“Oh.”
Chen Yue blinked his big, round, black eyes. He knew what was going on. He had ‘graduated’!
It made sense. The training content he was initially told about, he had now mastered it all. It had taken him a total of thirty days.
Well, less than thirty days, since today wasn’t a full day.
“Great-Grandfather, does this mean the pre-school special training is over?”
Chen Yue asked the old man. The ‘stage’ the old man mentioned was quite important to him. It couldn’t be over, right? There was almost a month left before school started.
“No, it’s not over. It’s just the first stage of training that has ended. There will be a second stage of training next.”
As expected, the old man’s following words confirmed Chen Yue’s guess.
He continued to ask, “Great-Grandfather, is the second stage of training about learning to use the Sharingan?”
The old man had previously said that after he mastered basic taijutsu and ninjutsu, he would teach him how to use the Sharingan. He wondered if the second stage of training was about the Sharingan.
“No.”
Uchiha Hokaku shook his head. The way to use the Sharingan wasn’t difficult. Since the little boy already had three tomoe, there was no need to rush training on this aspect. The second stage of training was something even more important.
“Child, you need to get to know other children your age!”
“Until school starts, you will return to the clan and receive pre-school education with the other children of the same age in the family.”
“Although you already know most of this knowledge, you will gain something that you cannot get from training alone, like companions and friendship.”
Uchiha Hokaku wanted to cultivate not only a powerful ninja, but also a powerful leader who fought for the interests of the Uchiha clan. Being too solitary wouldn’t do.
Moreover, studying with children of the same clan could be considered preparation for their future studies at the Konoha Ninja School.
“Companions and friendship?”
Chen Yue was taken aback by this. Indeed, he did need these things.
After all, he had decided from the very beginning that he wouldn’t end up like Uchiha Madara and Kaguya Ootsutsuki, ultimately defeated because of being ‘alone.’
Moreover, the old man didn’t mention the training being over. Now that he did, thinking back on his month of intensive, secluded training, he did feel a little tired.
The effects of the Moon Meditation weren’t omnipotent, after all!
“Alright, child, take a day off today. The second stage of training will begin tomorrow.”
Uchiha Hokaku reached out to rub Chen Yue’s head, then said, “However, come with me to a place now.”
With that, he walked towards the training ground, rarely not using the Body Flicker Technique.
Chen Yue quickly followed, asking, “Great-Grandfather, where are we going?”
He couldn’t keep up with his great-grandfather’s rhythm. They were training a moment ago, then the old man said the first stage of training was over, and that training for the second stage would begin tomorrow, so they could rest today. But as soon as he finished saying that, he said he would take him to a place, without saying where.
“To a fun place.”
The old man gave an ambiguous answer, then turned back to urge him, “Come on, we’re late. If we come back later, we’ll miss lunch!”
Hearing this, Chen Yue could only quickly follow, his two little legs running. Without his great-grandfather using the Body Flicker Technique, he quickly caught up to the old man.
They left the training ground and walked onto the street in the clan’s compound. However, unlike before, this time the old man didn’t head towards their home, but towards the outside of the clan compound.
The Uchiha clan’s compound in Konoha’s Upper District was enormous. It was an irregular quadrilateral, covering an area of over 200,000 square meters. It was more like an independent city than a compound.
Within the compound were nearly a hundred courtyard-style residences, more than ten multi-functional training grounds, and even a sizable artificial lake. The library mentioned by Chen Yue earlier, which held various books and ninjutsu scrolls, stood on a small island in the lake.
Besides that, there was also a small market inside the compound that met the needs of the clan members for daily necessities. It housed various shops run by Uchiha clan members themselves.
It could be said that the Uchiha clan’s compound in the center of Konoha Village was a village within a village, a country within a country.
The four walls surrounding the compound that completely enclosed the Uchiha family compound further proved this point.
Even more excessive was that not only did the Uchiha clan’s compound have walls nearly five meters high surrounding it, but there was also a moat nearly ten meters wide dug outside the walls.
Honestly, when Chen Yue learned about this, he somewhat understood why the Konoha leadership feared the Uchiha clan and why other people in the village were distant towards the Uchiha clan.
In the world of ninjas, walls and moats actually had no practical defensive function. They could only serve a basic role of isolating the inside from the outside.
So the way the Uchiha family compound was built was self-explanatory.
The Uchiha clan was simply too aloof. It was evident from the closed nature of their family compound.
This way, the Konoha leadership saw the Uchiha clan as not actively integrating into the village. People in the village felt the Uchiha clan was too far away from them, as if they were not from the same world.
That’s how the gap between people arises, especially when there are those who are deliberately guiding it.
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PS: Three more chapters tonight! Please vote for flowers and collect!
The red area in the picture is the approximate location of the Uchiha compound.