Chapter 88: Sasuke’s Special Training

After deciding to register for the Chunin Exams, Naruto and the other fresh-faced rookie ninja of the Leaf Village immediately threw themselves into grueling training without a moment to spare.

In the early morning, before the first thread of sunlight had fully driven away the lingering gloom of night, Sasuke was already standing quietly at the very center of the training grounds.

His head was slightly bowed, his eyes tightly shut, his entire mind gathered into perfect focus as he devoted himself wholly to training his control over the Sharingan.

Sasuke’s aim was to wield the ocular techniques known as Celestial Vault and Sword of the Divine Hook with complete freedom even before the Mangekyo Sharingan had awakened.

At the very least, if that proved impossible, he had to be able to open the Mangekyo Sharingan and unleash his ocular techniques in the same instant.

Only then could he keep his opponent from noticing the change in his pupils and raising their guard.

“Sword of the Divine Hook!”

With Sasuke’s low cry, time around him seemed to freeze in place.

Yet he did not use that opportunity to do anything else; he merely let time flow again in silence.

After a brief pause, Sasuke turned to Naruto, who was assisting him with training beside him, and asked, “How was it, Naruto?”

In truth, this Naruto was merely a Shadow Clone, while Naruto’s real body was somewhere deep within the forest, engaged in his own intense and punishing training.

The Shadow Clone lifted a stack of photographs high in the air and handed them over, saying, “These were taken just now with a high-speed camera. You can use them for reference.”

Sasuke reached out and took the photos, examining them one by one with great care.

However, what made him frown slightly, and feel somewhat dissatisfied, was that in these pictures there were far too many frames in which his Mangekyo Sharingan appeared.

That meant the time during which the Mangekyo Sharingan remained visible before he used the Sword of the Divine Hook was still too long.

In Sasuke’s view, a ninja’s keen dynamic vision would be more than enough to catch that momentary change in the pupil.

Still, he did not become discouraged. Closing his eyes slightly, he repeatedly recalled in his mind the instant the Sharingan had awakened in those fierce battles of the past.

It was a strange, exhilarating feeling, one that set the blood aflame, interwoven with the unique sensation brought on by the repeated stimulation of Yin Release chakra between the brain and the eyes.

Sasuke frowned faintly, thought for a moment, and decided to try an entirely new method of training.

He planned to begin by disguising the appearance of an ordinary Sharingan.

This was no easy task, for he had to shift from three tomoe to two, then from two to one.

Each minute transition was a highly difficult and precise operation, demanding absolute concentration and the most exacting control over ocular power.

As the training went on, fine beads of sweat gradually formed on Sasuke’s forehead.

But his effort was not in vain. To his delight, he discovered that he was beginning to gain control over the number of tomoe in his eyes.

However, as the training continued to deepen, Sasuke felt his ocular power growing somewhat depleted, and his eyes were also becoming terribly dry.

Sasuke decided to temporarily slow his practice of ocular techniques and instead turned to exploring advanced applications of Fire Release and Lightning Release ninjutsu.

Squinting slightly, he watched Naruto’s Shadow Clone beside him vanish with a pop, and he thought to himself:

“I remember Naruto has a jutsu his father created... I think it was called the Spiraling Sphere?”

Sasuke pondered silently.

“I remember Naruto once explained the principle to me. It mainly comes down to rotation, compression, and maintenance. Then perhaps I should try seeing what kind of strange changes occur if Fire Release chakra is manipulated in the same way.”

With that thought, Sasuke sprang into action.

He drew a deep breath, steadied himself, and immediately his chakra began to surge through his body like a rushing river, converging without cease at his throat.

As the gathered energy grew stronger and the heat in his throat rose higher, Sasuke’s expression grew grave.

Then he suddenly opened his mouth and expelled all the chakra within him in one burst.

A massive fireball burst forth like a roaring beast, hurtling ahead with searing heat and astonishing force, slamming brutally into the rocky wall of the training ground.

Under the impact of the fireball, the wall instantly bore a deep, scorched mark.

But Sasuke did not stop channeling chakra there. Clenching his teeth, he continued to sustain the Great Fireball.

Under his conscious control, he began attempting to alter the fireball’s shape and power.

Sasuke kept recalling the principles of the Spiraling Sphere, and following those principles, he carefully tried to compress the chakra within the fireball.

Again and again he compressed it, trying to make the fireball denser and more refined.

