Swordsmanship

After the other jonin left the Hokage Building full of confidence, the Hokage's office suddenly fell silent.

"You've put so much thought into this student. I presume you've already selected his third-round assessment mission as well?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi rose to his feet and asked.

A hint of expectation filled his eyes. He hoped Ryōken would grow quickly and play a greater role in the war.

Although Minato also possessed the potential to become a Kage, his growth was still too slow for him to make a difference in this war.

"Yes. It's a mission in the Land of Iron."

A profound glint appeared in Hatake Sakumo's eyes, his gaze distant.

"And settle an old promise while we're at it."

ANBU.

After the assessment ended, Ryōken and the others followed the passage back to ANBU.

There was no need to announce the results. Everyone already knew them, so before long, they scattered and returned to training.

This time, they had been dealt far too severe a blow.

Ryōken walked along the labyrinthine paths of the underground world.

He first went to the place where ninja tools were customized.

"Please give me a sheet of chakra paper."

At his current level, Ryōken's strength had reached something of a bottleneck.

Below jonin, he was nearly invincible.

No B-Rank Technique could withstand a single slash from him, not even a composite B-Rank Technique.

However, against a true jonin who had grasped nature transformation, things would not be so easy.

Take Asai Hane from last time. If he had not forcibly absorbed too much external water and made the Water Burial Technique difficult to control, Ryōken would have had almost no chance of cleaving the entire technique apart with one slash while still retaining the strength to kill him.

With the nature transformation he had only just mastered, Asai Hane simply could not control such a large-scale advanced Water Release.

Moreover, the Water Burial Technique was best suited to the violent nature of water, not the flexibility of water that he had mastered.

In Ryōken's view, every B-Rank Technique contained rudimentary nature transformation, while A-Rank Techniques involved profound nature transformation.

S-Rank ultimate techniques generally pushed a certain aspect of nature transformation to its limit.

When chunin used B-Rank Techniques, most merely knew how without knowing why. They had the form but not the essence, all appearance and no substance.

For techniques above B-Rank, nature transformation was the core.

The more profound the nature transformation, the greater the technique's power.

For example, the B-Rank Techniques used by Kakuzu were nearly as powerful as A-Rank Techniques because he possessed an extremely deep grasp of nature transformation.

Why could Hiruzen Sarutobi, who possessed neither bloodline limits nor unique secret techniques, become a peak Kage-level powerhouse?

It was because he mastered all kinds of nature transformations, each to an exceptionally profound degree. He had mastered many S-Rank Techniques, wielded ninjutsu with consummate skill, and had even earned the title Professor of Ninjutsu.

Ryōken's current strength was somewhat awkward.

When facing truly powerful opponents, his ability with the sword was not quite enough.

The only thing that could probably threaten jonin-level opponents was his unexpected speed.

But he would not have an opportunity to close in every time.

Ryōken's speed had not yet reached the point where no one had time to form hand seals.

Perhaps taking pure swordsmanship to its ultimate limit would allow Ryōken to look down upon the world, but at this stage, absorbing some knowledge of ninjutsu was still necessary.

That was right. Ryōken wanted to examine his chakra attributes in order to understand ninjutsu.

Any technique above B-Rank was worth observing and studying.

Of course, Ryōken did not intend to learn techniques that required hand seals to cast.

They did not suit his fighting style.

Coming from an era of information explosion, Ryōken's breadth of thought was something the natives of this Naruto World could not comprehend.

Based on the principles of ninjutsu, Ryōken could completely create swordsmanship unique to himself.

Ninjutsu invoked through a sword would be swordsmanship.

Sword-based ninjutsu that required no hand seals would surely bring a special brilliance to this world.

An ANBU ninja entered the room, then emerged and handed Ryōken a sheet of chakra paper.

He then sat quietly, with no intention of asking questions.

Ryōken accepted the chakra paper and directly infused it with his chakra.

After undergoing multiple inheritance transformations, Ryōken was also quite curious about the attributes he possessed.

The next instant, the chakra paper wrinkled. Half of it caught fire, while the other half became damp.

"Lightning, fire, and water. Not bad."

Ryōken smiled faintly. Chakra attributes did not mean one could not learn techniques of other attributes; it simply meant learning techniques of one's innate attributes would be faster.

Besides, Ryōken's attributes would certainly not be limited to these. As he acquired further inheritances, he would sooner or later gain wind and earth attributes as well.

And these three attributes were all quite good.

Speaking of lightning, one naturally could not overlook that monster, the Third Raikage.

With the Lightning Release Body Forging Technique, he had faced ten thousand enemies alone. In the end, he had only died from exhaustion. What terrifying strength.

He was an existence capable of contending head-on with tailed beasts through his physical body alone.

This was precisely the secret technique Ryōken had long dreamed of obtaining.

Ryōken himself possessed the Highlander Bloodline, giving him hope of reaching the ultimate speed. The Lightning Release Body Forging Technique could raise his physical strength to an extremely high level while further increasing his speed.

Combined, the two might allow his physical speed to rival, or even surpass, the Flying Thunder God.

Once speed surpassed thought, it could surpass space itself.

He turned and left the place.

Before he had gone far, Ryōken arrived at the room where ninjutsu scrolls were stored.

An ANBU ninja with cold eyes stood at the door.

He casually swept his gaze over Ryōken. His eyes flickered faintly as he recognized Ryōken's identity, and surprise appeared on his face.

Still, he said nothing and simply let him pass.

ANBU naturally had special methods of identification. The entire ANBU underground world lay within an enormous barrier, making it difficult for outsiders to infiltrate.

Ryōken entered the scroll storage room.

As far as the eye could see, dazzling arrays of scrolls filled the place.

There were four large counters in total.

They stored ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, and cultivation notes respectively.

The ninjutsu section held the most scrolls. After all, this was a world of ninjas, and ninjutsu was the mainstream.

It was further subdivided by attribute.

Ryōken first went straight to find the Shadow Clone scroll.

He would not forget this technique. It was the training cheat of the Naruto World; in the original story, Naruto had relied entirely on this technique to master wind-nature transformation.

Then Ryōken walked over to the cultivation notes counter and began reading.

These were understandings of ninjutsu and the nature transformations of various attributes left behind by generations of ANBU ninjas.

Ryōken casually opened one.

It was a set of cultivation notes discussing the penetrating nature transformation of lightning-attribute chakra.

At the sight of it, Ryōken's interest was immediately piqued, and he began to read.

Just from seeing these notes, Ryōken knew this trip had been worthwhile.

Every scroll here would become part of his foundation, laying an exceptionally solid base for him to create sword-based ninjutsu unique to himself.

Wind, lightning, earth, fire, water, even genjutsu—all of them could be wielded through swordsmanship.

At that point, Ryōken's swordsmanship would reach its completed state.

Ryōken divided the way of the sword into two major branches.

Pure swordsmanship was what he had practiced before: relying solely on the sword's slash to unleash Sword Qi, pure sharpness.

Sword techniques, on the other hand, used the sword as a medium to wield all manner of strange powers over an immense range.