"It's that crude barbarian again. A perfect match for that failure."
The Hyuga clansman tried his best to hide the disgust and contempt in his eyes. Although he looked down on Might Guy, he didn't speak up to stop him from entering the Hyuga Clan grounds.
Because doing so would be a breach of etiquette on the Hyuga Clan's part.
"Good morning!"
Meeting his gaze, Might Guy grinned at him, his white teeth shining dazzlingly in the sunlight.
Ignoring the Hyuga clansman's dismissive attitude, Might Guy patted the dust off himself and walked in.
"Hoo! Kumo, get up, get up!"
Walking with practiced ease to the courtyard where Hyuga Kumo lived, Might Guy shouted with a passionate voice, "The bugle for morning training has sounded! Youth does not wait for those who sleep in!"
"Come in, Guy-senpai."
Hearing the voice from the room, Might Guy grinned, said "excuse me," and entered the house.
Without even looking towards the bedroom, he went straight to another room.
"Kumo, you're at it again..."
Might Guy said as he slid the door open, but his words caught in his throat in the next moment.
It wasn't because of the various training equipment in the room, but because of the figure standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror that took up an entire wall.
His upper body was bare, hanging from a pull-up bar, with iron weights wrapped around his legs.
Click! Clack!
Every time he slowly extended his arms and lowered himself, his position was precise, not off by a single hair. The moment his toes gently touched the ground, he would pull himself back up.
The orange-red light of the dawn cast a hazy glow, striking Hyuga Kumo's long, slender, and well-defined body, as if covering him in a faint golden light.
Might Guy also noticed the puddle of water at his feet, clearly an accumulation of sweat, indicating that he had been holding this position for a long time.
"Kumo, you..."
The experienced Might Guy was dumbfounded. Watching Hyuga Kumo rise and fall on the pull-up bar, he couldn't help but ask, "You didn't sleep all night, did you?"
The muscles of his upper body were taut, veins slightly protruding. The muscles in his arms were like steel bars, intertwined to bear the tearing weight. One could almost feel the muscles groaning.
Hyuga Kumo didn't respond, and Might Guy didn't mind. Instead, he started to get excited.
Because, with his experience, he could naturally see that Kumo's body was approaching its limit. He had even opened the First of the Eight Gates.
The Gate of Opening. Releasing the brain's restrictions to unleash 100% of the body's physical capabilities, overloading the body's energy to enhance attack and speed.
Even so, his arms, thighs, and all the load-bearing parts of his body had reached their limit. His once-standard movements began to become sluggish.
And a slower speed meant greater stamina consumption. Every movement was an extreme challenge for the body.
But this was youth!
How could youth stagnate!
However, as time went on, Hyuga Kumo still didn't stop. Might Guy's smile gradually faded, and his brow furrowed.
"If he continues, his body will sustain hidden injuries," he thought.
Even someone as crazy as him, who had to surpass yesterday's self every day, had to take a daily medicinal bath to avoid leaving hidden injuries on his body.
And at Hyuga Kumo's current intensity, continuing would be going too far.
"Ku..."
Just as Might Guy was about to speak up and dissuade him, the situation before him changed.
"Huuu."
Hyuga Kumo slowly exhaled a solid white mist. A white steam rose from his body, and the flowing sweat was instantly evaporated by the high temperature. This was his body temperature rising due to high-speed metabolism.
The Eight Gates: Gate of Healing.
Releasing the limits on stamina recovery, overloading the body's energy to restore stamina, and counteracting the fatigue brought on by the energy consumption rate of the Gate of Opening.
In this state, every cell in Hyuga Kumo's body seemed to be breathing. Power flowed like lava through his blood vessels and bones, and his body temperature rose to a scorching hot degree. The limit of his physical strength was shattered, and the threshold for his body's collapse rose crazily again. Hyuga Kumo's entire figure stabilized once more, and the whistling sound of his rising and falling movements surged like an ocean tide!
BOOM!!
The terrifyingly heavy weights finally landed on the ground. The loud crash brought the astonished Might Guy back to his senses.
"Hiss!" He looked at Hyuga Kumo wiping his sweat with a towel and sucked in a breath. But soon, his face lit up with an excited, joyous smile as he asked, "Kumo! You can already open the Gate of Healing?!"
Hyuga Kumo looked up slightly, but Might Guy, meeting those eyes, subconsciously took a step back.
Those eyes...
Before Guy could see clearly, he felt a stinging pain in his eyes and blinked. When he opened them again to look at Kumo, the feeling was gone.
"Guy-senpai, what's wrong?"
Hyuga Kumo seemed to be the same Hyuga Kumo, with a harmless, gentle smile on his face.
"Ah, no, it's nothing." Might Guy scratched his head in confusion.
But soon, looking at Hyuga Kumo, he actually shed two streams of tears, sobbing, "Kumo, your youth is too fiery! It's really, really too touching, boo-hoo! I must learn from you!"
"...Guy-senpai." Hyuga Kumo's expression was a bit helpless, and he could only smile. "Could you please wait a moment, senpai? Excuse me while I go take a shower."
"Mmm, mmm, mmm."
Seeing him nod to himself while wiping his tears, Kumo picked up his clothes and walked into the shower room.
Entering the shower, he took off his clothes and stepped onto the smooth tiles, reaching out to turn on the shower valve.
The showerhead made a faint "hissing" sound. Cold water flowed down his untied black hair, tracing the butterfly-like shadow of his scapula, washing over his bulging muscles, and gradually soaking his entire body.
The water flowed like a stream over mountain rocks. The coldness didn't cause him any discomfort, not even lowering his surface body temperature.
[Bloodline: Ōtsutsuki Clan (5% → 5.5%)]
[Kekkei: Unknown · Stage 1 (10% → 12%)]
Glancing at the panel, Hyuga Kumo lowered his head and slowly clenched his fists. His bones made a cracking sound, and a short, explosive pop echoed in the air.
Crack, crack!
Then, he exhaled. His heartbeat and blood flow gradually slowed down, and the muscles and tendons that had been overheated from the exercise slowly returned to normal.
"I didn't expect the Eight Gates to actually stimulate the potential of my bloodline and increase its purity."
Feeling a power different from before, a curve formed on Hyuga Kumo's lips. "It's as if the shackles binding my body have been released. This feeling... it's truly intoxicating."
His taijutsu training had never slacked off, so although his figure was lean, it wasn't bony. It was just that the muscle contours he had developed weren't regular, like someone who only works out their upper body, leading to a disproportionate look.
But after the transformation by the Ōtsutsuki bloodline, the muscle contours all over Hyuga Kumo's body gradually became coordinated, distributed in the most suitable way for exerting force, not just for show.
If before, he was a furnace that contained flames but was still eye-catching, now he was a seemingly dormant but magma-surging active volcano.
Hyuga Kumo could feel that the Gate of Healing, which he had been stuck on for two years, was now far from his current limit.
Moreover, he could feel his eyes throbbing, just a hair's breadth away from awakening their ability.
A terrifying and silent power was hidden in these eyes.
This was a power that he had completely mastered and truly belonged to him.
"With this foundation, I dare to use lies to turn the Hyuga clan upside down!" An impulse surged in Hyuga Kumo's heart.
He didn't even think about using this power to steadily become stronger. Instead, he subconsciously wanted to use this power to leverage even bigger lies, to fool more and stronger people.
Only this brought him the joy of living.