Magaku Style

Touma had used neither Martial Combat Style: Staff Form Six nor Jidoryu: Fist Style Four. He had relied entirely on the basic Konoha-Style Strong Fist to trade blows with Kamikawa Ryuhei.

Kamikawa Ryuhei had likewise used no special techniques. Instead, the longer they fought, the stronger the gusts of wind around his fists became.

Touma was certain that if he tried to take those blows head-on, his body wouldn't withstand more than a few.

He quickly changed tactics, launching a rapid assault with Jidoryu: Strong Fist Piercing Style. He wanted to force Kamikawa Ryuhei onto the defensive and expose an opening.

The principle behind Rigid Fist: Piercing Style was to direct the force of the strike beyond the target, making the blow burst through them.

That was different from the Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist: Air Palm. Air Palm focused more on compressing the force of a strike so it could travel a long distance through the air. If it was intercepted, its power would be greatly reduced.

Touma's Piercing Style was indeed quite effective. No matter what Kamikawa Ryuhei used to block, some of the force still reached his torso.

However, Touma could clearly feel that the impact against Kamikawa Ryuhei's torso was strange. It didn't feel like he was striking a human body.

His first thought was that Kamikawa Ryuhei had used a Water Clone, so he quickly retreated, formed Hand Seals, and spat a huge Flame Bullet toward his face.

Kamikawa Ryuhei reacted quickly, too. Noticing the seal Touma had formed, he rapidly made Hand Seals and used Water Release: Water Shockwave to collide with the incoming Flame Bullet.

The Flame Bullet crashed into the wave of water, kicking up a dense mist. Touma didn't wait around. While the mist was thick, he swiftly lowered his body and used the Body Flicker Technique close to the ground, rushing in to strike Kamikawa Ryuhei at close range with Divine Wind Sword!

Touma had developed Wind Release: Divine Wind Sword himself, and it had reached B-rank. He could use it without Hand Seals.

Especially when unleashing it at close range, an ordinary Chunin would never be able to react in time.

Still, Touma didn't intend to kill Kamikawa Ryuhei outright. He only meant to dispel his Water Clone and expose his real body.

More than a dozen blades of wind burst out at close range. Kamikawa Ryuhei, as expected, didn't react in time. He was instantly cut into more than a dozen pieces, which collapsed into a puddle of water.

The next moment, a high-speed jet of water shot toward Touma from behind. He had no time to use the Body Flicker Technique to get away, so he activated the Substitution Technique he had prepared earlier and switched places with a substitute.

In fact, using the Substitution Technique in an open area wasn't a wise choice.

In several earlier matches, inexperienced graduates had been caught out by their opponents exploiting the technique's weaknesses, and had consequently been defeated.

But Touma's Substitution Technique was no ordinary one.

To explain the difference between the two, it was necessary to first go over the basic principles behind the Substitution Technique.

The Substitution Technique was a ninjutsu that temporarily summoned a substitute object to absorb damage when a ninja was in danger.

Pay attention to the word "summoned" above. You guessed right: the Substitution Technique did involve the field of Space-Time Ninjutsu.

However, the most basic, E-rank Substitution Technique had strict limits on the size and distance of the substitute object it could summon.

Generally speaking, a ninja who had mastered the Substitution Technique could summon a substitute object weighing no more than five kilograms from a distance of up to fifty meters.

Beyond those limits, the technique could still be used, but the chakra cost would increase exponentially.

Most ninjas didn't devote much chakra to the Substitution Technique in their combat strategies.

However, some ninjas needed the technique to be more effective, so they developed advanced versions, such as the Earth Substitute, Water Substitute, and Summoning Beast Substitute. Orochimaru's Orochimaru Style Substitution Technique was one such Summoning Beast Substitute.

Since the Substitution Technique involved Space-Time Ninjutsu, Touma had no intention of giving up its advantages lightly.

Especially after absorbing a large number of entries related to the Substitution Technique, his understanding of it was arguably the best in the Shinobi World.

When he had been moving around the arena, he had already marked the entire ground. In other words, the whole arena floor was now his substitute object.

After Touma's improvements, he could do more than summon a substitute object. He could truly switch places with it. Most importantly, he could divide the substitute object and switch places with only part of it.

Although the core of the technique was still the Substitution Technique, to the spectators, the reserve Genin in the arena who hadn't even officially graduated was using a Space-Time Body Flicker Technique!

Most people wondered if it was the Second Hokage's famous, peerless technique, the Flying Thunder God Technique. Only Sarutobi Hiruzen and a few members of the Konoha High Command thought otherwise.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third known as the "Professor of Ninjutsu," used a sensory technique to examine it and quickly grasped the principles behind this Space-Time Ninjutsu.

In his eyes, Touma's ability to develop the Substitution Technique to this level was like dancing with shackles on. His research skills were already on par with his own.

Kamikawa Ryuhei fired several water jets in succession, but none even touched the hem of Touma's clothes. Instead, Touma managed to close in several times and destroy several of his Water Clones.

By now, Touma could tell that something was wrong.

Even if Kamikawa Ryuhei had a talent for Water Release Ninjutsu comparable to Senju Tobirama's, he shouldn't have been able to keep using powerful Water Release techniques after losing multiple Water Clones.

Didn't he have to worry about running out of chakra?

Suddenly, Touma seemed to realize something, and his expression turned cold.

He pulled the black short staff from his back and flicked it forward. Two curved bow limbs emerged from either end.

As he slowly channeled chakra into the short bow, a blue chakra bowstring appeared between the two limbs.

Touma held the bow in his left hand and drew the chakra bowstring with his right. Several chakra arrows appeared on the string in an instant.

He took aim at Kamikawa Ryuhei and released the bowstring. The chakra arrows traced different arcs as they all flew toward the same target.

This was Magaku Style, one of the three short-staff forms in Martial Combat Style: Staff Form Six.

Although Magaku Style wasn't ninjutsu and could be used without Hand Seals, its exploration of chakra shape transformation surpassed that of some ninjutsu with an A-rank training difficulty.

It had even begun to touch on the realm of chakra materialization. That was why Sarutobi Hiruzen had valued Dou Huan so highly.

Personality flaws could still be corrected. But when it came to chakra control, ordinary ninjas simply couldn't make up for the gap in talent through effort alone.

There was a limit to how far those with mediocre talent could go, and they couldn't compare to Dou Huan. After all, he had merely glanced at Sunagakure's Puppet Technique and, without any outside help, created a chakra bowstring and arrows that could be used in actual combat.

These chakra arrows could all track their targets. Yet after piercing Kamikawa Ryuhei's Water Clone, they didn't pursue the other Water Clones or his real body. Instead, they all converged on the spot where the Water Clone had burst.

When the water on the ground gathered back together and formed Kamikawa Ryuhei's shape again, Touma sneered...