A full day of formation drilling had not been wasted.
With the assistance of the suggestion seeds, the genin unconsciously arranged themselves into a neat formation, forming an 8×16 rectangle.
Uchiha Yoru opened his mouth and summarized:
"The training item today was called formation."
"The stance I used is called standing stake."
"To be honest, your formation wasn't very neat. I'm not satisfied."
"But quite a few of you learned standing stake just by observing. That's worthy of praise."
"As for those who haven't learned it, figure out a way to learn it yourselves tonight."
"Tomorrow, we'll continue drilling formation. But unlike today, it won't just be simple, relaxed standing anymore."
"I command!"
The sudden command from Uchiha Yoru caused all 129 genin to snap to attention instinctively.
Their perfectly synchronized movement produced a single heavy footfall full of force.
Yoru nodded in satisfaction.
"Dismissed!"
That night, after receiving a report on the training, Uchiha Fugaku flew into a rage.
"What exactly is Uchiha Yoru doing?"
"Formation drills? Using the kind of tricks samurai use to control peasants to train ninjas? Isn't this complete nonsense?"
The genin delivering the report was a spy Fugaku had planted separately.
He counted as one of Fugaku's own people, so he asked, "Clan Head, should I notify Captain Yashiro and have him stop Uchiha Yoru's nonsense?"
Uchiha Fugaku thought for a long time.
His anger gradually subsided during that thinking.
In the end, he shook his head.
"No."
"He was strongly recommended by Lord Nobuhiro. Just one day of foolishness isn't enough for me to persuade Lord Nobuhiro to replace him."
"Wait a little longer. If his nonsense provokes strong resistance from the genin, report to me."
"…Yes."
In truth, this was the last time this Uchiha genin would ever voluntarily report to Uchiha Fugaku.
The next day, Uchiha Yoru continued formation training.
But this time, he added pressure from his ocular force, increasing the genin's mental exhaustion.
Any genin who had not mastered standing stake could not even hold on for one minute before their entire body trembled and they collapsed.
Even the genin who had already grasped the technique could last, at most, fifteen minutes before they failed to withstand the impact of his ocular power and fell over.
The frequency of formation drilling suddenly accelerated.
The genin learned and mastered standing stake faster and faster.
They also became more and more skilled.
And their obedience and trust toward Uchiha Yoru gradually deepened as well.
Of course, that was not the credit of the training itself.
It was the result of the suggestion seeds planted on the first day hatching and sprouting under the stimulation of the three-tomoe Sharingan's ocular power.
Though those seeds could never last for long, their effect during the initial phase of training was extremely obvious.
They helped the genin quickly master the skill of standing stake, quickly enter an empty, lucid state, and receive powerful positive feedback.
Otherwise, how could these genin—already filtered out and discarded by the Clan Head, the elders, and even the village—have mastered standing stake in a single day?
The reason Uchiha Yoru had gone to such lengths, simultaneously suggesting over a hundred people, was because he lacked credit.
Among these genin, Uchiha Yoru did possess a tiny amount of credit born from personal acquaintance.
For example, at the full-moon banquet at the Clan Head's house, all it took was a single sentence from him for Shigenobu, who had been serving as a waiter that day, to bring him extra meat.
But that little bit of credit was nowhere near enough to make everyone obey his arrangements and earnestly carry out the formation training they instinctively despised and disdained.
Credit did not emerge from thin air.
It could only be exchanged for through tangible results.
And only when credit had accumulated sufficiently could one persuade others to obey, to follow, and to do bigger things together.
Every order issued in the course of doing things, every day of time consumed, all had to be paid for with credit.
Once credit ran dry, the matter failed.
Credit and results formed a cycle of constant conversion.
But the hardest part of that cycle was not turning every matter into success.
It was obtaining the very first bit of credit when doing the very first thing.
Shang Yang, when he first began his reforms, had purchased his first bit of credit with gold by moving the wooden pole and establishing trust.
