The foundation of this Lightning Release Nintaijutsu was undoubtedly the "Thunder Motion Fist" entry he had extracted from Cloud Village.
"Thunder Motion Fist" trained the meridians and pressure points in the upper body, allowing the hands to unleash far more strength than usual after prolonged exposure to electrical stimulation.
Once a practitioner had mastered "Thunder Motion Fist" and passed the evaluation at Wulei Temple in Cloud-Thunder Gorge, they had a chance to be taught "Lightning Armor."
"Lightning Armor" was not the same as the "Thunder God Armor" used by generations of Raikage. There were quite a few differences between them.
"Lightning Armor" could only develop the meridians and pressure points throughout the body, rapidly improving one's physical abilities. It still fell far short of forming a Lightning Release Chakra Cloak and gaining astonishing defensive power.
The commonly circulated account in the Shinobi World was that one had to undergo thirty-six days of heavenly lightning infusing the body at Wulei Temple in Cloud-Thunder Gorge, completely purging all impurities remaining in the body with the lightning's energy. Only then could one cultivate a flawless Chakra Cloak.
Of course, according to the ancient records Touma had found through Orochimaru, one could only successfully cultivate the Chakra Cloak of "Thunder God Armor" in a forbidden area in Cloud-Thunder Gorge.
Outside that training ground with its special environment, even with a plentiful supply of secret medicines, the Yotsuki Clan had produced only a handful of "Thunder God Armor" users.
Orochimaru suspected the training ground was situated atop a large magnetite deposit. The area's unusual magnetic field could precisely weaken the power of heavenly lightning and protect the body's life field, allowing the practitioner's body to undergo repeated cycles of destruction and reconstruction and grow stronger at a rapid pace.
Of course, there was a way to simulate such a magnetic field. As long as one knew its precise structure, reproducing it would not be difficult with the technology Orochimaru had mastered.
In fact, when he had nothing better to do, Orochimaru had even proposed a magnetic detector that could directly display the structure of a magnetic field, and drawn up a blueprint.
However, Orochimaru had not pursued the project further, because the so-called Cloud-Thunder Gorge training ground had always been under Wulei Temple's protection.
Wulei Temple had nearly as many warrior monks as Hosen Temple in the Land of Fire. Rather than storming Wulei Temple, one might as well charge into the Raikage's Office and see if the Raikage had a copy of the magnetic field's structure!
After all, Wulei Temple had once suppressed both the Two-Tails, Matatabi, and the Eight-Tails, Gyuki. Even now, whenever Cloud Village wanted to replace a Jinchūriki, it still had to ask Wulei Temple for help.
That was why Orochimaru would never invest in a research project with such a wildly unfavorable cost-benefit ratio. The plans had naturally ended up buried in a pile of old papers.
But the fact that the project had been abandoned did not mean the preliminary research was worthless.
Orochimaru's study of how different electrical potential differences affected different pressure points alone was enough to help Touma refine "Thunder Motion Fist."
In particular, Orochimaru had also thoroughly analyzed Senju Tobirama's surviving development notes for the "Sword of the Thunder God," summarizing the notes on Lightning Release chakra nature transformation and chakra nature transformation outside the body.
Using that material, Touma had built on "Thunder Motion Fist" to devise the next-level B-rank "Lightning Release: Hidden Thunder Sword," the A-rank "Thunder Roar Burst," and the A-rank "Lightning Release Chakra Mode." He had even found a few clues on how to transform his body into lightning.
"Hidden Thunder Sword" was the counterpart to "Divine Wind Sword." Both involved forming a rapidly spinning chakra shuriken in the hand and transforming its nature.
This chakra shuriken was as thin as a cicada's wing. It could be held in the hand or launched to track its target, making it strikingly similar to the "Destructo Disc" used by Krillin in the Dragon Ball world.
It wasn't that Touma couldn't master "Rasengan." It simply wasn't very practical for him and consumed too much chakra.
Based on Touma's earlier experiments, compressing and condensing a stable, standard-sized "Rasengan" consumed one-fifth of his chakra.
His chakra reserves were already considered substantial for a ninja his age. Even Kushina Uzumaki, who was two years younger than him, did not have much more chakra than he did.
Touma was certain that Naruto could use "Rasengan" as a standard technique in Shippuden partly because his Uzumaki Constitution had matured, keeping his chakra reserves at an exceptionally high level. The other reason was probably that the Eight Trigrams Seal on his stomach passively drew chakra from the Nine-Tails for him to use.
Otherwise, with such frequent use of "Rasengan" and "Multiple Shadow Clone Technique," he would have been long past dead.
The "Destructo Disc" Touma had developed consumed only one-tenth as much chakra as a "Rasengan" with equivalent destructive power.
That was because "Destructo Disc" only needed to maintain compression in one direction, while "Rasengan" had to maintain compression in every direction. Naturally, the difference in chakra consumption was nearly tenfold.
After undergoing nature transformation, "Divine Wind Sword" and "Hidden Thunder Sword" also gained special abilities thanks to their rapidly spinning forms.
"Divine Wind Sword" could cut through anything. Even a Fire Release defensive technique that countered it would be sliced in two wherever it passed. It also would not trigger the kind of massive explosion caused by "Wind Release: Rasengan."
"Hidden Thunder Sword" could become completely invisible, even evading sensory techniques. The rapidly spinning electrical current formed a powerful magnetic field around it, which bent light in a straight line around the blade and likewise deflected the chakra emissions of sensory techniques.
And now, facing Kamikawa Ryuhei, Touma had formed a "Divine Wind Sword" and a "Hidden Thunder Sword" in his palms, one in each hand.
Oh, right. He shouldn't call the man Kamikawa Ryuhei anymore. He had already told Touma that his name was Hozuki Mitsuki.
Now that Hozuki Mitsuki had revealed his true appearance, he had also brought out his weapon: one of the Mist Village's Seven Ninja Blades, "Twin Blades: Hiramekarei."
It seemed that, to persuade the Hozuki Clan to send Hozuki Mitsuki on an assassination mission willingly, the Mizukage had granted the clan access to the Ninja Blade as well.
Touma swiftly used "Substitution Ground-Shrinking Technique" to move to Hozuki Mitsuki's left. He slashed the "Divine Wind Sword" in his left hand at Mitsuki's sword arm from an extremely tricky angle.
Hozuki Mitsuki sensed the "Divine Wind Sword's" sharpness and hurriedly poured chakra into Hiramekarei. It shot out through the holes in the blade, pushing his arm aside and letting him dodge the "Divine Wind Sword."
But before he could regain his balance, the "Hidden Thunder Sword" in Touma's left hand was already flying at him. It looped halfway around him, then vanished into thin air.
Hozuki Mitsuki thought the attack had missed. The next instant, he felt a deep gash open across his back.
Worse, his "Hydrification Technique" had not activated at all. Clearly, the previous attack had used Lightning Release nature transformation to paralyze his body for a moment, completely shutting down his "Hydrification Technique."
Touma pressed his advantage. After using up the "Divine Wind Sword" in his hand, he clenched both fists and closed in, unleashing a barrage of straight punches with "Thunder Motion Fist."
With the speed boost from "Thunder Motion Fist," the punches came so quickly that all Hozuki Mitsuki could see were blurry afterimages. There was no telling how many fists were flying at him.
Although Hozuki Mitsuki had suffered severe internal injuries, the suppression from the lightning element had restricted all of his techniques based on "Hydrification Technique."
Even if he managed to create a water clone and put some distance between himself and Touma, buying a few seconds to catch his breath, Touma could instantly close in with "Earth-Shrinking Technique" and give him another taste of those electrifying fists.
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