When Uchiha Yoru thought of wind passing through his body, it was not metaphorical at all.
Wind was truly erupting outward from the acupoints of his body.
Especially from a certain acupoint, no matter how one explained it, that was farting.
Quite embarrassing.
Especially at the bottom of the sea.
The wind rushing out of his body turned into bubbles of all sizes, drifting upward in strings. This made Uchiha Yoru look like a human air pump, constantly bubbling with glugging sounds.
And the gas spraying out from his own body actually had color.
Red, yellow, green, purple—it could be said to contain all kinds of colors.
Even thinking with one's kneecaps, one would know what kind of smell such colorful gas would have.
Uchiha Yoru was extremely grateful now that his breakthrough location was at the bottom of the sea. Otherwise, he truly would have faced a great disaster.
If he were knocked unconscious by his own fart during a breakthrough, that would become a huge joke.
One had to know that Miwa Masayo had not hidden too far away. She was watching his entire breakthrough from beginning to end. If the tabby cat learned of this, she could laugh for an entire year.
And in just a few hours, every ninja cat in the Cat Castle would know.
It would not take long before the Uchiha clan spread it everywhere as well.
Even with Uchiha Yoru's thick skin, he absolutely could not withstand such a terrifying blow.
Uchiha Yoru let his thoughts wander wildly, doing his best to scatter his attention and reduce the pain in his body as much as possible.
What Bi Wind was, Uchiha Yoru did not know.
But he knew that the wind spirit rampaging through his body was absolutely not simple. It was worthy of this name that sounded very extraordinary the moment one heard it.
This wind filled every corner of his body like countless sharp scrapers, providing gua sha service to every single cell.
Pain was inevitable, but it was not the most agonizing sensation.
If he had a choice, Uchiha Yoru would rather choose to increase the pain tenfold, as long as he did not have to feel this unprecedented soreness. That alone would satisfy him beyond measure.
He had always thought that itching was the most terrifying sensation. When itching became severe, one would feel worse than death and even actively injure oneself, using pain to cover the itching.
But today, he learned that soreness was not inferior to itching at all.
No.
Soreness was a hundred times more unbearable than itching!
That soreness coming from his joints and every muscle fiber.
That indescribable soreness inside his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
That soreness which he had no idea how to relieve.
It rushed straight to his head, poured into his soul, and left Uchiha Yoru hovering on the edge of madness.
Yes.
If one itched, one could still scratch. If it itched badly enough, one could even scratch until there was blood. As long as there was pain, it would not itch as much. At least a person knew how to relieve itching.
But what could be done about soreness?
Scratch it?
Cut it?
It would not be useful.
Because soreness and pain were inseparable. No matter how terrifying the pain was, it could not cover the feeling of soreness.
In fact, it was the opposite. Intense pain could be covered by intense soreness, reducing the strength of the pain.
Most fatal of all was that Uchiha Yoru knew the feeling of soreness was beneficial.
As the wind spirit scraped across every cell, all kinds of waste produced by the purple fire's tempering were being cleared away. It was like polishing rusted parts with steel wool. Amid the tooth-aching friction, patches of rust gradually disappeared, and the parts were becoming bright and clean.
Amid endless refreshing agony, Uchiha Yoru's body was no longer stiff. His bodily flexibility rapidly recovered.
With such powerful benefits, he naturally gritted his teeth and endured willingly. He only prayed silently in his heart that this refreshing wind-spirit cleansing would end as soon as possible.
Uchiha Yoru's prayer was very effective.
The strength of the wind spirit quickly decreased. The soreness filling his entire body rapidly eased, and Uchiha Yoru's smile returned to his face.
Looks like it's about to end. It wasn't much after all.
This thought lasted for quite a while.
Only after the wind-aspected natural energy completely dispersed and his body sensed a numb, tingling static field did Uchiha Yoru realize that he had actually raised a flag for himself.
And he was at the bottom of the sea, surrounded entirely by seawater. Why would he still feel a static field?
Lightning-aspected natural energy was ultimately different from natural lightning. Even through seawater, a good conductor of electricity, it still accurately locked onto Uchiha Yoru.
This made Uchiha Yoru extremely disappointed.
The reason he had chosen to break through deep beneath the sea, relying on the internal cycle of natural energy to hold his breath, was because he had been frightened by the lightning strikes during his last breakthrough. He wanted to use seawater's conductivity to avoid the thunder's strikes.
