21 21: New World Safari Tour
A monster stalked through the brush and vegetation of the Ancient Forest. Its claws dug into the bark of a particularly large tree that it had chosen as its ambush perch as it began to shake the static electricity within its spine and tail into life.
Its chosen prey wandered closer... a full pack of them, including the much larger and more dangerous alpha... but it only needed to grab and stun one of them with its lightning to make off with a solid meal for the day.
It pounced, spreading its wing-flaps before collision to prevent a crash-landing and promptly snatching up a yellow and green lizard - a Jagras - by the waist using its teeth. Lightning coursed through it and paralysed the poor thing before it leapt back up into the trees, the alpha Great Jagras now far below, roaring in indignation for the theft of one of its half-dozen smaller mates.
Seija was having a lot of fun watching the creatures of this world go about their lives. That one predator in particular was one she hadn't seen yet, a Tobi-Kadachi, according to the system.
[-Monster Species: Tobi-Kadachi-]
[Body-type: Fanged-Wyvern]
[Category: Large Monster]
[Body length, including tail: 11 meters]
[Traits: lightning chakra, snake senses]
[Rideability: 3/10, can glide short distances and is very agile in dense terrains such as the Ancient Forest, but is covered in spikes and electricity along its back. Very, very uncomfortable to ride.]
[Approximate individual threat level: Low Chunin]
It was not the first elemental creature that Seija had observed since she arrived in the summoning realm almost a week ago, but it was one of the few that were considered weak enough for her to summon at her current level of strength. Most other elemental creatures were simply too strong for her right now, with most of them being considered at least High Chunin or Low Jonin in terms of threat level.
Her stealth skills had increased slightly since arriving here, which she found greatly improved her odds of observing monsters unseen. They tended to run if they spotted her, preventing her from scanning them.
She had even been lucky enough to witness her first true Jonin-level monster just a day ago, when she spotted it flying high over a desert-like area called the Wildspire Waste dropping some kind of explosive objects on some poor, unsuspecting herbivores.
[-Monster Species: Bazelgeuse-]
[Body-type: Flying-Wyvern]
[Category: Large Monster]
[Body length including tail: 17 meters]
[Traits: fire chakra, explosion chakra, bomb scales]
[Rideability: 7.5/10, can fly long distances at above-average speed, however its top half is covered in smooth, shiny scales. Rider will need to use chakra to hold on at all times. Slow on land.]
[Approximate individual threat level: Jonin]
Naturally, this was far out of her range of creatures she could summon, for now. She couldn't wait for the day that it would be unlocked though. It was practically a living version of Deidara's explosive clay dragon.
So far though, her most sought after monster was one that she hadn't actually properly seen yet. She'd caught a glimpse of it fighting a Rathalos, a Chunin-rank Flying-Wyvern that could breathe balls of fire, but after serving the fire wyvern a brief beatdown her target had shot off into the forest before she could analyse it. And that was why she was here today, to search for it.
The reason she wanted to find it? Well, it had just interested her due to a specific ability it possessed. She didn't actually have any use for the creature thought-up yet, but it was the only one so far that was immune to her Byakugan's sight. That was significant. And so she wanted it tagged so that she could at least have one for herself in the future.
Trouble was, without her Byakugan she and her clones had to search for it with more mundane tracking techniques. Following footprints, examining the angle of the strange feather-like spines she had found dropped off its body, the markings it had left on trees here and there, and so on.
She heard a roar up ahead, and then immediately afterwards a feline snarl, almost like a mountain lion but much, much larger and louder. That got her hopes up and she dispelled her clones to make sure she would have enough chakra to give chase at high speed if she had to.
She followed the sounds of the carnage up ahead and came upon a large clearing split by a stream. On one side was a large, furred dinosaur looking monster that towered over her on its powerful hind legs. It was definitely the tallest creature she had seen so far.
On the other side... there it was. In all its feline-avian glory. A quadrupedal monster covered in black fur on its head and topside, and black scales on its underside. Its front limbs were muscular and seemed to have once been evolved to function as wings, now adapted to possess long, sharp blades. It had a black beak shaped like a feline monster's jaw, and each of its piercing yellow eyes were highlighted by a small streak of red fur around them.
