The crisp bell of the Ninja School rang, signaling the end of school. Chi Chen grabbed his bag and rushed out of the classroom. For him, the end of school was just a change of place to continue studying.
The training room in the basement of the office building, which is tightly wrapped by layers of barriers, is his real battlefield. Ohnoki teaches Chi Chen here for a period of time every day. This is the place where Chi Chen has been most often in the past year.
"Are you coming?" Old man Ohnoki was floating in the air, only a foot above the ground, reading a scroll in his hand.
Hearing the noise, he didn't even raise his head, but pointed the scroll at the center of the training ground, "Old rules, come and block the wall first and let me see."
Without a word, Chi Chen formed seals with his hands and steadily injected chakra into the ground. "Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!" A thick rock wall suddenly rose up.
"Well, the density is okay, I didn't skimp." Ohnoki put down the scroll, slowly floated to the wall, stretched out his short, thick fingers and tapped it, "But, silly boy, the hard top alone is not enough."
He formed seals with his hands and then a barely perceptible white light emanated from his hands, so fast that Chi Chen's eyelids jumped.
"Boo!"
With a slight sound, a small hole with smooth edges suddenly appeared in the center of the solid earth wall.
Chi Chen immediately leaned over, carefully touching the edge of the hole with his fingers, sensing the lingering, unique chakra vibrations. "Hiss..." He took a breath, his brow furrowed. "Here we go again! Most people have no way to counter Dust Release except to run."
"Humph, of course you see whose forte this is." Ohnoki crossed his arms, his tone still as stern, but looking at his apprentice's serious look, the corners of his mouth curled up almost imperceptibly, "Dust Release is a thing that dismantles things from the root. Want to block it? Either run faster than it, or~" He deliberately dragged out the tone.
"Or let the wall 'grow bones' on its own? Tear down one side and immediately fill it up on the other?" Chi Chen raised his head, his eyes bright with curiosity and excitement. "Or let the chakra 'come alive' within the wall? Circulate around the 'bones' like water, making it so hard that it can't find a way to tear it down even if it wants to?"
"Pfft!" Ohnoki couldn't help laughing out loud, his mustache trembling, "'Long bones'? 'Can't find the hard lump under the mouth'? Your metaphor..." He shook his head, but his eyes were full of satisfaction.
"Alright, you've got it! You've got the direction right! The dead knot becomes alive, that's the nature of chakra changing. Even earth isn't static. Come on, try to 'draw' your chakra like living water! The nature of the earth is that it's endless."
In terms of earth escape, Ohnoki is second to none. Although Ohnoki's famous skill is dust escape, his earth escape is definitely world-class.
After receiving instruction, Chi Chen carefully guided the chakra to build a more sophisticated circulation network inside the earth wall.
"Idiot, I'm not asking you to release the flood! Hold your core steady!" Ohnoki floated by, scolding mercilessly, his finger lightly tapping towards Chichen's forehead, "Left! The left 'node' is weak! Push up your chakra! Right! Hold steady! Well, that's more like it!"
Chi Chen subconsciously shrank his neck when he was yelled at, and the tip of his nose rubbed against some wall dust, but his hands moved faster and steadier.
Sweat trickled down his temples, and he didn't bother to wipe it off. Finally, he succeeded in making the area near the impact point only dent deeply inward, and then it continued to fill up until it was intact. His mouth immediately stretched into a smug smile, stained with mud.
In fact, it is easy to understand. This is similar to the Yellow Spring Swamp and has a better effect against Thunder Release.
"Hmph, it's so-so, but it looks pretty good." Ohnoki said with disdain, but his body honestly floated closer, his small eyes fixed on the subtle changes in Chichen's chakra control, and his red nose twitched slightly.
Seeing Chichen covered in dust and sweat on his forehead because of this high-precision chakra "activation" control, Ohnoki finally found an outlet for the "little frustration" in his heart caused by his apprentice learning too fast.
He floated over and gently tapped Chi Chen on the back of his head with the scroll. "How stupid! You're a genius! You're just rolling around in the mud while practicing a nature transformation. If this gets out, where will I, an old man, put my face?"