Uchiha Yoru's initial credit was far too small.
And he had no time to slowly accumulate it from the start.
So he chose to do business with no capital at all—
Using suggestion seeds.
Only under the force of those many seeds could the genin obey his orders and honestly submit to the formation drilling they hated and despised most, exhausting themselves in monotonous standing and, at the point of extreme fatigue, concentrating hard enough to learn standing stake.
Though the credit consumed at each step had been offset by the suggestion seeds, nothing could simply vanish into nothingness.
It all became debt instead.
If he failed in the end, Uchiha Yoru would go utterly bankrupt in credit, and among the Uchiha group he knew best, his reputation would become unbearable.
That was why he hadn't dared to spend several months on formation drilling just to let the power of the collective become the result.
Instead, on the very first day, he taught standing stake, letting personal gains in spirit and mind become the result, so that the very first bit of credit could be cashed in immediately.
For that reason, he had not hesitated to use suggestion to assist the genin's standing stake—
And in doing so, had pushed himself to the limit as well.
He had succeeded.
The Uchiha genin, forced through the training, learned standing stake and felt the gains it brought.
As Uchiha genin, they all possessed an unawakened bloodline limit, and were extraordinarily sensitive to the growth of spiritual strength.
Everyone who succeeded felt a throbbing in their eyes.
Their instincts told them that the Sharingan was beginning to bud.
This unbelievable reward drove those genin into a frenzy.
Even though only one third of them succeeded on the first day, that had already generated enough credit.
Not only enough to repay the earlier debt—
But enough to support the next step of even harsher training.
Starting from the second day, Uchiha Yoru no longer needed to actively stimulate the suggestion seeds.
The genin's obedience had already become sufficient.
As a result, the previously planted suggestion seeds now became excessive, gradually pushing their obedience and trust to an even deeper level.
By the third day, every single genin had learned standing stake.
They had also, within that emptiness, felt the growth of spiritual power and the activation in their eyes that followed its increase.
Amid their excitement, some genin even began to feel dissatisfied with the current pace of instruction.
Filled with hope, they took the initiative to ask, "President, are there more training items after this? Can we speed up the pace of learning?"
Uchiha Yoru smiled.
The change in address represented their respect for him.
It also represented their recognition of the study group as a collective.
"Of course there are more training items. But increasing the pace will be very hard…"
The instant they heard Uchiha Yoru's words, the genin fell silent.
Then, the very next moment—
They went mad.
But the three days of training had already carved the concept of discipline into their bones.
So although all of them had gone crazy, every one of them still stood perfectly straight, and the formation remained a flawless rectangle.
These ramrod-straight lunatics shouted wildly, sending the most sincere plea they had into Uchiha Yoru's face:
"President-sama, please train us hard!!"
"Use all your strength—we can take it!!"
"Please!!"
"We beg you!!"
Uchiha Yoru heard quite a few phrases that sounded extremely wolfish and tigerish.
With a look of disgust, he agreed.
"You're the ones asking for this. Don't start crying about being tired later."
"Absolutely not!" x129
"Then our training will move from stillness to motion."
"Listen to my command. Maintain formation and run around the training ground!"
"Let's start with thirty laps to wake yourselves up."
"Yes!"
Uchiha Yoru had verified the relationship between the Sharingan and spiritual power through himself.
To awaken the Sharingan, one needed enough spiritual power to stimulate the mysterious region deep in the brain and trigger its development.
The degree of that development determined the strength of ocular power.
The strength of ocular power, in turn, determined whether the Sharingan could awaken and manifest—
And to what level it could ascend.
Increasing spiritual power was difficult.
When it was insufficient, emotion could be used to amplify it.
But if the gap was too large, then no matter how violent the emotion, it still wouldn't work.
So at the root of it all, spiritual power still had to be strengthened.
According to Uchiha Yoru's understanding of the relationship between essence, energy, and spirit, if one wanted to strengthen spiritual power, the first step had to be improving the body's physical quality.
