"Konan, you're amazing." Ye Wuji watched as Konan casually turned the paper in her hands into all sorts of animals and flowers. Watching from the side, he praised her sincerely. He meant it, too. If Ye Wuji had possessed this skill in his previous life, he could have made a decent amount of money selling all kinds of folded paper flowers. That was his assessment of Konan's abilities. In fact, if she had shown off her skills in front of girls back on Earth, they would have been a great way to impress them.
Although Konan used her abilities to fold the paper, it still took some skill. Without her Kekkei Genkai, you had to work hard to learn how. Ye Wuji had practiced for a few days, too. Aside from paper cranes, he could only fold a rose. Even with Konan guiding his hands, it had taken him two days to learn how to fold one.
Once he'd learned, Ye Wuji thought, If I can ever go back, I could make a fortune with this skill alone. That was the real reason he'd been so patient. Of course, he also wanted to show off in front of girls.
"Ye, you're amazing too! Look at how your big brothers Yahiko and Nagato can't learn it." Konan had been very happy these past few days. It was nice to have someone appreciate the things she made. Yahiko and Nagato weren't interested in them, but Konan liked folding things whenever she had free time. Now that a child liked them, she'd made lots more over the past couple of days. The outside of the whole house was covered with her creations: rain dolls, all kinds of flowers, and more paper cranes than anything else.
It had been four days since that battle. After leaving the battlefield, Ye Wuji and the other three had found a house to hide in, where they were also recovering from their injuries.
It was only when he happened to see Konan folding paper that Ye Wuji remembered she was practically a master at it. After all, whenever she wanted, the paper would automatically change into whatever shape she imagined. Although Ye Wuji hadn't been injured, he'd been intensely focused earlier, so he took the chance to rest for a few days. More importantly, he didn't want to reveal anything unusual about himself in front of the three of them.
So, for the past few days, Ye Wuji had been pestering Konan to teach him how to fold paper. This made Yahiko and Nagato green with envy, but they couldn't bring themselves to suck up to Konan the way Ye Wuji did. They had their own solution: whenever they exercised, they bullied Ye Wuji, claiming that he shouldn't let play distract him from his training and needed to work out more. Ye Wuji fought back with all his might, but it was no use. Every day, he ended up bruised and battered.
Fortunately, Konan treated him every day, so Ye Wuji was both suffering and enjoying himself. But this only made Yahiko and Nagato even more jealous, and they beat him up even worse each time. And so the cycle continued.
A week passed—time flowed just as it did on Earth—and then Ye Wuji discovered a major problem. He'd had a vague inkling of it when he was with Minato, but they'd been short on time, so he hadn't paid much attention. It was only after spending the past few days with Konan and the others that he realized he could speak the language of the Naruto World but couldn't read its script.
This was a huge problem. After all, most things in Naruto were recorded in writing. Even the Scroll of Sealing of each nation was written in Japanese. If he couldn't read, then even if the Scroll of Sealing was in his hands right now, it would be useless.
For the next few days, Ye Wuji couldn't bring himself to train with Nagato and Yahiko. They bullied him every time, but his strength had been steadily improving.
As soon as Ye Wuji realized he couldn't read, he hurriedly asked Konan to teach him. He even gave up training. Fortunately, Japanese wasn't very difficult to learn. Ye Wuji already knew how to speak it; he just couldn't write it, so he learned quickly.
However, this delayed Ye Wuji's plan to leave. He wouldn't go until he'd learned to read. Another week passed, and he finally learned all the characters. As for anything more advanced, he'd have to study it on his own.
Ye Wuji spent about half a month with Konan and the other two. During that time, he finally discovered that one of his chakra natures was Water Release.
That was because, during this period, Ye Wuji learned two ninjutsu from Yahiko: the Water Clone Technique and the Water Style: Water Wave Technique.
Ye Wuji managed to use the Water Clone Technique. Although he failed to perform the Water Style: Water Wave Technique, he was still very happy that he could make a Water Clone. After all, this was the first ninjutsu he'd ever performed. His curiosity about ninjutsu, which had been with him all along, was finally satisfied.
Looking at the Water Clone in front of him, Ye Wuji sensed a strange connection between them. Through that connection, he could control the Water Clone. It also seemed to have a mind of its own. But Ye Wuji's Water Clone looked much the same as the clone he made with the Clone Technique.
The difference between the Water Clone and the Clone Technique was that you had to give a clone made with the Clone Technique instructions in advance before it would move, as if you were programming it beforehand. A Water Clone, on the other hand, could judge what was happening around it for itself, almost as if it were you. However, it was extremely fragile, and its strength was at most one-tenth of the original's.
From that, it seemed that Konoha's Shadow Clone Technique was superior to the Water Clone Technique. No wonder the Shadow Clone Technique was included in Konoha's Scroll of Sealing. But Ye Wuji had also learned from Yahiko that the Water Clone could only be used where there was water. That didn't concern him. From what he knew of Earth, the air contained plenty of water molecules. If someone was powerful enough, they could use the technique even without water, just like the Second Hokage, who could perform large-scale Water Release Ninjutsu in the desert. Judging by that, the Second Hokage's Water Release might even surpass that of Kirigakure's ninjas.
