The Strange Effects

The Strange Effects

"There was something very, very wrong with my ninjutsu."

Lin Ke sat back down on the bed, deep in thought with a strange expression.

It had been—uh, two minutes since he first performed a ninjutsu. Because he had not refined much chakra, his Clone Technique had only lasted around ten seconds before ending.

Once the Clone Technique ended, no matter where his body parts were, everything would return with a bang to wherever his head was.

So, when the Clone Technique had ended just now, he had turned into a heap on the floor. Now that he thought about it, his neck still felt a little sore from that bizarre posture.

According to the scroll, the Clone Technique used chakra to create an identical illusion of oneself to disrupt the enemy's vision.

Hand signs, chakra flow—he had followed every instruction on the scroll exactly. He had read it over and over for four or five years. How could he have remembered it wrong?

But... why had it gone wrong? Lin Ke scratched his scalp. This inexplicable line of thought made him feel like his brain cells were dying in droves.

"It's not without benefits." He lowered his head and looked at his completely uninjured fingernails. If his memory was correct, they should have snapped and bled when they struck the ground just now.

Yet even the pain now felt like an illusion.

He rubbed his fingers, enduring a vague phantom ache as he refined chakra and formed hand signs again—

That strange sensation welled up in his heart once more.

"As long as I relax even a little, my body comes apart." Lin Ke quickly grasped the feeling and discovered the mystery of his "Clone Technique."

After activating it, his limbs, head, and torso were literally separated in the physical sense. They only stayed together because he forced them into place with sheer will. The slightest relaxation, or even the thought of not exerting himself, would make the parts fall off immediately.

"Ha!"

He gripped his left arm with his right hand and swung it. Not bad—it was actually quite handy. Especially after his left hand clenched into a fist, it felt as though his attack range had suddenly increased by an entire arm! The longer the weapon, the stronger the advantage! Bang!

Smoke rose as the Clone Technique ended, and Lin Ke reassembled. After pondering for a moment, he sat back down on the bed. With physical fitness that had only just reached the standard for refining chakra, he could still handle using the Clone Technique twice in a row. If he used more chakra at once...

He tried refining more chakra, then formed hand signs again.

Feeling his body parts about to fall apart once more, he pulled out a kunai and sliced his arm. Blood flowed.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds...

One minute!

Bang!

"Hoo..." Lin Ke took a deep breath, panting slightly. Not bad. If he kept using the Clone Technique, he could last five minutes before collapsing from exhaustion.

"But the most important thing is—"

He looked at his bronze-colored arm. The cut that should have been there had vanished without a trace, and even the blood that had flowed out was gone.

"The greatest use of this literal Clone Technique is probably that it erases wounds when it ends."

Lin Ke was a little excited. It did not matter that the Clone Technique had become strange; what mattered was that its effects were powerful. From the looks of it, it was practically a miniature Izanagi. At the very least, cuts could be erased directly.

"Wait, I think I have a problem."

As he rejoiced, he suddenly noticed the key issue.

If this was the thing his Clone Technique produced, then how was he supposed to get into the Ninja Academy?

Lin Ke covered his face, his feelings indescribably complicated.

After quite a while, he reined in his emotions and comforted himself. "Maybe this is my cheat. Maybe I can develop some other, even stronger uses for it. I can use other ninjutsu for enrollment. One Clone Technique is nothing..."

"..."

Then he had a faintly uneasy premonition. If even the properly performed Clone Technique turned out like this, the other ninjutsu probably would not fare much better.

Lin Ke took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the second ninjutsu on the list—

The Transformation Jutsu.

Among the Three Body Technique, the Clone Technique was the simplest. It used chakra to create an insubstantial image, making it one of the easiest even among basic ninjutsu. It was nearly effortless. Even someone learning ninjutsu on their own, without any guidance, could figure out how to use it after some experimentation.

The Transformation Jutsu was only slightly more difficult than the Clone Technique, which was why it came second on the scroll. Its effect was no longer purely illusory, but involved minor changes to the body.

After all, the Clone Technique could only create an illusion of oneself. The Transformation Jutsu could genuinely disguise someone as another person—their height, weight, voice, or even further, transform them into animals, plants, or weapons. A mere illusion could not accomplish that.

Still, it only altered appearances and deceived others. It did not involve extensive changes to the flesh, with more of it being simulated through chakra, so it was considered one of the lowest-difficulty ninjutsu.

"What should I transform into..."

Lin Ke pondered. Compared to the Clone Technique, which only required creating an illusion of himself, the Transformation Jutsu required more thought and preparation.

The Three Body Technique had no difficulty in activation. More precisely, activating them was not difficult; whether they succeeded depended entirely on the user.

Both the Genin Certification Exam and the Ninja Academy graduation exam used successfully performing the simplest Clone Technique as their standard. That alone showed Konoha's attitude toward genin.

As long as you could successfully perform the lowest-level, simplest ninjutsu, you were a genin.

After all, the missions genin could accept did not involve other ninja. D-rank missions involved picking up trash, finding cats and dogs, helping plant crops and harvest them... Did missions like those require world-destroying ninjutsu? Successfully performing ninjutsu meant one's physical fitness met the standard. Among ninja, strong or weak, they were certainly qualified as laborers.

"I'll transform into my dead old man."

After thinking it over, Lin Ke settled on his transformation target. In his mind, he recalled his father's appearance in this life—his height, the vest he often wore...

He refined chakra and formed hand signs.

Nothing happened.

"Strange." This time, he carefully observed the flow of chakra. At the instant he activated the ninjutsu, the chakra he had refined for it vanished into thin air.

Where it went and how it worked were completely unknown. It was a total black box, but theoretically, the technique should have been activated successfully.

Even a failed Transformation Jutsu should have changed his outward appearance, so why had nothing happened? Could it be—

Following the train of thought from the earlier Clone Technique, Lin Ke pondered for a moment. He looked at his palm and imagined it turning into a long blade. The next second, his arm began to deform, becoming a gleaming long blade in the blink of an eye.

The place where the blade's hilt and hand guard connected to his shoulder looked completely natural, as though they had always been joined together.

After trying several more times, the ninjutsu's effect faded after around thirty seconds, and he returned to normal.

"I knew it..."

He sighed deeply. Transformation Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu—it really was for transforming the body. His head could not change at all.

The Substitution Technique was probably much the same.