Two hours later, Seimei stopped nurturing his Byakugan.
By now, it was deep into the night.
His Byakugan had hit its limit for what it could handle today.
Inside the training room, Seimei opened his eyes.
Feeling the slight bulge of his Byakugan at his brow, he shifted his focus to the chakra stored in the special space there.
Over the past two days, he'd recovered about 5.8 million points of chakra.
That number should've been closer to 6.8 million, but no such luck. Back when his Byakugan evolved, he'd pushed the Seven-Tails too hard, and it was still recovering.
So, instead of pumping out a full million points of chakra a day, it was only managing about 500,000.
That's why he was a million points short over two days.
Out of that 5.8 million, he'd sunk 4 million into nurturing his Byakugan yesterday and today.
That left him with 1.8 million.
Most of that got burned up running around yesterday, setting up his big web of informants.
Now, aside from the chakra flowing through his body's meridians, the special space in his brow was down to just under 700,000 points.
That stash was only enough to cover two days of gaps.
In other words, over the next ten days, he'd only have two days to max out his Byakugan's growth. The rest of the time, he'd be stuck tossing in 1.65 million points a day, netting him about eight points of evolution progress.
"Ugh, still short on chakra," he muttered with a light sigh, pulling his thoughts back and brushing it off.
He stood up, left the training room, washed up a bit, and headed back to his bedroom to rest.
Thanks to nurturing his Byakugan earlier, he'd shaken off the clutter of messy memories, so he slept pretty soundly this time.
---
The next day.
Morning.
Seimei woke up from his sleep.
Lying in bed, he stared at the ceiling, half-thinking that if he wasn't feeling up to it today, he'd take another day off.
But now?
He sat up, shook his head, and realized he actually felt decent.
No point lounging around the village wasting time, then.
Sure, with the "All-Encompassing Seal" creating that special space, he could store up whatever chakra he recovered each day without worrying about it going to waste.
But if he stuck around too long, he was afraid he'd start slacking off.
So…
"Better get back to my usual grind ASAP!"
With that in mind, he hopped out of bed, threw on his clothes with quick, practiced moves, finished washing up, and cast the "Shadow Clone Technique."
Poof!
A shadow clone popped into existence.
Seimei gave it a nod, leaving it to hold down the fort in the village, then stepped outside.
Like always, he hit up the "Food Street" first, stuffing himself silly to satisfy his cravings ahead of time. After that, he blended into the morning crowd and left the village.
Outside, in the forest, he took a familiar back path to a quiet spot.
Then, he fired up his Byakugan and scanned the area.
Once he was sure no one was within a hundred meters, he locked onto the Flying Thunder God seal on that island, focused his mind, and triggered the "Flying Thunder God Technique."
Silently, he vanished from the spot.
At the same time, on the other side—
The island.
Seimei's figure popped up out of nowhere.
Thanks to his sharp reflexes, he didn't get dizzy or anything. In a split second, he adjusted to the sudden change in surroundings.
He glanced around at the familiar scene, raised his hands to form seals, and cast "Wind Release: Wings of Wind" and "Chakra Cloak."
From there, it was the usual routine.
He took to the sky, using his Byakugan's x-ray vision to scout the area.
In less than ten minutes, he'd swept a dozen kilometers around him. Aside from some familiar sea critters, nothing weird stood out.
"Phew…"
Letting out a soft breath, Seimei finally relaxed.
He dropped back down to the island and kicked off today's training.
"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"
In an instant, over a hundred figures filled the space.
Before his Byakugan evolved, he'd already fine-tuned how he split up his shadow clones to max out his daily training efficiency.
So now, no need to mess around testing stuff—he just stuck to the old groupings and got to work.
Pretty soon, his training was humming along like a well-oiled machine.
---
Days came and went.
Two days flew by in a flash.
By the third day, it was afternoon.
When Seimei dismissed his "Multiple Shadow Clone Technique" again, reabsorbing all the clones and digesting their past hour of training experience—turning it into skill proficiency—one of his abilities leveled up.
His eyes snapped open, and with a thought, he pulled up his proficiency panel.
There it was: his "Chakra Scalpel" had finally scraped together that last bit of proficiency, jumping from Level 8 to Level 9.
Yep, the A-rank ninjutsu—Chakra Scalpel!
After pouring chakra back into it, it'd taken a month to climb from Level 7 (16,580/20,000) to the perfect Level 9 (0/0).
And the upgrade?
With a flicker of thought, chakra surged through his body.
It flowed out from the chakra points in his palm, forming a thin layer that coated his hand.
Right away, a razor-sharp vibe radiated from it.
He swung his hand, and with a quick shink, a smooth, inch-deep cut appeared on a nearby boulder.
That thin layer of chakra might've looked flimsy, but it packed a serious punch.
That was the perk of hitting Level 9—faster activation, sneakier execution, and a beefier attack power.
Still, Seimei wasn't all that impressed.
With his current skills and tricks, even if its attack got sharper or slicker, it'd just stay a side tool. Not much room for it to shine.
What he cared about more was the 200,000 chakra points it saved him daily now that it was maxed out.
It was day three, and the under-700,000 points he'd had left in his brow space ran dry yesterday.
Starting today, he'd been down to tossing just 1.65 million points into his Byakugan each day.
But now, with that extra 200,000, he could bump it up to 1.85 million.
Sure, it still wasn't enough to speed-run his Byakugan's evolution, but 1.85 million a day was solid progress.
And yeah—he was planning to dump every bit of that saved chakra into nurturing his Byakugan.
That'd help plug the gap as much as possible.
Oh, and one more thing: the Seven-Tails was bouncing back faster than he'd expected. In just four or five days, it was already mostly recovered.
It couldn't churn out a full million points yet, but 700,000 or 800,000? No problem.
Seimei figured it'd be back to full strength in three days, tops.
When that happened, his training would finally be back on track for real.