Mukai tried all sorts of things. Only when he drew on the electric charges in his body to nourish the mass of consciousness did it finally begin to pulse rhythmically.
The mass of consciousness was still asleep, however, and did not resume speaking as it had before.
Sensing that it was no longer growing weaker, he set the unexpected development aside.
Now it was time to familiarize himself with the two Ninjutsu he had just learned.
This was, after all, a world of ninjas.
The technological exoskeleton armor he and Sasori were researching also needed Chakra to enhance it.
He was leaving on a mission the day after tomorrow, so he couldn't afford to slack off.
Early the next morning, Mukai headed to a training ground on the outskirts of the village.
Many huge boulders stood there, shielding the village from wind and sand.
Ordinary villagers and ninjas rarely came here, making it a good place to train.
Mukai had only just arrived when he heard a low, rhythmic breathing sound.
Someone's here?
Out of courtesy, Mukai raised his voice and called out:
"Is someone up there training?
I'm Mukai, a Genin. I came to test some Ninjutsu. May I come up?"
Hearing Mukai introduce himself, the person breathing atop the rise stopped.
After a pause, the other person replied:
"Lord Ninja, I'm just an ordinary villager with no talent for being a ninja.
I exercise in this deserted place, but it hardly counts as any kind of skill.
Please, go ahead. I just hope I won't bother you."
For Mukai, who now had the physical abilities of a Genin, a slope like this
was easy enough to climb.
People in this world, especially ninjas,
were physically far stronger than he had been as a fragile college student.
At the top of the slope, Mukai saw a gray-haired man in his twenties standing beside a massive boulder that blocked the sand.
The boulder beside him was densely covered in fist marks.
When Mukai saw the man, he suddenly asked without thinking:
"Seven Heavens Breathing Method? Shira?"
The gray-haired man froze for a moment, then asked in confusion:
"Do you know my Shira, Lord Ninja?"
Mukai realized he had made a mistake.
Indeed, Shira was only about ten years older than Gaara,
so he was probably only a few years old now.
The man before him appeared to be Shira's father.
He hurriedly tried to cover for himself:
"Sorry, so you're Shira's father.
I've met him. He's full of energy and very cute."
Hearing the other man praise his child, the gray-haired man was delighted.
"I see. If Shira could extract Chakra and use Ninjutsu,
he could go to the Ninja Academy and become a real ninja.
Please, do as you like, Lord Ninja. I just hope you won't find me too noisy."
Watching a man in his twenties address him as "Lord Ninja,"
Mukai was struck once again by how absurd it was.
When he had watched Naruto, he had already found this world strange.
The gap between ninjas and ordinary people, between ninjas and the daimyos and nobles,
and between ordinary ninjas and the great ninja clans was simply beyond imagining.
He was just an ordinary little Genin himself, with no powerful clan behind him,
and he wasn't used to being treated so politely.
"You don't need to be so formal, mister. Your training method is quite distinctive!
With Taijutsu this good, why didn't you become a ninja?
Oh, right, my name's Mukai. What should I call you?"
The gray-haired man wasn't quite used to a ninja like Mukai being so polite.
A little awkwardly, he said:
"I... I'm Shisō. I'm just a porter with a bit of strength.
I support my family by doing odd jobs.
All I know is Taijutsu. I could never become a ninja."
As he spoke, Shisō's expression gradually dimmed.
Mukai thought it over carefully. The Second Shinobi World War had only recently ended,
and across the Shinobi World, ninjas still relied primarily on Ninjutsu.
Only in the future, after Might Duy opened the Eight Gates Released Formation and kicked the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist down to the Lucky Three,
would it become common knowledge in the Shinobi World that someone unable to use Ninjutsu could still become a great ninja.
After Gaara came to power, he too fought Rock Lee, a ninja who used pure Taijutsu.
Only then did he recognize Shira's talent for Taijutsu and make an exception to promote him to ninja.
