11 Fire and D-ranks

It was 7:00 am the next day, with all of us collapsed on the floor after Fukumoto's brutal physical training schedule.

Usually, I wouldn't be this tired. But remember those weights I bought yesterday? Yeah, doing exercise with 200 pounds spread across your body makes things a little more difficult.

"Alright, that's a good stopping point for now," Fukumoto said, "It's about time I gave you guys some jutsu."

Isamu jumped up, completely forgetting his exhaustion.

"What did I get?! Oh, maybe a fireball jutsu or a water jutsu that can create a tsunami! There's also this one wind jutsu I-"

"Shut your trap, brat! You have an earth affinity, so I've gotten basic earth jutsu. All that stuff you wanna do? That's out of your league for now."

"Oh," he deflated.

"Anyways, here they are," he handed Isamu three scrolls.

"Learn those well."

I looked over to see what he got. Earth clone technique, stone shuriken technique, and rock thorn bed technique. Pretty good, honestly.

Fukumoto pulled me out of my thoughts, "Now, for you brats. Take these." He handed us each three scrolls.

I looked them over. Ember clone technique, Fire release: two, and mythical fire flower technique. Pretty good for starting jutsu. 2 C-rank and 1 D-rank.

"If you have questions, I'll be here. Now, get to practicing."

We all spread out before sitting down to look at our techniques in more detail. I first looked over the simplest one: Fire Release: Two. The only D-rank jutsu I got. It simply lets you mold chakra onto two fingers, which allows the user to cut through metallic string and rope.

So I started to practice. Remembering what my old sensei told me, I tried to focus on the intent.

'Okay, just imagine a flame, like a small blowtorch, on the ends of my fingers.' I moved a minute amount of chakra to coat my middle and index fingers and pictured my chakra heating up and igniting.

Sure enough, it was that simple, and I had a blowtorch-like flame flickering on the ends of my fingers. I tested it on a couple of leaves and branches and saw that it had decent cutting power.

Now, I just had to practice it until I could form it instantaneously. As it turns out, the reading on basic chakra theory I did during the academy was helpful. It talks about something akin to muscle memory, just for your chakra. You can create a 'chakra memory' by performing a specific action with your chakra multiple times. Chakra can also remember how you change its properties. Such as creating fire nature chakra; the more times you do it, the easier it gets.

Of course, this aspect of chakra depends mostly on talent and affinity, which thanks to the system, I have in spades.

About 20 minutes later, I could perform Fire Release: Two instantly. I moved on to the one I was most excited about; the Ember Clone Technique.

The clones made from this technique aren't very strong, only having 1/10th of the user's abilities. It's also fragile and dispels easily. On the other hand, you can detonate it.

Oh. Yeah.

So I started to practice. Changing my chakra to fire nature was already easy, so it was the intent that mattered here. I conceptualized the flame differently this time. Instead of pure heat, such as the effect of mirages, which happen when light passes through two different temperatures of air.

I imagined the air heating up, and creating an image of me. Then, I filled that image to the brim with powerful fire. I started forming the hand seals and thought,

'Fire Release, Ember Clone Technique!'

I looked over and saw… An acceptable result. It wasn't a perfect image by any means, but it wasn't bad either. So I moved on to the fun part. I reached out to the fire chakra in the clone and imagined one scene:

"Art is an explosion!"

And so it did. A lot bigger than I thought. So big, that it startled my sensei and two teammates.

"Kaen, what the fuck?!" Isamu exclaimed.

"Brat, what did you just do?" Fukumoto aksed.

"Well, I detonated the ember clone?" I… asked?

"Oh. Well maybe do it farther away next time. I'm too old for that shit." Fukumoto grumbled. Inwardly though, he was shocked. 'That explosion was big enough to qualify as a B-rank jutsu. What the hell were they feeding this brat?'

I, not realizing that my explosion was out of the norm, moved farther away and kept practicing. Not the explosion, of course, I don't want to burn down the training grounds.

About an hour later, I could form a perfect clone in about three seconds.

'Time to move on.'

