Time quickly passed, and it was already late afternoon.
Inside the room.
Seimei opened his eyes, looked at his empty palm, and then picked up the book beside him, continuing to read it carefully.
After a while, he sighed, saying, "Ah, as expected, developing a fourth chakra nature is not that easy!"
In the ninja world, apart from those who have inherited some kekkei genkai, the vast majority of ninja are born with only one chakra nature.
In fact, until they become jonin, they typically only have one.
Only upon becoming a jonin do they start developing a second chakra nature to make up for their shortcomings.
Of course, some geniuses might start earlier.
But even then, they usually begin preparing during their chunin years.
However, among these people, over 90% end up with only two chakra natures.
The reason isn't because they don't want to continue developing; the benefits of mastering multiple chakra natures to enhance combat power are undeniable. If they could, no one would pass up the opportunity, but it's just beyond their capabilities.
If developing one's innate chakra nature has a difficulty level of 1, then developing a second nature has a difficulty level of 5.
At this point, ninja with some talent can usually manage it.
But developing a third nature raises the difficulty to 10.
Though that might seem like only double the difficulty of developing a second nature, it's actually ten times harder than developing the innate chakra nature.
At this stage, any ninja without sufficient talent is basically out of the running.
Currently, more than half of the jonin in the ninja world are stuck at this stage.
As for developing a fourth chakra nature, from Seimei's current experience, the difficulty is at least 20.
In such circumstances, unless you're a genius, it's not worth wasting time.
Because even if they manage to develop it, it might not be very effective.
It would be better to spend that time honing the skills they already have!
That way, they might actually improve more significantly.
Nevertheless, Seimei had no intention of giving up.
Besides having the proficiency panel at his disposal—once he developed the earth nature chakra, he wouldn't have to worry about mastering it later—the earth chakra's natural advantage against water made it something he couldn't pass up.
It's not that he wanted to specifically take down a ninja skilled in water release, but rather because of the five chakra natures—fire, wind, lightning, earth, and water—that have a clear set of strengths and weaknesses and form a perfect cycle. Lacking one of them creates a flaw.
Sure, in battle, he could use his massive amount of chakra to overpower opponents.
But if he faced a ninja who also had a large chakra reserve and happened to have techniques that countered his, that shortcoming would be magnified.
The "bucket theory" from his past life illustrated this perfectly—a bucket can only hold as much water as its shortest plank allows.
The reason he was tirelessly developing new chakra natures was to lengthen the shortest plank.
That way, he wouldn't leave a glaring weakness.
With this thought in mind, Seimei focused again, continuing to develop his earth nature chakra, using the book as a guide.
...
The sun set and the moon rose.
It was now nighttime.
Throughout the day, neither the Mist nor the Leaf made any moves.
There weren't even any small skirmishes, let alone major battles; it was as if they hadn't noticed each other, both sides maintaining complete silence.
However, Seimei knew that this was just the calm before the storm.
Just like the Leaf's side, which had spent the entire day redeploying forces.
Though ninja move faster than regular soldiers, moving a large number of troops still takes some time.
That's why neither side acted.
Similarly, the Mist were also preparing.
Thus, he had the whole day for training.
But that was as far as it went.
Not long ago, his mission was assigned.
Uchiha Hachidai really did manage to get him a pretty good mission.
Thinking about this, Seimei packed his equipment, checked to make sure everything was there, and then left the room.
Without further delay, he raised his hands, quickly completed the seals, and performed the Wind Release: Wings of Wind technique!
*Poof*
A pair of light blue chakra wings spread open.
With a thought, Seimei controlled the wings to give a slight flap.
In the next moment, he was in the sky.
He circled once, then flew directly toward Flying Fish Town.
Flying Fish Town is a small town on the eastern border of the Land of Fire, next to the ocean.
Due to its unique geography, it often experiences storms, but these storms also bring an abundance of fish afterward.
Thus, it was named Flying Fish Town.
The Flying Fish Town base used to be a key point in the Leaf's central defense line.
As of now, though, it had become one of four bases captured by the Mist.
This time, their mission from the Black Stone Base was to recapture it.
As for Seimei's mission, it was to use his flight advantage to scout enemy movements there and provide information for the command center to plan their strategy.
That's why this was a good mission for him!
With his current abilities, moving under cover of night, the Mist had almost no way of dealing with him, making it relatively safe.
The key point was that he could earn quite a bit of merit from it.
Of course, that was also why the village approved of it.
After all, the importance of information sometimes far exceeds the combat power of a single jonin.
Although his jonin-level combat ability was "a bit beyond" that of a regular jonin, on a battlefield with hundreds or even thousands, it was just that.
Especially when targeted.
Indeed, the command center had received word that the Mist had specifically prepared countermeasures against flying targets this time.
So doing what he did last time, moving around and saving people as they fought fires, was almost impossible now.
For this reason, the village agreed with Uchiha Hachidai's suggestion.
Otherwise, how could they let such a powerful jonin "sit back and do nothing"?
...
A quarter of an hour later.
Seimei arrived above the Flying Fish Town base.
Looking down from above, the entire base was brightly lit, filled with many figures.
Activating his Sharingan, Seimei examined it closely and found that those people were the Mist patrol squads.
At the moment, the whole base looked like a huge machine, with each ninja a cog in the mechanism, together making up this monster called "war."
"Tough nut to crack!"
After watching for a while, Seimei couldn't help but sigh.
From the Mist's setup, it was clear that they weren't being reckless; instead, they intended to use this town as a starting point, advancing steadily and expanding step by step.
This way, it would be tough for the Leaf to break through, given the manpower gathered at the Black Stone base.
But mobilizing more forces also wasn't feasible.
The Leaf's decisive battle with the Sand had reached a critical point, and with the Stone forces pressing on another front, they simply couldn't spare extra troops.
"Sigh, it's tough!"
Seimei sighed, shook his head, and stopped overthinking it.
These issues were for the Leaf higher-ups to worry about. His task was to do his job well—after all, the Leaf would eventually drive the Mist away.
With that in mind, Seimei continued to carefully observe the base and its surroundings, taking notes.
This information would be handed over later, and there could be no mistakes.
Even though he planned to "take it easy" this battle, his attitude still had to be on point.
(End of Chapter)
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