Empty, Hollow Spiritual Power

"What is this..." Jiraiya was utterly dumbfounded. Yuehua Ai's performance had truly stunned him.

At that moment, Yuehua Ai was completely focused and paid no attention to anyone else's reaction. The moment he saw Jiraiya gather a ball of chakra, he'd felt eager to give it a try.

After Jiraiya dispersed the chakra, Yuehua Ai took advantage of the feeling still lingering in his mind and stretched out his hand, imitating Jiraiya's attempt to gather chakra.

Yuehua Ai's previous method of refining chakra had some problems, which meant he produced far less chakra than other people. Given his own reserves, he couldn't compare to Jiraiya, of course, but even compared with beginners who had only just refined chakra, he still fell a little short.

Because of his limited chakra, Yuehua Ai couldn't instantly form a nearly solid mass of chakra like Jiraiya. But with his powerful mental control, he still managed to draw chakra from all over his body in an extremely short time and send it rushing along his body's meridians, gathering it all in his palm.

Then came the sight Jiraiya had witnessed: a small, watery-blue vortex rose from Yuehua Ai's palm. The funnel-shaped vortex was tiny, no bigger than a thumb, and unlike the deep blue of Jiraiya's chakra, the chakra he had gathered was only a pale blue, so faint it was almost invisible. Had the others not had such good eyesight, they might easily have missed it.

"Whoosh—" The chakra in his palm lasted less than two seconds before dispersing like a breeze.

Yuehua Ai felt a little regret when the vortex disappeared. He was still far from being able to control chakra properly. According to his original idea, after the chakra surged out through the points in his palm, he should have controlled its flow to spiral inward from every direction, like a whirlpool, forming a highly condensed core at the center, like an air pocket, around which the scattered streams of chakra could swirl.

It was a good idea in theory. His approach wasn't wrong, and his ideal was certainly ambitious, but reality was far less generous.

When chakra was inside his body, Yuehua Ai could control it as easily as moving his own arm, directing it wherever he wanted. But he hadn't expected that once it flowed out of his body, it would be like a wild horse that had slipped its reins, refusing to obey him at all.

In the end, even though he tried with all his might to control it, he achieved very little. He had managed to make the chakra flow rotate and compress, but all he produced was a tornado-like vortex. Compared with Jiraiya's perfect spherical mass, which didn't leak a trace of chakra, the gap was enormous.

Because his chakra reserves were so low, even after gathering all the chakra in his body, Yuehua Ai had barely managed to make it take shape. Well, it was almost imperceptible, but he'd still managed it, even if it had lasted only two seconds.

Jiraiya had completely forgotten about keeping up appearances. He was half sprawled across the table, staring straight at Yuehua Ai's hand, still wearing an expression as if he'd seen a ghost. Had that just been chakra taking shape? Even though it had vanished in an instant, Jiraiya was certain it hadn't been a hallucination.

This little Ai is a bit mysterious. He's so young, yet he already has chakra, and he can control it to such an extent. What's his background? Jiraiya wondered to himself.

Jiraiya wasn't the sort to keep things bottled up. Since he had questions, he didn't need to hold back with these youngsters.

"Ai, when did you first refine chakra?"

Children who had chakra at Yuehua Ai's age usually came from shinobi families. Amegakure was only a small shinobi village, after all, and there were only a few ways to become a shinobi. One was to be born into a shinobi family, and another was to be taught privately by a wandering shinobi. They didn't have a dedicated Ninja Academy like the Five Great Shinobi Villages. If a wandering shinobi had taught Ai, they wouldn't have let him wander around alone at his age. So Jiraiya figured Ai probably came from some fallen family in Amegakure. Many shinobi families had been wiped out in the village's years of war.

Jiraiya had initially wanted to ask Yuehua Ai directly which shinobi family he belonged to, but on second thought, that seemed inappropriate. It was all just a guess, after all, so he changed his question at the last moment and asked when Ai had refined chakra.

Yuehua Ai had no idea that Jiraiya had gone through several thoughts in an instant. He answered without a second thought. "I've been able to refine chakra since I was born."

Yuehua Ai had actually first refined chakra while still in swaddling clothes, so saying he'd been able to do it since birth wasn't much of an exaggeration.

"Since birth? How could that..." Jiraiya's first reaction was disbelief. But after thinking it over, he realized it wasn't impossible. From what he knew of Ai, the boy wouldn't lie about something like this.

"Really?" Jiraiya asked again, eyes wide. Yuehua Ai nodded seriously.

