Earth-Style Wall

Although Chiba Shun had never learned any of the five elemental ninjutsu, he had tested his own chakra nature before.

He possessed four natures, with Earth as his primary nature, Fire second, Lightning third, and a faint trace of Wind.

As for Water, he basically had none. At least, chakra paper could not detect it.

A moment later, Chiba Shun had thoroughly memorized the contents of the Earth-Style Wall scroll.

Generally, such ninjutsu scrolls recorded the most basic version of the hand seals. This Earth-Style Wall, for instance, required fifteen seals.

After that, the scroll would explain how to reduce the number of hand seals.

If the ninjutsu had been recorded by a ninja highly proficient in it, it might eventually be simplified to only a few seals.

Unfortunately, Kumogakure had too few Earth-nature ninja. Many people like Chiba Shun, whose primary nature was Earth, would give up training in Earth Release.

Thus, even the simplified version recorded on this scroll still required ten hand seals.

That was clearly not the limit of Earth-Style Wall, but to simplify it further, Chiba Shun would have to figure it out himself.

After putting away his scattered thoughts, Chiba Shun began trying it out.

It was his first time truly practicing one of the five elemental ninjutsu, so he was still somewhat nervous. Only after making all the necessary preparations did he head to the Ninja Academy's training ground to begin.

The uses of chakra were incredibly wondrous and varied in countless ways.

The simplest use was enhancing taijutsu and swordsmanship. Anyone who had extracted chakra could easily accomplish that after training.

However, using chakra more effectively was much harder.

It required training chakra control, completing chakra nature transformation, and shape transformation as well.

With the knowledge from the original work, Chiba Shun had completed his basic chakra control training long ago.

Tree climbing and water walking had already become second nature to him.

But that was also his limit. His income had only been enough to support training at that level.

If he tried to undergo more intensive training, his supplies would not keep up.

Now, he no longer needed to carry out missions with the squad leader, and he had a relatively decent income. His body was gradually growing stronger, and his chakra reserves were steadily increasing as well.

Therefore, Chiba Shun could finally practice ninjutsu.

Earth-Style Wall was a basic Earth-nature ninjutsu. It only required chakra nature transformation and the simplest shape transformation.

Only advanced ninjutsu required complex shape transformations, such as attacks formed into the shape of dragons. But that was still far too early for Chiba Shun.

Chiba Shun slowly formed fifteen hand seals. As he did so, he began the chakra nature transformation according to the instructions on the ninjutsu scroll.

The process was simpler than Chiba Shun had imagined.

His years of accumulation finally showed their value at this moment.

He clearly sensed the changes in his chakra. The feeling was both wondrous and difficult to comprehend.

It was as though a teacher had crammed an entire system of profound knowledge into his head all at once.

But the process was too quick and too fleeting. Chiba Shun seemed to understand, yet at the same time, seemed to understand nothing.

No wonder Naruto, with his intelligence in the original work, could make Shadow Clones and the Rasengan so versatile.

With Naruto's chakra reserves, repeatedly casting the same ninjutsu and receiving that insight over and over again, it would have been hard not to succeed!

Back to the point, these thoughts merely flashed through Chiba Shun's mind during the process of forming the seals.

Once he finished, he slapped both palms against the ground and shouted in an incredibly childish fashion, "Earth Release—Earth-Style Wall!"

Chiba Shun was highly confident. After all, he was not truly a novice.

As a qualified Chunin and a transmigrator, Chiba Shun had never slackened in his hand seal practice.

What he lacked was merely ninjutsu instruction and supplies.

Some might ask why he did not develop his own ninjutsu, such as the Rasengan, which had a clearly established training method in the original work.

Chiba Shun had tried as well, but he had failed.

He had never truly come into contact with the five elemental ninjutsu, so his understanding of ninjutsu was far too lacking!

Only someone with an extremely profound understanding of ninjutsu could possibly develop it.

As for the Rasengan, Chiba Shun lacked both the chakra reserves and chakra control!

It was an A-rank Jutsu. The chakra of a mere Chunin could not sustain it!

Chakra reserves were one thing, but his chakra control was nowhere near sufficient.

As he had said before, he did not have enough logistical support to practice an A-rank Jutsu.

In short, this attempt at casting ninjutsu was fairly successful.

An Earth-Style Wall roughly two meters wide and twenty centimeters thick slowly rose from the ground in front of Chiba Shun's palms, stopping only after it reached around two meters tall.

Earth-Style Wall was only a basic C-rank Jutsu, after all. It was not difficult, and its training method had been written very clearly on the scroll.

Even ordinary Genin could learn it. Chiba Shun was actually rather late in learning it now.

The difficulty of Chiba Shun's Three-Sword Style was even greater than that of Earth-Style Wall.

If Three-Sword Style could be considered a ninjutsu, it would at least be C-rank, and quite possibly close to B-rank.

Hoo...

Chiba Shun let out a long breath. A wall like this would still be quite useful in combat. At the very least, it could block most Chunin's kunai.

Of course, whether it could withstand an Explosive Tag was another matter.

Chiba Shun had no extra money and could not bear to buy Explosive Tags just to test the power of his ninjutsu.