A strong body could increase the amount of chakra.
Abundant chakra, in turn, nourished spiritual power.
Everyone who became a ninja already knew how to draw chakra from the body.
Standing stake, meanwhile, could accelerate the efficiency with which chakra stimulated the growth of spiritual power.
The spiritual power the genin had transformed through standing stake over these three days had not truly come from formation training.
Rather, it was the release of potential they had already accumulated through past training.
A good number of them had already fully developed that latent potential.
Now it was time to begin comprehensive, complete training from the foundation of physical conditioning.
But if Uchiha Yoru had simply ordered it directly, the effect would not have been the same as the genin begging for it themselves.
If Uchiha Shigenobu had not been the first to voice the request, Yoru had actually been prepared to use suggestion seeds and arrange a suitable plant.
So really, that boy Shigenobu deserved reward.
Later, he could be considered for focused cultivation, so that he could become Shisui's capable assistant.
Running was nothing special for ninjas.
Running in neat formation wasn't difficult either.
The study group's genin quickly adapted to the requirement.
The eight formations ran in perfect order, their footsteps ringing out full of force.
But all of the genin knew one thing—
There was absolutely no way things would remain this simple.
And sure enough, starting from the second lap, Uchiha Yoru strapped weighted vests onto every single genin.
Once they had a load equal to twice their own body weight added to them, every movement that had been simple just moments ago suddenly became unbearably difficult.
As president of the study group, Uchiha Yoru had prepared thoroughly.
Sweating like rain?
No problem.
Yoru had already prepared large barrels of warm boiled water, split into both salty and sweet flavors, enough for everyone to gulp down all day long.
Massive physical expenditure?
No problem.
Yoru had already had huge pots of medicinal porridge cooked according to a formula.
The speed at which it replenished stamina would absolutely "surprise" people.
After thirty laps and then another thirty, with everyone's stomachs empty and stars forming before their eyes from hunger—
Of course that was no problem either.
Just run two more sets of thirty laps, and everyone could eat barbecue until they were full.
Uchiha Yoru had reserved the Akimichi barbecue restaurant the day before.
The whole place.
As for the idea of him personally cooking for everyone with his own hands—
That was just wishful thinking.
This was not three or five people.
This was over a hundred half-grown boys and girls howling for food.
As the saying went, half-grown children could eat a family into poverty.
At this age, these boys and girls could each put away four or five bowls of ramen in one sitting.
Uchiha Yoru had no ability to block up that many mouths by himself.
He liked cooking.
But he did not like being a cook.
Better to eat out.
In any case, the clan was footing the bill.
To be more precise, the Uchiha clan didn't even need to spend from its own funds.
They could simply deduct the cost directly from the rent on the Akimichi family's storefront, and that would still be more than enough.
But what none of the hundred-plus people expected was this:
After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill at the barbecue restaurant and was starting to feel lazy, wanting nothing more than to go home—
Uchiha Yoru blocked them at the entrance.
By now, Yoru's credit for the day had already produced authority from trust.
He didn't say a single extra word.
And every last genin obediently followed him back to the training ground.
Under the bright moonlight, 129 ninjas stood in orderly formation, silent and still in the training ground, waiting for Uchiha Yoru to speak.
But soon, they themselves began to feel that something was different.
All around them were familiar companions.
Ahead and behind were teammates from the same squad.
Everyone's breathing gradually synchronized.
Each person could feel himself merging into something enormous—
And incredibly powerful.
This was the power of uniformity and coordinated action.
The sense of order itself was, by nature, a form of power human beings could understand.
It was not only the genin who felt that power.
Uchiha Yoru himself was deeply satisfied with the result of the three days of effort.
Smiling, he said to everyone, "When you go to the battlefield in the future, you absolutely cannot use a formation like this. This is only training formation."
Before the genin could react, he turned serious again.
