Chapter 232: Attempt at the Eight Trigrams Seal

On the second day of the practical exam, Mu Yue's main body went to the exam venue for Class 1-1 to check the situation.

Although his main body had been away from school all semester, he got another promotion, gaining the position of deputy class monitor of the teacher class.

Now, the only people with higher positions at the Ninja School were the principal and Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and the teacher class monitor and dean of instruction, Shimono Hisanobu.

His main body took the students on missions, but he didn't completely abandon Class 1-1, leaving a shadow clone to be responsible for teaching them.

Although the shadow clone didn't have the teaching skill boost, the knowledge in his mind was also possessed by the shadow clone, so the effect would be worse than the main body but much better than other teachers. Considering that first-year material was relatively simple, it wouldn't be much worse.

The shadow clone was indeed a very convenient jutsu, except that the fatigue would also return, which was troublesome. So Mu Yue would regularly dispel and release them to avoid suddenly taking too much and being unable to handle it.

"Everyone looks energetic. How did yesterday's exam go?" Mu Yue greeted the students with a smile.

"Good morning, Teacher Mu Yue. I think I did pretty well," Anko smiled and greeted first.

Kotetsu replied, "Just so-so."

"I feel I did a bit poorly," was Izumo's answer.

"More or less, just the usual," Shisui replied calmly. Compared to Mu Yue's questions, the Ninja School's questions were too easy.

Seeing a scene similar to before, Mu Yue revealed a slight smile. In two months, he had grown much stronger, but these students hadn't changed much.

The proctors who had just arrived also smiled and greeted Mu Yue.

Mu Yue watched the first round of battles for Class 1-1 and then left. The rate of improvement had indeed dropped compared to last semester, but it was still in a respectable state.

He didn't go to Obito's class to watch the fight between Obito and Might Guy. He only left a shadow clone to check the situation, while his main body returned home in the main city of Konoha to begin training in sealing techniques, because he could watch the fight between Might Guy and Obito tomorrow.

After returning home, Mu Yue began studying the Four Symbols Seal. Although his self-study speed was not as fast as learning from Kushina, it was still within an acceptable range, because the sealing technique scrolls Kushina gave him also contained her annotations.

Having a good teacher was certainly good, but Kushina's identity prevented him from visiting often, even if he truly only wanted to learn sealing techniques.

Although Kushina and Minato were not yet married, they were already in a romantic relationship. If he visited too frequently, he might be misunderstood.

Mu Yue felt that Minato would trust him, but he couldn't guarantee whether Danzo would cause trouble. What if Danzo, seeing their close relationship, got an idea and told him to steal Minato's girlfriend in order to win over the jinchuriki? That would be very awkward.

Although nothing serious would happen even if he ignored Danzo – after all, he was now considered on the Third Hokage's side – Mu Yue preferred stability and didn't want such a situation to occur.

During the day, Mu Yue taught his disciples; at night, he usually studied sealing techniques and developed Breathing Techniques. Now his Four Symbols Seal had reached the level of 150 proficiency points at the beginner stage.

Knowing that Minato could stack two Four Symbols Seals to form the Eight Trigrams Seal, Mu Yue tried to develop it toward the Eight Trigrams Seal, but the difficulty exceeded his imagination.

Sealing techniques are not like bread, where you can easily place one on the ground and then another on top without them interfering with each other.

In fact, if you simultaneously apply the same sealing technique twice on a person, the technique does not become stronger; the second one overwrites the first.

If they are different sealing techniques with similar effects and properties, they cannot enhance the sealing effect either, and may even interfere with each other, making the effect worse.

"Minato must have made major improvements to the Four Symbols Seal, otherwise it wouldn't achieve the effect of the Eight Trigrams Seal," Mu Yue speculated after trying a few times.

It was precisely that improvement that gave the second Four Symbols Seal the ability to convert chakra.