"This... Truly unbelievable... What an extraordinary talent!" Jiraiya had nearly called it an unbelievable talent, but then he remembered that the Ninja World was full of wonders, and there were plenty of talents that were hard to believe. Compared with the monstrous talents of legend, Yuehua Ai's ability to refine chakra from birth was merely rare.

Jiraiya wasn't all that shocked that Yuehua Ai had chakra. Even in Konoha, there were geniuses who became shinobi at four. What had truly astonished him was the control Ai had shown over chakra.

He could sense just how weak the streams of chakra that flowed from Yuehua Ai's palm had been as he gathered them. Yet with such faint chakra, Ai had still managed to make it take shape. In Jiraiya's eyes, that kind of control was far more important than the ability to refine chakra from birth.

Although Ai had excellent control over chakra, his reserves were far too low. Jiraiya remembered that when he'd first refined chakra, he had produced quite a bit more than Yuehua Ai had just now. In his eyes, Ai's chakra reserves were really pitifully small...

Could there be something wrong with Ai's body? Jiraiya was worried by Yuehua Ai's performance. Frowning slightly, he grabbed one of Ai's arms and sent a wisp of his own chakra into it.

"Ai, something's off about the amount of chakra you have. Try refining chakra now, and I'll get a feel for what's going on."

"Okay," Yuehua Ai replied simply. His low chakra reserves had been troubling him for a while. He'd already wanted to ask Jiraiya about them, so he hadn't expected Jiraiya to bring it up first.

With that, Yuehua Ai calmed his mind and focused. Once he sensed the energy deep within his cells, he used his mental power to draw it out and begin refining chakra. Soon, a faint aura spread from his small body.

In his mind, Yuehua Ai saw tiny specks of faint light appear throughout his body. His previously empty meridians soon glittered with starlight. Before long, the points of light gathered into a river of stars, began flowing through his meridians, and gradually converged toward his lower abdomen.

As Yuehua Ai directed his newly refined chakra through his meridians, he soon encountered a chakra that didn't belong to him. The foreign chakra was completely different from his own. In fact, the two weren't even on the same level.

If Yuehua Ai's chakra in his meridians was a stream, then this foreign chakra was a river. Its flow alone was more than ten times greater than Yuehua Ai's, never mind its quality. Ai's chakra was so thinly spread between its particles that it was like a passing breeze, while the other person's chakra was tightly packed together, viscous as molten rock, radiating tremendous heat and pressure.

So this is Teacher Jiraiya's chakra. It's so powerful! As Yuehua Ai sensed the foreign chakra inside his body, his mental perception gave him a completely different impression than when he'd seen it with his eyes. Only now did he truly understand the enormous difference between himself and Jiraiya in terms of chakra.

The reserves, the flow, the density—there was simply no comparison!

Jiraiya's chakra flowed through Yuehua Ai's meridians. Before long, Yuehua Ai stopped refining chakra. It wasn't that he didn't want to continue; it was just that, based on the energy he could sense in his cells, he had refined all the chakra he could.

There were clearly plenty of cells whose energy he could sense, but each one produced very little chakra. That had been troubling Yuehua Ai for a long time. After Jiraiya had taught them to meditate, Ai had already formed a general idea about his situation. He just didn't know if he was right.

When Yuehua Ai opened his eyes, Jiraiya released his arm at the same time. Jiraiya didn't speak right away. He closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then could barely conceal the astonishment on his face.

"Teacher Jiraiya, what's going on with me?" Yuehua Ai was eager to hear Jiraiya's answer. This concerned his future, after all. If he couldn't even manage chakra, how could he become a powerful shinobi? In this world, if you couldn't become strong, you couldn't control your own fate.

Seeing the anxious look on Yuehua Ai's face made Jiraiya a little happy. Since they'd met, the little fellow had acted lazy and indifferent except when he was trying to wheedle something out of someone. Jiraiya hadn't expected to see him looking anxious. A mischievous smile crept into his heart, and he couldn't resist teasing him.

"Alas..." Jiraiya let out a long sigh and shook his head slightly.

When Yuehua Ai heard Jiraiya sigh, his heart lurched. He wasn't the only one; when Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan saw Jiraiya shaking his head, their expressions changed too.

"What's wrong with Ai? Is it serious?" Before Yuehua Ai could ask anything else, Konan was the first to speak.

Seeing the youngsters looking so worried, Jiraiya could barely contain himself. He forced his face into a sorrowful expression and waved a hand gently at them.

"Alas, the problem... isn't serious!"

"Huh?!" The youngsters were so taken aback that they didn't understand what he meant at first.

Actually, the moment Jiraiya spoke, Yuehua Ai's mind had gone blank. Could the problem be different from what I imagined? Could I really be beyond saving?

