Gift

A standard amount of chakra for the Earth Release: Earth Dragon Hiding Technique could sustain the earth dragon for five times as long.

The additional one hundred and fifty seconds of duration gave this ninjutsu considerably greater value.

Injecting twice as much chakra did not extend its duration. It merely made it larger, caused it to spit harder rocks, and increased its flight speed.

Once the earth dragon activated its invisibility, it became completely transparent. Even while flying, there was nothing unusual about it. Only when it attacked would chakra usage create ripples across its body, meaning it could not attack while invisible.

Its ability to spit rocks was quite valuable. They were not especially fast, but they could track targets. Nor were they ordinary stones—they could be shaped, and after becoming stone spikes, their destructive power was fairly impressive.

Multiple earth dragons could be summoned at once, but they seemed to share the same consciousness.

What was worth noting was that the chakra consumed by complete invisibility and rock-spitting attacks was not directly drawn from Lin Ke's body like the Substitution Technique. It was more like consuming stored chakra—

For the earth dragon, that meant consuming its own lifespan. This was especially true when attacking. There was no upper limit to the chakra it could use: the more chakra it used, the larger the rocks it spat out, the faster they flew, and the greater their power.

That was something worth considering. The relationship between the original body, the substitute, and the earth dragon seemed subtly different.

Incidentally, the earth dragon looked fierce and ugly, covered head to toe in scales, but...

After all that, it turned out to be a long-range mage-type summon that could not fight at close range at all.

Lin Ke sat in the barbecue restaurant, stuffed freshly grilled meat into his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed. A whole morning of ninjutsu training had left him severely drained. He had practically staggered into Barbecue Q clutching the wall, and he felt as though he could eat an entire cow.

Besides, he was treating everyone. He had just spent money on a C-rank ninjutsu and emptied more than half his savings. His usual expenses were not low either. Setting aside food and drink, consumable ninja tools like smoke bombs, Soldier Pills, and kunai cost plenty too...

He had finally become a chunin. No matter what, he had to enjoy a proper meal! Even if he had to eat dirt afterward, so be it.

Seeing him wolf down food, Yuan Wei could not help giving him an admiring look. As expected of the boss—strong in battle and even stronger at eating! With that thought, he began stuffing himself as well.

Xia silently rolled her eyes and said nothing.

Nara Yan Shui ate much more elegantly. Looking at the three subordinates who had matured so rapidly in just half a year, he felt somewhat gratified. Though he hated being a babysitter, seeing the people he had taught grow up felt pretty good.

Still, he absolutely would not lead the next class.

After eating, the four left Barbecue Q. He handed over a scroll and said, "A gift for becoming a chunin." After a pause, he turned to the other two subordinates beside him. "You two should work hard too. You'll get gifts when you become chunin as well."

"Thank you, Yan Shui Teacher." Lin Ke took the scroll and sweetly offered his thanks. Looking down, he saw the character for "ninja" written on it. Was it some sort of ninjutsu?

Nara Yan Shui smiled. "For a while, you'll need to accept and complete missions on your own." During their meal, he had already learned that Lin Ke did not intend to bring his two subordinates directly into high-difficulty missions, which conflicted with his own plans.

The most basic missions for four-man teams consisting of a jonin, chunin, and genin were B-rank missions and above.

"Well then—" He raised his right hand and waved. "Farewell, you three."

"Whoosh!"

Holding the scroll, Lin Ke looked left and right at the companions standing behind him, then grinned confidently. "In that case—"

"Your special training begins now."

"I'm completely ready!" Yuan Wei raised both hands and shouted.

Xia secretly felt a headache coming on from her loudly shouting companion, but she still smiled. "I'm ready too."

"Boss!" x2—Seventh Training Ground.

Standing atop a rock, Lin Ke looked sternly at his two companions and asked, "What is chakra? Can anyone tell me?"

Without hesitation, Yuan Wei answered, "Chakra is energy created by mixing 'Mental Energy' and 'Body Energy.'"

"Very good. Then can anyone tell me how chakra is used to release a technique?" Lin Ke asked again.

"Hand seals?" Xia asked tentatively.

"Training!" Yuan Wei declared with absolute confidence.

"Idiot. Of course you extract it from your body, then use hand seals to guide the technique into form."

"..."

After watching the two discuss it for a few moments, Lin Ke said, "You're both right, but neither of you is completely right."

"The foundation of techniques is chakra. To turn chakra into the ninjutsu we perform, it usually has to go through two processes—"

"Shape transformation and nature transformation."

"I know nature transformation." Yuan Wei eagerly volunteered, "My chakra has the nature of wind!"

The same initial affinity as the protagonist?

Lin Ke thought about it. Chakra affinities were no secret; they could even be called quite basic and simple. Chakra test paper was sold everywhere, and anyone wishing to learn Release Techniques had to learn at least something about chakra affinities.

More or less.

"Mine is fire," Xia added.

Lin Ke nodded. "Shape transformation is what gives chakra the 'form' of a ninjutsu."

"Adding natures such as wind or fire when using ninjutsu creates additional effects. That is called nature transformation."

"Basically, all ninjutsu are built upon these two processes." Of course, there were some strange ninjutsu that could be released without either shape transformation or nature transformation.

Take the Tailed Beast Bomb, for example. The Eight Tails described its release process as being like vomiting. There was no transformation involved at all...

"Take the Three Body Technique as an example."

"The Transformation Jutsu is the foundation of shape transformation."

"The Clone Technique's most important aspects—the ratio and release of chakra—are the foundation of nature transformation."

"The Substitution Technique requires using chakra to activate the body's cells and briefly increase speed, making it the foundation of taijutsu."

That was why the E-rank Three Body Technique could become a required course at the Ninja Academy. Mastering the Three Body Technique meant learning other ninjutsu would yield twice the result with half the effort.

Lin Ke's ninjutsu might have been a little unusual, but he did have some modest insights into ninjutsu.

Those insights came from science.

It was an organized system of knowledge built on testable explanations and predictions concerning the form, organization, and other aspects of objective things—knowledge that had already been systematized and formulated.

It was the greatest gain he had brought with him from two lifetimes, aside from his cheat ability that mutated ninjutsu.

In this world, chakra and ninjutsu were the science he had summarized.