiled with satisfaction.
Then space itself shattered.
Yakumo returned to his bedroom.
Only a few seconds had passed on the clock nearby.
He didn’t immediately get up.
Instead, he gradually absorbed the incredibly complex knowledge that had flooded his mind.
In essence, he could now create four water spheres when using Water Bullet.
He could fire them in four different directions, or launch all four along the same trajectory toward a single enemy.
In the latter case, all four spheres could strike the same location, inflicting damage four times over.
〖Water Bullet proficiency has surpassed the Master level.
Its power now completely exceeds the original creator’s design.
Would you like to rename the technique?〗
Water Bullet had originally been a C-rank ninjutsu, so the name had made perfect sense.
But after several successive improvements, the technique had undergone a fundamental transformation.
It was time to give it a more impressive name.
“Four Water Shots… too plain.”
“Water Dragon Barrage… doesn’t fit.”
“Four-Star Volley…?”
…That name wasn’t bad.
It wasn’t overly exaggerated, yet it matched the technique’s current characteristics rather well.
Then it was settled.
Four-Star Volley!
The name Water Bullet on the skill interface gradually blurred and was replaced by its new title.
Active Skill: Four-Star Volley — Master, 0/1200 [Acceleration]