After casting it more than a dozen more times, Chiba Shun had used up over half his chakra and gained a basic grasp of Earth-Style Wall.

The ninjutsu still required fifteen seals for now. Naturally, the seals could be simplified, but that would have to wait until later.

Furthermore, after successfully mastering his first ninjutsu, Chiba Shun had gained a clear understanding of his chakra reserves and hand seal speed.

Measured by the C-rank Earth-Style Wall, his chakra reserves should allow him to cast it around thirty times.

He had no idea whether that amount was considered high or low.

As for hand seal speed, it was roughly three seals per second.

Chiba Shun had previously practiced hand seals purely to train his hand speed. Without circulating chakra, he could form seven seals per second. But hand seals for actually casting ninjutsu were meant to mobilize the chakra within the body, so that speed could not be increased so easily.

Three seals per second was probably Chiba Shun's current limit.

That speed was neither fast nor slow. It was fairly decent among Chunin, but compared to true prodigies, the difference was like heaven and earth.

Still, if he became more familiar with ninjutsu, his hand seal speed would certainly improve as well.

Improving his hand seal speed could wait. There was something else he needed to do now.

Chiba Shun waved toward one side, where a group of children had been secretly watching him.

The children at the Ninja Academy varied greatly in age, and so did the sizes of the training grounds. The one Chiba Shun currently occupied was naturally the largest.

The children who frequented this place were also among the oldest in the academy. They had been recruited by Aoki Yuyi several years ago and had basically all extracted chakra.

When the children saw Chiba Shun wave at them, they immediately cheered and ran over.

After reaching Chiba Shun, one of them gathered his courage and asked, "Teacher Shun, can you teach us ninjutsu?"

Chiba Shun smiled faintly, revealing a kindly expression. "Of course. It is my duty to cultivate the next generation of heroes for the village and resist Konoha's evil rule."

Hearing Chiba Shun call them heroes, every one of the children puffed out their chests.

Brainwashing could not be done only in class. Even in everyday details, they had to understand what they were training for!

Chiba Shun walked over to the last Earth-Style Wall he had cast. It was a dirt wall over three meters high.

Pointing at the wall, he said, "Learning ninjutsu is not easy. First, you must be able to do this."

As he spoke, beneath the worshipful gazes of the little brats, he walked step by step up the vertical dirt wall until he reached its top.

He stood sideways on the wall, turned around to face the ground, and said to the children below, "Attach your chakra to your feet and give it a try."

After hearing Chiba Shun's words, the children immediately crowded around the wall and began imitating him.

They were excited. These children had all been taken into the Ninja Academy by Aoki Yuyi years ago, but Aoki Yuyi had long since given up on them.

These orphans were not stupid. They could sense Aoki Yuyi's disappointment in him.

But Chiba Shun's attitude was completely different from Aoki Yuyi's.

Chiba Shun was exceptionally patient. Just as he had said in his earlier speech, he truly was an inheritor of the Will of Lightning.

Seeing that there were quite a few children, Chiba Shun cast more than a dozen additional Earth-Style Walls, nearly exhausting all the chakra in his body before he finally stopped.

However, it was obvious that they really were merely a group of exceptionally ordinary children. Not one of them gave Chiba Shun a pleasant surprise.

For such a simple wall-climbing exercise, the group struggled for ages, yet not a single person managed to climb to the top of a wall only a little over three meters high.

That was normal, after all. These were the ones the Jonin and Chunin had passed over.

Chiba Shun smiled as he gave them pointers and encouragement, then went to one side and began reading the second ninjutsu.

The second ninjutsu Chiba Shun examined was Lightning Release—Lightning Transmission.

Lightning Transmission was a C-rank Lightning Release. Its function was fairly simple: it transmitted the caster's Lightning Release through a medium and onto the enemy.

Sakai Yushi knew this ninjutsu, but he had not taught it to Chiba Shun.

In any case, Chiba Shun's talent in Lightning Release was quite ordinary, and he had no spare energy to study it, so he had not secretly learned it.

Unlike Earth-Style Wall, which still required ten seals after simplification, the Lightning Transmission ninjutsu Chiba Shun had obtained required only four seals after being simplified.

This scroll was probably written by one of the village's Lightning Release experts.

Lightning Transmission was not lethal, but it had a paralyzing effect.

In truth, Lightning Transmission was best used in combination with Water Release, but Chiba Shun did not know Water Release and had no talent for it.

However, he excelled at swordsmanship and had used Killer B's techniques from the original work as a template to create Three-Sword Style.

If he could supplement it with the Lightning Transmission Technique, his combat strength could increase further.

Unfortunately, he would not divide his attention to train Lightning Release ninjutsu for the time being.

Chakra nature transformation was not difficult, but that only referred to the first nature transformation.

If one wished to develop a second nature transformation, it became difficult.

With Chiba Shun's current energy, it was impossible for him to complete a second nature transformation.

He would have to wait until his body gradually grew stronger with sufficient nutrition, his chakra reserves reached a certain level, and his development of Earth nature attained a certain height before dividing his attention to try.

Generally speaking, a ninja who could complete the nature transformation of two attributes was already a Jonin.

Chiba Shun was still far from that.