In his conversations with Yahiko, Ye Wuji learned a lot about using chakra and found out things he hadn't known before. Take Hand Seals, for example. Although each village had its own secret techniques, there had been wars time and again. Once a war broke out, anyone willing to observe carefully could learn the Hand Seals for the various secret techniques. But Naruto seemed not to work that way. At least, it seemed that no other village knew Konoha's Shadow Clone Technique. Just pay attention to the characters in Naruto: no one from the other villages, not even those at Kage Level, used that technique. Kirigakure always used Water Clones, the Kazekage used Sand Clones, and the Tsuchikage used Earth Clones.
As one of Konoha's signature techniques, the Shadow Clone Technique had distinguished itself in battle after battle. There was no way the other nations hadn't studied it. Yet the results were still different. Even when other villages had similar techniques, Konoha's Shadow Clone was still the most powerful. Just as some people in Konoha could use Water Clones and Earth Clones, they didn't seem to be as good at them: their Water Clones couldn't match Kirigakure's, and their Earth Clones couldn't match Iwagakure's.
Moreover, each nation's clones used slightly different Hand Seals. Take the place where Ye Wuji was now, Amegakure. Its Water Release Ninjutsu could hold its own against Kirigakure's. Although the village wasn't as powerful as Kirigakure, when it came to Water Release, Amegakure wasn't weaker. The only reason it was so weak now was that all its high-ranking ninjas had died, leaving it as a battlefield for the various nations.
Ye Wuji truly hadn't known about this before. Even after watching all the Naruto episodes that had come out in his previous life, he hadn't realized it. After all, in the Naruto he'd watched on screen, whether it was a Shadow Clone or a Water Clone, it disappeared in an instant. It seemed less like a contest of ninjutsu and more like a contest over the number of clones. Only in this real Naruto World were there so many differences. And here, those differences reflected the strength of the people involved.
Only now did Ye Wuji understand this secret, which wasn't considered secret in the Naruto World and was common knowledge among high-ranking ninjas: the Hand Seals used to perform ninjutsu could be learned by watching. After all, the Naruto World had many abilities, such as the Sharingan's copying and various sensory ninjutsu. Hand Seals couldn't remain secret for long.
As mentioned earlier, to perform ninjutsu, you first molded the chakra inside your body, then formed Hand Seals to release it. So although Hand Seals were important, what mattered most was molding the chakra inside your body. Chakra was produced from a person's physical and spiritual energy.
That was another key point Yahiko had mentioned. Molding chakra depended on the proportion of physical and spiritual energy, and the key to ninjutsu was that chakra ratio. This was something countless ninjas had discovered through experimentation, the result of the ninja world's development up to that point. Nobody knew exactly how long ninjas had existed in the Naruto World, but it had been at least a thousand years. That was another thing Yahiko had mentioned.
In Ye Wuji's impression, the history of the Naruto World seemed very short. From the First Shinobi World War to the Fourth Shinobi World War, it seemed to span no more than a few decades. You could tell from Madara Uchiha's life, and from Kakuzu's as well.
But the real world wasn't like that. The First Shinobi World War had lasted the longest, because nobody knew when it had begun. All they knew was that the Five Great Nations had been established by the time it ended. The Second Shinobi World War had started at least thirty years after the First Shinobi World War. Ye Wuji had learned all this while chatting with Konan and the others. That meant there had been at least twenty years of peace in between.
Ye Wuji had wanted to ask who the Hokage of Konoha was now—whether it was the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama—but then he considered that people from Amegakure were unlikely to know Konoha's Hokage by name, so he gave up. The development of this Naruto World was a complete mess. It had all sorts of modern things, including wireless communications. After all, it even had computers. Yet news still traveled by ninja, ninja beasts, or carrier pigeons. Ye Wuji couldn't make sense of it at all.
Naruto drank milk every day, and they had electric lights. Most importantly, it seemed that most homes in Konoha had air conditioners and refrigerators. Oh, and they even made movies, which meant they had movie stars. Yet they had no long-distance telephones. The way this world used computers was almost on par with the Earth Ye Wuji had lived on in his previous life, and in some areas, it might even be more advanced. After all, Ye Wuji had been an ordinary person in his previous life and knew nothing about the most advanced technology of his country.
Just look at Konoha's hospital: all kinds of medical equipment, laboratories, and high-tech instruments, not to mention the test tubes Orochimaru used for his experiments.
It could clearly be called a high-tech society. Yet look at the transportation: most people traveled by horse-drawn carriage or on foot. Even during the Fourth Shinobi World War, the Daimyo's entourage traveled on foot.
Ye Wuji hadn't understood why in his previous life, and he still didn't know now. These questions weren't easy to ask anyone, and as far as Ye Wuji could tell, the three of them didn't necessarily know more than he did.
All right, those questions would be answered later. For now, let's return to the differences between ninjutsu.
Before you continue