The rubber wall of the ball was much thicker than that of a balloon; ordinary water pressure couldn’t hope to burst it.
Only the centrifugal force generated by a high-speed rotating Chakra vortex could tear it apart from within.
Linbei gathered Chakra in his palm and began the rotation.
A Chakra vortex formed in his palm, driving the flow of air inside the ball.
The ball began to vibrate, its surface bulging slightly, but it was nowhere near exploding.
He increased the Chakra output.
The vortex accelerated, and the ball’s vibration intensified.
Still not enough.
More.
The ball began to deform, stretching from a sphere into an ellipsoid, and cracks appeared on the surface.
Still not enough.
*Pop!*
The ball burst.
Shards flew out, and one grazed Linbei’s cheek, leaving a faint red mark.
Linbei didn’t care.
He looked down at the remains of the ball in his hand, a hint of dissatisfaction in his eyes.
“It burst, but the power isn’t enough.” He recalled the feeling from just now.
“After Naruto finished Stage Two, the Rasengan could already cause surface damage.
Mine wouldn’t even break tree bark.”
He picked up another rubber ball and continued his practice.
The second.
The third.
The fourth.
The sun rose from the east until it was directly overhead.
The mist on the river had long since dispersed, and the direct sunlight made the skin feel hot.
Linbei’s clothes hanging on the branch had dried, but he was covered in sweat again, his back soaked through.
He used nearly twenty rubber balls for Stage Two.
The success rate improved from an initial one-third to two-thirds.
The power of the explosions also gradually increased, evolving from a “gentle pop” to a “violent blast.”
Linbei picked up the twenty-first ball and held it in his palm.
This time, he didn’t rush to output a massive amount of Chakra.
Instead, he first constructed the core of the vortex—forming a stable, high-speed rotating Chakra sphere in his palm, and then using that sphere to drive the air inside the ball.
Chakra surged from his palm, condensing into a tiny point of light about a centimeter above his skin.
The point of light began to rotate, getting faster and larger until it formed a blue sphere the size of a ping-pong ball.
The moment the sphere contacted the inner wall of the rubber ball, the ball vibrated violently.
*Pop!*
The ball exploded from the inside, shards flying in all directions.
One piece flew out and struck a tree trunk three meters away, leaving a shallow dent.
Linbei looked at the dent and nodded.
“Stage Two, passed.”
He turned to look at Tom.
Sometime during the training, Tom had brought out a folding chair—yes, a folding chair—and was sitting in the shade by the river.
In front of him was a small table with a pot of tea, a plate of Senbei, and a tray of fruit.
He was sitting with his legs crossed, using a claw to pop a grape into his mouth.
Linbei closed his eyes and took three deep breaths.
Then he opened them, picked up another rubber ball, and continued practicing.
He planned to train Stage Three and Stage Four together.
Jiraiya had said that Stage Three was about materializing the Chakra inside the ball to form the prototype of the Rasengan.
Stage Four was the combination of everything—high-density Chakra, continuous release, stable maintenance, and final solidification.
The boundary between these two stages was very blurred; many people reached the threshold of Stage Four while practicing Stage Three.
Linbei held up a rubber ball and closed his eyes.
Chakra condensed in his palm.
This time, it wasn’t a simple vortex, but a physical sphere.
He could feel the Chakra being compressed, rotated, and solidified above his palm, like a miniature typhoon was forming.
The ball began to vibrate.
It wasn’t the kind of vibration from being over-pressurized, but rather being pulled and dragged by an internal force.
The rubber wall twisted and deformed within the Chakra’s rotating force field.
Linbei continuously outputted Chakra, maintaining the rotation and density of the sphere in his palm.
*Pop.*
The ball burst.
But the way it burst this time was entirely different from before.
Instead of shards flying everywhere, it was torn apart from the center, the rubber wall shredded into long, thin strips by the rotating force.
Linbei opened his eyes and looked down at the rubber strips in his hand, his mouth curling up slightly.
“This is working.”
He picked up the next ball and continued.
The sun slowly slid from the zenith toward the west, and the light on the river changed from gold to orange.
