Chapter 178: Drain Kakashi's Coins

"Well, now that the Breathing Technique has been mastered at the basic level, it can indeed speed up the progress of the Eight Gates a bit." Muyue nodded.

Currently, Might Guy is still far from reaching the state of Normal Middle, so temporarily focusing on the Eight Gates will improve his strength more effectively.

The Breathing Technique and the Eight Gates complement each other; the Breathing Technique strengthens the body, and the stronger the body, the greater the effect of the Eight Gates.

"I'm not calm enough in battle; I get impulsive easily." Obito thought about it and said.

With Muyue asking the question, he was able to face his own shortcomings directly.

Obito himself was aware of this weakness; that's why in his fights against Might Guy, he had more losses than wins.

He easily got hot-headed, and when he did, his battles lacked strategy, ultimately causing him to lose.

"Now that you know, you need to be more careful in future battles." Muyue patted Obito's head and said.

Obito's performance was truly unstable, hit-or-miss. Sometimes he played well and could win a battle even when at a disadvantage, but most of the time he threw the fight by being reckless.

"I didn't understand your strength, Teacher Muyue, so I made a wrong judgment." Kakashi recalled the event and said.

To be fair, he felt that his performance in that mission's encounter wasn't bad.

Being caught off guard was unavoidable. In that situation, not just him—Kakashi felt even a Konoha jonin would have ended up the same way. The opponent was clearly not an ordinary jonin, and it was a sneak attack; how could he block it, with what?

Moreover, after breaking free, Kakashi quickly helped his teammates eliminate the enemy, freeing up more combat power.

Kakashi felt that his only mistake was misjudging Muyue's strength; he hadn't known Muyue was so powerful that he could take out two of the enemy jonin while protecting him.

"After all, we've only known each other for a short time. We'll get to know each other better from now on." Muyue said with a warm smile.

"Teacher Muyue, did you use your full strength in the last battle?" Kakashi thought about it and asked.

Unlike Obito and Might Guy, Kakashi was raised by Sakumo Hatake, so he had broader experience and knew what true strength looked like.

After returning, he recalled that battle and found many puzzling points—the strength Muyue displayed at the beginning and the end were completely on different levels.

The Lightning Release and Wind Release that instantly killed the chunin in the early stage were certainly impressive, but they were far inferior to the combined Fire and Wind Release jutsu at the end.

Therefore, Kakashi formed a hypothesis: perhaps Muyue's strength was even greater than what he had shown that night, but he didn't kill all the enemies directly in order to train them.

Kakashi's question also piqued the curiosity of Might Guy and Obito. Having followed Muyue for over half a year, they still didn't know the extent of his limits.

"Take a guess." Muyue replied with a smile.

Kakashi:...

"Of course he didn't use full power. If he had used that Fire Release from the start, the enemies would have all been burned to death." Obito said with certainty.

Even if one day Muyue told Obito that he was actually the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths, Obito wouldn't be surprised—after all, that was the all-powerful Muyue-sama.

"Correct answer. Reward is a piece of candy." Muyue tossed Obito a candy.

"Hehe." Obito caught the candy and grinned sheepishly. As expected, he understood Teacher Muyue best.

"Teacher Muyue, you're a teacher at the Ninja Academy, right?" After getting Muyue's confirmation, Kakashi couldn't help asking.

"Kakashi, why do you always ask such weird questions? What else could Teacher Muyue be if not an academy teacher?" Obito complained.

"Kakashi wants to ask why someone with my level of strength is still teaching at the Ninja Academy, right?" Muyue said with a smile.

Kakashi ignored Obito and nodded.

"Well, there are many reasons, but the main one is that I enjoy teaching. The thing that makes me happiest is seeing my students improve their strength." Muyue explained with a laugh.

This answer caught Kakashi somewhat off guard; he had thought the reason would be more complicated, but it turned out to be so simple.

"Alright, the summary is done. Everyone, start training. We'll train this morning and do missions this afternoon." Muyue announced.

Then Muyue began to assign training for each disciple.

"You've mostly mastered False Darkness. I have a good new jutsu to teach you." Muyue said to Kakashi.

Saying that, Muyue raised his hand, gathered chakra in it, and quickly completed nature and shape transformations. A dazzling purple lightning enveloped his palm.

"It looks just like the Chidori from that day." Kakashi felt this new jutsu seemed familiar.

"Yes, this jutsu is an improved version of Chidori." Muyue nodded.

In the original story, Kakashi's Chidori first evolved into Lightning Blade, and then after losing his Sharingan, it was improved into Purple Lightning. Here, he directly skipped to learning Purple Lightning, getting ahead of the original Kakashi by thirty years.

"Compared to Chidori, Purple Lightning doesn't require hand seals, is more powerful and flexible to use—just slightly slower."

After saying that, Mu Yue demonstrated the power of Purple Lightning: it could cut through rock like tofu and also release a wide-range electrical attack in all directions.

"Isn't it a bit off to sacrifice speed for power and flexibility?" Kakashi still felt that speed was more important.

There were ultimately few ninjas with strong defensive abilities, but ninja speed was generally not slow.

Mu Yue didn't explain. Instead, he grabbed Kakashi, burst forth with Lightning Breathing, and let Kakashi experience an extreme sense of speed.

"Was that fast enough just now? Could you react in time?" Mu Yue put Kakashi down and asked.

Kakashi instantly understood what Mu Yue meant. He recalled the speed at which Mu Yue used Chidori—it was also extremely fast.

Kakashi had an indescribable feeling; it seemed Mu Yue had specially modified the technique for him.

Kakashi was genuinely flattered. He had been Mu Yue's disciple for less than half a month, yet Mu Yue would consider things so carefully for him.

It wasn't that Kakashi was narcissistic—the way Mu Yue had modified the technique was indeed puzzling. Mu Yue could easily be called a speed-type ninja, so how could he possibly reduce a technique's speed to increase its power?

After Kakashi's training ended, Mu Yue gave Kakashi a piece of his own calligraphy as a gift.

【You gifted your disciple personal calligraphy. Due to the disciple's extreme gratitude, the reward crit. You obtained: Earth Nature Chakra Transformation (Proficient Level).】

Having become much more familiar with Mu Yue, been saved once, and with the emotions stirred up by the teaching of Purple Lightning, Kakashi produced a decent reward.

Looking at Kakashi, who was pondering the meaning of his calligraphy, Mu Yue showed the smile of a farmer enjoying a bountiful harvest.

A crit was a good sign—raising the trust level was only a matter of time.

In the afternoon, Mu Yue took his disciples to the Hokage Building. Chakra still needed to be farmed.