[-Monster Species: Nargacuga-]
[Body-type: Flying-Wyvern]
[Category: Large Monster]
[Body length including tail: 16 meters]
[Traits: wing-blades, detachable spines, enhanced stealth, swift chakra]
[Rideability: 8/10, large, furred body. Easy to grip on to. Spines are restricted to only the tail, so they don't get in the way. Can glide short distances. Can leap long distances. Stealthy and extremely agile.]
[Approximate individual threat level: Jonin]
Once again it was too powerful for her to summon... but by the gods was it a beautiful creature to behold. Seija usually didn't care much for swords or other blades, but these were part of this monster's body and they gleamed in the light with every movement the creature made during its battle with the fire-breathing T-Rex before it.
'Hey Firewall, what does the 'swift chakra' in its stat sheet mean?'
"[It means that the monster naturally posesses the Swift Release nature transformation. As far as I am aware, this is not something that it had back in its original universe. An adaptation for the heightened power levels of the Naruto world, I would wager.]"
'Wait, this entire time these monsters have had chakra added on to them to make them stronger? That's not just how powerful they were in their old reality?'
"[Correct. They were meant to be fought in a video game after all. If they were too fast or powerful no player would have the reaction times to ever beat them. Conversely, they are now much easier to kill without a real HP Stat keeping them alive. In their old universe a hunt for one of these monsters would average roughly 10 to 20 minutes of straight combat for a full team of four players wielding oversized weapons, depending on the monster and the equipment. In this world the monsters could die in just one attack if you simply hit them hard enough.]" Firewall explained.
She returned her attention to the battle just in time to witness its conclusion. The dinosaur, an 'Anjanath', as the system called it, successfully struck the Nargacuga with a fireball which knocked it to the ground. She almost looked away as it reared up and prepared a second blast to finish off the beautiful creature, but then...
*Slice*
*Thud*
Its head dropped off its body. She blinked. The Nargacuga was now sitting on the other side of the stream, right next to where she was hiding in the bushes, and was licking the blood off its rightmost wing-blade as the Anjanath's decapitated carcass collapsed into the water, creating a small dam.
'Jesus... Swift Release indeed. Looks like I was worried for nothing. I thought I might be able to follow it if I just used all my chakra for the Body Flicker Jutsu, but that speed goes way beyond what I'm currently capable of.'
The Nargacuga glanced at her as she stood up to try and touch it. The instant she stepped within ten feet of it, it vanished into the forest with a burst of sudden movement.
'Damn. One day, when I can summon it for myself...' She lamented that a monster capable of one-shotting an Anjanath would be skittish enough to run from her. She would simply have to wait.
'Well, that wait will be a bit faster if I get to work now. It's been a fun week, these 'wyverns' are awesome. But it's time I get to work figuring out this Kekkei Genkai.' She turned her hand into steel for a moment, just to confirm she could still do it, before changing it back and heading for the teleporter back to the ship.
- - -
Day 8: She sat down on an open patch of rock on the cliffside, right next to the ship that acted as her home within this realm.
She'd been having a lot of fun exploring the various regions, but she was now realising that exploring all of it and finding all of its residents was going to take a long, long time. Each zone was hundreds of miles wide, and each Large Monster possessed vast territories within that space. She would not find the more rare and powerful monsters any time soon.
Now, it was training time. Today, she would be practising Steel Release and begin testing the efficiency of training Taijutsu with weights. If she wanted to get fast enough to out-pace a Nargacuga in the future, she'd need to train just like Rock Lee would.
'First thing's first, how much of my body can I turn into steel right now?'
She activated her Kekkei Genkai and quickly found that it was currently highly limited. Specifically, she had only unlocked the part that she had desired when it had awoken: her arms.
She would need to train this like any other element, weaving it through her whole chakra network and studying the effects of each pattern she formed through her Tenketsu points to make proper use of it. There were hundreds of ways to make it flow, and she was really starting to develop an immense respect for the people who learned how to manipulate elements like this without the ability to physically see their chakra pathways using the Byakugan. They had to do it by nothing but feel.
