Chapter 353: Exchange Students

"It's really boring. I'm not coming next time." After leaving the shrine, Obito decided not to waste any more time attending the clan meetings.

He felt the clan meetings were a place where a bunch of self-righteous adults entertained themselves, and if you said something they didn't like, they'd just outright reject it.

"You can still come, but you don't have to come in person—you can send a Shadow Clone to listen in." Shisui offered his suggestion.

"Most Uchiha ninja come to the clan meetings. You can learn about the clan's situation from the discussions."

Even though he had just been shot down by many Uchiha, Shisui still wanted to attend if he had the chance.

The past was ultimately just the past; to truly solve the Uchiha's current problems, he needed to understand the present-day Uchiha more.

However, this clan meeting taught Shisui a lesson: within the Uchiha clan, the weak had no voice, even if they were geniuses.

Geniuses did enjoy privileges, but those privileges did not include participating in major Uchiha decisions.

So Shisui said it was fine to just send a Shadow Clone to listen. Unless they became strong, what they said wouldn't be acknowledged anyway.

"If I use a Shadow Clone, I figure the clone would end up fighting me. They wouldn't want to take in this kind of junk information." Obito knew his own Shadow Clones well enough.

He had come to realize that anything he didn't want to do, his Shadow Clones probably wouldn't want to do either.

"Your Shadow Clones have quite the personality." Shisui tried to put it in a nicer way.

Obito scratched his head and chuckled. Thankfully, his Shadow Clones didn't drop the ball in critical moments, or he'd really want to find a different clone technique to practice.

After chatting for a little while, they parted ways at an intersection.

Once back home, Shisui began training. He desperately needed to increase his strength—he was no longer the top disciple of Muyue, and he had no say in the clan meetings.

"I'll graduate right after the internship. Staying at school is too slow for getting stronger." Shisui thought to himself.

He had mentioned to Muyue before about wanting to do an internship in his second year, but at that time Shisui hadn't decided whether to graduate.

Now, seeing Kakashi, Might Guy, and the others skyrocket in strength, plus needing more power to solve the clan's problems, Shisui felt he couldn't stay at school any longer.

After parting with Shisui, Obito didn't go straight home. Since he had come out early, it wasn't yet time for him to sleep, and training at home would disturb his grandmother's sleep, so he found a secluded grove and started training there.

Obito didn't have much to say about the clan meeting. He was a member of the Uchiha clan, but the only Uchiha he was close to besides his grandmother was Shisui; he wasn't familiar with the others. He just thought those people were a bit excessive, dismissing Shisui without even letting him finish speaking.

The next day, Obito went to the South Forest to train as usual. Today, instead of starting training right away, he brought up the situation with his grandmother.

"How can I get my grandmother to agree to go to the hospital?" Obito looked at Muyue with pleading eyes.

"Just tell her the hospital is running a promotion—free checkups, no money needed." Muyue thought for a moment and replied.

Old people generally don't want to go to the hospital for a few reasons: either they think there's nothing wrong with them, or they don't want to spend the money. But if it's free, they're usually happy to go.

"You could also add that the first fifty people get free eggs." Muyue added.

"If I say that, will Grandma really go?" Obito scratched his head, not quite understanding the trick—after all, in his eyes, a medical checkup didn't cost much, and eggs were cheap.

"Try it first. If that doesn't work, I'll think of another way for you." Muyue nodded.

If even free stuff couldn't lure her in, Muyue would have to ask Tsunade to take a look. Having resources on hand meant he had to use them.

"Mm." Obito noted what Muyue said and ran home to try it out.

Rushing home, Obito happened to run into Shizune, who was coming the other way. But since they weren't very familiar and Obito was in a hurry, he didn't greet her.

"So fast... is that Obito?" Shizune barely recognized him by his features.

"Why is Obito here? And Teacher Muyue's training spot is so remote..." Shizune couldn't help complaining as she looked at the towering trees all around.

Shizune wandered around for a while until a Shadow Clone found her and led her to Muyue's real body.

Shizune had thought it would just be Muyue here, but not only were there several Muyues, she also saw Kakashi and Shisui.

Shizune knew Kakashi and Shisui by sight. Kakashi had entered the Academy at the same time as her, but he graduated before finishing his first year, while she didn't graduate until her fourth year. As for Shisui, Shizune had been in Class A with him during the first special training.

