Pi! Pi! Pi! Pi! Pi!

Hundreds of bone needles were flung at him from all directions. Grasping his chains tightly, Uehara swung them with such speed and mastery that a dense black dome formed around him, repelling all the needles.

Clang Clang Clang Clang Clang

Sensing the ground under him tremble, he pressed his foot down firmly and prevented the ground from collapsing beneath his feet. Above him, he suddenly felt a massive heat approach him. Three giant fireballs were approaching him. Burning the trees that were blocking their paths, they only looked more massive as they approached.

With them only about fifty metres from him, Uehara placed his hands on the ground and after a few moments, giant hands made out of unrefined diamond ore came out of the ground and met the fireballs head on. Pieces of the ore started chipping off but under the attack of the three clones responsible for the fireballs, Uehara kept up his resistance.

The rest of the clones stood silently and waited for any lapse in Uehara’s concentration. The course of today’s training was how much awareness Uehara would have over his surroundings whilst he was suppressed by an attack.

Normally, the sheer amount of energy produced by the fireballs would’ve shone brighter than the sun, attracting attention from everyone within a hundred-kilometre radius. But ten clones had already set up barriers that would prevent any chakra from leaking through it and an illusion that would make anyone see a normal scenery but would tempt them to make a detour. If they somehow manage to go through all of that, then a bone needle will solve everything quickly. With several characters inscribed on the trees, the barrier spanned a radius of ten kilometres, making more than enough space for a temporary training area.

Crash!

The trees couldn’t withstand the pressure anymore. The pressure created from the three clones pushing the fireballs forward and Uehara using the three diamond ore palms to push back caused the fireballs to compress greatly, causing the particles within them to vibrate considerably.

Soon, the fireballs compressed to a degree that they could no longer compress, and it resulted in them turning white and exploding.

BOOM!

The rest of the clones extended their hands forward in unison and contained the explosion as well as the shockwaves.

The fingers of Uehara’s diamond ore hands were incinerated in their entirety. Retracting the three arms back to form a circle around him, he prepared to face the next element. Three other clones replaced the first ones. They extended their hands and water drills burst out of the ground and spiraled towards Uehara like snakes.

Repairing the fingers of the diamond ore arms, Uehara got into position.

[This is all for power Uehara.]

Quickly dodging a few dozen bone needles that almost caught him off guard, Uehara quickly positioned the arms to meet the three water drills.

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[This will all pay off one day.]

After three hours of training his awareness and further enhancing and polishing his control over the earth element, Uehara underwent the same training again, this time using the elements of fire, air and water.

Using different methods of elemental manipulation, he would bend his chosen element to optimally block or divert an attack sent by three of his clones that would on occasion, switch the elements they would attack him with, sometimes even fusing them to deliver a much deadlier attack at Uehara.

All of this had to be faced while maintaining awareness of his surroundings so as not to get sneak-attacked by a bone needle from the rest of his clones.

After going through all the four basic elements, it was now early morning, around six. Knowing the shops would open around eight after the sun has risen to a sufficient height, Uehara decided to get some last-minute combat exercise in.

Focusing his breath, he began channeling his nature chakra.

[Focus Uehara.]

A faint blue aura appeared like gentle flames surrounding his skin.

[Aura-Flowing State]

The gentle flowing blue aura suddenly began to gain vitality and appeared to be more vibrant, although not overly. The veins on Uehara’s body twitched as his body struggled to handle the two-times increase in power.

The Aura-Flowing State technique was a skill taught to him by Volkarin a few years ago when he was still teaching Uehara how to fight, before he taught him the Water-Style Taijutsu technique in 1016 AD.

Although he was an assassin in his past life, his old moves and techniques were almost rendered useless in this world. His combat techniques which were made for use against humans were completely useless against entities that could use chakra.

As a young drake that had to struggle to survive in the heartless island of Aokigahara, he had completely abandoned his structured fighting techniques and fought completely on instinct.

When Volkarin began instructing him, he taught Uehara how to fight by telling him where to hit and which body part to use will cause the most damage. He had emphasized that in close-combat, there’s no time for fancy moves and so during the course of instructing his son, he imparted the Aura-Flowing State technique to him.

The technique itself isn’t fancy or overly complicated. It instead relies on the simple principle of increasing the circulation speed of chakra along the chakra network by a certain multiplier. Activating the technique will by default, increase forcefully increase the circulation speed of chakra by a multiplier of two.

Chakra circulating at twice its normal speed will cause everything within the body to work at twice its capabilities. Blood will circulate twice as fast. The brain will process and respond twice as fast and the nerves will forward signals twice as fast, amongst other things such as the digestive system working twice as fast to supply the body with more energy.

The only weakness of this technique is that without sufficient mastery, it is impossible for one to unleash chakra-based attacks since the chakra is moving too fast for them to grasp control of it. That means any elemental attacks such as fireballs or bending the earth and seas become impossibilities.

The reason for that is although the mind works twice as fast, the soul still remains slow.

(AN: Like telling a person who’s been driving a normal sedan to get into a Mclaren and drive at full speed. They probably won’t be able to control it, even if they were on a straight.)

As such, the ability to use chakra for external attacks becomes useless since the utiliser of the technique cannot grasp the chakra since it is moving too fast for them to mold.

Bearing the feeling of that extra power coursing through his veins, Uehara looked at his clones and nodded.

Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh

The combat session began with fifty-against-one. Living in a world where he knows there are several existences stronger than him, he knew he had to polish his skills regularly. The ones he was especially wary of were the Chinese.

There was a possibility of existences like cultivators being around. Although he doesn’t expect them to be so widely pronounced like in the novels he read, he does expect some millennium-old monsters to exist.