Bottlenecks in Developing Ninjutsu

Bottlenecks in developing ninjutsu—take the Clone Technique as an example.

When he had first mastered the Clone Technique, the chakra from the standard Clone Technique could only separate his arms, head, legs, and torso. His fingers and palms were considered part of his arms. Later, after extending the Clone Technique's duration to one minute, his fingers could be separated as well.

But even when he pushed it to the absolute limit and released more than eighty percent of his chakra into the Clone Technique at once, he still could not separate flesh from skin.

He could separate his fingernails, hair, eyeballs, ears, and nose, but they did not seem particularly useful in battle.

The horror factor really had increased.

When he had tested it, he had thought that if he could travel back, opening a haunted house would definitely scare the hell out of people. Even he felt a deep, instinctive chill when he looked in the mirror at his bald, faceless self without hair, eyeballs, or ears.

After all, when parts of his body separated, there were no wounds in their original places. Instead, they blended together smoothly. When he held an eyeball and looked into the mirror, his face was genuinely smooth.

It had plenty of uses outside combat, such as throwing an ear somewhere to eavesdrop, or plucking out an eyeball to spy on someone.

But this took eighty percent of his chakra. Using it once was enough to leave him wiped out. It was amazing, sure, but what if he ran into a fight afterward?

Soldier Pills were not some miracle medicine. Their chakra recovery effects did not stack, they could not instantly restore him to full capacity, and they certainly could not exceed his chakra limit.

Their ingredients were extremely simple: one tablespoon of vegetable juice, six bean snacks, eight small crackers, ten mixed nuts, two teaspoons of sesame seeds, a little shichimi pepper powder, and twenty-five raisins.

This recipe came from Ebisu's Soldier Pill recipe in Book of Soldiers.

Although he did not understand why Soldier Pills with such simple ingredients could restore chakra, Lin Ke ate them without much concern. Thanks to their simple composition, they were not very expensive.

Still, eating them often was no small expense...

Strangely, according to what Choji had said in the manga, Soldier Pills were supposedly a secret medicine that could let someone fight without sleep or rest for three days and three nights... the kind that acted as a stimulant and sedative. Lin Ke had never found such Soldier Pills, nor had he ever heard of them.

Maybe he was simply ignorant? Or perhaps there really was a kind of Soldier Pill with such miraculous effects? That was why Lin Ke had set his sights on tailed beasts that could increase chakra output, leading to his later plans.

Back to the main topic: the Clone Technique's development had stalled due to chakra limitations, while he had yet to find a direction for developing the Substitution Technique because of its randomness.

The Body Binding Technique was rather awkward. Lin Ke truly could not bear to spend money experimenting with it. As for fake money, how could "money" that even he himself did not recognize as money serve as the Body Binding Technique's target?

Hell Money... did not exist at all in the Naruto World. After all, although Japanese culture had the concept of money for the dead, it was different from Chinese paper money. It was usually coins or imitation ancient currency, not something burned as an offering, but something placed on an altar.

As for the Double Suicide Decapitation Technique, there was even less to say. It consumed far too much chakra and produced only a completely vague Genjutsu-like effect. Without anyone to cooperate with him, he did not even know how to develop it.

Last was the Transformation Jutsu.

At first, Lin Ke had held high expectations for the Transformation Jutsu.

It genuinely transformed him into something else rather than creating the illusion of the original Transformation Jutsu. Just thinking about it made its potential seem enormous.

Yet its actual performance was far too disappointing. He needed to understand whatever he transformed into well enough.

For example, the first time he transformed into his father's longsword, he knew many details about it: how it felt in his hand, how sharp it was, its length, material, structure... It was a vague sort of feeling. He understood that sword, so he could transform into that sword.

Once he did not understand something, he could not transform into it.

Things he understood included kunai, shuriken, clothes, food... Yet some things he thought he understood still did not give him that sense of familiarity.

There were many things he had owned in his previous life that he believed he understood well enough, but whenever he tried to recall them, his mind went blank. What material were they made of? What was their internal structure? What principles did they operate on?

At present, the most lethal thing Lin Ke could transform into was an Exploding Tag.

But that thing was single-use. Was a Clone Technique supposed to rush in, hug someone, and transform into an Exploding Tag? It sounded ridiculous just thinking about it. What if the Clone Technique could not restore the body parts blown apart in the explosion?

Ninja tools were single-use, and he was single-use too, was that it?

As for transforming into some divine beast or a Saiyan, that was even more absurd. If he were given a chance to dissect the Uzumaki Bloodline now, would that mean he could understand the secrets of the Uzumaki Bloodline?

Or would dissecting a tailed beast let him understand how tailed beasts worked?

Was that not complete nonsense?

In his initial development plans, he had considered transforming himself into water, mud, or some other tiny substance. To put it plainly, he wanted to copy the elementalization from the neighboring series.

But then a problem arose. His Transformation Jutsu could not negate damage, and it would preserve his original size. After investing a huge amount of chakra and turning into a mud man or water man, he would become even more fragile. Someone could scatter him with a casual blow, or burn his body to ashes by setting him on fire.

He was not truly elementalized and could not control the corresponding element. If he wanted to negate damage, why not just use the Clone Technique directly?

Besides, his head could not transform...

Even if he increased his chakra investment, it would only let him break through the size limit according to the amount of chakra used. It would not become any more miraculous. That was why the Transformation Jutsu, on which he had placed such high hopes, had ended up in this awkward, middling state.

Perhaps he simply was not investing enough chakra?

In short, because none of the five ninjutsu he had learned had any direction for further development in the short term, Lin Ke sought to become a genin, then a chunin, hoping to learn more ninjutsu and find a way to break the deadlock.

Limited by his chakra reserves, even if he became a chunin, there would not be many ninjutsu he could choose from. All kinds of miscellaneous Release Techniques were immediately excluded. They consumed too much chakra and had terrible cost-effectiveness. Learning them was fine, but they were not much use in actual combat.

Since all of his mutated ninjutsu had mutated toward their literal meanings, his goal was naturally to find ninjutsu with names that sounded powerful.

Things like Kirin—though it had not been created yet—Lightning Blade—an S-rank technique that consumed too much chakra—the Flying Thunder God Technique—S-rank and too difficult—the Mystical Palm Technique—A-rank and too chakra-consuming—Adamantine Sealing Chains—suspected to be a Kekkei Genkai ability—the Reanimation Technique—which he had only seen in the manga—and Super Beast Imitating Drawing or Super God Imitating Drawing—special secret techniques that were difficult to obtain...

The ideas were all good, but the difficulty of acquiring, learning, and using them was higher than the last. There was no hope in the short term. It was simply too far off.

Forget becoming a chunin; he did not even know whether he could obtain them after becoming a jonin. So aside from occasionally fantasizing about himself becoming flying, thunder, and god, and trying out new ideas for developing the ninjutsu he already had, Lin Ke spent most of his time honestly training his body.

The basics. The basics were important.