With that thought, Seimei didn't waste another second. He focused his mind, replaying the entire process of fusing Lava Release in his head.
Then, he stretched out both hands.
Poof!
Poof!
Two bursts of chakra appeared.
One swirled in his left palm—Fire Release chakra.
The other in his right—Earth Release chakra.
Seimei fine-tuned their states, nudging their nature transformations toward balance.
Time ticked by, second by second.
At a certain moment, his eyes lit up, and he growled, "Now!"
With that, he clapped his hands together.
Instantly, the Fire and Earth Release chakras in his palms collided, their nature transformations shifting subtly.
A faint smile crept onto Seimei's face.
But before it could fully form, his expression twisted.
The next moment, he vanished from the spot.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion rang out.
Where Seimei had been standing, a crater about two meters wide now scarred the ground.
A few breaths later, Seimei reappeared.
Staring at the giant boulder he'd spent so much time with, now blasted apart, his mouth twitched.
With a quick leap, he hopped off the boulder.
Stepping back a bit, he eyed the damaged rock, raised his hands, and rapidly formed seals, unleashing Wind Release: Wind Blade. With a flick of his wrist, a massive wind blade shot forward.
Whoosh!
The blade sliced through the boulder, emerging on the other side and felling several trees behind it with a crash.
Ignoring the splintered trees, Seimei approached the boulder.
Crackle!
Thunder roared as Lightning Release chakra coated his body. His arm and core muscles bulged, and with a single heave, he flipped the boulder—or rather, its top half.
The wind blade had cleanly bisected it.
Nodding at the smooth stone platform left behind, Seimei used a Body Flicker Technique to head to his usual ninjutsu testing ground, finally ready to reflect on his failure.
Yup, failure.
If the earlier collapsing lava ball and the (1/100) progress on his panel weren't proof he hadn't fully mastered fusing Fire and Earth chakra, this explosion sure was.
But Seimei wasn't discouraged. He was already working on fixing his shortcomings.
So, he'd just keep trying.
After mulling over the past two attempts, Seimei repeated the process, summoning Fire Release chakra in one palm and Earth Release in the other.
Focusing intently, he recalled the sensation of first fusing Lava Release while adjusting the chakra in both hands.
When he felt their nature transformations align, he clapped his hands together again.
And…
BOOM!
Another explosion, even fiercer than the last.
Seimei vanished and reappeared.
Ignoring the wrecked surroundings, he dove straight into his fourth attempt.
BOOM!
Another explosion.
He tried six more times, but none worked. It was like that first successful Lava Release fusion had been pure luck.
And honestly? It kinda was.
Without the flood of insights from his shadow clones returning to him all at once, he probably wouldn't have pulled off Lava Release in one go.
This struggle was his true skill level.
It also showed just how accurate the panel's (1/100) progress bar was.
Not mastered meant not mastered. Success was a roll of the dice.
But after so many "dice rolls," Seimei was starting to get a feel for how to fuse Lava Release chakra.
Closing his eyes, he took a brief rest.
Moments later, he opened them, brimming with confidence.
Without hesitation, he stretched out his hands, focusing as he conjured Fire and Earth Release chakras in his palms.
Carefully tweaking their states, he hit a moment where their nature transformations felt perfectly in sync.
No hesitation—he clapped his hands together.
This time, no explosion.
When he parted his hands, a lava ball identical to his first success glowed between them.
Scorching heat radiated from it, singeing his cheeks, but Seimei couldn't help but grin.
Time ticked by.
He poured everything into keeping the lava ball stable, trying to lock onto that elusive feeling.
But his control was still too shaky. The ball soon showed signs of breaking apart.
Its surface rippled, as if something inside was struggling to burst out.
Seimei held on for a few more seconds before losing control and hurling it away.
BOOM!
A distant tree took the hit, its trunk instantly charred with a blackened crater.
Crack!
The trunk couldn't support the canopy's weight, and the tree toppled.
Dodging the falling tree, Seimei glanced at his panel.
No surprise there—his Bloodline section showed Lava Release's evolution progress had ticked up from (1/100) to (2/100)!
And that wasn't all.
Closing his eyes, Seimei tuned into his body's changes.
Thanks to the heightened perception from training Spirit Transformation Technique and his 26-point Spirit stat, he sensed subtle but profound shifts within himself.
After a while, he opened his eyes, certain of what these changes were.
If he wasn't mistaken, the boost in Lava Release's evolution progress had fed back into his body, slightly altering his genes.
For now, the changes were minor, barely noticeable. But once they built up enough for a qualitative leap—say, when Lava Release hit (1/1,000)—that's when he'd undergo a true transformation.
With that in mind, Seimei didn't waste another second. He refocused and dove into another attempt.
For the rest of the day, he planned to focus solely on grinding Lava Release to the beginner level.
That way, during his next break, he could move on to capturing a Snow Clan ninja from the Mist Village and start developing Ice Release.
His shadow clone stationed in the Mist Village had already gathered the intel he needed.
As for whether he had enough chakra and time?
Chakra-wise, he'd poured a million points into developing Lava Release today and had only used about 200,000. The remaining 800,000 was more than enough to hit 100 evolution points.
And if that ran dry, he still had plenty stored in the dimensional space at his forehead.
Time? Based on his recent progress, half a day should do it.
The only reason it was taking this long was because mastering Lava Release required feedback to his real body to trigger genetic changes. Otherwise, with 150 shadow clones, he could've grinded 100 evolution points in minutes.
(Chapter End)