Time flew rapidly. Another year had passed, and Shiyu Uchiha was already over eight years old, now a third-grade student. He'd earned quite the reputation among the newly enrolled students due to that one fight.
Combined with his evenly matched sparring results against Sarutobi Shin'nosuke, which fully showcased his skills, and the fact that he and Shin'nosuke intentionally or unintentionally displayed decent camaraderie toward each other, no one dared underestimate him anymore.
Shiyu had even begun gaining recognition as a prodigy, but it was always in the shadow of Sarutobi Shin'nosuke, who remained the central figure drawing public attention.
As a result, Shiyu had it pretty easy this past year compared to most others. Every day consisted of training, hanging out with a few friends, and occasionally spending time with two young girls—something that sparked a lot of teasing and misunderstanding about their relationship.
However, what frustrated him lately was confirming that the two girls were actually in a romantic relationship—it came as quite a blow to Shiyu. He had no choice but to turn his heartbreak into fuel for training harder while also thinking through how best to explain things to avoid any future embarrassment.
Though his love life was rocky, his progress in training went smoothly, leaving Shiyu quite satisfied with his current abilities. Even without the Sharingan, he believed it was entirely possible to reach Chunin-level strength before graduating at age twelve, and not just being a one-trick pony focused on a single specialty.
Yet something else caught Shiyu's attention more significantly—how once a ninja acquired chakra, they could instinctively enhance attack power, speed, and defense simply by stimulating the body with chakra, almost like an innate ability requiring no learning, much like basic instincts.
That's why even students from the ninja academy were sent onto battlefields. After all, once children accessed chakra and learned even basic taijutsu, their combat effectiveness within short durations surpassed that of adults.
Otherwise, during the Third Great Ninja War, wouldn't deploying regular adult soldiers have made more sense than sending newly graduated ninja students? Considering ordinary citizens outnumbered ninja greatly and offered more benefits to the village.
But since chakra appeared in the Ninja World, such scenarios never happened, clearly indicating chakra created an enormous gap between regular humans and ninja.
Therefore, Shiyu became curious about this method, yet despite experimenting repeatedly due to limitations in his own abilities, he achieved nothing.
He then turned to Shizhi Uchiha for guidance. This question clearly exceeded her understanding—it was the kind of thing people overlook because it's right in front of them. Shizhi always regarded it as instinctive knowledge, never questioning its origins.
Prompted by Shiyu's question, Shizhi started thinking deeply. After thinking about it for several days, starting from fundamental basics and connecting ideas with various ninjutsu, she finally focused on Lightning Release Chakra Mode. After several days' worth of thinking, she finally gave him an answer—but unfortunately, it wasn't one that satisfied Shiyu.
However, inspired by this answer, Shiyu Uchiha proposed his own hypothesis. He felt that this ability seemed like the most fundamental version of the chakra mode; to fully comprehend it, one might need to understand the very nature of chakra.
But this response made Uchiha Shizhi's eyes light up. At that moment, she began to see Shiyu's potential in a completely different light.
In this world, countless people could use ninjutsu, but few ever contemplated its true essence.
From thinkers to those who achieved greatness, the numbers were minuscule. The Senju brothers stood at the pinnacle of this group—Hashirama Senju pioneered the Wood Release bloodline ability and invented his own Wood Release techniques, dominating the entire Ninja World. Though Tobirama Senju was not as strong as his elder brother, he created many powerful forbidden techniques that left endless repercussions.
Uchiha Shizhi herself belonged to that rare handful of people. As the inventor of Izanami, the Sharingan's forbidden technique, she could be called the strongest genjutsu master of this era.
Only the strongest genjutsu of the Mangekyō Sharingan era, Kotoamatsukami, could rival her—and even then, it would require possessing both eyes and reaching the peak of dōkuriki to stand a chance.
If any Tailed Beast appeared before her, it absolutely couldn't escape her genjutsu. Even the Nine-Tails would have a high chance of being directly controlled. However, due to her principles, Uchiha Shizhi would absolutely never resort to such an act.
Then, Uchiha Shizhi spoke seriously to Shiyu: "Shiyu, I don't know whether your answer is right or wrong, but that you can ask such a question, form your own insight, and not have your thoughts swayed by my answer pleases me greatly.
I think I should be proud of you, my son. I hope you won't give up—keep working hard in this direction. I hope that one day you'll be able to tell me the ultimate answer."
"I will, Mother. I certainly won't disappoint your expectations." That was Shiyu's promise. From these words, Uchiha Shizhi sensed Shiyu's ambition—to rise to the peak of power—as he matured.
After further recognizing Shiyu's potential, Uchiha Shizhi became even stricter with him, even planning to start teaching him advanced genjutsu training ahead of schedule. However, this time truly disappointed her.
Initially, things went smoothly—Shiyu could grasp the genjutsu theories quickly and picked up the basics with ease. However, when actually attempting to perform genjutsu techniques, problems arose. He had fully grasped the theoretical knowledge, even mastered it, but couldn't put it into practice.
In stark contrast stood Mikoto Uchiha. Though her grasp of theory was far inferior to his, she quickly learned how to use genjutsu, displaying extraordinary talent in this area. One could hardly be surprised that she had become the mother of Itachi.
This made Mikoto feel smug for quite a while. After all, during these two years, she had been severely outshone by Shiyu's talent. If not for her classmates to compare herself to, she might have started doubting her worth.
Back then, after the two of them separately mastered the [Thirteen Basic Swordsmanship Forms], they began combining all thirteen forms together. Uchiha Mikoto still couldn't perfectly execute them until today, while Shiyu Uchiha accomplished this within just one month and had been continuously deepening his understanding.
Speaking of Shiyu Uchiha's talent for Genjutsu, after several days of research by mother and son, they could only reach one conclusion: Shiyu possessed something special about his spiritual energy, which resulted in extremely high resistance to Genjutsu.
However, this also meant his spiritual energy was unable to leave his body, so he couldn't use spiritual energy combined with chakra to deceive others' minds through their five senses. Therefore, he wasn't able to use the Genjutsu techniques that Uchiha Shizhi had just taught him. However, he could still use Genjutsu techniques that didn't require spiritual energy to leave his body, such as [Clone Jutsu].
The only possibility would be in the future after awakening his Sharingan, reaching the triple-tomoe level, and directly using the bloodline's basic ability [hypnosis].
It was a shame, but in the end, mother and son had no choice but to accept the truth. With this situation, learning Genjutsu no longer held much value for Shiyu Uchiha, so there was no need to stubbornly pursue mastery.
However, shortly afterward, Shiyu Uchiha proposed an idea that would haunt him for the rest of his life—he wanted to test the limits of his own Genjutsu resistance.
Since he was the perfect fit for the job, Uchiha Shizhi happily accepted his son's request. He didn't employ any special Genjutsu techniques—merely activating his triple-tomoe Sharingan and pushing the basic [hypnosis] ability to its extreme through eye contact.
Shiyu Uchiha didn't even display any resistance or have time to regret before falling asleep immediately. Seeing this, Mikoto Uchiha smirked and teased him, "You're so young—you fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow."
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