Chapter 225: Mountain of Scrolls, Sea of Questions, and a Birthday

"After dinner, practice the breathing method for another four hours to improve your concentration as soon as possible." On the way home, Kakashi was still thinking about training.

Currently, Kakashi primarily trained in Lightning Breathing, with Armament Haki and Lightning Release chakra nature transformation as secondary subjects.

He believed that mastering the breathing method was the top priority; Armament Haki and nature transformation could be set aside for now.

Because the breathing method enhanced training efficiency and strengthened the body, and his Lightning Flash also required reaching the "Constant" level of the breathing method to resolve its shortcomings.

Although Armament Haki and nature transformation were powerful, they didn't provide much improvement for Kakashi at the moment. No matter how strong the nature transformation was, Kakashi didn't have enough chakra to convert.

The same went for Armament Haki. He basically only used Purple Lightning once per battle, and if he reinforced it with Armament Haki, he would use up most of his chakra after that single move.

"Recently, there have been more war commissions, all in the Land of Grass. I wonder how things are on the front line."

"I heard that one of the Three Sannin, Lord Jiraiya, has led a team to the front lines. With a strong man like him there, there's definitely no problem."

"It seems our teacher has been thinking of going to the battlefield lately. Maybe the next mission will be a war mission, and then we might get to see Lord Jiraiya fight."

"War is way more dangerous than regular missions. When that time comes, we definitely need to look out for each other."

"Of course, we're comrades."

On the street, Kakashi heard a somewhat familiar voice. He looked toward the sound and saw his two former former teammates.

Kakashi thought for a moment, then walked over.

Kakashi's undisguised movement made his two former former teammates notice him.

"Did he hear that, then get angrier and angrier at home and plan revenge?" The former former teammate couldn't help but speculate what Kakashi wanted by coming over.

Thinking this, the former former teammate couldn't help but tense his muscles, watching Kakashi warily.

Although he thought Kakashi was cold and merciless, he had to admit that Kakashi was indeed a genius—much younger than them, yet no weaker in strength.

"I'm sorry about what happened before." Kakashi opened his mouth to apologize.

When he had teamed up with these two, Kakashi had repeatedly acted without considering his teammates' condition in order to complete missions.

Back then, he believed a ninja's duty was to complete the mission. As long as the mission was accomplished, sacrificing comrades was worthwhile. If the mission failed, even protecting teammates would invite criticism.

Although his relationship with these two former former teammates was not like that with Might Gai or Obito, now that his understanding had cleared, Kakashi had established his own conviction. He would not run away—if he had done wrong before, he would admit it.

"Huh?" Kakashi's apology caught the two off guard. They had thought Kakashi came to pick a fight, and they stood frozen for a moment.

After speaking, seeing that the two seemed at a loss, Kakashi continued walking toward home.

His apology just now was not only to his former teammates but also a formal farewell to his former self. From now on, he would train hard to uphold his conviction and protect the comrades he wanted to protect.

"Suddenly saying this—who understands that?" After Kakashi left, the two teammates still couldn't figure out what happened.

"How strange. Was he apologizing for past missions? His change is way too big."

After Obito's endless waiting, the time finally reached February 10th, his birthday.

But even on his birthday, there were no days off—training went on as usual. Celebrating the birthday was only an evening affair.

In the morning, Obito's first two hours were spent training Armament Haki. Currently, aside from Rin Nohara and Might Gai, the other three students had already started Armament Haki training.

Rin Nohara had no need for it for now, while Might Gai's Yin Release nature transformation progress was slow and hadn't reached the level for Armament Haki training.

After training Armament Haki for two hours, he moved on to constant breathing method training until the day's training time ended, with rest breaks in between but no change in training content.

"You must find it pretty boring doing all these basic training exercises every day, right?" Mu Yue didn't rush them to start but asked with a smile.

"Yeah, it's pretty boring, just like the initial physical training, but with the added condition of maintaining Total Concentration Breathing," Obito agreed.

"It's training after all," Shisui replied.

Training itself was certainly not fun. What kept him consistently and diligently completing all kinds of training was the improvement after finishing, along with Mu Yue's praise.