This kind of acquaintance basically meant they knew each other's names, so Shizune didn't disturb them and just looked at Muyue.

"What's your chakra nature?" Muyue asked.

Now that his apparent strength was no longer weak, he no longer needed to hide things that were previously necessary to conceal, so he had brought Shizune over to train with them.

"Chakra nature? I don't think I've had it tested. Lady Tsunade said I'll just end up learning medical ninjutsu from her anyway." Shizune recalled.

Because of Tsunade, her situation was a bit special—her class assignment was different from normal. She went directly with Tsunade after graduating and didn't have any teammates.

Although Tsunade also knows other ninjutsu, compared to her medical ninjutsu, it's far inferior. Tsunade would certainly teach her disciple what she is best at and strongest in. Yin and Yang natures cannot be tested with chakra paper, so Shizune hasn't used chakra paper yet.

"Let's test it now." Having anticipated this, Muyue took out a piece of chakra paper and handed it to Shizune.

After all, this was Tsunade in her slacker state, somewhat unreliable. Muyue had appraised Shizune and saw that she had basically only learned medical ninjutsu, so this was within his expectations.

"Thank you." Shizune took the paper, thanked Muyue, then gathered chakra and infused it into the paper.

After the chakra was infused, the chakra paper rapidly wrinkled.

"Lightning nature..." Muyue showed a thoughtful expression.

It seemed a bit unsuitable to have Shizune learn the Lightning Breathing Technique, because although Lightning Breathing can enhance Lightning Release, that's only one of its effects, and one must master it to full proficiency to maximize this effect. Before proficiency, the enhancement to Lightning Release is only mediocre, but mastering a Breathing Technique is extremely difficult; ordinary people simply cannot achieve it.

The characteristic of Lightning Breathing is its powerful burst, but in the original story, Shizune did not display talent in that area.

"Adjust your breathing to match my posture." Muyue finally decided to teach Shizune the basic breathing technique first.

Basic breathing can also enhance training effects, but it lacks the special effects of other breathing techniques. Once basic breathing is learned, it will be easier to learn other breathing techniques.

Although she was learning content she had never heard before, out of trust in Muyue, Shizune studied very seriously.

Muyue roughly set Shizune's next learning content: get started with basic breathing, then refine the Mystical Palm Technique, learn the Strength of a Hundred Technique, and the Chakra Scalpel.

Because she had been studying with Tsunade all along, Shizune's knowledge of medical ninjutsu was very solid. Muyue only needed to teach her the specific medical ninjutsu.

When Shisui finished training and took a break, he found Muyue and told him about yesterday's clan meeting and his intention to graduate early.

"Teacher Muyue, do you think there is a problem with this?" Shisui looked at Muyue.

In his heart, he believed Muyue could make a better and more correct choice, so even though he had already decided to graduate early yesterday, he still wanted to ask Muyue again.

"Graduating early certainly has risks; life always has all kinds of unexpected events. But given your current strength, I think it's fine to graduate." Muyue approved Shisui's idea.

Shisui's current strength had already surpassed a large number of chunin. Even with this strength, accidents could still happen after graduation, but relatively speaking, it is safe.

As for absolute safety, even Muyue himself could not guarantee he was absolutely safe, let alone his disciple.

A smile appeared on Shisui's face; Muyue's affirmation put him at ease.

"By the way, Teacher Muyue, I think I've made some progress with Armament Haki." Then Shisui talked about his recent training achievements.

Shisui gathered chakra into his fist, imagined an invisible armor protecting his fist, then punched the ground. After several consecutive attempts, two of the punches were clearly much stronger.

"I still can't use it stably, but I already have some feeling for it." Shisui retracted his fist and said.

Muyue took a look at Shisui with his Appraisal; the proficiency of Armament Haki had reached seventy points.

He counted the time; Shisui had been learning Armament Haki for over half a year now, so this progress was about right.

"No need to rush. You are not far from mastering it. Barring accidents, you should be able to master it after graduation." Muyue predicted.

Compared to Shisui, the progress of the others was much slower. On one hand, Armament Haki itself is quite difficult; on the other hand, the other disciples hadn't spent much time practicing it.

