Jiraiya watched the boy by the river with a grave expression. What an impressive ninjutsu! Its range was enormous. He could sense the faint traces of chakra in the surrounding mist.
Naturally, he recognized the boy: Naruto's classmate, and the top graduate of this year's class.
"Please go easy on me, Lord Jiraiya!" a boy's voice rang out behind Jiraiya.
Jiraiya flailed in fright, yelling as he fell out of the tree.
Shinjō was rather speechless. He really did have a flair for theatrics.
This was his first time meeting Jiraiya in person. The Anbu had intelligence on Jiraiya, and the distinctive forehead protector bearing the character for "oil" was also one of the reasons Shinjō had recognized him at a glance.
Climbing to his feet, Jiraiya laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head.
Getting caught by a junior while secretly watching that junior practice ninjutsu was truly embarrassing for a senior.
Shinjō had disliked using shadow clones before, but now that he had used them more, he found them pretty great after all. Hadn't he just successfully given Jiraiya a fright?
The two stared awkwardly at each other, neither knowing what to say.
Naturally, Shinjō was not familiar enough with Jiraiya, while Jiraiya had been caught spying on a junior.
As the two stood there awkwardly, a tremendous noise suddenly came from the distance, and they could faintly hear Naruto yelling.
The giant toad hopped closer and closer, sending ripples across the calmly flowing river.
"Impressive, huh, kid? That's my summoning beast!" Jiraiya laughed heartily, looking smug.
Unlike ordinary people, who would feel fear at the sight, whenever Shinsei saw such a colossal creature, he always wondered where he should slash it with Water Severing Wave. He also wondered how many cuts it would take to slice through such a thick-skinned behemoth.
Shinsei had found it particularly regrettable that Water Kirin had failed to sever Manda last time.
He wondered how much damage Water Severing Wave cast by his original body would do to a summoning beast like this.
"Wow, is it really that impressive? Is this the summoning beast Lord Jiraiya summoned? It's so powerful!"
Shinjō's slightly exaggerated acting naturally could not fool an intelligence expert like Jiraiya. He knew very well how immensely powerful Shinsei's Water Release Ninjutsu was.
"I'm going to teach Naruto!" Without waiting for Shinsei to answer, Jiraiya hurried off, leaping onto the giant toad's back in two or three bounds.
With a huge pipe in its mouth, the giant toad carried Naruto and Jiraiya away from Shinsei in a series of hops.
After this interruption, Shinsei did not intend to continue casting large-scale ninjutsu. He had just determined this technique's approximate range: with himself as the center, it could extend to a maximum radius of one kilometer and reach a height of over two hundred meters.
Expanding its range any further served little purpose, at least for now.
Likewise, expending chakra across such a vast area meant that a ninjutsu of this range consumed an astonishing amount of chakra.
Using it at full power consumed roughly two Kakashis' worth of chakra. Creating the mist itself required little chakra, but distributing Lightning Release Chakra throughout it consumed a tremendous amount.
In short, this ninjutsu had fulfilled Shinsei's purpose in creating it. Within the area it covered, no moving target of any appreciable size could escape his perception.
He named this newly developed ninjutsu
Heavenly Net!
As the saying went, heaven's net was vast; though its mesh was wide, nothing slipped through.
Although this ninjutsu still had shortcomings in all sorts of areas, he had finally achieved his first-stage goal.
From now on, as long as he cast the ninjutsu beforehand, launching a sneak attack on Shinsei would be quite unlikely.
Next came the second stage: manipulating the chakra within the mist.
He still had no idea how to achieve this goal.
No matter how he tried to manipulate it, the chakra within the mist was like a haughty goddess: he could only admire its appearance, but getting close was utterly impossible!
This is tough. My version of Flying Thunder God depends on this!
He could only set it aside for now and think of a solution later.
This ninjutsu could only be called Heavenly Net 1.0. His next goals were, first, to determine a suitable mist density that would lower an enemy's vigilance within it, and then to reduce the concentration of chakra distributed throughout the mist to conserve chakra.
Shinsei's current chakra reserves were not yet sufficient for him to squander freely.
He pressed his palms together again. Thick billows of white mist surged from his hands and spread out, enveloping an area with a radius of one hundred meters.
There was no need to cover such a large area this time.
Time slowly passed, and the sun was already setting.
Shinjō returned to the training ground. When the two shadow clones saw Shinsei, they each released their technique.
Fatigue and memories hit him at the same time, and Shinsei could not help shaking his head.
"Let's call it a day," Shinsei called to Sakura and Sasuke.
Sakura cheered and ran over to cling to Sasuke's arm, shaking it.
Sasuke nodded to Shinjō and gave Shinsei a slight bow in thanks.
Sasuke is quite polite after all.
After saying goodbye, the three each headed home.
On the way, he happened to see Jiraiya carrying the sleeping Naruto on his back. Kurenai Yuhi and Asuma Sarutobi were beside him, leading their respective genin teams back to the residential area as well.
Shikamaru leaned against Choji, looking utterly exhausted. Ino had even abandoned all concern for appearances, bending at the waist with both hands dangling toward the ground.
Kurenai Yuhi's team was no better off. Even Kiba's beloved dog, Akamaru, looked listless.
It looked as though the two teams had joined up for another mission.
When Ino saw Shinsei, she hurriedly straightened herself up, smoothed her hair, and forced out a smile.
Stroking Akamaru's head and watching his feeble struggles, Shinsei asked:
"Hey, what have you all been doing? How did you get so exhausted?"
Shikamaru rolled his eyes and answered weakly, "Plowing fields!"
Shinsei immediately understood. They had taken another low-level mission.
Still, this was good too. It let ninja learn about the hardships of ordinary people.
In fact, with chakra's creative potential, it was possible to improve productivity.
Unfortunately, missions that improved civilian production only circulated among genin.
Once they became chunin or higher, their valuable combat strength would no longer be expended on production missions like these.
Powerful ninja would only become tools of slaughter!
After returning home and eating dinner, Shinjō went back to his room.
Days without missions were uneventful and dull. Even with the same movies and television shows as in his previous life, Shinsei could not muster any interest.
Whenever he had a little free time, he would sit at his desk, writing and sketching on paper, outlining the ninjutsu he wanted to develop.
When the time came, he returned to bed to continue his daily meditation.
With each breath in and out, he emptied his mind and slowly settled into stillness.
Outside the window came the whoosh of summer winds and the chirping of crickets, but to Shinsei, it all seemed like passing clouds and smoke, falling on deaf ears.
The qi in his dantian stirred, flowing down the Conception Vessel, passing through Guanyuan to Huiyin, then rising along the Governing Vessel, passing through Mingmen to Zhiyang and then to Baihui at the crown of his head. With his tongue pressed against his palate, the qi descended along his tongue, passed through Zigong and Juque, and continued downward to return to his dantian.
The qi grew fuller and fuller, gradually ceasing to be content with the Conception and Governing Vessels and slowly circulating through the eight extraordinary meridians.
Gradually, as he sank deeper into meditation, the pores all over Shinsei's body opened without his conscious intent.
Suddenly, in his stillness, Shinsei felt cool all over. The skin across his entire body seemed to be exchanging air with the outside world, followed by an enormous, violent energy burrowing into his body!
This is bad!