Uchiha Mai shut all the doors and windows. Only after bathing and changing clothes did he finally open the system interface.
Drawing gacha required sincerity.
Call it superstition—but since he'd already transmigrated into the Naruto world, believing a little wouldn't hurt.
The dog system's interface was extremely simple and crude, with no intelligence whatsoever. Only when Uchiha Mai had questions would it respond in the form of on-screen text.
[Host: Uchiha Mai]
[Fashion Points: 304]
Below that was the draw interface.
At present, only the half-star and one-star pools were unlocked. Earlier, Uchiha Mai had drawn Mayweather's shoulder-roll defense and the flying armbar from the half-star pool.
A man's fate, of course, depended on personal struggle—
—but also on the course of history.
Those two skills were history's course.
Through his own effort and perseverance, using those two techniques as a foundation, Uchiha Mai had further studied boxing and grappling theories and tactics.
The benefits had been enormous.
Not only would they help his future taijutsu training, they could even assist in developing new styles altogether.
After all, these were the crystallized results of decades of professional evolution.
Highly extensible skills.
As long as you worked hard—and weren't too stupid—you could become a late-blooming genius.
If half-star skills were already this strong…
Then one-star skills—hehehe.
Uchiha Mai rubbed his hands together, opened the one-star draw pool in his mind, spent 300 Fashion Points, and pulled a single draw.
Crude as the dog system was, it was at least honest.
A one-star pool always produced a one-star reward.
If this were some penguin company or pig factory, the design would probably be—
1% chance to get a one-star skill.
9% chance to get one-star fragments (collect ten to exchange one).
9% chance to get a half-star reward.
81% chance to get half-star fragments…
Compared to that, this plain and simple dog system felt downright benevolent.
Light flashed within the pool.
Then, accompanied by some bargain-bin visual effects, a card engraved with a single five-pointed star slowly appeared at the center.
Uchiha Mai clicked it with his mind to view the reward.
[Lightning Five-Strike Whip · One Star
A boxing art rumored to have been created by a certain martial artist surnamed Ma. Swift as wind and fast as lightning—when mastered, it allows the user to throw five punches toward five directions in an instant.]
"Are you kidding me?!"
Uchiha Mai exploded in rage, nearly coughing up blood. In sheer frustration, he kicked over the chair in front of him.
What kind of trash skill was this?!
Did the system think he didn't use Bilibili in his previous life?!
He had seen that so-called Master Ma's videos.
Traditional martial arts "stopping at a point," no martial ethics, have some self-reflection, left straight kick…
To sum it up in eight words—
A fraud.
A clown chasing attention.
Mayweather's shoulder-roll defense and the flying armbar—skills with real practicality, lethality, and growth potential—were only rated half-star.
Yet a con artist's made-up nonsense was rated one-star?!
This dog system really ought to be manifested into a refrigerator, smashed to pieces, stuffed into a cement barrel, and dumped into the sea.
After venting for a while, Uchiha Mai still chose to accept the ability.
No matter how small, a mosquito leg was still meat.
Let me see what kind of crap you're hiding in your pants.
The card shattered into specks of starlight that flowed into his limbs and bones. A stream of knowledge poured into his mind.
Uchiha Mai froze on the spot.
Several minutes later, he suddenly raised his hands and threw several rapid punches, then brought both hands together at his chest and swiftly formed a few hand seals.
"Th-This… is actually that good?" he murmured in disbelief.
The Lightning Five-Strike Whip given by the dog system was not the version performed by that fraudulent Master Ma.
It was the version Master Ma had boasted about—
The one that never actually existed.
This version wasn't so much a combat skill as it was a training method—or rather, a talent.
In some novels, boxing techniques were divided into three types:
Demonstration methods.
Training methods.
Combat methods.
Mayweather's boxing skills and the flying armbar belonged to the combat-method category.
But Lightning Five-Strike Whip, this one-star skill, belonged to the training-method category.
Its killing power wasn't strong.
However, once learned, it could significantly increase the practitioner's upper-body speed and flexibility.
And the more proficient one became, the greater the improvement.
Uchiha Mai could clearly feel it—
His punching speed had increased slightly.
His hand-seal speed had jumped from two seals per second to nearly seven seals in three seconds.
The increase seemed minor.
But one had to remember—
He had only just obtained the ability. He hadn't even practiced it once yet.
Strike speed.
Upper-limb flexibility.
Hand-seal speed.
These were all extremely crucial qualities for a ninja.
Shinobi generally had high offense but weak defense.
If you could strike before your enemy, you might heavily injure—or even kill them—before taking a single hit yourself.
A divine skill!
Dog system—I was wrong about you!
Uchiha Mai immediately broke into a wide grin.
A true face-changing speed.
At the genin stage, aside from kekkei genkai, nothing boosted real combat ability more than taijutsu.
This enhancement hit exactly where it mattered most.
He withdrew his mind from the system, hastily cooked a bowl of noodles to deal with dinner, then went out into the courtyard to practice the Lightning Five-Strike Whip.
Those flashy Uchiha-style shuriken tricks that supposedly dominated the ninja world?
Side paths. Completely useless.
In the later stages, nothing beat kekkei genkai.
Below that came ninjutsu and taijutsu.
This boxing method truly was profound.
After running through it several times, Uchiha Mai could clearly feel his strength improving—little by little.
That positive feedback felt like a visible experience bar in a game.
Put in effort, get tangible returns.
Most people were more than willing to work hard under those conditions.
Just as he was about to practice a few more rounds, a rapid knocking suddenly sounded outside the courtyard gate.
"Who is it?" Uchiha Mai asked instinctively, lowering his fists as he walked over and opened the gate.
He looked around—
No one in sight.
"Why is there nobody again?" he muttered.
"Mai-gege, I'm down here."
A childish voice came from below.
Uchiha Mai lowered his head.
Standing there was a little bean-sized kid of four or five years, with a button nose and a skewer of red bean dumplings hanging from his mouth, looking up at him.
Uchiha Shisui.
The prodigy who never truly appeared on-screen in Shippuden, existing only in others' memories—
At this moment, he was just four years old.
Shisui's age had always been controversial.
That was simply the nature of Japanese manga—overflowing creativity, but sloppy with details. Contradictions in settings were common.
Kishimoto's just a mangaka—what does he know about Naruto.jpg
In any case, in the world Uchiha Mai had transmigrated into—
Shisui was four this year.
"Oh, it's Shisui," Uchiha Mai said with a smile. "What's up?"
Shisui took another bite of his dango, then licked the sugar off his fingers.
"I just passed by the clan head uncle's house.
The clan head gave me a skewer of dumplings and told me to come call you over."
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