The next morning, Linbei woke up early.
He didn’t go to the Ninja Academy—it was Sunday, the day he had designated as his “Secret Training Day.” On ordinary days, he played the part of a model student at the Academy; on weekends, he used his time to grow stronger.
Before heading out, he spread a sheet of paper on the low table and wrote a line in crooked handwriting:
[Rasengan Training Plan: Four Stages]
Stage One: Rotation.
Move the water inside the balloon irregularly until it bursts.
Stage Two: Power.
Burst a rubber ball, causing actual physical damage.
Stage Three: Containment.
Solidify the Chakra into a sphere and maintain its shape.
Stage Four: Completion.
Form a miniature typhoon capable of piercing through trees.
This was one of the training processes from Linbei’s past life memories that had left the deepest impression on him.
He remembered every detail of Jiraiya teaching Naruto—mostly because he had rewatched that arc no less than ten times.
The Rasengan, an A-rank Ninjutsu developed by the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, required no hand seals or Kekkei Genkai.
It relied entirely on Chakra control.
For him right now, it was the perfect choice.
Linbei tucked the note into his pocket and pushed open the door.
“Tom, let’s go.”
“Meow.”
Tom zipped out of the kitchen, a half-eaten piece of dried fish still in his mouth, and trotted at Linbei’s heels.
One boy and one cat followed a familiar path through the Uchiha clan grounds, crested a small hill, and arrived at the riverbank.
A thin layer of mist clung to the river’s surface in the early morning; the woods on the opposite bank loomed indistinctly through the haze, as quiet as an ink-wash painting.
Linbei sat down on a rock by the river and pulled a cloth bag from his backpack.
The bag contained dozens of balloons—he had visited several shops yesterday to buy them all.
The quality of balloons in Konoha wasn’t great; they were as thin as cicada wings and popped at the slightest poke.
But that was exactly the effect Linbei needed.
“First, fill the balloons with water.” Linbei crouched by the river and began filling them.
Tom sat nearby and watched.
After a moment, he decided his master was being too slow.
He reached behind his back and pulled out—Linbei was already too tired to wonder where he kept things—a mini water pump.
He stuck one end into the river and pointed the other at the mouth of a balloon.
*Whirrr—*
The pump worked for less than three seconds before a balloon was full, bulging like a small watermelon.
Tom held up a single claw, signifying “one.” Then he picked up a second balloon and aimed the pump.
*Whirrr—*
The second one.
*Whirrr—*
The third.
In less than two minutes, dozens of balloons were neatly arranged in three rows, each filled to the brim and shimmering under the morning light.
Linbei looked at the balloons, then at the water pump in Tom’s hand.
His lip twitched.
“When did you get that?”
Tom tilted his head, thought for a moment, and wrote on his chalkboard: [Picked it up while fishing last time.]
“You can just find water pumps in the river?”
Tom gave an innocent shrug.
Linbei gave up on questioning him.
The balloon was cool and heavy, the water inside sloshing slightly against his skin.
“Stage One.”
He began to recall the key points from Naruto’s training—gather Chakra in the palm, then make it rotate.
It wasn’t simple release; he had to form a rotating force field in his palm to drive the movement of the water inside.
Linbei closed his eyes, drawing Chakra from his Dantian and channeling it through the meridians of his arm to his right palm.
The moment the Chakra surged from his palm and contacted the balloon, the water inside vibrated slightly.
And then, nothing happened.
The water just wobbled, as if responding to the touch of the Chakra, but it didn’t form any kind of regular rotation.
Linbei adjusted the output of his Chakra, increasing it a bit, then decreasing it.
The water began to turn, but very slowly, like someone stirring a stick through thick mud—clumsy and weak.
He maintained the output, trying to accelerate the rotation.
*Pop!*
The balloon burst.
Water sprayed everywhere, drenching Linbei’s face.
The icy water trickled down his neck and soaked a large patch of his shirt.
Linbei wiped the water from his face and looked down at the remains of the balloon in his hand.
“It popped, but that was just because of the water pressure, not the rotation,” he muttered to himself.