As the chakra continued to be compressed, the fireball’s temperature rose sharply, and the surrounding air seemed to warp under the blistering heat.

Suddenly, with a thunderous boom, the fireball exploded because it could no longer withstand the immense pressure.

The blast was tremendous, directly collapsing the rock wall in front of him.

Before Sasuke’s eyes, a huge pit appeared, still glowing red, as though it were telling the tale of the explosion’s sheer power.

The shockwave from the blast spread outward like surging waves, far too broad to evade by simple dodging alone.

So Sasuke without hesitation unleashed the Sword of the Divine Hook, freezing time at that critical instant so he could retreat to a safe place.

A slight frown creased Sasuke’s brow, and a glint of thought shone in his eyes as he murmured, “No, that’s not right. It shouldn’t be like this. This isn’t a process of first changing nature and then changing shape. It seems I’ll need a different approach.”

He stood quietly in place, his mind working at high speed as he constructed a model of the technique in his thoughts.

After a period of deep contemplation, Sasuke drew another breath, and chakra surged rapidly through his body.

Then he forcefully spat out a fireball.

This one was utterly different from the last. It was only the size of a basketball, yet it shone with the brilliance of a miniature sun. Wherever that scorching radiance reached, the ground, unable to withstand the heat, began to crack and dry.

But Sasuke still frowned and dispersed the technique.

He shook his head, feeling that the jutsu should not take such a form or produce such an effect.

After carefully analyzing it, he realized that Fire Release energy was inherently too wild and unruly, impossible to subdue, and could not be forcibly compressed at all.

If it was compressed by force, the result would be just as before: only an explosion.

Moreover, if there was even the slightest looseness during control, the Fire Release energy would spill out like an untamed cloud, then scorch everything around it without restraint.

Though the jutsu’s power was indeed impressive, it was still far removed from the perfect form Sasuke had imagined.

Sasuke realized that the path of Fire Release might not work, so he decisively changed his line of thought, quietly wondering whether Lightning Release might yield a different result.

Under Kakashi’s careful guidance before, Sasuke had already successfully learned the Thousand Birds technique.

Building upon that foundation, he had then drawn inspiration from exchanges and sparring with Naruto, and in a breakthrough of his own had begun to explore a unique Lightning Release ninjutsu all his own.

Once he formed the hand signs, thin arcs of electricity began to rise around Sasuke’s body.

At that moment, Sasuke seemed to have become a conduit for lightning, with crackling arcs dancing around him in bright, snapping flashes.

He focused intently, gathering every ounce of his mental strength, and carefully guided Lightning Release chakra through the various pressure points throughout his body.

“This isn’t enough yet! Push it further!”

At first, Lightning Release’s wildly violent power was like a wild horse impossible to tame, and Sasuke found it difficult to control.

Violent currents of electricity repeatedly stung his body, as though countless tiny needles were pricking his skin, but Sasuke gritted his teeth and tried again and again.

Little by little, he was able to steadily gather Lightning Release chakra in his palm, where a brilliant arc of electricity shone.

Sasuke nodded faintly and murmured to himself, “Good. Now it’s time to try rotating, compressing, and then maintaining it.”

With the drive of his will, the electric cluster in his hand gradually began spinning rapidly in an irregular motion. The rotation accelerated and accelerated, like a tiny storm turning at impossible speed.

Before long, a powerful electromagnetic field began to form around him.

Under the influence of that field, grains of iron sand on the ground seemed to be summoned by some mysterious force and began to drift up into the air.

Those iron-sand clusters, driven by the electromagnetic field, moved as fast as lightning and possessed astonishing penetration.

In only a moment, they had brought down every tree within ten meters of Sasuke.

What was more, because their flight paths were utterly irregular, some of those iron-sand clusters even came flying back at Sasuke himself.

Facing such a situation, Sasuke had no choice but to activate the Sharingan. Only with its extraordinary dynamic vision could he clearly see the trajectories of the iron-sand clusters and avoid them in time.

Sasuke quietly watched the tiny grains of iron sand streak through the air, noticing that they kept heating up for various reasons as they flew.

Their color gradually deepened into a searing red, and some had already begun to melt.

He also looked at the scorching marks left behind on the ground and rock wall from his earlier Fire Release experiments.

Then suddenly, inspiration flashed in his mind, and a marvelous idea surfaced.

Yes—why shouldn’t he try using both types of chakra at the same time? Perhaps it would bring an unexpected surprise.