A ninjutsu like the Rasengan was undoubtedly tremendously valuable to Tobirama Senju at this stage. Even after he finished developing the Flying Thunder God, the Rasengan's value would increase further.
After all, the Rasengan had originally been developed to complement the Flying Thunder God's incredible speed. Thus, Tobirama Senju, who was renowned for his speed, was naturally interested in the unfinished version in Yuzhen's hands.
So when would Tobirama Senju consider the Rasengan to have "depreciated"? The answer was after he developed the Flying Thunder God Slash.
To continue developing the Rasengan, Yuzhen needed the assistance of the Clone Technique. But where could he get the Clone Technique from?
Tobirama Senju struggled for a moment before finally indicating that he could give a little more. He had already given away three ninjutsu, so throwing in a little extra was nothing.
"As for the Clone Technique, I can teach you. Shadow... Hmm, how about the Water Clone Technique?"
Fortunately, he had not yet reached the point where he could sell out his family's inheritance without feeling the pain. The B-rank Shadow Clone Technique was unnecessary, while the C-rank Water Clone Technique was equally practical.
Yuzhen did not push his luck either. As long as he could get some benefits, he was perfectly satisfied. Thus, he dispersed the chakra in his hands and began practicing the Clone Technique.
The Clone Technique was extremely practical—or rather, it belonged to the most practical category of ninjutsu. After all, when facing an enemy in battle, one often found that 0.5 + 0.5 was greater than 1.
It had to be said that the feeling of splitting one's thoughts in two was quite marvelous.
Yuzhen's theoretical strength had now reached above the Special Jonin level, so learning this C-rank ninjutsu was very easy for him. By the next day, he could already use the Water Clone Technique proficiently.
Tobirama Senju continued recovering from his injuries and showed no intention of leaving immediately.
After mastering the Water Clone Technique, Yuzhen immediately began experimenting with "synthesizing" the Rasengan.
Yuzhen was a cautious person with a strong sense of safety, so he and Tobirama Senju went somewhere far from the camp, in case an accident during practice caused any danger.
"Let's begin."
Yuzhen glanced at Tobirama Senju beside him. His words were both a signal that he was about to start practicing and a disclaimer: You're standing this close, so don't blame me if something goes wrong later.
As he spoke, he used the Water Clone Technique and allocated part of his chakra to the clone. He then released chakra with his left hand while holding his right hand suspended above his left palm to compress it.
Once the chakra sphere had become "solid" to a certain degree, the clone's hands began rotating the chakra sphere clockwise. As the copyright holder of this training method, Naruto, Yuzhen's movements were just as inelegant when he made the chakra sphere spin. The clone's hands clawed and pawed left and right like a cat's paws.
As the clone's hands grew faster and faster, the chakra sphere—or rather, the high-density chakra composing it—began to spin. At first, its rotation was not fast, but under the clone's efforts, the sphere's center soon seemed to develop tremendous gravity, drawing the surrounding chakra into ever-faster rotation.
Then came a short, crisp sound with a hint of lightness to it, like wind blowing through a section of hollow steel pipe.
The chakra had been light and almost weightless, but because of its extremely high rotational speed and the impact force waiting to be released, Yuzhen's palm felt a certain weight.
"There's hope..."
The Rasengan seemed to have both the proper shape and power. However, before a smile could appear on Yuzhen's face, the chakra sphere's regular curved surface began to twist and tremble.
Seeing this, Yuzhen instinctively increased the force of his right hand's restraint. Instead, this caused the chakra sphere to shake violently. Then...
With a bang like a balloon bursting, the chakra sphere in Yuzhen's hand suddenly exploded. The tremendous impact directly turned his clone into a puddle of water, while he himself fell backward in a sorry state.
The flowers and plants nearby suffered collateral damage.
What about Tobirama Senju? The moment the chakra sphere showed signs of losing control, Tobirama Senju had already silently retreated to a safe distance. It was only natural. As an expert at developing ninjutsu, how many "laboratory accidents" had Tobirama Senju experienced? How could such a simple impact possibly catch him in the blast?
"I didn't control the final stage properly," Yuzhen said as he climbed to his feet, covered in dust.
Because he had already seen hope, he did not feel discouraged by one failure. Instead, he immediately began practicing a second time. The result was the same: another failure.
After five consecutive failures, Yuzhen had made no progress whatsoever.
At this point, Tobirama Senju, who had been silently watching, said, "Ahem. How about I try?"
"Of course." Yuzhen decided to rest for a while and see whether Tobirama Senju had any good ideas.
Tobirama Senju used the Clone Technique and split off two more versions of himself. He had already seen through the trick behind this technique.
If the Rasengan was divided into three parts, one part was the large amount of chakra being released, while another was the high-speed rotation of the chakra. These two parts could be considered quite crude, so the real technical difficulty lay in controlling the shape of the final part.
Tobirama Senju held his hands together and released chakra. One clone controlled the chakra sphere's shape, while the other handled the rotation.
After only three attempts, he achieved the same level Yuzhen had just reached.
Although his approach had been copied entirely from Yuzhen's, Tobirama Senju's ability to develop ninjutsu was still astonishing.
Another sound like a balloon bursting rang out. Tobirama Senju immediately used the Flying Thunder God to leave, while his clones were destroyed.
Yuzhen looked at Tobirama with a somewhat resentful gaze, because the destroyed clones had been Shadow Clones. The B-rank one really is better.
Tobirama Senju was naturally unafraid of failure. In fact, his eyes seemed to grow brighter and brighter.
The sounds of bursting balloons began ringing out one after another.
Immersed in developing the ninjutsu, Tobirama Senju was far more focused than Yuzhen. On the first day, they made no progress. On the second, they exchanged their insights. On the third, Tobirama Senju began neither eating nor drinking nor paying attention to anyone.
At dawn on the fourth day, Yuzhen, leaning against a large tree and resting with his eyes half-closed, once again heard that distinctive sound. However, he merely turned over and ignored it.
Creating a rapidly rotating chakra sphere was no longer the difficult part. The difficulty lay in maintaining it at the final stage, so Yuzhen had grown accustomed to that sound.
However...
Something was wrong. Yuzhen had not heard the sound of an explosion.
He abruptly opened his eyes, stood up, and looked toward Tobirama Senju.
Tobirama Senju had not slept all night and looked somewhat disheveled, but his face was radiant with spirit. He and his two clones had finally maintained the chakra sphere's shape. At this stage, it could already be called a Rasengan.
"Y-You... Your talent is simply too high, isn't it?" Yuzhen was so shocked that he could hardly express it.
He was not using himself as a reference. He was using Naruto, who was the fastest and had cut corners during the process, as his reference. Naruto had taken a month to learn the Rasengan. As for Tobirama Senju, this was only the fourth day at most.
"Talent?" Tobirama Senju shook his head. "It isn't talent. What I used was actually the stupidest method."
A stupid method?
Confusion filled Yuzhen's eyes. Was he really not being sarcastic and mocking me?
Before you continue