For example, Kakashi was currently refining the Breathing Technique and familiarizing himself with the Transparent World, Obito was perfecting the Flame Breathing chakra mode, Might Guy was advancing in all Eight Gates Breathing Techniques, and Rin Nohara hadn't learned it at all.

It wasn't that Armament Haki was unimportant, but at the current strength stage Obito and the others were in, Haki's help wasn't as good as what they were learning now; they even had a bit of a chakra shortage.

Of course, learning it would still be useful, allowing them to handle more situations, but at this stage, it wasn't worth investing a lot of time into Armament Haki.

"As expected of Teacher Muyue!" After the morning passed, Obito returned to the Southern Forest and gave Muyue a thumbs up.

Muyue could roughly guess the result from Obito's expression.

"Grandma was indeed sick. Good thing we went early, and it wasn't a serious illness." Obito said with a look of relief.

"Elderly people have weaker immune systems. Pay more attention to her health." Muyue reminded and then showed a thoughtful expression.

He was wondering whether Madara Uchiha would use Obito's grandmother to stimulate Obito's dark turn.

If Obito could display his trust levels with others, Muyue believed that Obito's grandmother and Rin Nohara would definitely be trust level four. As for Kakashi, it's a bit hard to say; it could be, but not necessarily.

If Obito's grandmother died tragically in front of him, Muyue believed Obito would definitely awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan immediately, but as long as he and Rin Nohara were safe, Muyue felt Obito would most likely not turn dark, though his personality might change.

But if both Rin Nohara and Obito's grandmother died tragically, Muyue wouldn't be able to say for sure.

"I'll arrange a Shadow Clone to watch over her."

Muyue decided to send a Shadow Clone to protect Obito's grandmother.

"Mm-hmm, whenever Grandma's health gets worse, I'll use your method, Muyue-sensei, and take her to the hospital." After saying that, Obito immediately ran off to train.

Just thinking about how Kakashi had trained for a whole morning more than him made Obito feel awful. He had trained half a day less while Kakashi trained half a day more—didn't that mean there was a whole day's gap between him and Kakashi?

Seeing that his disciples were all training seriously, Muyue also began to delve into studying the Flying Thunder God.

The Flying Thunder God wouldn't cause a qualitative change in Muyue's strength, but it was really convenient, in every sense.

To learn the Flying Thunder God, Muyue even used the Shadow Clone learning method, going all out to master it.

However, the results were still poor. Two days passed, and he still had zero proficiency.

"Everyone is working so hard, no wonder they're all so strong." Shizune paused to catch her breath from practicing the Breathing Method and noticed that Obito and the others were training at high intensity without stopping.

This kind of training environment was a bit novel for Shizune, since usually she trained alone with Tsunade, with no other peers around.

Now, seeing people around her age or even younger working so hard, Shizune felt guilty if she stopped.

Shizune practiced the Breathing Method and taijutsu for most of the day, and the rest of the time was for learning medical ninjutsu.

Actually, when it came time to learn medical ninjutsu, Shizune was already exhausted from the earlier training. She worried she wouldn't be able to absorb the material, but to her surprise, the effect was quite good. Shizune felt she had gained a lot.

"Muyue-sensei really teaches better than Tsunade-sama," Shizune compared the two from memory.

Although Shizune respected and liked Tsunade very much, she had to admit that in terms of teaching, Muyue was indeed better, even when it came to teaching medical ninjutsu.

Shizune even had an illusion that when she studied with Muyue, she seemed smarter than usual, understanding and focusing on the content more easily.

"Six months later, Tsunade-sama is definitely going to be shocked." Shizune was a bit looking forward to seeing Tsunade's expression when she checked the results half a year later.

After all, Tsunade often bullied her, so it wouldn't be a problem for her to do something like this once in a while.

On the other side, Rin Nohara, who was studying with Tsunade, also realized the value of Tsunade as the strongest medical ninja.

It was as if there was no medical knowledge she didn't know; no matter what question Rin asked, Tsunade could immediately answer it with ease.

However, Rin also got to know another side of Tsunade.

"Tsunade-sama, it's time to get up." Rin said helplessly, looking at Tsunade lying dead drunk on the floor.

As one of the Sannin famous throughout the ninja world, Tsunade actually didn't get up in the morning!

There's another chapter later, but it should be very late, maybe coming out at two o'clock. It's recommended to read it tomorrow.