In the blink of an eye, it was the next night.
Just as Seimei had predicted, after a day and a half of practice, his "Three Elements Sealing Technique" had gained over three thousand proficiency points, smoothly advancing from Level 2 to Level 5.
Under the moonlight, Seimei opened his eyes.
A sharp glint flashed in his gaze.
At that moment, his understanding of the "Three Elements Sealing Technique" had reached a new level.
With a single thought, he mobilized the chakra in his body, fusing all the natural energy accumulated in the sealed space over the past few days into Sage Chakra.
Then, he stood up, cast the "Flying Thunder God Technique," and teleported straight into the volcano.
Activating the "Body Extremity Technique," Seimei quickly consumed the Sage Chakra stored in the sealed space.
Since he had recently processed a batch, there wasn't much natural energy left in his body, so the amount of Sage Chakra he could produce was limited.
As a result, it didn't take long for him to use up all the Sage Chakra.
Feeling his slightly stronger body and the slight increase in his Byakugan's evolution, Seimei nodded in satisfaction.
Then, he cast the "Flying Thunder God Technique" again, teleporting back to Moon Island.
Raising his hands to form seals, Seimei dispelled the "Three Elements Sealing Technique" from his body.
Under his clothing, a triangular mark appeared briefly on his abdomen before quickly dissolving and fading away.
Seimei's brow furrowed slightly as he suppressed the physical and mental strain caused by the process. He immediately focused, taking control of the natural energy that had been one of the seal's foundations.
Without waiting for his body to recover from the strain, he formed seals again and cast the updated version of the "Three Elements Sealing Technique."
That's right—everything he had just done was to update the sealing technique on his body.
Soon, a familiar triangular mark reappeared on his abdomen.
The natural energy he had forcibly controlled became the new foundation for the seal.
Seimei quietly sensed the natural energy circulating within and around the seal.
Finally, when it reached a balance, he calculated the ratio of natural energy required to maintain the seal.
At Level 2, the ratio had been 4:6. At Level 3, it became 3:7. By Level 4, it was 2:8.
And now?
Seimei focused and sensed it.
Now, he only needed 1 point of natural energy to bind 9 points of natural energy through the "Three Elements Sealing Technique"—a 1:9 ratio.
In other words, he could now restrain more natural energy with less of his own.
However, 1:9 was likely the limit for now. Improving it further would be incredibly difficult.
As for reaching the theoretical ideal—where the seal could be maintained solely by the natural energy in the surrounding air without relying on his own?
In the short term, Seimei saw no hope of achieving that.
But that wasn't a big deal, because what he had hoped for had already come to pass.
With the "Three Elements Sealing Technique" reaching Level 5 and undergoing a qualitative change, its capacity for storing natural energy had increased significantly.
At Level 2, it could store up to twenty thousand points of natural energy. At Level 3, that number rose to fifty thousand. By Level 4, it reached one hundred thousand.
And now?
Seimei estimated it could hold at least five hundred thousand points of natural energy.
That's right—not two hundred thousand, not three hundred thousand, but a staggering fivefold increase to five hundred thousand points.
With a capacity like that, if he could keep up the rate of absorbing natural energy, the Sage Chakra he could produce would be enough to sustain uninterrupted training with the "Body Extremity Technique."
This would double the speed at which he strengthened his body.
Unfortunately, his current Level 6 "Natural Energy Sensing" and "Natural Energy Control" skills weren't sufficient to supply him with enough natural energy.
At the very least, relying on just one hundred shadow clones wasn't enough.
Currently, he was using five million points of chakra per day for the "Body Extremity Technique." Based on his daily training sessions, that averaged out to over three hundred thousand points of chakra per hour.
If he wanted to replace regular chakra with Sage Chakra, he'd need to acquire over three hundred thousand points of natural energy per hour.
Only then could he produce enough Sage Chakra.
To achieve that, he'd need to increase the number of shadow clones absorbing natural energy by seven or eight times.
However, he could only maintain five hundred shadow clones for high-intensity training at most. There was no way he could manage seven or eight hundred clones dedicated solely to absorbing natural energy.
Even if he could, he wouldn't do it.
After all, he still had Dust Release to develop.
Plus, the "Three Elements Sealing Technique" wasn't capped at Level 5. If he wanted to master Sage Mode in the future, he couldn't abandon this technique.
So, for now, his best option was to focus on leveling up "Natural Energy Sensing" and "Natural Energy Control" to increase the speed at which each shadow clone could absorb natural energy. That way, he could achieve his goals through quality rather than quantity.
As it happened, just two days ago, his "Natural Energy Sensing" and "Natural Energy Control" had reached Level 6 (1/10000). The next level, Level 7, was in sight.
And Level 7 was the second qualitative leap for these skills.
When that happened, their effects would improve dramatically, potentially meeting his needs.
So, when would they reach Level 7?
Seimei opened his proficiency panel.
As expected, after two and a half days of training, both skills had surpassed Level 6 (2000/10000) in proficiency.
At this rate, it would take less than eight days for them to level up.
Eight days wasn't too long, nor was it too short.
Seimei did some quick mental calculations and concluded that the Nine-Tails incident in Konoha likely wouldn't have happened by then.
"Phew, good!" Seimei let out a small sigh of relief.
If he could push these skills to Level 7 before that chaos erupted and adjust his training plan accordingly, it would save him a lot of trouble.
With these thoughts flashing through his mind, Seimei stopped dwelling on it. He closed the panel, raised his hands, and formed seals to cast the "Multiple Shadow Clone Technique."
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With puffs of chakra smoke, four hundred and fifty shadow clones appeared in the area.
Seimei assigned three hundred of them to continue developing Dust Release. As for the remaining one hundred and fifty clones…
He had one hundred of them keep practicing the "Three Elements Sealing Technique," while the other fifty rejoined the group of one hundred clones responsible for absorbing natural energy.
Previously, he had pulled fifty extra clones to focus on the "Three Elements Sealing Technique" to level it up quickly.
Now that it had reached Level 5, there was no rush, so it was time to return those clones to their original task.
Only then could his "Natural Energy Sensing" and "Natural Energy Control" reach Level 7 on schedule.