Fire Style: Great Fire Extinguishing.
Fire Style: Dragon Flame Song.
These are the two high-level Fire Style Ninjutsu that Uchiha Shikora passed on to Ruri, reaching B-level.
These are Fire Style Ninjutsu that only Jonin can access, and not even they can easily master them.
After reviewing, Ruri realized that these two B-level Fire Style Ninjutsu require a large amount of Chakra to practice and unleash effectively to ensure their power.
Moreover, even though she excels in Fire Attribute Chakra's nature transformation, Ruri cannot master these three Fire Style Ninjutsu in a short time.
Fortunately, she is still in the fifth grade, with more than a year until graduation from the sixth grade, so mastering two types of high-level Fire Style Ninjutsu within this year is not a problem.
The most crucial aspect is how to increase her Chakra amount. Without sufficient Chakra, even if she learns these two high-level Fire Style Ninjutsu, she can only use them in critical moments.
Thus, Ruri directly approached Hakushi, expressing her desire to increase her Chakra amount.
Hakushi, who was sitting on a chair in the lab drinking tea, showed a troubled expression after hearing Ruri's request.
Increasing Chakra involves more challenges than enhancing physical fitness. Hakushi himself has almost perfect control over Chakra, with minimal waste, and even his medium Chakra amount is entirely sufficient for his own use.
For a ninja with flesh and blood, a single shuriken or kunai can easily be lethal. Hakushi doesn't deliberately pursue the power of Ninjutsu.
Therefore, Hakushi currently has no significant demand for Chakra and focuses on enhancing physical fitness.
He has spent most of his recent days researching the application of Natural Energy, incorporating it into medicine to develop new drugs.
"I'll try my best, but you'll have to wait a while since I have other work on hand now."
Upon hearing Hakushi's assurance, Ruri nodded without urging him.
It would be great if it can be accomplished, but there's no disappointment if it can't be done.
Her body has not yet entered a high-speed growth phase. Once she reaches a certain age, she will naturally have enough Chakra, although she wants as much as possible.
"So, does that mean your strength is already about equal to the Jonin in your clan?"
Hakushi held a test tube filled with white translucent solidified particles. He opened the lid, took out a piece with tweezers, and placed it on a small iron rack.
This solid particle also contains Natural Energy, but the amount is so small that it's almost negligible.
"My Chakra is insufficient for a long battle with a Jonin, so my winning rate is less than 20 percent."
Ruri recalled the previous battles and gave an honest assessment.
"That's already impressive. After all, the Uchiha Jonin's Chakra amount is already significantly more than that of an average Jonin. The reason you lost was due to physical and age limitations."
This makes Hakushi believe that Ruri's current strength is not far from an average Jonin.
At least when Chakra is sufficient, there isn't much of a gap with a Jonin.
Upon graduating from the sixth grade, becoming a Jonin is assured.
The fact that Ruri can become this strong is related to Natural Energy.
This shows that Natural Energy, including more advanced Sage Art Chakra, indeed has a significant role in a ninja's growth.
Although there are side effects... However, Hakushi thought about it, many things have side effects, even the food we eat contains trace toxins, and there's also a lot of bacteria in cold water.
We shouldn't overestimate the human immune system, but we also shouldn't underestimate it.
Side effects aren't the dangerous thing people imagine.
After chatting for a while, Ruri left, possibly to train or take a bath.
By the way, Ruri's backyard has a small outdoor bathhouse, but unfortunately, there's a partition in between.
Hakushi sees it as a barrier preventing open-hearted encounters among people, a root of human Original Sin.
Putting aside the various distractions in his mind, Hakushi focused on his research. He isn't in a hurry to improve his skills since his body and age have their limits on how strong he can become.
Researching Natural Energy is different. If he can one day fully master it and perfectly refine Sage Art Chakra, his power will explode.
Just by understanding a little of the truth behind Natural Energy, Ruri, at her age, already has the strength to challenge a Jonin, even though part of it comes from her talent and Sharingan. The role of Natural Energy cannot be denied.
