CH_137

Take the 【Water Release: Water Dragon Missile Technique】, for example—there's a 44-seal version, a 6-seal version, a 4-seal version, and then there's Terumi Mei, who can cast it without any seals at all.

Hand seals are meant to help guide chakra within the body to shape the desired jutsu.

But once you've maxed out your proficiency, you can cast like Terumi Mei—no seals required.

Whatever technique you practice is the one that improves. It's not like practicing one jutsu raises your proficiency in all of them. So you have to be selective.

For instance, Terumi Mei still needs hand seals for many of her jutsu—but the 【Water Dragon Missile】? She can fire it off at will.

Now that Tōji was in the Land of Seas, he naturally prioritized mastering various Water Release techniques for survival.

If he sensed danger, he could vanish in an instant with just a single thought—how solid was that?!

And since he was out at sea, training underwater not only saved chakra but also increased the difficulty of casting Water Release jutsu while reducing the noise.

Other shinobi might focus more on increasing their total chakra reserves.

But Tōji didn't push for that. The reason he didn't deliberately train chakra capacity was that—as long as he kept up his physical training, his physical energy would grow, and it would also increase naturally with age. Since his soul was special, his spiritual energy was never a weak point—what held him back was just this ordinary body, forged from common blood.

As for the "Mizuame" technique Izumo had taught him—to be honest, Tōji found it difficult to master.

His attempts came out looking rather pathetic… kind of like Naruto's 【Clone Technique】 back in his Academy days.

Maybe with enough forced practice, Tōji could eventually pull off a passable version. But then the jutsu's power would be so watered down as to be meaningless—a C-rank technique reduced to D-rank at best…

Maybe he'd have to try developing something similar himself.

So there was no rush.

In short, the best training for now was to max out his proficiency in all the escape and survival techniques he could use.

Being able to escape a battlefield in an instant… also meant being able to close in on a target instantly—making him a top-tier assassin.

Tōji had never chased after flashy, high-powered techniques. He could now use Exploding Tags freely within certain limits—and if even that wasn't enough, he'd just call it quits…

After all, even a few years from now, he still wouldn't have enough chakra to cast a second B-rank 【Water Dragon Missile】… he'd never be part of any high-level battle.

As for the A-rank 【Rasengan】—did Tōji not know how to learn it? He absolutely did.

But he simply couldn't cast it—not even once, not even a miniature version. Same problem: his chakra reserves were just that limited. Before he could even form the Rasengan, his chakra would run out, and the thing would dissipate instantly.

Better to just stick with Exploding Tags for real combat.

And so…

Every day, Tōji trained from dusk until the early hours, then rowed home to rest. After lunch, he'd take a nap, and then head out fishing during the hottest part of the day—avoiding the sun and getting some rest in. The schedule was practically perfect.

Though he brought all sorts of fishing gear, Tōji only carried them for show. In reality, he used fishing as a way to improve his underwater swimming (and escaping) skills and physical conditioning.

Days passed one after another.

Aside from the occasional storm at sea, everything was calm and uneventful.

Tōji almost started to think Minato had sent him here on vacation.

If it weren't for those Kiri-nin—who served as little more than background scenery—reminding him from time to time that he was still a spy, there really wasn't anything bad about it.

Being poor didn't matter—thanks to his "hard work," at least he never went hungry or lacked clothes.

Until one day, when Tōji went to Mother Island to sell fish…

"Inoshishi, would you like to buy some salted fish?"

!!!

That was a code phrase for a contact meeting.

Someone had come to contact him!

Tōji turned around and saw a girl about his age.

Was she reliable?