"Hahahahahaha..." Seeing the youngsters' bewildered expressions, as if they doubted what they'd heard, was just too funny. Jiraiya couldn't hold it in any longer. He clutched his stomach and pointed at them, laughing uproariously.

"You jerk!!!" Jiraiya's obnoxious laughter instantly brought the youngsters back to their senses. They gritted their teeth, and seeing him laugh so hard, Yuehua Ai really wanted to kick him in the face.

"Making jokes at a time like this? What kind of teacher does that? Teacher Jiraiya really is a jerk and a bastard!" One by one, they couldn't help muttering under their breath.

"Ahem." Seeing the youngsters' faintly scornful looks, Jiraiya finally came back to himself. He cleared his throat awkwardly to cover it up.

"Teacher Jiraiya, what's going on with Ai?" Konan asked again, her tone reproachful.

"Uh, right. It's nothing serious. It's not a bad thing; it's a good thing." Jiraiya settled back into his seat and grew a little more serious.

"A good thing?"

"Yeah. I've figured out why Ai refines so little chakra. And I've also worked out why he's been able to gather chakra since birth!"

"Why?"

The youngsters looked curious. Only Yuehua Ai's eyes shifted slightly.

"Ai has been able to refine chakra since birth, but the amount he produces is very small. The answers to both questions are actually one and the same."

"One?"

"That's right. The answer to both is the same. If I'm not mistaken, Ai's mental power is far greater than an ordinary person's."

"Mental power?!"

"When I sent my chakra into Ai to examine what was happening inside his body, I noticed the problem as soon as he started refining chakra from his cells."

"The problem is that Ai's mental energy is far greater than an ordinary person's, but it isn't condensed enough."

Yahiko and the others were still a little confused, but Yuehua Ai understood. I was right about what I'd suspected earlier.

"I told you just now that refining chakra requires two things: sensing mental energy and sensing cellular energy. For ordinary people, the first step in refining chakra is to condense their minds through meditation, so they can sense their mental energy. But Ai was born with powerful mental strength—more than twice that of an ordinary person. That's where the problem lies."

"Oh, I think I understand..." While Yahiko was still confused by Jiraiya's explanation, Konan had already figured it out.

"Oh, Konan's worked it out? Then why don't you explain it?" Jiraiya said to Konan with a smile.

"Okay. You said ordinary people have to condense their mental strength before they can sense their mental energy, but Ai was born with strong mental strength. He doesn't need to condense it, so he can already reach the level other people attain after meditating. That means Ai can sense his mental energy, and use it to sense his cellular energy, so he's been able to refine chakra since birth."

Yuehua Ai rubbed the corner of his mouth, and Jiraiya nodded.

Konan paused. "That's all I can figure out about Ai's situation. As for why he produces so little chakra, I can't work that out..."

"Haha." Jiraiya laughed twice. "Konan, you're a clever girl. Everything you said is right. As for the reason Ai has so little chakra, it's actually quite simple..."

"Ai's mental strength has quantity, but it still lacks quality!"

Jiraiya turned his gaze to Ai. "Your mental strength is nearly three times that of an ordinary person's. Even without condensing it, you can sense cellular energy. That powerful mental talent made it easy for you to refine chakra. A quantitative change can indeed lead to a qualitative change to some extent, and your mental strength is right on the threshold between the two."

"The reason you can't refine much chakra is that your mental strength is too scattered and disordered. When it comes to refining chakra, your mental strength has quantity but no quality. So although you can sense cellular energy, you can't fully sense its deepest power. Your perception of cellular energy only skims the surface. That's why your empty, hollow mental strength, combined with a superficial understanding of cellular energy, means you produce only a tiny amount of chakra!"

"Uh..." Yuehua Ai lowered his head and awkwardly rubbed his nose. That was a pretty merciless blow, but he was right about what I'd thought. The next step is to condense my mental strength, then!

Jiraiya saw Yuehua Ai lower his head and thought his words had discouraged him, so he reached over and patted the boy's head.

"Ai, don't lose heart. With your mental talent, you're already starting far ahead of everyone else. You'll definitely become a powerful shinobi one day."

"But, future powerful shinobi, don't keep refining chakra for now. Meditate with Yahiko and the others. When you can condense your mental strength so that it stays together without dispersing, try refining chakra again. I'm sure everyone will be amazed!"

"Okay."

Yuehua Ai didn't really care about Jiraiya's encouraging words, but the care behind them touched him all the same. Teacher Jiraiya cares about me. With me here, he won't have to suffer the same fate in the future.

I'll change the future! Yuehua Ai silently made up his mind.