The last jutsu on the list. Fire Release: Mythical Fire Flower Technique. This jutsu was basically a better version of the fireball jutsu, as it allowed you to blast multiple bursts of flame out of your mouth at an enemy. This one was a little more dangerous than the other jutsu I learned, as you had to coat your lungs and throat with chakra to prevent yourself from being burned.

That wasn't hard for me, as I was already pretty fire-resistant thanks to the system. I turned to face toward the open clearing, where no one was training and started to form chakra in my stomach.

I thought of the hottest flames imaginable, which were ironically Yamamoto's flames in bankai and formed them in my stomach. Unruly, angry flames that were just waiting to be released on whoever was unfortunate enough to oppose me. Then, I form the hand seals.

'Fire Release: Mythical Fire Flower Technique!'

The result was fantastic. I could feel the heat of the flames as they traveled up my throat and the intensity on my skin once released. It was beautiful.

'I think I might be a pyromaniac. Cool.'

I continued to spit fire until I ran out, which was about 5 blasts worth.

I grinned to myself. I'm definitely going to practice this until I can do it without hand seals.

I practiced for the last hour, then looked at my stats.

[Fire Release

Skills: [Shikai, lvl 1 (Locked: fire release too low)] [ Fire Release: Two, lvl 5 (max)] [Fire Release: Ember Clone Technique, lvl 9] [Fire Release: Mythical Fire Flower Technique, lvl 8]

Progress: 5%]

[Chakra

Skills: [Leaf-sticking, lvl 5 (max)] [Tree-walking, lvl 10 (max)] [Water-walking, lvl 15 (max)]

[Clone jutsu, lvl 15 (max)] [Transformation jutsu, lvl 15 (max)] [Substitution jutsu, lvl 20 (max)]

Progress: 58%]

'That's good progress. Looks like I have a talent for fire manipulation. Who would've thought?'

I didn't have much time to bask in my awesomeness for long, though.

"That's enough training for now. It's time for your first mission." Fukumoto said.

"Oh, yeah! I've been waiting for years to do missions. What are we doing first? Oh, I hope we get to leave Konoha. Maybe an escort mission?" Isamu rambled.

Our sensei just smirked and let him keep wondering. Ah, this cruel man.

We made our way to the missions desk and Fukumoto addressed the chunin working there.

"I've got a fresh team and need a D-rank."

The chunin saw Isamu's hopeful expression and smirked.

"I think I've got just the one," he said as he handed Fukumoto our mission.

"Heh. Good one." And we walked out.

"So, what did we get?" Isamu asked once we were back outside.

"Babysitting."

"Aweso- wait, what?"

"You heard me. Babysitting," he grinned viciously.

"You've gotta be kidding me…"

I sighed, "That's just how it is, Isamu."

Even Ayame looked off-put by our 'mission.'

This is gonna suck, isn't it?

//////// 4 hours later ////////

"Finally, we're free! I thought it would never end."

I just sighed at Isamu's antics. It did suck though. The lady we were babysitting for was a bitch. I mean, she even got Ayame to call her a bitch behind her back, so it must be true.

"That's it for official training today. You brats can go do whatever til tomorrow." Fukumoto said.

And he's gone. That was fast.

"Well, I'm gonna start training again, If you guys want to join me," I said.

"Sure!"

"Hm."

And so we headed back to training ground 6 for some more training. Isamu and Ayame started practicing their respective jutsu, while I sat down to think of a new training plan.

After a couple minutes, I had it ready.

1st and 2nd hours: Training with the team.

3rd-6th hours: D-rank missions.

7th hour: Lunch

8th-10th hour: Fire Release training

11th-12th hour: Taijutsu and Kenjutsu training

13th hour: Dinner

14th-15th hour: One-punch man routine, with weights.

16th hour: Bedtime.

Okay, this will last me about a month, when we will probably start doing C-rank missions.

With that done, I started to train.

////////// A/N /////////

Hello people. Thanks for the positive response so far, it's nice to have my hard work appreciated. Also as far as chakra theory is, it was my idea. I don't know if they explain it in Naruto ever and I don't care. I like my theory so that's how it's going to work and it feels like it makes sense. So let me know what you think about it. Next chapter is the first C-rank mission. Which might go horribly wrong. Who knows? Anyway, leave a review!