Night fell.
After leaving the training ground, Uchiha Jin went straight home without a pause.
He greeted Mikoto and began a new round of training at once.
He sank his mind into the sealed domain and ignored the Holy Master's hysterical roars while he tested the changes brought by the Horse talisman.
He formed the Ram seal. With a puff of smoke, two shadow clones appeared at his sides.
The B-rank Shadow Clone Technique created solid doubles.
They split his chakra evenly, had minds of their own, and could take hits.
Most importantly, when a clone dispersed, its memories and experience returned to the original.
In theory, he could make several clones, have them train at the same time, and absorb all their gains when they vanished.
But there was a catch. What came back was not just experience, but also fatigue and pain.
Splitting off many clones for training stacked a mental burden beyond normal limits.
Only someone like Naruto, with a special physique and the Nine Tails at his back, could endure it without breaking.
Jin could not handle that method himself, but with the Horse talisman, everything changed.
No words were needed. One look, and the clones understood.
They scattered and began their drills. Soon the sealed space rang with Fire Release detonations and Chidori's piercing cry, drowning out the Holy Master's howls.
Jin sat in the center and felt the Horse talisman's power circulate.
When the first clone dispersed, a tide of Fire Release experience surged into his mind.
To his surprise, the expected backlash did not come. The talisman's power erased the strain entirely.
"Just as I thought."
He smiled and dispelled the second clone.
The development notes for Chidori settled perfectly as well, with no discomfort.
A gleam sparked in his eyes.
He poured in more chakra and split into dozens of clones in an instant.
After he confirmed each double had enough chakra, they began different lines of practice.
The original Jin turned to a more dangerous path: Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
By wrapping the body in lightning nature chakra to form a living armor, the user gained extreme durability and speed.
The Third Raikage had used it to wrestle the Eight Tails and to fight ten thousand shinobi alone for three days and nights.
That feat spoke for the technique's potential.
Jin did not possess a formal method for training the mode, but that did not stop him from trying.
When Sasuke trained Chidori, he used Lightning Release to stimulate his body and activate his cells, pushing his taijutsu to rival Lee's in a short time.
The principles should be similar. With his complete Chidori development experience, Jin was confident he could recreate a comparable secret art through trial and error.
The only problem was how easily the process damaged the body. With the Horse talisman, injury was the last of his concerns.
Soon a Chidori-like brilliance wrapped his whole form. Violent lightning chakra hammered his flesh.
Skin charred under high voltage and then knit whole in an instant under the talisman's power.
What would be torture for others became a hyper-efficient regimen for him.
"Not enough."
He felt the current threading his muscles and increased the output.
With the Holy Master's roar as a backdrop, Jin steadily raised the flow of lightning.
Under the talisman's blessing, free from fear of damage, his progress toward a Lightning Chakra Mode raced ahead.
Even Cloud shinobi famed for this secret art would gape at his madness.
This was training on the edge of self-destruction, beyond what humans should endure.
Across the bars, the Holy Master's roaring had fallen silent.
Scarlet dragon eyes fixed on Jin, who was pouring himself into the work.
Where the Horse talisman had once been set in the statue, cracks spidered out, black vapor seeping through as the whole effigy seemed to tremble.
Outside the sealed space, in the real world, Jin still sat cross-legged.
Moonlight fell across his calm face. No one would guess the astonishing metamorphosis raging within his body at that very moment.