The sun rose and set, and in the blink of an eye, two more days had passed.
During these two days, nothing significant happened—everything remained peaceful.
At the frontline camp, the investigative team from Hidden Cloud Village had already left the Forest of Wailing Ghosts.
At first, Seimei and Nara remained on high alert, worried that the Cloud Ninja might retaliate in a fit of rage and launch a second large-scale attack.
However, time proved that the Hidden Cloud Village was not so reckless.
After all, while Cloud Village was ruled by a militaristic faction and had a naturally aggressive disposition, they were not fools.
The primary goal of their sudden assault was to test Hidden Leaf Village—to gauge the control of the newly appointed Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, over the village, as well as his leadership style.
Now that their objective had been achieved, there was no reason for them to continue taking risks.
As the saying goes, "A true gambler must accept defeat."
Since they had been prepared to launch a sneak attack, they also had to be ready for the possibility of a counterattack.
Indeed, the loss of three elite squads was painful, but the Hidden Cloud was no small village. Such losses were something they could endure—they were not significant enough to drive them to desperation.
As such, it was foreseeable that, for a long time to come, the Cloud Village frontlines would likely return to their previous state of minor skirmishes and low-intensity conflict.
For Seimei, this was undoubtedly good news.
At the very least, he wouldn't have to devote as much attention to the battlefield.
This meant he could focus more on his own training.
Speaking of training, Seimei had a thought and opened his proficiency panel.
As expected, just like two days ago, none of his skills had leveled up during this time.
However, a new skill had appeared on his panel—Ninjutsu: Mind-Reading Technique!
Some time ago, while searching through Danzo's collection, he had found some records related to the Yamanaka Clan's mind-reading techniques. Since then, he had been studying them by having his shadow clones train in his spare time.
Now, after nearly half a month of study, he had finally managed to develop his own unique version of the technique, drawing from both the Yamanaka Clan's records and his personal experience using Genjutsu: Sharingan for mind-reading.
Not wanting to overcomplicate things, he simply named it Ninjutsu: Mind-Reading Technique.
Notably, the technique started at Level 1 (Beginner) upon its creation.
However, he had no extra chakra to invest in improving it at the moment.
So, for now, it would remain at that level.
Seimei wasn't too concerned about this.
Firstly, it wouldn't be long before his Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique reached Level 9 (Mastery).
At that point, he would have 200,000 chakra points freed up daily, allowing him to allocate some of it toward improving this new technique.
Secondly, there weren't any immediate enemies that required him to use it.
Thirdly…
He still had Genjutsu: Sharingan, which remained available. Even if an urgent situation arose requiring mind-reading, he could still rely on that.
So, there was no need to rush.
Clearing his thoughts, Seimei closed the panel and waited quietly.
Suddenly, a surge of chakra appeared out of nowhere and flowed into his body.
Along with it came a series of somewhat dull memories.
These memories did not belong to anyone else—they were from the shadow clone assigned to monitor Shemu.
Seimei closed his eyes, focused his mind, and quickly reviewed the memories.
After confirming that Shemu and the Seven-Tails inside him had shown no signs of unusual activity, Seimei raised his hands, forming the Ram hand seal, and once again performed the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!
Poof!
With a burst of chakra smoke, more than a dozen identical figures appeared around him.
Seimei looked at one of them and said, "You, go check on the Seven-Tails."
"Got it!"
Without hesitation, the shadow clone responded, then immediately activated Wind Style: Wind Wings and Chakra Cloak, soaring into the sky and flying toward the remote island.
In the distance, the clone's figure rapidly shrank until it disappeared from view.
Retracting his gaze, Seimei looked at the remaining clones, assigned them their respective training tasks, and then began his third training session of the day.
That's right—since morning, he had already trained for over two hours and had absorbed chakra from the Seven-Tails twice.
It wasn't that he didn't want to extract more chakra at once—it was just that, even when the Seven-Tails' chakra "leaked out," the process still took time.
So, to simplify things, he synchronized the chakra extraction process with the frequency of his shadow clones dispelling and updating their memories.
This saved him quite a bit of hassle.
With these thoughts flashing through his mind, Seimei refocused, set aside his distractions, and immersed himself in training.
Noon
Time flew by.
By the time Seimei reabsorbed his shadow clones and processed their accumulated training experience, his Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu had officially advanced to Level 9.
This was his fifth A-rank jutsu to reach mastery, following Rasengan, Healing Palm Technique, Reflection Technique, and Water Style: Great Shark Bullet Jutsu.
Reflecting on his progress, Seimei felt that his understanding of the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu had deepened significantly.
Now, when he performed the technique, he could not only summon more shadow shurikens but also control them with greater precision.
It was clear that the technique's power had increased significantly, making it much deadlier against low-to-mid-tier ninja.
Even Jonin-level opponents would likely struggle if he concentrated his attacks on them.
Additionally, mastering this technique had boosted his Chakra Control proficiency by nearly 1,000 points.
Currently, it stood at **Level 6 (9100/10000)**—just shy of advancing to Level 7.
Seimei had a strong hunch that once this skill reached Level 7, it would undergo a qualitative transformation, significantly reducing his chakra consumption for other jutsu training.
At that point, the same amount of chakra would yield more proficiency points, drastically accelerating his skill progression.
But that was a concern for the future.
For now, the immediate benefit of this breakthrough was that he now had 200,000 extra chakra points available daily.
After a brief moment of thought, Seimei decided to allocate 91,000 points to training Flying Thunder God Jutsu.
With this increase, his daily proficiency gain would rise from 1,390 points to 2,000 points, significantly speeding up his progress toward Level 8.
As for the remaining 109,000 chakra points…
Without hesitation, Seimei allocated all of it to training his Mind-Reading Technique.
During previous tests, he had discovered that, thanks to his exceptionally strong mental power, this technique only required 100 chakra points per proficiency point.
With 109,000 chakra points, that translated to 1,090 proficiency points—meaning the technique would level up fairly quickly.
Once that happened, reading minds would become much easier for him.
After distributing his chakra, Seimei wasted no time.
He immediately formed the hand seals and performed the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu once again.
Poof!
With another explosion of chakra smoke, over a dozen new shadow clones appeared.
Just like before, he assigned one to monitor the Seven-Tails, while the others resumed their training.