Mu Yue did want to develop the Eight Trigrams Seal. The ability to convert the chakra leaking from a tailed beast into one's own chakra was too powerful.

He didn't have a tailed beast inside him now, but who could say for sure about the future? If there was an opportunity, he wouldn't mind stuffing a power bank into his body.

The system had helped him increase his chakra by nearly forty thousand in ten months, but Mu Yue felt that was still too little. He definitely couldn't compare to those true chakra monsters.

Take the Nine-Tails, for example. Its chakra was so exaggerated that Mu Yue couldn't even imagine how many digits it had. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Naruto distributed the Nine-Tails' chakra to the entire Allied Shinobi Forces, and they were instantly strengthened. Hinata, who could barely strike down a Ten-Tails split body before, could now hit the Ten-Tails' main body with Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm after receiving Nine-Tails chakra.

This clearly meant they directly received chakra several times their own to suddenly become so much stronger. And Naruto didn't just strengthen one or two people; he strengthened all the Allied Shinobi Forces present. That was terrifying, considering the Allied Shinobi Forces numbered in the tens of thousands.

Even if he only gave ten points of chakra to ten thousand people, that would require a hundred thousand points of chakra. So even if the Nine-Tails appraised out tens of millions or hundreds of millions of chakra, Mu Yue wouldn't be too surprised.

The Nine-Tails was okay, after all it was created by splitting the Ten-Tails, so having more chakra was normal.

What Mu Yue couldn't understand most was Hashirama. Naruto and the full Nine-Tails combined only had about the same chakra as Hashirama. How much chakra must that be?

Thinking about it like that, Mu Yue felt his forty-something thousand chakra was pitifully small. He couldn't even give five points of chakra to ten thousand people.

"I still need to keep working hard," Mu Yue thought secretly to himself.

His several disciples had high hopes of developing up to a hundred thousand chakra. With the trust level four's quadruple effect, that would be four hundred thousand chakra per person. They couldn't compare to those tailed beasts and cheaters, but they were much stronger than ordinary people.

He studied sealing techniques until evening, made dinner, then studied sealing techniques for a while longer. After eight o'clock was the time for developing Water Breathing.

He had a strong talent for sealing techniques, and he also needed to develop a sealing technique that could enhance his endurance. So Mu Yue would devote more time to sealing techniques.

On the morning of the third day of the exams, the grade-level practical combat began. Mu Yue went to the fourth-year examination venue to observe the battles.

Obito's two-tomoe Sharingan at age nine was still too conspicuous, so Mu Yue, as with Shisui, prohibited Obito from using the Sharingan casually, only allowing it during training or missions.

To balance their combat strength and to keep his disciples more low-key, while forbidding Obito's Sharingan, Mu Yue also prohibited Might Guy from using the second Gate of the Eight Gates in the Ninja Academy's practical combat exams.

To be honest, Mu Yue said that opening the second Gate of the Eight Gates combined with Rock Breathing's full-concentration breathing could scare the proctor chunin teachers quite a bit; Might Guy's Noon Leopard kick could kill a chunin teacher in one blow.

Showing such strength in the Chunin Exams might be acceptable, but displaying it in the Ninja Academy exams would be excessive.

"The sixteen participants in the grade-level practical are all students who have become apprentice ninjas."

"Yes, the selection criteria seem to mainly depend on strength."

Before the first match had even started, the students had already begun discussing the various contestants.

"The first exam is about to begin. Student No. 1, Shiranui Genma, and Student No. 2, Ebisu, please prepare." The proctor teacher started reading the student list.

"Even though we're friends, I won't go easy on you." Shiranui Genma smiled and patted Ebisu.

"Same to you," Ebisu said bluntly, walking with Shiranui Genma toward the exam area.

"He's the developer of the Confusion Technique," someone among the students said.

Ebisu's face immediately darkened; he looked back but couldn't find who said it.

After the fight began, both sides used every skill they had to attack each other.

Although they had a good relationship, they would not give way during battle.

