Substitution Technique

Although Yichen had acted strangely at school, it had not caused much of a stir. Instead, the peaceful work Yichen had imagined in the Barrier Team encountered a small complication.

Yichen had sparked everyone's curiosity in the Barrier Team. Although work had been busy lately, quite a few people found all sorts of excuses to deliberately visit the archives and see Yichen.

Some even specifically came to exchange books during Yichen's shifts. As a result, half of the quiet study time Yichen had expected was taken up by copying books.

There were benefits too. Through all this, Yichen quickly became familiar with the Barrier Team's internal structure and the division of its various duties.

As one of the village's standing departments, the Barrier Team had an enormous structure. There was the Sealing Squad Yichen belonged to, the Perception Squad, the Rune Squad, and a Combat Squad that did not belong to the Barrier Team but had been stationed there long-term.

Aside from the Combat Squad, each squad had anywhere from dozens to hundreds of members during peacetime.

They were institutions on the same level as the Medical Team, Interrogation Team, Anbu, Ninja Academy, Patrol Team, Administration Department, Logistics Department, and so on.

Unlike Konoha, Iwagakure had neither Root nor a dedicated Military Police Force.

However, once war began, these departments would be broken up and assigned to different combat units, filling out those units' specialized personnel needs.

Thus, the current Barrier Team was nowhere near its full strength of several hundred people. Only a little over a hundred remained on duty, and even they were divided into three groups that rotated shifts.

The Perception Team had the most personnel, while the Sealing Team and Rune Team had far fewer.

The Sealing Team's daily work covered two main areas. One was regularly inspecting the condition of the various seals throughout the village. For example, the cabinets in the archives that required special authorization to access had to be routinely inspected and reinforced by the Sealing Team.

The other key task was something Yichen had not expected: producing Storage Scrolls.

Storage Scrolls were consumables. They did not become useless after a single use, but they could not be used indefinitely either. They were also very expensive, so every village had Ninja responsible for making them.

One important task of the Rune Team was producing various types of Talisman Paper, such as the most common Exploding Tags.

Yichen had not used either of these things so far. The reason was simple: he could not afford them.

At the very top of the reading list Captain Bunji had given Yichen was knowledge related to making Storage Scrolls.

Over the next month, Yichen copied more than thirty books. It was tiring, but it earned him around seventy Contribution Points. It was not much, but as someone struggling to make ends meet, Yichen was secretly delighted.

One obvious benefit of having powerful Mental Power was that learning came easily. Yichen finished all the books on the list in a month, which greatly surprised Bunji.

Bunji first tested Yichen's grasp of the material, and the results were satisfying. Yichen not only understood the relevant knowledge but had quite a few insights of his own.

This was somewhat different from what he had expected. After considering it, Bunji did not assign Yichen other tasks as usual. Instead, he made an even longer reading list for Yichen to study.

Yichen was in no hurry. He had been practicing the Three Basic Jutsu these past few days, and his progress had been quite encouraging. He had already learned both the Clone Technique and the Substitution Technique.

He was not proficient with them yet. The casting process was slow, the success rate was low, and he had to concentrate completely in order to perform them.

Most importantly, his hand seals were too slow. In a one-on-one fight, they were nowhere near practical.

The Transformation Jutsu and Clone Technique both took over three seconds. If he prepared a Substitution Wood in advance, the Substitution Technique could also be performed in just over three seconds.

If he had to use a nearby object as a Substitution Wood on the spot, it took more than seven seconds.

In more than seven seconds, Taniya's senbon could turn Yichen into a cactus.

Because of this, aside from physical training, Yichen's daily training focused on becoming familiar with the Three Basic Jutsu.

Practicing the Three Basic Jutsu was divided into two parts. One was hand seal practice. As some of the few Ninjutsu Yichen currently knew, using them in actual practice to develop a feel for the hand seals was far more effective than merely scrambling the order and practicing the seals.

Moreover, hand seals were now accompanied by the circulation of Chakra, so Yichen did not dare casually try changing their order.

After thinking it over, Yichen chose the Ninjutsu most suited for actual combat: the Substitution Technique. As one of the basic Three Basic Jutsu, it consumed very little Chakra and was a common way for Ninja to evade attacks.

However, the Substitution Technique had many restrictions. First, there needed to be an object of suitable size and weight nearby.

If it was too large or too heavy, the Substitution Technique would be slow to perform and consume more Chakra. In that case, it would be better to use the Body Flicker Technique.

If the object was too light or too small, it would be difficult to make it take on the user's appearance.

Second, the Substitution Technique required connecting one's own Chakra to the substitute object, which meant its preparation could not be done too far in advance.

If it was prepared too early, maintaining the Chakra connection would make fighting impossible.

If it was prepared too late, well, he would just be dead.

Finally, Chakra outside the body was easily detected. Ninja were not lacking in intelligence or combat instinct, and since the Substitution Technique was one of the most widespread Ninjutsu, everyone was on guard against it. Achieving a surprise effect was actually very difficult.

