7 Chapter 7: Academy Days 3
During the next shinobi lesson, their teacher taught the Leaf Concentration Exercise to the whole class. It seemed to be harder than he expected for an average 6 to 7-year-old kid, as almost everyone besides him and Neji needed a few tries to make it even stick for a few seconds. Neji probably already learned it before, since he could already control his chakra before he even joined the academy.
Since the main trick for it was concentration, it was no wonder that kids would struggle with it, but it was a good lesson for them. He, with a far more mature mind, easily managed to hold it for over 10 minutes after the first day of practice. As long as he remained focused and didn't think too much of other things, it was easy. He even managed to add other leaves to it.
Tekku soon moved on to further advanced chakra control practices in his own training, like tree walking. After a few days, he managed to walk to the top of his practice tree. For an adult, this wasn't that hard to manage since most of it was only a matter of concentration.
Instead, the true problem for him was the amount of chakra inside his body. So he trained his reserves every day until their limit, and soon found a few tricks in that tree walking exercise that weren't visible in canon. To truly master it, the requirement wasn't just reaching the top of a tree; no, that was just the beginning. True mastery came from reaching it with a minimal amount of chakra wasted in the process.
So, after getting a grasp on how to stand and walk on water, he returned to tree walking and focused on refining his control there, trying to use less chakra each time he repeated the practice. The same went for water walking too. He put a mix of both exercises into his daily schedule in the forest for the first two months of the second half of the school year.
His progress on the first floor of the academy library was also impressive; he almost completed the whole non-chakra curriculum and was one hundred percent confident in passing the written exam right now. Instead, he focused more of his studying time on experimentation.
Through hunting and gathering his food every day in the forest, and his side job as a milk deliverer, he managed to save enough money to regularly perform some smaller experiments. For now, he just focused on confirming the basic physical laws and studying simple properties of chakra, basically laying the foundation for his future research.
Experiments like injecting chakra into fruits like apples in order to observe the effect on them. What happened? An apple injected with chakra stayed fresher longer than one without. Of course, he repeated the experiment multiple times to confirm the results.
Next, he repeated the process on apples in different states, with different amounts of chakra, multiple injections in smaller amounts, and similar. From this set of experiments, he could make a lot of observations and draw conclusions from them. For example, a low amount of chakra injected over multiple times with time between them kept the apple fresher longer than one large injection of the same amount. Chakra dispersed more quickly if there was a larger amount in the fruit.
He also confirmed that the chakra was affecting the natural cell degeneration since he could observe the same effects on a cut apple, while a mashed apple or further processed apple wasn't affected at all since their cells were destroyed in the process.
An uneducated mind would just question what the point of these kinds of experiments was, while a scientific mind like his formed further theories and questions he needed to answer in the future. Like, is it only the physical part of the chakra, the yang chakra, that has an effect, or also the spiritual part, the yin chakra? If not, what does the yin chakra do? Would the effect be stronger if he had good enough chakra control to be able to inject only yang chakra? And similar questions that he had to answer once he had better equipment and better chakra control.
Tekku repeated similar experiments with different materials like other food, wood, metals, and so on. He also experimented with different applications of chakra that could further his chakra control. For now, he tried to create chakra strings like the puppeteers in Suna.
Another part of his training that he started combined with his experimentation was his calligraphy practice. He had enough money to afford a brush, ink, and scrolls to work on it as he learned that it was the basis of a lot of fuinjutsu. There were more advanced techniques, but it all started with calligraphy. For now, he practiced his calligraphy while neatly documenting his observations, theories, and conclusions from his experiments. He had enough money to buy materials for practicing his calligraphy but not enough to just waste them on random practice.
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"Okay, class, today we will learn the first of the three ninjutsu you require for your graduation. We shinobi in Konoha call them the Academy Three, but don't underestimate them. Every strong ninja has them mastered to such a degree that they are even able to perform them seamlessly. They can save your life in a time of need. The first one of the Academy Three is the Henge no Jutsu (Transformation). All you need to perform it are the proper handsigns and the tiniest bit of chakra control," explained their teacher before he demonstrated three handsigns. "Watch carefully!"
With a small poof of white smoke, Funeno-sensei turned into a copy of the Third Hokage, with his white and red Hokage robes and his hat with the word "Fire" on it. "Remember to have a clear image of whatever you are transforming into in your mind, or you will have flaws in your transformation that others could identify. When you use the technique, you take on the properties of whatever you are turning into, but the more different it is from you, the more focus, chakra control, and chakra it will take. That's why transforming into inanimate objects is much harder than transforming into living beings."
'I see. If I had a ton of chakra, couldn't I just transform into a meteor and destroy a village or whatever? Maybe the cost raises exponentially and becomes impossible to pay at some point since you would have to make up mass with chakra. Though with a big summon like Gamabunta, it should be possible,' thought Tekku as he watched his teacher once again perform the proper handsigns, this time much slower so the students could see them better.
"Now, try to use it! Imagine a person you want to turn into as detailed as possible. Move your chakra into your hands and do the three handsigns!" instructed their teacher the class as they tried to repeat the handsigns their teacher showed them.
A lot of white smoke spread through the classroom as it became filled with different people. Most of them looked really funny with big ears, crooked noses, thick lips, and other deformations. Tekku himself managed to almost perfectly copy the Third Hokage; the symbol of fire was missing on his hat.
Only one student had no transformation at all. Rock Lee stood there, confused, as he tried to perform the jutsu again and nothing happened. "You need to concentrate chakra in your hands, Lee!" added their teacher as he saw that the boy performed the handsigns correctly. Even with an unclear image, some transformation should happen. So the only mistake could be that he wasn't using his chakra properly.
"I am doing that, Sensei. But nothing happens," said Lee as he tried once again.
"Maybe your chakra wasn't unlocked properly? Can you feel your chakra moving out of your stomach?" asked their teacher, equally confused.
"Yes, I can clearly feel it moving," nodded Lee while still trying to cast the jutsu.
'Poor boy. So that's what happens if Rock Lee tries to use ninjutsu. Simply nothing,' thought Tekku as he watched the boy desperately try to use the jutsu. Academy students started with the Transformation Jutsu because it was the easiest of the three to cause a reaction. Even if the transformation wasn't perfect, some form of transformation would happen, even with a bad mental image and the tiniest amount of chakra.
Their teacher, having realized where the problem with the boy could be, only sighed as he said, "Keep trying, Lee-kun. If you don't manage to make anything happen, come to me after class. I will take you to an expert to check your chakra network."
Neji, with his Byakugan activated, could see where the problem was. "Hmph, fate decided that he will never be a shinobi. He can't control enough chakra to even use the simplest jutsu. You should give up on becoming a shinobi."
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AN: I hope you enjoyed this new Chapter. If you did leave some Power Stones. Thank You!
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