However, compared to Shiranui Genma, Ebisu's strength was still lacking, and in the end, he lost to Shiranui Genma.

"Shiranui Genma wins!" the proctor teacher announced.

"I feel their strength really has increased; it seems the apprenticeship is truly useful," a familiar person said after watching their performance.

Actually, in Mu Yue's view, this was a normal thing, because although the other teachers were far from Mu Yue's level, they were still outstanding teachers carefully selected, much stronger than ordinary chunin instructors.

Moreover, when teaching them as ninjas rather than students, there were more things that could be taught, plus the training time was more abundant; it was normal for them to become stronger faster than through normal school classes.

"The second exam — Student No. 3, Uchiha Obito, versus Student No. 4, Hyuga Kamen." The proctor teacher quickly announced the next match.

"If only Might Guy and Obito could meet early; I came to watch the grade exams just to see their fight," someone sighed.

No one around refuted this; Hyuga Kamen had indeed shone for quite a while, but no one would consider him a match for Obito or Might Guy anymore. Meeting either of them would mean elimination.

Hyuga Kamen was not in a good mood hearing those discussions; although he knew he probably couldn't win, saying it out loud was hurtful.

"Begin!" Seeing the examinees form the seal of confrontation, the proctor teacher shouted.

Hyuga Kamen immediately activated his Byakugan, the veins around his eyes bulging, ready for battle. He desperately wanted to defeat Uchiha Obito and prove those people wrong.

"Flame Breathing, Full Concentration Breathing!" Obito concentrated his breath, inhaling large amounts of oxygen to strengthen himself.

His opponent was a student of the Ninja Academy—though once the top of the grade, Obito and his teammates had defeated a jonin before, so Obito didn't pay too much attention to Hyuga Kamen and prepared to end the fight in one go.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Obito spat a three-meter-tall blazing fireball at Hyuga Kamen.

Hyuga Kamen naturally could not withstand such a level of Fire Style; he burst his chakra to try to dodge.

Obito rushed directly toward where Hyuga Kamen was dodging.

Hyuga Kamen's Byakugan could clearly see Obito charging toward him.

Swish!

Obito used Shunpo to accelerate and appear beside Hyuga Kamen, then poured power into his right arm, using the breathing method to drive chakra and deliver a heavy punch.

Hyuga Kamen could clearly see the fist continuously approaching him; he tried hard to dodge, but his body's speed could not keep up with his perception or with the speed of Obito's punch.

Bam!

Hyuga Kamen was sent flying by the punch, and immediately afterward, Obito quickly flicked a kunai that landed beside where Hyuga Kamen fell, the message clear.

"Uchiha Obito wins!" the proctor teacher straightforwardly announced Obito's victory.

If this were a real battle, Hyuga Kamen would have already been killed by Obito.

"It feels like Obito has improved a lot again—he just used taijutsu to instantly defeat Hyuga Hōmon." Shiranui Genma, seeing Obito easily take out Hyuga Hōmon, felt a headache coming on. According to the rules, his next opponent would be Obito.

He didn't even have the confidence to beat Hyuga Hōmon, let alone Obito, who could defeat Hyuga Hōmon in a single blow.

The other students were also a bit surprised that Hyuga Hōmon was taken out by Obito with taijutsu. They had thought Hōmon would lose quickly, but they hadn't expected Obito to eliminate him with a single kick without even using much ninjutsu.

"With taijutsu like that, it feels like Obito has an even better chance of winning this time," a watching student remarked.

Might Guy only uses taijutsu, while Obito's taijutsu has become even stronger and he also excels at Fire Release, so he believed Obito's odds of winning were higher.

Only sixteen students participated in the grade-level practical, making its pace much faster than the class-level one. Muyue soon saw the match between Obito and Might Guy.

Due to the ordering, this time they didn't meet in the finals but ran into each other in the semifinals.

The entrance of the two heavyweight contestants made the watching students and teachers all show serious expressions.