"Ten percent, huh?"
Seimei muttered under his breath.
He shook his head, letting the thought slip away without another word.
A ten percent drop in training efficiency was something he could live with.
After all, this dip would only last for the next couple of months. Once his Sharingan's evolution hit its tipping point, he'd shift his focus back to Way of the Body, and his efficiency would climb again.
But how long would it take for his next transformation?
That was something he'd need to test further to figure out.
Seimei glanced at the sunset painting the horizon, feeling the timing was about right.
Instead of diving deeper into the volcano to train Way of the Body, he teleported to the primeval forest in the northeastern part of the Land of Fire. There, he joined his shadow clones to start training.
This time, he was working on the Mind's Reflection Technique.
---
In the blink of an eye, it was late at night.
Seimei wrapped up his planned training for the day.
"Panel!"
With a thought, he pulled up his proficiency panel.
Seeing the 150-point boost to his Sharingan's evolution progress, he nodded in satisfaction.
With another thought, he teleported back to Moon Island.
He returned to his cabin and settled in to rest.
The next day, training resumed!
He stuck to his routine: Way of the Body during the day to strengthen his physique and push his Byakugan's evolution, then six hours in the afternoon and evening on the Mind's Reflection Technique to stimulate his Sharingan's growth.
After seven straight days of this, he finally had a solid estimate for when his body would hit the next transformation threshold.
By his calculations, it'd take about six months—until February of next year.
That was almost double the time it took for his last transformation.
The realization hit him hard, and his expression soured.
He'd known that as his body kept evolving, the difficulty would ramp up, but doubling the time? That was tough to swallow.
"Haa…"
He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly.
Forcing himself to calm down, Seimei started analyzing why this was happening.
After some careful comparison, he realized he'd overthought it.
The time needed wasn't quite double—more like 1.7 times the last transformation. Plus, in a couple of months, his body-strengthening efficiency would spike, meaning it definitely wouldn't take the full six months.
That meant the multiplier would shrink even further.
With that, Seimei felt a wave of relief.
If every transformation doubled the time needed, even he would struggle to accept that.
Thankfully, it was just a false alarm.
Shifting his focus, Seimei turned his attention to another matter: his daily chakra reserves.
Notably, the 4.5 million points of freely usable chakra he'd gained from boosting his Physique and Spirit attributes were being saved up.
The 3 million chakra points needed to resume the Mind's Reflection Technique were covered by the 3 million he'd saved from cutting back on Way of the Body.
In other words, he wasn't spending any extra chakra.
But that didn't mean he was banking all 5.82 million (4.5 million + 1.32 million) chakra points each day.
The 1.32 million he'd been saving daily? He'd redirected 300,000 of that into developing his kekkei tōta.
That's right—after over twenty days of practice, he'd gained new insights into fusing the seven chakra nature transformations to create his kekkei tōta.
As a result, the sweet spot for efficiently gaining experience had shifted from 200 shadow clones to 250.
Naturally, that bumped up his chakra consumption—from 2 million to 2.3 million points.
Even so, he still didn't have a clear timeline for when he'd successfully fuse the seven chakra natures and complete his kekkei tōta.
Luckily, he'd just gotten word that the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Cloud Villages were about to sign the final peace treaty. That meant the ninja world would stay calm for a good while, giving him plenty of time to experiment.
---
Clearing his mind, Seimei stopped overthinking. He formed hand signs, cast Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu again, and dove into another round of training.
---
The sun rose and set.
In the blink of an eye, another half-month passed.
It was now late August.
That morning, Seimei was training Way of the Body inside the volcano beneath Moon Island.
Suddenly, a memory surfaced in his mind.
It wasn't just any memory—it belonged to the wooden clone stationed at the northern border of the Land of Fire, facing off against the Hidden Cloud's border forces.
Realizing this, Seimei stopped training.
Standing still, he focused and began sifting through the clone's memories.
Even though the clone had been keeping its activity and information intake to a minimum, it was still one of the top fighters in the border camp. That meant it had been assigned plenty of tasks over the past few weeks.
As a result, its memories were packed with info.
It took Seimei a solid half-hour to go through it all.
By the end, he had a clear picture of the border situation and what was happening back in the village.
He also understood why the clone had suddenly dispelled itself and sent its memories back.
Apparently, just yesterday, the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Cloud had officially signed the peace treaty.
Per the agreement, both sides were to start pulling their troops back from the border starting today.
Seimei's clone was part of the first wave of withdrawals.
It was easy to see that once this group and the corresponding Cloud Village unit safely returned to their respective villages, tensions at the border would cool off completely.
With a foundation of mutual trust established, even if something unexpected popped up later, it wouldn't easily spark a conflict.
That made the first wave of withdrawals absolutely critical—no room for error.
But the Leaf's Anbu had apparently uncovered something that put Minato on edge. He'd issued a secret order for all jonin, including Seimei's clone, to stay on high alert throughout the process.
That's why the wooden clone had dispelled itself to call him back.
Inside the volcano, Seimei opened his eyes.
Recalling the orders his clone had received, he frowned slightly.
He couldn't wrap his head around it. At a time like this, what kind of trouble could possibly crop up?
In his memories of another timeline, after the Leaf and Cloud signed the peace treaty, things stayed calm without any major issues.
"Could this time be different? A butterfly effect?"
Thoughts swirled in his mind, but Seimei shook his head, pushing them aside.
As the saying went, "When the enemy comes, block them. When the flood comes, dam it."
No matter who was scheming or what plans were in motion, as long as his strength was enough, it wouldn't matter.
That was the same mindset his wooden clone had.
Besides, he'd been training nonstop for a while now. It was about time for a break.
With that, Seimei activated Flying Thunder God Jutsu and teleported to Moon Island.
After waiting a bit for his body to recover, he dispelled Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.
In an instant, all his clones—on the island, off the island, and even those absorbing natural energy in the northeastern forest of the Land of Fire—dissolved.
A flood of memories poured into his mind.
Seimei, well-practiced at this, temporarily suppressed them. He sorted and stored the returning chakra and natural energy first, then began sifting through the memories.
Soon, he'd organized them all, absorbing and digesting the training experience they contained.
With that done, he returned to his cabin, packed up a few things, and activated Flying Thunder God Jutsu once more.
---