"Then today, let's play something fun and challenging." Mu Yue said with a smile.

Seeing Mu Yue's smile, Obito somehow got a bad feeling, so he quickly said:

"Actually, I think Shisui has a point—training isn't about whether it's boring or not."

"I'm fine with anything. I believe whatever training you arrange for us, Teacher Mu Yue, will definitely be the most suitable." After hearing Mu Yue's words, Shisui expressed a new thought.

Obito:...

This would make him look stupid.

"He's not going to bring out that terrifying training method, is he?" Obito couldn't help but shudder as he thought about the dark times he had endured before.

If he had a choice, Obito would rather fight a jonin again than go back to those days.

Problem-solving punishment training was, in Obito's opinion, the most terrifying kind of training. It once made him lose all sense of time, as if every day was Friday, followed by endless hours of doing problems.

This wasn't just Obito's opinion. Even Might Guy, who believed he had a will of iron and rock, once said that if he had to solve problems, he would rather choose to train for a whole day.

"The training is simple: just dodge my attacks. You can use any means you want, whether it's the Sharingan or ninjutsu to attack me.

If I hit you once, you need to do two problems; if you successfully dodge once, it cancels two problems. If you never manage to dodge until the end, the number of problems you need to do will increase by an additional ten percent." Muyue announced the training rules with a chuckle.

"Teacher Muyue, what level will you control your strength to? If you use full power, how can we possibly dodge your attacks?" Obito asked.

The gap between them and Muyue was too huge. If Muyue used full speed, they wouldn't even be able to see his shadow, so how could they dodge?

"I'll use shadow clones to train with you. I won't give the shadow clones too much chakra; they'll be about the same level as you. As long as you improve your Breathing Technique a little, you'll be able to dodge." Muyue smiled and nodded.

"Also, the training will last for six minutes. Within those six minutes, my shadow clones can launch attacks at any time." Muyue stated the time limit.

This training wasn't just meant to enhance the two's burst power; it was also meant to make them more enduring.

That was the essence of training for constant Breathing Technique use: to make breathing more focused while increasing the duration of the Breathing Technique, achieving a state of full focus throughout the day.

"A full six minutes!" Obito couldn't help but exclaim; he could already see a mountain of problems surging toward him.

"No matter what, I have to successfully dodge at least once, or I'll be in deep trouble." Obito thought silently.

Obito had plenty of experience with this kind of thing. It might only be ten percent, but if he ended up with a hundred problems, that would mean ten extra problems out of thin air. Then if he couldn't finish them and had to pay in installments, there would be another ten out of thin air.

Shisui didn't feel much about it. Wasn't solving problems just doing well on exams? He always got full marks.

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Muyue quickly formed hand seals and split into two shadow clones.

"You can enter the Total Concentration Breathing state now. Training starts in five seconds. Five, four..."

"Flame Breathing, Total Concentration Breathing!" Obito and Shisui both entered the Breathing Technique state. Obito even activated his Sharingan, his eyes turning blood-red with two black tomoe spinning within them.

"Two, one, training begins!"

Muyue's two shadow clones rushed out immediately, attacking Obito and Shisui respectively.

Through his Sharingan, Obito could see that Muyue's speed had indeed been controlled and wasn't overwhelmingly faster.

While running, he pulled out a large number of shuriken from his ninja tool pouch and flung them at Muyue without even aiming, hoping only to interfere with him a little.

Even though it was a shadow clone, Obito's little trick obviously couldn't interfere with Muyue. Muyue directly used Wind Release to blow the shuriken back, which instead caused Obito to slow down momentarily while dodging the returning shuriken.

Slap!

The shadow clone Muyue's finger precisely tapped Obito's forehead.

"That's two problems." The shadow clone Muyue said with a chuckle.

"Bad move. I should have just focused on running." Obito felt he had made the wrong decision.

"Anyway, I have the Sharingan. Should I try to dodge head-on?" Obito decided to trust the power of the Sharingan.

Obito concentrated on his breathing, putting all his attention on Muyue's two hands.