Because his personal experience had told him that being struck by lightning truly hurt.
That was pain that touched the soul.
But now, it proved that Uchiha Yoru had failed to properly use the inspiration of the great senior brother of cowardice.
Ordinary seawater could not block the strikes of lightning-aspected natural energy.
He truly did not have enough extraordinary knowledge reserves. He could not build the shinobi world version of a mage's birdcage.
Uchiha Yoru sighed deeply.
If knowledge was insufficient, he could only make up for it with flesh.
High in the sky, a bolt of lightning struck straight down at the sea surface. The bright blue-purple lightning actually passed through the thick seawater and accurately hit Uchiha Yoru.
The flash of lightning illuminated the seabed completely. Scattered arcs of electricity caused countless animals to convulse and float upward.
Yet Uchiha Yoru, who had been directly struck, was indescribably surprised.
He had not felt any pain.
Instead, he felt refreshed and clear-headed.
The moment the lightning landed on him, Uchiha Yoru finally learned that the divine ability Lightning Method was not merely an active offensive divine ability.
It was also a passive divine ability against thunder and lightning.
After the powerful lightning struck him, the vast majority of its force was immunized by Lightning Method. Less than one ten-thousandth of the lightning's power entered Uchiha Yoru's body.
What surprised him deeply was that this current, which was enough to electrocute an ordinary person to death, did not harm his body or bring intense pain. Instead, it rebooted his body.
Before being struck by lightning, Uchiha Yoru had not felt anything wrong with his body.
After being tempered by the purple fire and scraped clean by the Bi Wind, Uchiha Yoru felt that his body had been strengthened like never before. His strength, speed, and reactions had all improved greatly.
Especially his physical strength and neural reaction speed—their growth was greatest.
He even felt that his current neural reflex speed should be no worse than Miwa Masayo's.
But after the lightning swept through his body and he experienced the changes within, Uchiha Yoru was shocked to discover that his body had previously suffered from serious coordination problems.
The human body was an extremely complex and precise system. It was composed of complicated subsystems such as strength, nerves, bones, digestion, circulation, respiration, immunity, heredity, and more. Coordination was the most important indicator of life and health.
After experiencing the fire spirit's strengthening and the wind spirit's cleansing, Uchiha Yoru's body had obtained tremendous enhancement, but coordination between the various subsystems composing the human body had completely vanished.
The power he had sensed was simply the powerful attributes of each subsystem forcibly piled together. In reality, because of severe disharmony, conflicts between subsystems had canceled out at least half the strengthening results.
Disharmony had produced the result of one plus one being less than two.
This was not a small problem.
It was a hidden danger that could kill at a critical moment.
If he could not notice it in time and conduct targeted training, the body's disharmony would continue worsening, causing his strength to decline continuously.
If this disharmony developed to the end, it would inevitably create serious illness and even directly threaten his life.
For example, bodybuilders were among the people most likely to die suddenly in the world. Their fragility far surpassed miserable workers on 996 or even 007 schedules.
The chief culprit behind sudden death was the strong and aesthetically muscular body they had worked so hard to train.
The excessive strength of a single system caused imbalance among all systems, severely pressing down on the vital circulatory system. The heart and blood vessels became unable to bear the burden, remaining overloaded for long periods. Naturally, they could go on strike anytime and anywhere.
Fortunately, Uchiha Yoru's body was only uncoordinated. The problem had not reached the severity of losing balance. Thus, solving the problem was not difficult.
As long as his body felt sufficient threat, stimulating every system to go all out and cooperate to resist external harm, preliminary coordination could be achieved.
Lightning was precisely the most suitable power.
In fact, only lightning could penetrate deep into the body while causing every system in the body to suffer damage, thereby promoting the most comprehensive coordination and balance.
Crack—
After being struck by lightning again, Uchiha Yoru opened his mouth and spat out a string of bubbles. After thinking carefully, he used both hands and feet to swim toward the sea surface.
Because of the divine ability Lightning Method, he could immunize himself against the vast majority of lightning damage. This was naturally a good thing. But at this special moment, the existence of the divine ability made the current penetrating into his body severely insufficient. It could not trigger the body's crisis response and was unable to deeply reshape bodily balance and system coordination.