Still, despite all those shortcomings, its advantages were obvious. The most direct was that it was simple and easy to learn. The Three Basic Jutsu were all beginner-level Ninjutsu, classified as D-rank Ninjutsu. There were no simpler Ninjutsu.

In the days that followed, Yichen changed locations every day, practicing the Substitution Technique in all sorts of different environments.

Three months later, Yichen could successfully perform the Substitution Technique one hundred percent of the time under ordinary circumstances, and he could complete the entire process using nearby wood or branches in around five seconds.

Then Yichen had a sudden idea. Rather than using wood, he would use objects that ordinary people would never think of as substitutes, such as water.

Compared to stone, water was less dense and consumed much less Chakra.

More importantly, it could catch people by surprise.

The Substitution Technique could swap the positions of a Ninja and the substitute object, allowing the Ninja to switch places with water. Whether for escaping or hiding, it was a good option.

About five months had passed since Yichen's Chakra Amount had first Reached the requirement for the Transformation Jutsu. Compared to before, his Chakra Amount had grown considerably.

For ease of calculation, Yichen called the amount of Chakra needed to perform one D-rank Ninjutsu 1D. He had now risen from 1D to around 1.7D.

In addition, because of his Chakra Control training during this period, Yichen could already perform the Substitution Technique with around 0.8D of Chakra.

However, this applied only to the Substitution Technique. His proficiency with the Clone Technique and Transformation Jutsu had not improved much, and each still required more than 0.9D of Chakra.

Furthermore, Yichen's greatest advantage, his Mental Power, had also begun to slowly grow. The clearest sign was that he had become the only Ninja in the class capable of refining Chakra while fighting.

At a little over seven years old and not yet eight, Yichen had barely reached the standard Konoha used to select Genin in peacetime.

In his memories of his past life, Kakashi had graduated at five. Yichen thought that if he had enrolled two years earlier, he could have done it too.

In one sentence, Yichen's mindset was: Uchiha Sasuke said, "I'm good again."

Of course, this was all Yichen indulging himself to boost his confidence. Kakashi's graduation at age five had been an exceptional graduation, and the assessment was definitely not limited to the Three Basic Jutsu.

Moreover, Yichen's ability to meet the standard in the Three Basic Jutsu was entirely due to his Chakra control. His Chakra Amount, physique, and other conditions were far inferior to those of the outstanding children his age.

For example, Shinohara, that muscle-brained fellow, had at least 7D of Chakra now, and his physique was dozens of times stronger than Yichen's.

There was no need to be surprised. The gap in their physiques was actually growing wider and wider.

This difference in physique was enough to drive one to despair. In terms of taijutsu, if Yichen fought Tana, the two would finish forming the Seal of Opposition, and before Yichen could even make a move, Tana's fist would already be in front of his eyes.

Yet although Shinohara and Tana far surpassed Yichen in taijutsu, Shinohara was still at the stage of practicing the Three Basic Jutsu. Even now, he still could not successfully perform them.

Tana was doing better. She could already perform the Transformation Jutsu.

There were now seven or eight people in Yichen's class who could perform the Three Basic Jutsu, but only Ikura, Yichen, and Meikou had learned all three. And Yichen had mastered the three techniques before Meikou.

The classmates could no longer judge how strong Ikura was.

His physique far surpassed everyone else's, and his Chakra Amount and Chakra control were likewise beyond ordinary people. When sparring with classmates, no one could make Ikura use his full strength.

He was a well-known Genius in the village.

Sometimes Yichen wondered whether, judging by the talent Ikura had displayed, he was not much worse than Kakashi. Why was there no such person in his memories? Had he died young? Or had his potential been ruined?

This was not something he could figure out in his current state. Rather than waste his thoughts on it, he spent his time on the Substitution Technique.

How exactly could he use water as a substitute object? Water had no fixed shape and was highly fluid, both of which greatly limited the Substitution Technique.

After considering it, Yichen decided to solve the issue of shape first. He would start by practicing with water in a bucket, eliminating the effects of fluidity. If that worked, he would proceed to the next step.

But ideas were beautiful while reality was cruel. Yichen deliberately chose a bucket about the same size as a Substitution Wood. After filling it with water, he began using Chakra to establish a connection with the water inside.

There was no problem with that step, but an issue arose when switching places with the water. Yichen could indeed swap their positions. After the technique was completed, Yichen successfully arrived beside the bucket, while the water appeared where he had been.

However, the water that had changed places with him could not take on Yichen's appearance.

Did that count as success?

According to the original purpose of the Substitution Technique, evading an attack, it should count as success. But the essence of the Substitution Technique was to briefly confuse the enemy while evading an attack. From that perspective, it was a failure.

One major advantage of the Substitution Technique was launching a surprise attack from the side while the enemy's attention was focused on the substitute. To achieve that, he had to solve the problem of water's shape.