Yang Release

"Making this technique requires four hand seals."

Yu Fenglan taught him with great enthusiasm. "Son, use the hand seals to guide your chakra. Imagine yourself as a tree, then let your chakra grow out of your body like branches, extending farther and farther."

"Remember, your chakra has to be concentrated, and the branches you form must be sturdy. Otherwise, they won't reach far enough, and your sensory range will be very short."

"The length of the branches determines your sensory range, while their number determines the breadth and precision of your perception."

"But since you've only just started training, first form a single sensory branch, one meter long. Once you've gotten the hang of it, you can increase its length and number."

Genma nodded.

Just then, Ritsuka appeared in the doorway. "Genma, your dad—it's time for breakfast. You can continue afterward!"

Yu Fenglan immediately patted Genma, too. "Come on. You'll need your strength to train, so you'd better eat your fill."

Genma nodded and stood up.

Breakfast was lavish. As Genma ate, he kept thinking about the sensory technique, Thousand Branch Spirit Touch.

Yu Fenglan and Ritsuka noticed. Pleased but also worried for him, they both piled tasty food onto his plate.

After eating his fill, Genma said goodbye and returned to the study to continue researching the technique.

Before he knew it, it was already ten in the morning. Shizune's voice outside startled Genma out of his concentration.

He got up and went to the living room window. Looking down, he saw Shizune standing below.

"Just a moment!"

After calling out, Genma quickly changed into a blue-and-white hooded coat and went downstairs.

"Genma, why didn't you go to the hospital today?"

Shizune asked.

Genma hurried to apologize. "Sorry, I was studying at home today, so I didn't go."

Shizune immediately waved away his apology to show she didn't mind, then smiled. "Genma, Lady Tsunade is still waiting for us. Let's go together!"

Genma was taken aback. "Lady Tsunade is planning to teach me Medical Ninjutsu?"

Shizune nodded, then tried to put in a good word for Tsunade. "Lady Tsunade can seem a little scary, but she's actually very nice. Um... don't take it the wrong way."

Genma chuckled. "I don't think Lady Tsunade is scary."

Well, actually, she was pretty scary.

He couldn't even see her face.

Suppressing the uncharitable thought, Genma said to Shizune, "Let's go!"

Shizune nodded, and the two of them crossed the snow to Tsunade's home.

Tsunade's home seemed enormous to Genma. It wasn't a multistory building like his family's home, but a sprawling estate.

Yet the estate also felt run-down and empty, as though no one lived there.

When Genma saw Tsunade, she was sitting at a low table set on a carpet. Brushes, ink, and scrolls lay on the table, and a brazier nearby warded off the cold.

Seeing the two brats come in, Tsunade said, "Kid, I heard you're learning Medical Ninjutsu to improve your chakra control?"

Genma paused, then immediately realized she must have heard it from Shizune. He nodded. "That's right."

"I don't have any other way to further improve my chakra control."

"In my opinion, chakra control is a fundamental skill for a ninja, second only to chakra extraction."

"Strong chakra control will make it much easier for me to learn other techniques in the future."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Did your parents teach you that?"

The Ninja Academy certainly didn't teach it.

Genma shook his head. "Not entirely."

"Chakra is the foundation of a ninja. Ninjutsu, genjutsu, and Taijutsu are all, in the end, ways for a ninja to use chakra."

"To use it is to control it."

"It's like eating with chopsticks. We have to handle them skillfully for our meal to go smoothly."

At that, Tsunade's casual air faded a little.

It was rare for someone so young to understand this.

In the Ninja World, even many Chunin didn't realize it.

This kid really was clever.

After thinking for a moment, Tsunade asked, "What technique do you want to learn from me?"

Could he choose anything?

Genma was a little surprised, but he understood what Tsunade was implying.

She wasn't taking on students.

Genma thought it over, but didn't answer right away. Instead, he sat down across from Tsunade and asked, "Lady Tsunade, where do you think the difference lies between the Medical Ninjutsu I've mastered and yours?"

Tsunade frowned. "What do you mean?"

Genma considered the question, then phrased it another way. "Take Healing Technique, for example. If we use the same amount of chakra to treat wounds of the same size and depth, would there be a difference in the results?"

What a strange question.

Was there any point in making that comparison?

That was Tsunade's instinctive reaction.

Still, since she was going to teach him something, she followed his line of thought. "Even with those conditions, you haven't narrowed it down enough."

"Although I haven't seen your medical skills yet, your chakra control probably isn't at my level."

"You should know very well that the precision of chakra control has a major impact on the results of treatment."

Genma nodded and asked, "Then what if our chakra control were equally precise?"

Tsunade considered this, then replied, "If we're using the same technique, there'd be no difference."

Shizune sat down beside Genma and asked, puzzled, "Why compare them like that?"

Genma didn't answer Shizune. Instead, he looked at Tsunade. "So the technique itself is what limits your performance, Lady Tsunade."

Tsunade nodded. "You could put it that way. That's why I no longer use Healing Technique. I use the more powerful Mystical Palm Technique instead."

"Are you asking because you want to know how our levels of Yang Release nature transformation compare?"

Genma nodded.

The strength of Wind Release nature transformation was clearly not the same at every level, at least from what he knew.

Cutting leaves and cutting waterfalls couldn't just be a matter of how much chakra was used.

Besides, there were generally two ways to judge a technique's difficulty.

One was shape transformation; the other was nature transformation.

Take Rasengan, for example. It involved no nature transformation, only pure shape transformation, yet it took that skill to an incredibly high level.

Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, on the other hand, added the ultimate nature transformation of Wind Release to an already powerful level of shape transformation.

That was why it was an S-rank technique, even as an incomplete version.

Since Wind Release nature transformation had different levels, Yang Release must have them too.

But the three Medical Ninjutsu techniques Genma currently knew didn't involve different levels of nature transformation.

In other words, the nature transformation required for Hemostasis Technique, Healing Technique, and Delicate Illness Extraction Technique was the same. The differences lay in chakra output, control precision, and shape transformation.

Genma also knew a few things about the differences in Yang Release nature transformation.

Senju Hashirama, Karin and her mother, and the Sage of Six Paths.

He would set the Sage of Six Paths aside for now.

Senju Hashirama could heal without hand seals. Karin could heal injuries almost instantly when someone bit her, and could restore other people's chakra.

Tsunade had mastered the Yin Seal and the Strength of a Hundred Technique, and could use Creation Rebirth. She, too, could heal without hand seals.

But Edo Madara had said that even in that state, Tsunade still wasn't as good as Senju Hashirama.

Was it because her chakra was weaker?

If that were the case, Uchiha Madara wouldn't have made that comparison.

The amount of chakra certainly affected a technique's results. But by comparing these people, Genma had keenly picked up on the differences in the strength of their Yang Release nature transformation.

That was what he wanted to learn from Tsunade.

Tsunade realized what he was after and said, "If you want to deepen your study of nature transformation, you can learn Mystical Palm Technique."

"Mastering that technique will take your Yang Release nature transformation to the next level."

Genma immediately asked, "Lady Tsunade, is there no other way to train nature transformation directly?"

Tsunade gave a soft snort. "Do you have a more direct way to train your chakra control?"

All right, she had a point.

Genma nodded, then asked another question. "Then, Lady Tsunade, why can't you use the level of Yang Release nature transformation required for Mystical Palm Technique to perform Healing Technique?"

Shizune was completely lost.