Thoughts swirled through Seimei's mind, but he quickly pushed them aside, focusing his attention and diving back into his training.
The sun rose and set.
In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
It was now early kotlin:early February.
That morning, as usual, Seimei finished a round of Extreme Body training and returned to Moon Island. He dispelled the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, recalling all his shadow clones and absorbing their past hour's worth of training experience and memories. Suddenly, a spark of insight lit up in his mind.
Seimei's eyes snapped open, a flicker of excitement dancing in them. But just as quickly, he closed them again, diving deep into the knowledge flooding his mind.
Time ticked by, second by second.
After a good half-hour, Seimei opened his eyes again.
This time, the joy in his gaze was even brighter.
"Panel!"
With a thought, he pulled up his proficiency panel.
As expected, under the skills section, his Three Elements Sealing Technique had jumped from Level 8 to Level 9—and not just that, it was at the maxed-out state of Level 9 (0/0). In other words, he'd grinded this technique to its absolute limit.
The insight that had just surfaced in his mind was the knowledge gained from this Level 9 breakthrough, a qualitative leap in understanding. After digesting this new information, Seimei felt his grasp of the technique had reached a whole new level.
Without hesitation, he wanted to immediately use the technique to reconstruct a sealing space within himself. But then he glanced at his abdomen, where the existing seal held nearly 10 million points of natural energy, and hesitated.
To ensure the new sealing space wouldn't interfere with the old one, he'd have to erase the existing seal first. But what would happen to all that natural energy stored inside? Right now, he had no way to control that much natural energy.
After some thought, Seimei decided to take a page from how he stored chakra externally. Raising Ascended Forming hand seals, he performed the Wood Clone Technique.
His shoulder twitched, and a wood clone split off from him.
Without a word, Seimei cast the Level 8 version of the Three Elements Sealing Technique on the clone. Instantly, a triangular seal, much like the one on his own body, appeared on the clone's abdomen.
Seimei reached out, placing his hand on the seal.
Then, he began channeling the natural energy from his body into the wood clone, bit by bit.
Unlike storing chakra, however, the moment the natural energy entered the clone's body, it began to twist and distort. Green sprouts started sprouting in some areas, giving the clone an almost vibrant, life-filled aura.
Seimei wasn't surprised—he'd half-expected this.
Unlike the All-Encompassing Seal used for chakra storage, the Three Elements Sealing Technique required a portion of natural energy to remain outside the seal to maintain a cycle and keep it stable. This meant some natural energy would always be in direct contact with the wood clone's body.
And as everyone knew, natural energy had a powerful catalytic effect on Wood Release, and the wood clone was a physical manifestation of his Wood Release technique. So, it wasn't surprising that the clone started showing issues.
Seimei could clearly sense that the wood clone's stability had dropped significantly and was continuously absorbing natural energy. In this state, forget storing natural energy—it was a miracle the clone hadn't collapsed entirely, a testament to the high proficiency of his Wood Clone Technique.
This was exactly why he'd never considered storing natural energy externally before.
But for a temporary fix, it'd do just fine.
Time ticked by.
A few minutes later, Seimei finished transferring the natural energy.
Taking a deep breath, he followed the insight he'd just gained and began constructing a new Three Elements Sealing Technique on himself.
As before, intricate sealing patterns spread across his body before rapidly shrinking, forming a curved triangular seal on his abdomen. Three sealing chains shot out from the triangle's corners. Two of them, as usual, anchored to his mind and body.
But the third chain was different—it didn't search for natural energy within his body. Of course, it wouldn't have found any even if it had, since all his natural energy, including the 10% he normally used to maintain the seal, had been transferred to the wood clone.
Yet, this didn't stop the seal from forming.
The final sealing chain seemed to solidify, breaking free from his body like a tentacle, reaching into the void ahead. The next moment, it trembled as if anchoring onto something, tightened, and then slowly faded from view.
Right away, Seimei felt faint traces of natural energy from the surroundings flowing into him through this chain.
That's right—the Level 9 (0/0) Three Elements Sealing Technique had not only achieved his original vision of anchoring external natural energy to stabilize the seal but also gained a new ability: autonomously absorbing surrounding natural energy to replenish his reserves.
As for the speed of this absorption?
Seimei closed his eyes, focusing on the process.
About ten minutes later, he opened them again.
With a thought, he pulled up his proficiency panel.
As expected, his Natural Energy had increased by just over a thousand points.
The speed was slightly faster than what a single shadow clone could absorb on its own.
Well, better than nothing, he supposed.
Mentally grumbling, Seimei shifted his focus to testing the seal's storage capacity—his top priority.
He reached out, placing his hand on the wood clone's abdomen again.
The natural energy stored within began to flow back into him.
A few minutes later, the wood clone's natural energy was completely drained.
With a thought, Seimei dispelled the Wood Clone Technique, letting the clone dissolve.
Then, he extended his mental energy, carefully examining the sealing space in his abdomen.
The nearly 10 million points of natural energy from before now occupied less than a third of the space.
In other words, after this upgrade, the sealing space created by his Three Elements Sealing Technique could hold over 30 million points of natural energy.
While this wasn't quite on par with the All-Encompassing Seal's 50-million-point chakra storage, it was still impressive.
At the very least, it solved his immediate problem.
For the foreseeable future, he wouldn't have to worry about running out of space for natural energy. Plus, his ability to handle sudden situations had greatly improved.
"Not bad!"
Sensing all this, Seimei nodded with satisfaction.