So he needed to go to the sea surface.
He needed to accept more violent lightning strikes and fully activate his body.
If the lightning on the sea surface still was not strong enough, then he might even have to take the initiative to draw lightning, using quantity to make up for insufficient intensity.
Damn it. When other people break through and face tribulations, they all rack their brains to improve defense and weaken the heavenly tribulation's power.
Why is it that when I undergo tribulation, I have to actively increase damage and work hard to increase the heavenly tribulation's power?
This is unfair!
It's all the shinobi world's fault!
When my immortal path reaches great completion, I will definitely overturn heaven's order, defeat and reshape this perverted Heavenly Dao!
Uchiha Yoru gnashed his teeth and swore an oath, completely unaware that he could not casually make vows.
These words of his had a specific term.
They were called making a great vow.
It was said that the Buddha had once made forty-eight great vows, borrowing boundless power from the Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World. Relying on that vast power, the Buddha was able to become a sage on the spot.
The Heavenly Dao of the shinobi world was incomplete. It had no power to lend to Uchiha Yoru for making a great vow.
But the great vow itself was real. Once Uchiha Yoru's immortal path reached great completion, he would still have to fulfill that vow.
If he could not reshape the Heavenly Dao for the shinobi world, then Uchiha Yoru would be unable to continue forward. His Dao path would be severed, and there would be no road ahead.
The Buddha of the Primordial World was like taking a loan to start a company. Although he would have to work hard for hundreds of millions of years afterward to repay the loan, the Buddha had become a sage and ancestor who knew how many years ahead of schedule. Not only could he enjoy power and status in advance, his ability to repay the loan was also rock-solid.
Uchiha Yoru of the shinobi world was miserable.
His situation was like taking a loan to buy an unfinished building with only a foundation. He clearly had gained nothing, yet he was now burdened with debt.
The Heavenly Dao of the shinobi world was truly black-hearted.
But everything had two sides. Being tricked by the Heavenly Dao was also both fortune and disaster.
Uchiha Yoru would certainly encounter many difficulties in the future, but the moment he successfully completed the reshaping of the Heavenly Dao, he would naturally become the controller of that Heavenly Dao.
Within the world of the shinobi world, whatever he wished would come true, and nothing would be unfavorable.
Of course, by the time that truly happened, the shinobi world might very well be nothing more than a familiar, warm, and small home to Uchiha Yoru.
If Uchiha Yoru could still maintain a young and ambitious heart at that time, the shinobi world might even be seen by him as a restraint, hindering his steps toward the far distance.
…
Miwa Masayo dug all four claws hard into the sea surface, struggling with great effort to reach the top. She had only just shaken the seawater off her body when another row of waves came crashing over, soaking her completely.
"Seriously. The sea is way too inconvenient for me. Yoru's shoulder height is still the best."
The tabby cat complained while shaking her body and driving fire-aspected natural energy to make her fur completely dry.
While Miwa Masayo did these things, her eyes remained fixed tightly on the distance.
At the source of that wind and waves, dense lightning fell toward a single point, illuminating the sea beneath the thunderclouds incomparably brightly.
The only point where the lightning landed was Miwa Masayo's Dao companion, Uchiha Yoru.
Relying on her sharp eyesight, after narrowing her pupils as much as possible, Miwa Masayo saw her litter-scooper at the center of the lightning.
What surprised her was that Uchiha Yoru did not seem to feel pain. He even opened his arms, actively welcoming the lightning's arrival.
It was as if what fell was not lightning, but warm, gentle water. He was not enduring the torment of lightning, but bathing in thunder's baptism.
Miwa Masayo followed Uchiha Yoru's hands and looked toward the thunderclouds above, finally discovering tens of thousands of lightning-aspected natural energy threads woven to draw lightning.
The lightning-drawing threads were the prelude to Uchiha Yoru's proud senjutsu, Falling Thunder.
By doing this, he was clearly treating himself as the target.
The tabby cat could not understand no matter how she thought.
"What is idiot Yoru doing, nya? What benefit is there in hitting himself, nya?"
"Strange, nya. When he was struck by lightning during the last breakthrough, he ran everywhere trying to dodge, nya."
"I don't get it, nya. I'll ask him after he's done, nya."
…
Miwa Masayo could not imagine that the current Uchiha Yoru was laughing wildly.
