The following "Chasing Mastery" chapters are all made up of details regarding Shiki's training and the development of his various jutsu.
If this type of topic doesn't interest you as it is a bit info dumpy, you can skip them without losing pretty much any plot but don't complain when abilities you know nothing about show up.
I enjoy writing these though so I'll still keep them in the story for fellow enjoyers of chapters for training and development of abilities.
The first chapter after the "Chasing Mastery" ones will have a status sheet but it won't have any explanations as to what each ability does, only their names.
*
Shiki needed to perfect his current jutsu, further his mastery of fuinjutsu, train his five elemental releases while learning new jutsu to make use of them, train his Yin Release and genjutsu,also train his Yang Release and medical jutsu and finally, develop the Nirvana Seal.
Yin and Yang Releases as well as medical jutsu and fuinjutsu were the most complex and absolute requirements for the Nirvana Seal: Transcendence, as such, the boy decided to put most of his shadow clones on that.
Ultimately, he decided on five hundred clones, not his limit but a number that would allow him to collect the experience from all the clones regularly without collapsing due to mental exhaustion.
One hundred clones would be practicing and refining Shiki's jutsu, the one he already knew. In particular, he was looking for the completion of the evolved Dragon Heart which he intended to name Dragon Aspect and the improvement of the Yin-Yang Surge.
The latter in particular was something he saw potential in but had not figured out a path quite yet. It was a fine jutsu that established a positive feedback loop between his physical and spiritual bodies for a large boost until the loop collapsed.
Currently, this collapse would leave him significantly weakened, a flaw that needed to be resolved if the boy wanted to get any regular use out of the jutsu.
As for the former, there was not much to say, it was the foundation for an large overall increase to his prowess so its importance could not be overstated.
Shiki planned to assign fifty of the hundred shadow clones to Dragon Aspect and the secondary Dragon Slumber, twenty to Yin Yang Surge while thirty were set to practice the other more regular jutsu.
Another hundred clones would dedicate themselves to Fuinjutsu, fifty of them on general studies and improvement of his original seals while the other fifty got started on the Nirvana Seal: Transcendence.
One hundred more would practice Yin Release with seventy practicing it in the general sense and the other thirty focusing on genjutsu.
For Yang Release, sixty would practice it in the general sense while forty would focus purely on medical jutsu.
Finally, the last hundred would split into five groups of twenty, one for each of the Five Basic Elemental Releases.
And with that all decided, it was time for action.
*
Let us start with the simplest practice, the Five Basic Elemental Releases.
Having spent a lot of time training his affinities, Shiki had accumulated plenty of interesting ideas on how to develop his elemental jutsu in the meanwhile.
Now that his affinities for the releases were catching up and he had Nirvana Art: Elemental to assist him, while he quickly learned and mastered the basic jutsu already available to learn, the boy was finally ready to begin exploring some of these ideas.
Starting with Fire Release, it had been an element Shiki considered underdeveloped in the original series so he had thought up plenty of interesting jutsu though he did not yet know if they were actually feasible.
The crux of many of these ideas lay in the jutsu Fire Release: Flame Bullet, which Shiki had already grasped, in part due to its potential for future development.
It was a versatile jutsu, capable of being used in stream, big fireball and serial small fireballs formats but the truly interesting part was its mechanical difference to other fire jutsu.
Instead of the user just breathing out fire, they instead used their chakra to generate flammable oil which ignited as it was spat out.
Shiki's idea was to mess with the composition of this chakra based oil to change the common characteristics of the regular Flame Bullet, creating new jutsu.
And in his training, the boy discovered this was indeed a viable path of development.
The first result was a jutsu Shiki called Fire Release: Ghostflame Bullet which he placed conservatively at B rank in power and difficulty.
It was significantly hotter than the regular Flame Bullet but its defining characteristic was its invisible flames.
By changing the oil produced by Flame Bullet to mimic some of the characteristics of methanol, Shiki managed to increase the temperature and efficiency of the jutsu while making it produce invisible fire.
A high ranking shinobi's enhanced senses could notice the flame pretty easily making the effectiveness of its main characteristic a bit limited in high level combat but it served as a proof of concept just fine.
And with the concept proven, it was inevitable that the boy proceeded to go absolutely wild in attempting to create the most horrifying variant of Flame Bullet he could come up with.
The result?
Fire Release: Napalm.
The name was more of an inspiration rather than an accurate description as some of its characteristics differed significantly.
It burned hotter and brighter, even underwater, it was basically liquid fire that could not be put out, with significant mass and a gel-like consistency that made it stick to objects and people.
A war crime in jutsu form that Shiki determined to be A rank in terms of power and difficulty but, considering how easily it was to burn yourself to death through poor execution, the A rank difficulty was far more intimidating than for other jutsu.
And with his mind tuned into the war crime mentality, Shiki came up with two more ideas.
One was an improvement to Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning, a signature jutsu of Asuma that, despite its name, allowed the user to breathe out a cloud of gunpowder.
The other, was an idea to pass onto the clones practicing medical jutsu, a path of development for the Ninja Art: Poison Mist.
After all, isn't Poison Mist just the gateway to serious chemical warfare?
Of course, Shiki also spent time on more regular Fire Release.
Basic jutsu he learned more for experience than anything else or as a basis to develop something of his own later down the line.
Like Fire Release: Dragon Flame and its two variants Great Dragon Flame and Dragon Flame Song as well as Dragon Flame Liner which was just a focused Dragon Flame which he gave the idea for to Mei.
Or Ash Pile Burning for his war criminal aspirations.
Even simple stuff like Flame Attack, a melee use of Fire Release that unleashed flames with every taijutsu strike.
Additionally, as a form of assistance in developing Dragon Aspect, he endeavoured to learn the Fire Release: Chakra Mode. These chakra modes for the Five Basic Elements were not nearly as rare or hard to master as the boy originally thought.
Though they still had a major downside in that the user was limited to that particular element while using its respective chakra mode.
The only issue was having a body capable of handling the raging elemental chakra which, with his special Ryumon adaptability, Shiki could build through masochistic practice of the Chakra Modes.
Finally, a jutsu he had encountered early on in Mito's Library but never paid much attention to beyond memorizing as it was way out of his league before, a fire jutsu used by Kashin Koji, Jiraya's clone.
Fire Release: True Fire of Samadhi.
At times compared to Amaterasu, it was activated by having the target make contact with an object or small being containing the user's chakra, even something like a kunai, which would result in an immediate spontaneous combustion.
The flames were "said to be inextinguishable by wind or rain, and burn so quickly that regenerative techniques cannot keep up with them, leaving the victim's body completely charred in mere moments".
Needless to say, it felt like something worthy of learning though perhaps a bit out of his reach still.
*
Next up, Water Release.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -