Shadow

"Psssh~"

Steam curled upward. Xia shifted the hand pressed against the vest slightly and glanced at Yuan Wei, who was huffing and puffing as he cut leaves, then at Lin Ke, who had caught two rabbits and brought them back for who knew what.

After catching her breath, she continued channeling chakra to dry the boss's clothes.

Come to think of it, this felt a little strange. Ninjas weren't supposed to be like this, were they? Ninjas acting like clothes dryers...

It barely counted as training, right? Never mind. The boss had asked for it, so it had to be for my own good.

She gave up thinking about it and diligently began drying the moisture inside the vest.

Excellent laborer, make my vest dry!

Lin Ke glanced at Xia, who was working hard, and nodded in satisfaction. Lowering his head, he examined the two rabbits. "You'll do." He picked the slightly stronger rabbit, pinned it down with his foot, then tied the other one up with a rope and tossed it aside for later.

He refined chakra, formed hand seals, and released it—

Shadow Clone Technique, successful!

The shadow in his vision rippled once more. He lifted his foot, allowing the rabbit to scramble up and dart away. Then, with a thought, the Rabbit Shadow separated from the original.

"Hm?" With the target changed from a plant to an animal, he noticed something interesting. The lively rabbit that had been fleeing abruptly toppled to the ground after its shadow separated. Its kicking legs stretched weakly, its mouth opened, and its breathing noticeably quickened.

The rabbit soon struggled back to its feet and tried to escape again, only for a large—uh, small—hand to swiftly catch it and inspect it carefully from top to bottom.

"After the shadow separates, the original feels exhausted. Could it be..."

Lin Ke had a vague guess. Even the rabbit's struggles had become much weaker, as though it had overexerted itself.

He tied up the shadowless rabbit and tossed it beside its fellow sufferer, then turned his attention to the Rabbit Shadow.

When the thought arose in his mind, the flat, two-dimensional Rabbit Shadow ran over across the ground at roughly the same speed the rabbit had fled—

It looked incredibly bizarre.

Had anyone ever seen those little picture books where you pressed a finger against the pages and flipped through them rapidly, making the figures inside appear to move? The Rabbit Shadow's two-dimensional running looked a little like that—moving frame by frame, incredibly fast, yet somehow seeming to drop frames.

It was deeply uncomfortable to watch.

Lin Ke directed the Rabbit Shadow to run around for a while. The more he watched, the stranger it felt. In an open patch beneath the blazing sun, a black silhouette darted about while frantically dropping frames.

It felt like something that belonged on a Cthulhu set.

With a thought, the Rabbit Shadow standing some distance away quickly rose upright, turning into a pitch-black rabbit crouched on the ground. Its posture and habits closely resembled those of the original that had lost its shadow.

"Let's test its attack power..." Under his command, the Rabbit Shadow madly charged at a large tree—the tree whose shadow had been separated yesterday—and slammed headfirst into it.

Thud!

A dull sound came from the trunk. It seemed no different from an ordinary rabbit ramming into a tree.

The only advantage was that the Rabbit Shadow was not stunned. It was still trying to keep charging like a berserker.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

The strange, rapid series of sounds quickly drew the attention of his two teammates. When they saw the eerie Rabbit Shadow, both of them were a little stunned.

There was no need to hide it. This was a technique he would use in front of his companions sooner or later, so Lin Ke had not gone out of his way to test it somewhere deserted.

After roughly a dozen impacts, the Rabbit Shadow suddenly stiffened halfway through a run. Its entire rabbit form collapsed, reverting into a shadow plastered to the ground, then scattered into specks of black and vanished.

A shadow reappeared in front of the rabbit that had originally lost its shadow.

"Interesting."

Lin Ke's eyes brightened. He seemed to have vaguely grasped one of the uses of this technique.

He refined chakra again, split it evenly, formed hand seals, and released it—

This time, the target was his own shadow.

After a brief one-second delay, the shadow beneath his feet stepped forward to the opposite side and stood up.

A pitch-black shadow identical to him stood facing him, like he was looking into an unreliable, colorless mirror.

My own shadow has a much deeper connection to me. It feels like another limb has appeared...

"Whoa!" Yuan Wei exclaimed.

Xia hurriedly made a shushing gesture.

Lin Ke ignored his two companions and controlled the shadow to take a step forward, then start running, leap onto a tree, perform a backflip, a front flip, a ninja run, and a series of other movements. Once it was done, an expression of understanding appeared on his face.

His stamina was being consumed! It was about the same as the stamina he would consume if he performed those movements himself. Whether it merely existed, stood, ran, or made any movement, it consumed his stamina. In other words, the shadow consumed the original body's stamina and could imitate the original's actions in reality. It was only logical that, once its stamina ran out, it would revert to a shadow state unable to interact with reality.

"No, that's not right."

Lin Ke quickly realized that his own shadow seemed subtly different from the Rabbit Shadow.

He turned to look at the rabbit beside him. Though it was tied up with rope, it had definitely not exhausted all its stamina. It had even recovered a little...

After the Rabbit Shadow separated, the rabbit had felt exhausted and suffered a massive loss of stamina. That meant...

"When I separate someone else's shadow, I take away their stamina."

Lin Ke made a preliminary judgment. As for how much stamina was taken, he recalled how the Shadow Clone Technique evenly divided chakra. A reasonable guess was that it might take half their stamina.

The reason he had not felt any consumption was likely because it had not consumed his stamina or chakra at all. It took stamina from others, and once that stamina was depleted, the technique automatically dispelled itself.

"Let's try again." He dispelled the technique. After all, even his shadow's mere existence continuously consumed stamina. It was not much, but every bit saved counted.

Still, no chakra returned to him. It seemed that the mutated Shadow Clone Technique had completely lost the chakra-return process.

A single case proves nothing. I need more tests to verify my results. I'll start with rabbits. At the very least, I need to prove this technique is harmless to living creatures. Then it would be best to find two volunteers to help. They don't need to be very old, and they don't need much chakra...

He refined chakra, split it evenly, formed hand seals, and released it—

Poof! The Shadow Clone Technique failed.

Fine. He had been thinking too much. With his stamina overly depleted, he had failed to control the chakra distribution properly and could not split it evenly, resulting in failure.

It definitely does more than just take stamina. There must be other special aspects I haven't tested yet...

Would damaging the original affect the shadow? What exactly could the shadow do? Could shadows interact with one another...?

Lost in thought, Lin Ke sat down on a nearby rock to rest.

The development of the Shadow Clone Technique was likely to be far more interesting than the Earth Dragon Concealment Technique.