"All right. The first reason I dragged you all back here tonight after your full meal was to test your obedience."
"Very good. I'm very satisfied."
"The second reason is that I believe someone may break through tonight."
"So I pulled all of you back here to witness together…"
"…a historic moment for the Uchiha clan."
"?" x129
Uchiha Yoru opened his three-tomoe Sharingan.
The power of genjutsu was pushed to its limit, giving his voice powerful persuasiveness as it linked up with the suggestion seeds in the heart of every genin present.
None of the genin had awakened their eyes.
In the face of the three-tomoe Sharingan's genjutsu, they had no power to resist.
So they involuntarily followed Uchiha Yoru's movements.
"Follow my posture. Lift your left foot and step it to the right until it is shoulder-width apart. Raise both hands, bend the elbows, and round them before your chest. Turn the palms inward and spread the fingers."
"Lift the chest. Raise the head. Relax the abdomen. Bend the knees slightly."
"Relax your breathing. Breathe slowly. Gradually close your eyes. Listen to my voice."
Uchiha Yoru drew in a deep breath.
Then he opened his mouth and produced a strange sound—like a cat's purring, "Hrrrululululu—" and in an instant it resonated through the chests and abdomens of everyone present.
This was the gentle release of Zha Lei.
What he imitated was the resonant vibration Miwa Masayo produced when she rested.
Once again, Uchiha Yoru stimulated the nearly exhausted suggestion seeds, transmitting his own breathing rhythm to everyone and forcibly dragging their breathing into step with his.
He had no choice.
Uchiha Yoru simply had no confidence in these younger brothers and sisters, who had grown up under this distinctly Japanese cultural influence.
He firmly believed that these children had absolutely no chance of understanding the true essence of Hunyuan Stance on their own.
What they had learned up to this point was only an extremely crude imitation.
Its calming effect was decent enough, but in the end it remained superficial.
The next stage of cultivation would not work if they stayed at that level.
"Relaxed and natural, empty and upright, winding and exquisite, perfectly rounded into one."
The essential meaning of Hunyuan Stance was only sixteen characters.
But the implications contained in those sixteen characters were practically endless.
Even Uchiha Yoru himself had not fully understood them yet.
And even for the portion he did understand, he had no way to properly describe or explain it using the language of this ninja world.
How could he teach these Uchiha genin—who had never been steeped in the cultural foundations of Yanhuang civilization—to understand such complex principles?
It was an enormous problem.
After agonizing over it for a long time, Uchiha Yoru finally came up with an answer.
He would combine suggestion seeds, genjutsu, and genjutsu sound—
And directly transmit his own real experience to everyone.
If they could be made to understand through first-hand perception, then at the very least, they should be able to enter the gate.
All 129 genin present closed their eyes.
Bathed in increasingly bright moonlight, they matched Uchiha Yoru's breathing rhythm exactly.
As the resonance effect deepened, the purring sound gradually grew louder and louder.
The shared rhythm made the breathing sound distinctly audible.
And yet, it only made the training ground feel more peaceful and quiet.
It was like how a secluded valley needed the sound of birds—
A sound completely fused into nature only strengthened the feeling of tranquility.
Led by Uchiha Yoru, the genin entered extreme stillness and guarded emptiness.
The flow of chakra within their bodies became smoother and smoother.
The meat and rich food they had eaten at dinner, under full absorption, transformed into waves of warm current that replenished the body.
A body provided with abundant nutrition generated large quantities of chakra.
And large quantities of chakra, within a calm state of mind, became the ladder by which spiritual power could grow.
Chakra did not directly transform into spiritual power.
The source of spiritual power lay in the mysterious depths of the mind.
Chakra was simply the most effective tool for drawing it out.
As more and more spiritual power was awakened, the bloodline limit shared by the Uchiha bloodline—the eyes—absorbed the ocular power stimulated by that spiritual strength and began to develop and grow at astonishing speed.
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