The fragments of rubber balls on the grass grew more numerous, piling up into a small mountain of colorful debris.
Linbei no longer remembered how many balls he had used.
The palm of his right hand was red from the heat of the Chakra, and his fingers were slightly numb, but that feeling—the sensation of Chakra condensing, rotating, and solidifying in his palm—was already deeply etched into his muscle memory.
He picked up the last rubber ball.
He closed his eyes.
Chakra surged from his Dantian, flowing through the meridians of his arm and gathering in his right palm.
A blue point of light lit up a centimeter above his palm and began to rotate.
The point of light grew larger and brighter.
The air inside the ball was driven by the high-speed rotating Chakra vortex, emitting a low hum.
The rubber wall began to deform, but it wasn’t being burst; it was being pulled and twisted by the rotational force.
Linbei continuously outputted Chakra.
The blue light-sphere grew from the size of a ping-pong ball to a tennis ball, and then to the size of a fist.
The surface of the sphere was no longer a blurry glow, but clearly visible, high-speed rotating streamlines of Chakra.
The rubber ball split open within the Chakra’s rotational field, the walls peeling back like flower petals.
And then—
A complete, blue, high-speed rotating sphere of Chakra floated quietly just above Linbei’s palm.
There was no rubber ball to encase it.
There was no external aid.
A sphere composed of pure Chakra.
The Rasengan.
Linbei opened his eyes and looked at the blue sphere in his palm.
Countless tiny streamlines of Chakra could be seen moving rapidly across its surface.
The center of the sphere was a bright core of light, surrounded by ring after ring of rotating Chakra ripples.
He raised his hand, aimed at a nearby tree about as thick as a bowl, and thrust the Rasengan forward.
*Boom—*
The blue sphere struck the trunk, emitting a dull, heavy roar.
Wood chips sprayed everywhere, and the trunk snapped in the middle.
The upper half of the tree, along with its branches and leaves, crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The break wasn’t a clean snap from an impact; it had been shredded by the rotational force.
The wood fibers were twisted into a tangled mess, the edges jagged and uneven, as if wrung apart by a giant hand.
Linbei stood by the fallen tree and looked down at his right palm.
The skin of his palm was red from the Chakra’s heat, pulsing with warmth.
But his heartbeat was even hotter than his palm.
“I did it.” His voice was soft, but every word carried irrepressible excitement.
Tom hopped down from the folding chair and walked over to his side.
He looked down at the fallen tree, then up at Linbei.
He pulled out his small chalkboard and wrote two words:
[Impressive]
Just two words.
But Linbei knew there weren’t many things that could make Tom say “impressive.”
He sat down on a rock by the river and looked up at the sky.
The sun had already sunk behind the mountains, and the clouds on the horizon were dyed golden-red.
The river reflected the last remnants of the light.
Tom hopped onto his lap, curled up, and rested his tail on Linbei’s arm.
One boy and one cat sat by the river, watching the sun set.
“Tom,” Linbei suddenly spoke.
“Meow.”
“Do you know who invented the Rasengan?”
Tom shook his head.
“The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze.” Linbei’s gaze fell on the distant Hokage Rock, where the Fourth’s statue was now just a silhouette in the sunset.
“It took him three years to develop this technique.”
“And I only took one day.”
Tom tilted his head and looked at him, a hint of confusion in his eyes—as if to say, “And?”
Linbei was silent for a moment, then laughed.
“There is no ‘and.’ I just wanted to show off a bit.”
Tom rolled his eyes, jumped off his lap, and began walking toward home.
Linbei stood up and followed behind him.
The shadows of the boy and the cat were stretched long and thin in the sunset.
After a few steps, Linbei suddenly stopped and glanced back at the fallen tree.
The shredded surface of the trunk shimmered with a dark red light in the sunset, like a crushed flower.
He turned back and hurried to catch up with Tom.
“We’ll keep practicing tomorrow,” he said.
“The Rasengan’s power can get even greater.”
“Meow.”
The last sliver of sunlight vanished from the river.
Night fell, and the stars began to blink on, one by one.