“The requirement for Stage One is to make the water move irregularly until it explodes—the focus is ‘irregular movement,’ not just bursting the balloon.”
He picked up another balloon and held it in his palm.
Chakra output.
The water vibrated.
Rotation.
Acceleration.
*Pop.*
It burst again.
Still just pressure.
The third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
*Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.*
Colorful balloon fragments were scattered across the grass by the river.
Linbei’s clothes were now soaked through, and droplets of water hung from his hair as if he had just been fished out of the river.
He picked up the sixth balloon, took a deep breath, and tried again.
This time, he didn’t rush to increase the Chakra output.
Instead, he carefully felt the state of the water inside the balloon.
The Chakra surged from his palm, passed through the rubber wall, and made contact with the liquid.
The resistance, tension, and fluidity of the water—every sensation was transmitted back to his brain via the Chakra.
He began to make the Chakra rotate.
He didn’t try to spin the water; he made the Chakra itself form a rotating vortex in his palm.
This vortex would pull the water into motion rather than pushing it directly.
The movement of the water changed.
It was no longer a vibration caused by compression, but a flow caused by attraction. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
The water began to spin along the direction of the Chakra vortex, faster and faster, faster still—
*Pop!*
The balloon burst.
But this time, it hadn’t just popped from pressure.
Linbei could clearly feel that before the balloon exploded, the water inside had formed a high-speed rotating vortex.
The centrifugal force of the water had exceeded the structural limit of the balloon wall, shredding it from the inside out.
“I did it.” The corners of Linbei’s mouth curved up slightly.
Even though it was only the first step of the first stage, he had found the rhythm.
He picked up the seventh balloon.
This time, it took less than ten seconds from the start of the Chakra output to the explosion.
The water’s rotation was faster, and the sound of the pop was crisper.
The eighth.
The ninth.
The tenth.
Each one was faster and more stable than the last.
By the twentieth balloon, Linbei could compress the explosion time to within five seconds.
He shook his waterlogged hand and reached for the twenty-first balloon, only to find there were none left.
Dozens of balloons, all used up.
Linbei looked up at Tom.
Tom was currently squatting on a dry rock with a cup of hot tea—God knows where he got it—and a plate of Senbei in his paws.
He was sipping tea while watching Linbei struggle, his expression as relaxed as if he were watching a slapstick comedy.
Looking at the plate of Senbei in front of Tom, Linbei’s eye twitched.
“You sure are comfortable.”
Tom picked up a piece of Senbei, stuffed it into his mouth, and crunched away.
Then he pointed a claw at Linbei’s soaked clothes, then at his own dry tuxedo, and gave a thumbs-up.
The expression translated to: *Keep it up, I’m watching.*
Linbei took a deep breath and told himself, “You can’t argue with a cartoon character.”
“Stage Two requires a rubber ball.” Linbei stood up and stretched his stiff shoulders.
“Balloons are too thin; they can’t withstand higher-intensity Chakra rotation.
Jiraiya said rubber balls are a hundred times tougher than balloons.”
He walked over to Tom and held out his hand.
“Give me a rubber ball.”
Tom tilted his head, thought for a moment, and then reached behind his back—and pulled out a rubber ball.
It was a standard child’s rubber ball, orange and printed with the Konoha whirlpool symbol, sized perfectly to fit in a palm.
Linbei took it and weighed it.
It was much heavier than a balloon, and the rubber wall was far thicker.
“Are there more?
Give me a few more.”
Tom nodded and began pulling rubber balls out from behind his back one after another, piling them into a small mountain in front of Linbei.
There were orange ones, green ones, blue ones, printed with all sorts of patterns.
Linbei stared at the mountain for three seconds.
“Just how much stuff do you have hidden back there?”
Tom shrugged and wrote on the chalkboard: [Enough.]
Linbei didn’t ask further.
He took off his soaked outer shirt, hung it on a tree branch by the river, and picked up a rubber ball, balancing it in his palm.
The requirement for Stage Two—burst the rubber ball.