He was even laughing until his face twisted, his mouth stretching almost to the base of his ears.
"Ahahahaha!"
Uchiha Yoru laughed so recklessly that the madness and distortion far exceeded even the Four Laughing Madmen. If Uchiha Madara saw his current appearance, even the Dancing King of the battlefield would be startled.
Of course, Uchiha Yoru did not want to laugh.
He wanted to cry.
Damn it, thank goodness lightning and thunder are covering this up. If anyone saw and heard me like this, laughing like a maniac, I… I would kill them to silence them!
Thunder tempering the body has risks, but it shouldn't be this precise in hitting my nervous system!
Ever since he reached the sea surface, it was no longer only lightning-aspected natural energy attacking Uchiha Yoru. Dense natural lightning was also falling onto his body.
Under this accumulation of quantity, the effect of thunder tempering the body rose sharply. Uchiha Yoru felt the coordination of his body rapidly improving.
As his life systems became more coordinated, he further felt that the world was becoming clear. After adapting slightly, he realized how blurry his previous senses had been.
The greatest improvement was in vision.
Whether dynamic vision or visual clarity, his sensation was like leaping from 720p HD to 4K Ultra HD.
Uchiha Yoru had always thought that the three-tomoe Sharingan was only so-so. Now, he finally knew that it had been his own strength limiting the Sharingan's ability to display itself—especially the optic nervous system, which had restricted it the most.
Only under the baptism of thunder did he discover that his optic nerves had been strengthened greatly. Even the diameter of the nerve canal had doubled, nearly reaching two-thirds the diameter of the eyeball.
This was too unbelievable.
Because the body was an immortal cultivator's most important treasure, Uchiha Yoru monitored his own body extremely carefully. He clearly remembered that before the breakthrough, his optic nerve canal had only been as thick as a little finger.
Within the span of this breakthrough, his optic nerves had increased by at least sixfold.
It was truly inconceivable.
As time passed, the enhancement brought by the thunder tempering dropped off like a cliff. Uchiha Yoru also began feeling that when thunder passed through his body, the pain it generated was growing stronger and stronger.
He knew this meant the coordination of his body had been completed. His breakthrough had been completed.
Although it had not reached perfect completion at the absolute limit, Uchiha Yoru firmly believed that one should never seek perfection in all things. Moreover, he was even more worried that going too far would become as bad as falling short.
Especially since he had just broken through. Every system in his body had been strengthened by the fire spirit, cleansed by the wind spirit, and activated and rebalanced by the lightning spirit. He had no way to grasp the most perfect standard.
If he continued accepting thunder tempering, it was very possible that the hard-earned balance would be destroyed, creating even more serious physical flaws.
Uchiha Yoru wisely withdrew the lightning-drawing threads and controlled lightning-aspected and wind-aspected natural energy to disperse the thunderclouds in the sky.
When the natural energy rushed toward the sky, he was pleasantly surprised to discover that his control had become stronger. He could control natural energy as easily as moving his own arms and fingers.
As long as a thought arose, the natural energy would change accordingly. He no longer needed to think about how to guide or push it. He only needed to want wind to blow, and wind-aspected natural energy would immediately outline the senjutsu structure he was most familiar with, transforming into a gale that dispersed the thunderclouds.
The surprises did not stop there.
Halfway through dispersing the clouds, Uchiha Yoru discovered that he had developed a rather strong connection with the thunderclouds. Thus, he raised his right hand and used the movement of his hand to guide and strengthen his attention, trying to manipulate the thunderclouds.
Unexpectedly, as he bent his right hand to the left, the thunderclouds actually rolled leftward with his motion. Sunlight then poured down onto Uchiha Yoru's body, coating his entire body in a layer of golden light.
Uchiha Yoru was stunned.
He murmured, "Could this be unity between heaven and man? My heart is heaven's heart, and heaven and earth are my body?"
He immediately waved his hand experimentally, trying to mobilize wind-aspected natural energy in nature. Several hundred meters away, according to his will, a whirlwind suddenly appeared.
Overjoyed beyond words, Uchiha Yoru brought his hands together. A pillar of water shot into the sky. Because it was pressed close to the whirlwind pillar, the two soon merged with each other, forming a waterspout.
"My heavens. I've become absurdly awesome!"
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