At that time, even if he leaves Konoha, he can continue to live well in the Ninja Realm.
Thus, Hakushi has been planning how to map out his future long before now.
Besides developing body-enhancing medicine, he's also working on cold medicine, hemostatic agents, stamina recovery pills, and others.
In short, the medicines developed through Natural Energy are varied and strange but far more effective than similar medicines on the market, with some being powerful special medicines not available.
If these drugs were brought to market now, they would cause a huge sensation and unnecessary trouble.
When he leaves Konoha, Hakushi plans to leave some of the drug formulas there as a repayment for Konoha's nurturing and teaching over the years.
Konoha can use these medicines to more conveniently and effectively treat the village's patients, and sell them to other countries for enormous profit.
Pharmaceutical profits have always been very high, especially if the medicines can be used militarily.
Then, it will be up to Konoha to decide whether the medicines are used commercially, kept for internal purposes, or incorporated into the village's medical and military sectors. Hakushi won't interfere.
This way, when parting ways with Konoha, he can do so without any feelings of regret, more openly.
Honestly, Hakushi doesn't dislike the Will of Fire, but—
Their ideals and beliefs are entirely incompatible. Forcing them together will eventually lead to mutual harm.
To him, Konoha would just be a part of his past, not the place his heart belongs to.
Thus, he wasn't lying when he said he doesn't dislike the Will of Fire. It's also true that he doesn't like the emptiness of its ideology.
◎
In Konoha Village, there's no feeling of oppression brought by war. The adults choose to bear the pressure themselves to create a seemingly peaceful haven for the young ones, protecting their growth.
During these years in Konoha, the things Hakushi observed gradually changed over time.
He developed a deeper understanding of the people, systems, values, ideals, and political landscape.
Despite many imperfections and what can be called bad habits, it is overall a relatively peaceful village.
Especially when standing atop Hokage Rock, overlooking the entirety of Konoha, one is struck by the village's grandeur and prosperity.
It made Hakushi find it hard to believe this is how a village should look.
Life at the Ninja School remained calm and peaceful, if not for the regular arrivals of injured individuals from the front lines, one would be led to believe there was no war.
As an intern in the first Medical Ninja Experimental Class, Hakushi began his formal internship at the hospital.
The so-called internship mostly involved assisting the current medical ninja: bringing things and occasionally bandaging patients' wounds if lucky.
Hakushi was assigned to drug inspection and medical equipment maintenance, and he sometimes worked with experienced medical ninja on developing new drugs and refining herbal medicine.
Thus, the fifth-grade school year passed without much incident.
At the start of the sixth grade, Hakushi had just turned eleven and had been interning at the hospital for over six months.
The leader of Hakushi's team was a medical ninja with ten years of experience at the hospital. Seeing Hakushi's solid foundation and careful, serious work, he entrusted Hakushi with his own laboratory, conducting drug inspections and medical equipment maintenance independently. He even completed the complex herbal refinement task alone.
With Hakushi's wealth of knowledge, these tasks were tedious but not difficult. However, he felt very frustrated by the hospital overworking child labor like him.
He knew Konoha Hospital was short on staff, not just within the hospital but even more so on the front lines. As a result, he could only attend school classes in the morning and had to work at the hospital from noon until seven in the evening.
Moreover, his already meager salary was halved by the leader as a fee for educational guidance.
Relying solely on his hospital earnings, Hakushi felt he'd struggle to even cover basic needs.
Given his financial scarcity, his living expenses and research funding were almost entirely supported by Ruri.
Thinking back, his decision to rely on Ruri for support was wise.
Ninjas also need to eat.
Thus, the salary earned from the hospital was accepted by Hakushi and saved as pocket money.
Times like these made Hakushi feel fortunate that Ruri's eyes were Sharingan, not the Byakugan that could see through things.
The thought of accumulating tens of thousands of ryo in personal savings by the time he graduates from the Ninja School brought a little joy to Hakushi's heart.