After greeting his parents, Shinsei returned to his basement and opened the scroll Hiruzen Sarutobi had given him. It was densely covered with the Third Hokage's insights into sensory ninjutsu, giving Shinsei a systematic understanding of the subject.
Many sensory ninjutsu depended on innate talent. Either you could do it or you could not; training would not improve things much if you could not.
The jutsu Shinsei was developing sought to use chakra connections to relay everything the chakra sensed back to him. It was like a spider with poor eyesight weaving a web and using its vibrations to sense prey caught within it.
Normally, Shinsei would need to weave a web of chakra. Too small a range would be useless, but too large a range would exceed his chakra reserves. If he really had that much chakra, he could simply overwhelm his opponent with large-scale ninjutsu.
So Shinsei wanted to use mist to connect the chakra, then sense enemies through it, and even manipulate the chakra within the mist.
The difficulty was that the mist did not behave as Shinsei had imagined. It was easily disturbed by air currents. Distributing the chakra densely would not work: his reserves could not keep up, and with the mist full of his chakra, an enemy would know something was wrong without even thinking. A sparse distribution was even worse. He could not sense anything, much less control it.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's proposed solution was to stop making mist from naturally occurring water and instead use water release chakra to produce all the water for the mist. He would also mix it with mist to serve as chakra nodes, ensuring that his sensing remained effective over long distances.
As expected of the Professor of Ninjutsu. This really was a blind spot Shinsei had overlooked.
Mist and water vapor were different, though people easily mistook them for the same thing. Mist actually formed when water molecules condensed under the influence of cold air, generally measuring only 0.001 to 0.05 millimeters. Water vapor, strictly speaking, steam, was over a hundred times larger than mist.
After all that, the overall idea was to make the chakra-formed mist more refined, further separating it into mist and water vapor, using the mist as nodes to control the vapor. Then, through collisions between the mist and vapor as the air circulated, he would fill in the rough outline of the chakra-bearing enemy.
This demanded an astonishing degree of chakra control: producing vast amounts of chakra while also separating water vapor from mist. No one could currently perform such an operation, not even Shinsei himself.
When the Third Hokage offered this solution, he probably had not expected anyone to actually accomplish it.
Shinsei scratched his head. Water release chakra was not real water, after all, and would not obey physical principles on a microscopic level. It seemed this jutsu had reached another impasse.
Suddenly, inspiration struck!
If water vapor would not work, what about electrons?
Electrons exerted a repulsive force on one another. If mist made with water release alone would not work, what about adding lightning release?
Shinsei had specifically studied storm release, and he still had the scroll his grandfather had given him, which contained storm release chakra. Although researching storm release had been harder than expected, he did have experience making water with lightning release properties.
Shinsei immediately got to work, forming hand seals and spitting a small stream of water from his mouth. He caught it in his hand, and the stream circled back and forth around Shinjō's arm.
Blue, crackling electricity emerged from his right hand, and he merged it into the stream.
No, this was too slow. He threw the water in his hand onto the floor. Shinsei sat down and stared at his left hand, looking as though he were spacing out.
Slowly, chakra emerged from his hand. It abruptly changed, turning into a pulsing mass of water.
Did this count as a jutsu without hand seals? Shinsei grinned. Still, it was not much use. It had no real destructive power. Surely he could not use this lump of water to cover someone's mouth and nose.
He did the same with his right hand, producing a mass of blue electricity, then brought his hands together.
Mistification Jutsu!
The water in his hands vibrated rapidly, throwing up sprays of water that quickly turned into great clouds of mist.
Mist enveloped the entire room.
Closing his eyes, Shinjō experienced an indescribable sensation, as though someone who had never known light had suddenly opened his eyes and seen the world. Every cell in Shinsei's body was communicating with the mist outside, allowing him to sense a table in the room and the walls around him.
He continued forming hand seals and created a shadow clone.
Fine mist gathered on the shadow clone's surface. Shinsei clearly sensed another person in the room, about 1.6 meters tall, who even waved at him.
"Move a little farther away!"
The shadow clone rolled his eyes and walked over to the wall.
Shinsei could feel the figure in the room moving. He opened his eyes to a sea of white. Mist filled the entire basement.
I really am a genius! Why didn't I think of this before?
If I had known, I would not have needed to ask Hiruzen Sarutobi for help!
The new sensory ninjutsu was essentially complete! Shinsei suppressed his delight. He still needed to test its sensing range. The underground space was a little small; if its range was only this far, a ninja could get out of it in a second or two.
There was also the mist, which was a little too thick. It consumed as much chakra as a standard A-rank ninjutsu, mainly because the lightning release chakra expenditure was so high.
He still needed to go out and find some woods.
He used earth release to sneak back home, but just as he was about to head out, his mother stopped him.
"It's time to eat. Where are you going?"
"Huh? It's noon already?" He scratched his head. He had lost track of time researching ninjutsu.
After lunch, Shinsei went downstairs.
A pretty girl stood at the entrance, peering into the little shop.
"Sakura, did you need something?" Although Sakura Haruno knew he lived here, she rarely came over. After all, the one she liked was Sasuke.
Sakura had cut off her long pink hair herself, and now she had a headscarf tied at the back.
She looked at Shinsei, wringing her hands together, her face troubled and embarrassed.
"Is there something you need help with?" Seeing Sakura's embarrassment, Shinsei added, "We're classmates, and we get along well. If you need my help, just say so."
Sakura steeled herself, looking utterly resolute. With her palms pressed together between her legs, she bent at the waist and bowed ninety degrees to Shinsei.
"I'd like you to guide me in my training!"
"Huh?" Shinsei was a little surprised. Although they had trained together before, Sakura had never asked him for guidance alone. He did not know whether she could not swallow her pride in front of someone her own age or whether girls were less interested in improving their strength. When she and Ino came to their gatherings, they mostly played off to the side.
The unexpected request left him thinking a little longer, while Sakura remained bent over, her thoughts unknown. Teardrops fell onto the paving stones, sending up tiny splashes.
"Ah! Sorry!" Shinsei hurriedly apologized. "I'm not refusing. I just didn't expect you to come to me for guidance, Sakura. I was a little surprised, that's all."
It really was unexpected. Shinsei had not thought he would make a girl cry so easily. To him, guiding Sakura's training was not particularly difficult. Especially since she also had water release chakra, and Sakura was very talented herself. In terms of academic results alone, Sakura ranked second only to Shinsei, and Shinsei was a transmigrator.
Sakura's bigger problem was that she had never wanted to become stronger before. It seemed this ninja exam really had spurred her on. Otherwise, she would not have sacrificed her pride to seek help from a male classmate other than Sasuke.
But what was going on with Kakashi? His students were coming to me for guidance one after another!
Bang!!
An enormous noise came from the distance!
Shinsei hurriedly leaped onto the roof and looked into the distance.