The next afternoon, Ning Xue did not return to Team Three's training ground.
Instead, he found another secluded grove and began practicing the new ninjutsu he had envisioned.
Taking a deep breath, he began attempting to condense a Flower Core according to the concept written in his notebook.
First came the Ice Core. It required a large amount of Ice-nature chakra to be gathered into a mass, then compressed.
It also had to be kept in a delicate, unstable state of balance.
That required extraordinarily precise chakra control. One misstep...
Puff...!
A faint, muffled sound burst from the Ice Core Ning Xue had just condensed in his hand.
Then, waves of bone-chilling cold rapidly spread from the Ice Core.
Ning Xue's pupils contracted at the sight. He swung his arm and instantly hurled the freshly condensed Ice Core at a tree in front of him.
The tree was blasted into a depression, and within it, white frost could vaguely be seen gradually spreading across the surrounding wood.
Once it was over, Ning Xue finally let out a breath of relief and raised the arm that had condensed the Ice Core.
A small part of his sleeve had frozen stiff, and an icy chill pierced his skin. Fortunately, he had not suffered frostbite.
"Chakra output was unstable... The compression force and structure need adjusting."
Ning Xue expressionlessly analyzed the reason for his failure, shook his arm, and began another attempt.
This time, he chose a slower method. Perhaps because he was used to Ice Needle, he had always condensed chakra quickly before.
He had also never output so much Ice-nature chakra at once, which had caused the chakra to flow in too rapidly and trigger an instantaneous internal chakra rampage.
And so, he tried again and again, failing each time.
Then