"Let’s try it with this big tree…”

  Link didn’t recklessly split off his shadow but instead chose a rge tree not far away.

  Ohe target was firmed, the strange perspective quickly vahe shadow of the tree on the ground bubbled like boiling water for a moment before settling down.

  “This feels quite strange.”

  He could clearly sehe shadow he had split off, even maniputing it with his sciousness like a doppelg?nger.

  In the moment, the thought of eg with the shadow arose in his mind, and the tree’s shadow suddenly rose upright from a two-dimensional pransf into a three-dimensional bck tree.

  Its entire form was shrouded in profound darkness, with the trunk, leaves, and even the shadow identical to the inal tree. However, the leaves didn’t sway in the wind, and maails appeared slightly pixeted, as if someone had taken a photo of the shadow and used pitch-bck steel to print it into a 3D model.

  Looking at it this way was somewhat eerie.

  It bore a striking resembo the real tree, but any normal person could tell at a ghat it wasn’t a real tree—what kind of tree has no shadow, and leaves that don’t move?

  “Whoosh!” Link threw a shuriken, which embedded itself in the shadowy tree with a dull thud. The sound and the depth of peion were almost identical to those of a real tree.

  This thing seemed immobile, possibly because it inated from a tree?

  He walked up and pulled out his shuriken, watg as the wound in the shadow tree quickly healed. A g the inal tree showed no damage, meaning the injuries inflicted on the shadow didn’t trao the inal. He reached out to touch the shadow.

  “It feels just like an ordinary tree…”

  “ it return to being a shadow?”

  As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the shadow tree colpsed bato the ground in all dires, like a mass of bck liquid losing its shape and ref into a ft shadow.

  However, it remained separate from the inal tree. Strangely, there was no sense of energy being ed during the process of transf from two-dimensional to three-dimensional or even healing the shadow’s wounds.

  “Just like a normal shadow e, it took half of my chakra…”

  Frowning at the shadow tree, Lihat this teique held many unknowo be discovered, but—

  “It’s time to eat.” He patted his stomach, exhausted from several uses of shadow ing, which had left him ravenous.

  This erfect opportunity to test how long the shadow could exist indepely from its inal.

  With that thought, he dragged his tired body to join his teammates, who were practig nature transformation, for a meal of ramen. He was too zy to cook at home, dreading the thought of grocery shopping, cooking alone, and then washing up afterward.

  Cooking wasn’t too bad—making food he liked could sometimes be fun—but washing the dishes ure drudgery.

  Iris and Ami were also exhausted from spending the afternoon releasing chakra. The three of them walked silently to Ichiraku Ramen. The moment they sat down, Link noticed a familiar gaze fixed on his gree.

  Before he could see who it was, he instinctively straightened up, only to discover it was Naruto Uzumaki.

  The child of destiny’s gaze was full of shock, providing a signifit boost to Link’s self-esteem.

  “The thought of a prodigy two years youhan me advang so quickly and potentially taking the Hokage’s position someday... terrifying. This kid must not be allowed to grow unchecked...”

  Internally, Link narrated the se as he observed Naruto, then waved and greeted him before his food.

  The three of them slurped their ramen, ate their fill, a home. Link washed and hung up his dirty clothes, sorted the garbage in his room, and prepared to dispose of it in the m.

  There wasn’t much left for eai. For him, after a day of training or missions, even if a good meal restored some physical strength, the fatigue never fully went away.

  Speaking of fatigue, the inal shadow e teique’s drawback of refleg exhaustion and memories had aluzzled him. How did Naruto endure dozens or even hundreds of times the fatigue? Link himself felt drained after just one day of training, to the point where he wao colpse into bed.

  …

  The M

  “It hasn’t dissipated yet.”

  Upon waking, Link noticed he could still faintly ect to the shadow tree he had split off—it had sted all night without disappearing. Its durability was quite impressive.

  Even though it ed half of his chakra, that wasn’t much to begin with.

  After a quick breakfast, he put on his slightly damp vest auro Training Ground Seven. The shadow tree was still standing quietly in its inal spot, trasting sharply with the other shadows around it.

  “Ugh, why is my chakra earth-based instead of fire…”

  Frustrated, Link tugged at the high-neck colr of his slightly damp vest. Just yesterday, he had appreciated how it protected him from dust during a fight, but today, the damp fabric stig to his neck was unbearable.

  Fire chakra mas as burning when released. trolling the output frequency would make it perfect f clothes.

  His earth chakra, oher hand, maed as fragmentation. Teiques like the inal Headhunter Jutsu ah Release: Hiding like a Mole Teique were all based on the earth attribute’s ability to break apart soil for subterranean movement.

  Sihe training grounds weren’t locked, Link decided to take off his vest and seriously study the shadow tree.

  He made it stand upright again and began experimenting with various methods to destroy it.

  Cutting, tearing, breaking...

  He cluded that while the shadow tree had a certain degree of self-healing, detached fragments would quickly dissipate and couldn’t regee.

  When more than 60% of it was destroyed, the shadow tree would revert to a two-dimensional state and remain uain its three-dimensional form for a long time.

  As for how long, he wasn’t sure yet. For now, no matter what he did, he couldn’t make the shadow tree stand again.

  The inal tree was ued by any of this. No matter what happeo the shadow, it had no impa the tree. However, the tree didn’t grow a new shadow either.

  Sihe shadow tree couldn’t stand and couldn’t move, Link simply dismissed the teique. The shadow shrank back to the base of the inal tree, and the missing portions were quickly restored under sunlight.

  It was as if nothing had happened.

  Acc to the manga, when a shadow e is dismissed, any unused chakra should return to the user. But no matter how Link tried, he couldn’t feel his chakra returning. It was simply ed.

  “There’s definitely more to this teique. Half my chakra—little as it is—should have more potential…”

  “Let’s try splitting an animal’s shadow .”

  Bleam