"I can see it. Maybe I can do it!" Realizing he could perceive the trajectory of Muyue's attack, Obito secretly rejoiced.

Slap!

A crisp tapping sound rang out as Muyue's finger once again tapped Obito's head, though this time on the side. The Obito who was in the middle of dodging was completely stunned.

"Damn it! I was just a little short of dodging!" Obito was a bit unwilling to accept it.

Unwilling to give up, Obito kept trying.

Slap!

"That's six problems." The shadow clone Muyue said calmly.

Whoosh!

Obito immediately fled. Although he really wanted to try again, one mistake meant two problems, and Obito didn't want to bear such a painful cost.

"Such a weird technique, I can't feel any aura of the attack at all." On the other side, Shisui, because the trees were too dense to sprint, was caught up and also got flicked by Muyue.

Although he didn't resist doing problems, fewer problems meant better training results. Shisui definitely wanted fewer problems, so he also activated his Sharingan, his eyes turning bloody red.

Smack!

Shisui watched helplessly as Muyue's finger barely tapped his head.

"Can't dodge it at all. This attack speed is just a bit faster than my dodge speed." Shisui immediately concluded that under normal circumstances, he simply couldn't dodge Muyue's attacks.

"Teacher Muyue must be deliberately maintaining this speed," Shisui guessed inwardly.

There couldn't be so many coincidences of it being just a bit faster; it was probably to put pressure on them to break through.

After understanding this, Shisui quickly dodged away, creating distance from Muyue.

After the six-minute training session ended, Muyue announced the results:

"Obito was hit twenty-five times, dodged zero times. Including the penalty for no dodges, that's fifty-five problems total."

When Obito heard the number fifty-five, he almost blacked out and collapsed. Just six minutes of training brought him an unknown amount of suffering.

"Shisui was hit twenty-one times, dodged zero times. The problems he needs to do are forty-six." Muyue then announced Shisui's results.

Shisui also hadn't completed a breakthrough in the Breathing Technique, but Shisui was a bit more cautious, so it was slightly fewer.

"Huff, still couldn't dodge the attack." Shisui let out a breath, a little regretful.

Muyue smiled and said nothing. He had even used the Transparent World; as long as they hadn't broken through, there was no way to successfully dodge.

Actually, he had held back. Early on, he generally didn't attack much, mainly because Shisui and Obito weren't durable now; after five minutes their condition dropped significantly, and most of the problems were generated in the last minute.

Otherwise, if he didn't attack when they had slowed down so much, the holding back would be too obvious. Training certainly couldn't be like that.

"Take a break and then do normal training. There will be another such training session the day after tomorrow. Keep up the hard work," Muyue said with a gentle smile.

"The day after tomorrow too!" Obito felt as if bad news had arrived, as if countless test problems were already pressing down on his shoulders.

"Breathing Technique, please get stronger quickly." After recovering some stamina, Obito quickly started training and prayed inwardly.

That day, Obito trained in Flame Breathing with all his heart. He tried to maintain the state of Total Concentration Breathing, and even with little stamina he kept using the Breathing Technique until his stamina was completely exhausted.

Shisui's seriousness was no less than Obito's. Not being able to dodge even once made Shisui very dissatisfied with himself.

He was Muyue's first disciple, and also the strongest disciple, the undefeated first in the internal competitions among Muyue's disciples. His progress should be leading.

"At least I must successfully dodge once!" Shisui said silently in his heart.

By the time training ended, both Obito and Shisui were too tired to even stand. They repeatedly maintained the Breathing Technique until exhaustion, then rested and trained again until exhaustion.

"Obito, are you okay? Today is your birthday. Is it all right to train so hard?" Nohara Rin saw Obito slumped by a big tree and asked with a worried expression.

"Oh right, it's my birthday today." Obito only then remembered that today was his birthday. He had been living in fear of the problems all day and had forgotten about it.

"It's fine, I'll be okay after some rest," Obito said, indicating it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't his first day of constant training.

At dinner time, Muyue gathered all the disciples at Obito's home to celebrate Obito's birthday.

4k, there's more to come.