Such was the work of time and fate.
In this distorted social structure, for an ordinary person to rise to a higher social class,
the only reliable path was to become a ninja.
Mukai could see some of that from the poor business at his family's little tavern, as well as Shisō's shabby clothes and haggard complexion.
For now, however, he didn't have the ability to change any of it.
Mukai reached out to the uneasy Shisō and said:
"I believe your child will definitely become an excellent ninja.
And you shouldn't underestimate yourself either, mister.
Stick to your dream, and maybe one day it'll come true.
Hard work is also an essential quality of a genius!
By the way, where do you live, mister?"
Shisō never imagined that the boy before him, wearing a ninja Forehead Protector, could say something so magnanimous.
Of the ninjas he usually saw in the village, which one didn't look down his nose at everyone?
Seeing the goodwill in Mukai's outstretched hand, he reached out with both his thick-knuckled hands and clasped it tightly.
"Thank you for the encouragement, Lord Ninja!
I'll work hard. Even if I can't become a ninja,
I'll take good care of Shira and help him become an excellent ninja like you!"
After a few words of encouragement from Mukai, Shisō seemed fired up and resumed training, using the boulder as a punching target.
He punched the stone directly, sending chips flying with every blow. The sight left Mukai speechless.
He silently remarked on how monstrous Taijutsu ninjas were, then moved to one side and began practicing his own Ninjutsu.
Thanks to his considerable intelligence and the fusion of his souls,
both his intelligence and stamina stats were at the maximum value of ten!
Of course, the maximum value for these stats was ten. For example, Kakashi, the unit of measurement for Chakra, had a stamina stat of six,
yet he had said that Naruto's Chakra should be a hundred times his own!
These numbers were only a reference and couldn't be taken literally.
Still, as long as his learning ability was better than Obito's, whose intelligence stat was two, that was enough!
Mukai first followed his memories to extract Chakra.
To extract Chakra, he first needed to sense and control his spiritual and physical energies.
As a modern Chinese person who had received a higher education, he was naturally familiar with the concepts of body and mind.
When he drew these two energies together and let them flow through the various meridians in his body,
circulate through his dantian, and finally accumulate, the result was Chakra he could use.
And the necessary conditions for performing Ninjutsu were naturally forming Hand Seals and directing Chakra.
According to what the Ninja Academy taught, the timing of the Hand Seals and the order in which Chakra was drawn upon were both crucial.
A mistake could cause the Ninjutsu to fail at best, or damage his meridians at worst.
For him, with the hand speed from twenty years of being single and the boost from his precision talent, that was no problem at all.
He could even sense the details of the cellular energy gathering from his body's cells and converging in his dantian under the guidance of his spiritual energy.
Through this perception, he could even sense wisps of that power drifting outside.
This power was very unusual. On the whole, it was exceedingly violent and even resisted his attempts to absorb it.
But among those violent energies, two exceedingly faint strands flowed into his body.
These energies, which were compatible with him, merged with the Chakra he drew upon himself.
Mukai used his precision talent to manipulate electric charges and the wind,
and sensed that faint power transforming the nature of his ordinary Chakra.
As he sat cross-legged, fierce winds slowly began to whirl around him, sweeping up dust and sand into a wall that enclosed him.
Within the walls of fierce wind and sand, blue-white arcs of electricity darted between the grains like swimming fish.
The spectacular sight left Shisō speechless.
He's a Genin from the village?
Isn't he a little too impressive?
Mukai, now amid the walls of wind and sand and the arcs of electricity, paid no attention to the effects of the Ninjutsu he had unleashed.
He looked at his hands, drawing on wind and electricity and making them appear in each hand.
So this is the power of Chakra!
And with the enhancement of his precision talent, as Mukai drew fully on his Chakra and observed within himself,
he suddenly gained his own insight into the nature of Chakra.
So this is what Chakra truly means!