The next morning started with a quick shower with Ino before heading to the gates of Konoha to say goodbye to Sakura and Hinata.
“How did it go?” I ask Hinata.
“About as expected… they congratulated me but backhandedly commented on how it was a waste of an opportunity for someone untalented like me.”
“I’m sure you will get a chance to prove them wrong when you return Hinata. Be more confident.”
I had already shared with Hinata what information I had on the workings of water jutsu derived from the Hydrification technique.She must still learn about her specific water mix and its properties but no hydrification jutsu is weak, there are techniques such as shooting water bullets or enlarging her body with water simulating Akimichi Yang-style or she can even go for weirder routes, such as poisoning herself and shooting out poisoned water.
I also had a couple more… modern ideas I shared with Hinata for her to try as well.
“How did it go for you Sakura?”
“It was good, they miss seeing me but they understand”
It’s good to know at least someone has a healthy family connection on our team.
Both me and Anko are orphans while Hinata’s clan is quite spartan so it’s up to Sakura to demonstrate a healthy relationship.
“Have a nice trip”
I sneak a last kiss with Sakura and Hinata before bidding farewell until the exams.
Though we say goodbye I keep chatting with them for the next hour as we test the range of my telepathy.
It cut off at around 50km, it’s a bit of a shame only I can establish the channel for us to talk, and I can’t tell if they enter the range before attempting The good news is the chakra signal it lets out is small to the point of remaining undetectable in the natural chakra existing in the world.
After saying goodbye to ino who went back to her family and her team I went up the our usual training ground…
I say ‘our’ but it was now it was down to just me and Anko and she kept me waiting for over an hour before showing up, she better not have done it on purpose…
“Good Morning Yami.”
She totally did it on purpose…I narrow my eyes and greet back in a deadpan tone.
“Good morning Anko.“So can I finally get to know what I’ll be doing?”
“Special training”
… no shit Sherlock…
“And what exactly will I be training?”
“For now, just Lightning release with me, among other things.”
Oh, finally I get to do that thing.
“So how does one practice lightning release?”
Anko pulls out a scroll and from it comes a box full of lightning bulbs.
“Simply channel chakra into one of these, too little and nothing happens, too much and it’ll break.”
“Hmm, I’m guessing I can manage around 10 clones maximum right now, I’ll do 5 for a while before replacing with another 5 every hour”
“What clones?”
“Ohh yeah, I guess most ninjas don’t know this trick. You know how shadow clones share memories?”
“Well duh, that’s even taught in the academy. Physical clones share memories hence their common use in infiltration missions.”
“Yeah and with those memories comes experience, so with 5 clones doing the exercise alongside me I’ll be able to learn a lot fast. It’s not exactly linear since the memories aren’t transferred until the clones are released but it can shorten this kind of practical training regimen immensely”
“Ohh that’s a neat trick”
‘It came from the vision’ I say telepathically to Anko.
‘Interesting, who found it?’
‘Kakashi found out about it but the biggest abuser was Naruto who created thousands of clones to shorten his wind nature transformation training’
‘Geez, that amount of chakra shouldn't be allowed in this world...’
‘Yeah he learned it in 2 days… I’ll be happy enough if I can do it in a month’
‘Don’t sell yourself short, brute force isn’t the best way to master nature transformation, understanding is, and you're in another world compared to Naruto when it comes to that.’“Well… get to it!”
"... I just had another idea..."
I summon 5 clones and have each grab its own bulb.
Relying on my experience having created tiny directed short circuits in a snake’s brain I was finally able to pinpoint the exact feeling of converting my chakra to a directed current by the end of the day after having swapped my active clones several times throughout the day.
To achieve a directed current I had to flow my chakra through the same object I was looking to electrify. It was not optimal, since I just wouldn’t work without a proper circuit with literally throwing out rivers of chakra.
Either way, my clones did a great job. While using several clones to learn or do mentally exhausting work just leaves the user dead tired by the end, this kind of repetitive, mind-numbing, inspiration-looking practice is just the perfect duty for them leaving me barely winded in chakra or mental exhaustion by the end of the day.
It took me a week after that for my clones to master creating an alternating current, the proper way to use Lightning Release.In essence, you vibrate the chakra quickly to create waves of flowing electrons matching the frequency.
I also found a third way to use lightning release, by channeling my chakra in a rotating circle of chakra expelled from 3 tenketsu in my hands I was able to simulate a generator which could then output electricity at a much greater volume but uncontrollable.
My clones did a great job, though they didn’t quite approve of how I'd be up on a tree with Anko while they were left with the boring work.
Meanwhile, during the afternoon, Anko started teaching me the basics of infiltration and espionage. Stuff such as how to blend in, how to send and receive Konoha’s encrypted messages, and known methods for detecting spies and evading espionage.
After a week where I achieved passable results in lightning released I was going to get new teachers...