Ohnoki was secretly pleased when he finally got the chance to give his old master a lecture. After all, even an ordinary senior ninja might not be able to grasp the secret of such a deep change and control of chakra properties so quickly. But this kid got it right away, which had shocked his old master before.
"Tsk, who knows if you, old man, also chewed a mouthful of mud and fell a hundred or eighty times before you mastered this move?"
Without even looking up, Chi Chen deliberately raised his voice loud enough for the old man floating overhead to hear clearly. He hadn't forgotten the old man's jaw-dropping look when he had learned it so quickly.
"You little bastard! What did you say?!" Ohnoki immediately flew into a rage. He spun around and tried to grab the man, but his movements were too hasty. "Ouch!" he cried, and his waist twisted violently. He grimaced in pain and swayed in the air. "Traitor! Do you want to piss me off so badly that I can inherit the inheritance?!"
Chi Chen finally couldn't hold back his laughter as he watched the old man, holding his waist and puffing out his beard and glaring, and the intense tension of the training session instantly dissipated. The only sounds in the training room were Ohnoki's angry curses and Chi Chen's sly laughter.
During this period of time, he had already regarded Ohnoki as his own relative. This old man was no longer the majestic image he had when they first met. He was clearly an old naughty boy, but he had not shown it to the public before for the sake of his image.
Having spent so much time with Ōnoki, Chichen is now interested in joking with him.
Huangtu felt that these two guys were a family. They both pretended to be serious in front of others, but they were actually just children.
Humph, not as serious as my Lord Huang Tu. It seems that I have to become stronger quickly. I am the most serious adult in this family! Huang Tu thought to himself and smiled innocently again.
(Huang Tu was also a ten-year-old boy at that time, a big, silly boy.)
Chi Chen always pretends to be strong in front of others, but in fact he is also a child who needs protection.
On the other side
"Drink—!"
Fei Liu's childish but all-out cry echoed among the rocks. His small body was as tense as a fully drawn bow, his hands tightly gripping a heavy wooden sword that was almost as tall as him.
Sweat had already soaked through his fiery red short hair, stuck to his forehead, and flowed like a stream down his flushed cheeks.
Opposite him stood Shanshang, also holding a wooden sword.
"Too slow! Too big a movement! Full of flaws!" The voice on the mountain was not loud, but it whipped the air like a whip.
Your knife isn't for smashing rocks! It's for cutting through everything! Imagine standing across from you is someone who even Chi Chen can't beat. What are you going to do? Stand there and wait for someone to save you?
Before he finished speaking, Fei Liu rushed forward again, slashing down with the wooden sword with the sound of wind! Yamagami just slightly turned sideways, and the tip of the wooden sword brushed past his clothes.
At the same time, the wooden sword in Yamagami's hand was like a poisonous snake spitting out its tongue, and it hit the gap under Feiliu's ribs that was exposed due to excessive force with incredible precision.
"Ugh!" Fei Liu groaned. The huge force made him stagger back several steps and almost fall to the ground. His little face was wrinkled in pain, but he bit his lower lip tightly and swallowed back the cry of pain.
"Remember this pain! Remember this flaw!" Shanshang put away his knife, his voice still stern, but there was a barely perceptible trace of approval hidden deep in his eyes.
"On the battlefield, the enemy won't give you a second chance! If you want to become strong, you have to endure countless hardships. If you don't have that unparalleled talent, you must put in a hundred times the effort to defeat everything in front of you! Do you want to always be a burden?"
"I... I'm not a burden!" Fei Liu raised his head suddenly, his voice panting and stubborn, "I will definitely become stronger! Become stronger than everyone! I want to protect Chen! Protect my mother! And protect Teacher Yamagami!" He gripped the heavy wooden sword tightly, the muscles in his small arms bulged, and his eyes were firmer than ever.
"Very good." Shan Shang raised his lips in a barely perceptible arc. "Then continue! Swing your sword at me, and every blow must carry your will!"
The heavy slashing sound rang out again, accompanied by Fei Liu's increasingly heavy breathing.
Every swing of his blade felt like fighting an invisible boulder, and every moment of perseverance carved a mark of tenacity into his tender bones. As the sun gradually set, his small, repetitive blade-swinging figure lengthened, casting a shadow on the silent rock wall behind him, like a silent scroll of growth.