She immediately summoned twelve clones and began with the second test, how far could she brute-force it before she had to get delicate. She activated her Byakugan and closely monitored her chakra network and the steel chakra itself as it flowed. She forced the steel to move, pushing it up the path of her arm.
Suddenly to her left one of her clones was destroyed and she reviewed its memories. A shiver went down her spine as she saw her clone perform the frankly suicidal test of attempting to move the chakra up into her skull. This promptly caused the clone's brain to turn into a lump of solid steel, killing it instantly.
It seemed a touch of delicacy was indeed required to learn this. She immediately reassigned six clones to keep doing what they were doing, while she got to work on weight training and sparring with her other clones. She also added another training type to her list for the next couple of days in light of her Steel Release experiments: Rasengan Training.
She would need superior chakra control, and what better way to obtain it than to practice the definitive chakra control Ninjutsu that may or may not have actually even been invented yet?
- - -
Days 9 and 10: As she focused on her still-failing Rasengan, she caved in and ended up resorting to the Naruto method. She summoned a shadow clone to assist in maintaining control over the Jutsu. To her shame, this worked instantly. In the evening of day 9, she held for the first time a fully functional white Rasengan and wondered how she couldn't create it on her own when she could hold and maintain it like this with such ease...
She smashed it into a nearby boulder and marveled as the whole thing shattered like glass and the debris was blasted away in a wide fan of dust and pebbles.
She utilised her Byakugan to try and replicate the exact movements of the chakra that had taken place when she used the clones, and came to an even worse realisation:
It was so easy.
She could've done this so much earlier. She had simply missed, this entire time, that the Jutsu would need an outer layer of chakra to hold it all in place. She had simply assumed that the rotational force would hold the chakra in, she hadn't even considered that all she needed was another layer of protection around the sphere. The clone's chakra had automatically added that layer on top through the clone's hands, which is why it worked instantly when the clone was present.
This embarrassment in mind, she dropped Rasengan training for the day and got back to weighted sparring for the rest of days 9 and 10.
- - -
Day 13: Having practiced her chakra rotation with the Rasengan through-out days 11 and 12, she felt confident to return to her Steel Release training for another try.
This time without any clones on hand, she began calmly cycling her chakra around her body while looking inwards at her own network with the Byakugan and the Steel Release active at the same time. And she found something within the steel chakra, like a pair of fine black and white threads.
It explained everything that she knew about why even the greatest researchers like Orochimaru couldn't figure out how to re-create a Kekkei Genkai for themselves.
'...That must be Yin and Yang chakra... God damn it, it feels so obvious. That must be what causes Kekkei Genkai to function in the first place. This is why you can't just make a Kekkei Genkai on the spot. It's why you have to have a bloodline for it to function! The bloodline contains the Yin and Yang pattern pre-saved within it. So you can't just fuse two elements together even if you're a master at both; if you can't use Yin-Yang Release on your own like an Otsutsuki or you don't have the pattern for it built into your DNA, it will never work.'
Seija had discovered a second new theory after her theory of chakra quality. And it spelled a whole lot more training for her, because of one simple reason:
'I suck at Yin Release. My body is getting even stronger thanks to my training, and I've practiced Medical Ninjutsu to a competent level, so my Yang chakra manipulation isn't too bad. My Yin chakra manipulation on the other hand... yikes.'
She was forced to admit that she had screwed up her training at some point. Her body's Yin and Yang chakra balance was fine, of course. She wasn't Naruto, with his pure-Yang Nine Tails sealed inside his body. But her control over her Yin chakra was abysmal. She had only ever learned one pure-Yin technique... the E-rank academy Clone Jutsu.
'This... might be why Steel Release unlocked when I was frustrated at mom during our spar. Yin is the spirit half of chakra, and is intrinsically connected to my emotions. When my emotions were high, the Yin chakra was stimulated, and one of my Kekkei Genkai awoke from it.' She thought. It sounded plausible, at least.
Now... she decided to train her Yin manipulation at a later date. Best not to get started on something unfamiliar when she only had one more day left in this realm before she would have to leave the summoning realm and move out of the town.
She was looking forward to getting out and seeing Nagato and his parents, Fuso and Ise again. Hearing more of their travel stories would give her a small semblance of comfort for the coming days once they leave on another journey.
