CHAPTER 37

- How annoying...* slow inhale * * exhale *…... this limitation on the amount of chakra is. You just touch the magical side of chakra and suddenly hit in the liver by the rules of reality. Why is there such a harsh reaction to running out of chakra? It could have been done with a simple ninjutsu break. – Yuske was always wondering why the lack of chakra in the body had such a negative effect on shinobi, and could even promise a lethal outcome.

Calming down and still grumbling at the world and the fact that he would get what was his no matter of the cost, Yuske focused on what he had accomplished.

He was also riddled with wonder that after trying so many things, and ending up with failure each time, it came down to the application of imagination again. The world seemed strange to him, where everything had to be forced upon by one's own will and imagination in order to get what he wanted.

At other times he would rebuke himself for not keeping a close enough eye on his reserves, but that is some other time. Currently, it was as if the sound of battle drums were in his ears, and his pulse quickened at the thought of touching the basics of ninjutsu, so close was he to getting his first technique into his arsenal.

It was as if his soul was singing and eager to try each and every thing, of course with the awareness of the need to think over every step, and in turn to stay away from what might become useless in the future. A good example of this was the famous Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Jutsu, which in his opinion was a waste of both chakra and his precious time.

He wanted to get something in his arsenal that had a very low chakra expenditure, but with a fairly murderous essence. His chakra reserves required a proper approach to his choices, for he did not want to risk himself creating one dangerous technique that would instantly drain his reserves and allow a mere genin to carry a threat to his life, which was the most shameful way to be killed.

* With so much adrenaline, I don't even feel like resting, although I guess this could come back to bite me soon. But I can't help myself, so another meditation session and one last attempt to master the jutsu for the day. I should hurry, parents should be back in less than two hours. – Yuske wanted to consolidate his initial success with additional attempts at the technique as soon as possible.

It was also necessary to ponder over the mistakes made and the very details of what was created, only then will it be possible to estimate the limitations of the technique.

No secret that it would take him a long time to perfect it, but at times one traitorous thought crept in, "How stupid would I look if I tried to start training with the water element without proper proficiency in chakra control?". With the meager reserves at hand, if he still had some chakra wasted, then even many months of effort would not allow him to create ninjutsu, and one should not forget about the impending training with Nature Transformation.

It was even possible that if he had gotten the proper skill in transformation of his element, what he had achieved today with his many efforts would have been a mere walk in the park, requiring him to devote only a few minutes to the entire matter.

As much as he wanted to, he could not do so for the simple reason that he lacked a clear understanding of the amount of time required to achieve proficiency in said training. He had to take immediate measures, and he couldn't leave it until later, not knowing if he would be able to acquire the technique quickly enough, nor if he would have any combat readiness before the Nine-Tails attacked.

Having recovered his chakra and knowing the necessities to conjure the water pillar more quickly, Yuske created it once again and this time tried to perform the extension as soon as possible.

In his mind he kept a constant count of time, knowing that he had enough chakra for about seventy seconds, most likely even a little less.

This time he tried to create an elongated version of the water pillar at once, emphasizing on quickness, from which every few seconds a kind of ' water serpent' would come out of the water at high speed, much thinner and longer than the previous meter-long pillar, but in turn quite unstable.

Previously, before he ran out of chakra and had to meditate, he was convinced that by spending enough chakra and time he could create a new, thinner and longer version of this technique, so he changed tactics.

The new creation would break up rather quickly each time, forcing Yuske to concentrate even more, but he was unwilling to do the process slowly like last time. In his opinion, it was better right from the start to focus on fast generation of the new version of the technique, because there was no difficulty in creating a meter wide pillar with the width of two arms of a grown man.

If he keeps creating the initial version first and then shaping it into its final form, it will be time-consuming. Accordingly, in the future he will need to do additional training to shorten the time intervals in order to speed up the process, which means even more wasted time, because each time he will have to restore the chakra.

Yuske was afraid that he would get used to this course of action at all times, and thus even in battle he would have to create a two-step technique, something that was completely unacceptable.

Keeping some of his attention on his chakra reserves, he conjured thin pillars of water time after time and at one point figured out one enlightening detail for himself - if he increased the length of the technique by more than three meters, the pillar would begin to break up, and for a moment the chakra consumption would jump up sharply.