“Water Release: Wild Water Wave!”
A high-pressure stream of water burst from Kuroda Ren’s mouth, striking a large tree more than ten meters away and snapping it cleanly in half.
“Finally.”
Kuroda Ren was delighted.
After spending the entire night practicing, he had finally mastered Water Release: Wild Water Wave to a level where it could actually be used in combat.
Compared with monsters like Uchiha Itachi, who could supposedly learn the Great Fireball Technique after seeing it only once, his speed was naturally nowhere close.
But compared with ordinary shinobi, his learning speed was already extremely fast.
Even Imai Nobuyuki, who was considered one of the stronger Chūnin, had spent an entire month mastering this C-rank ninjutsu when he first learned it.
Of course, the main reason Kuroda Ren could learn it so quickly was that his chakra reserves were large enough to support such intensive practice.
“One Water Shockwave barely costs me any chakra.”
Kuroda Ren opened his system panel and checked.
A standard Water Release: Wild Water Wave consumed 50 chakra.
With his current maximum of nearly 1,200 chakra, he could use it sixty times.
But simply being able to cast it many times wasn’t particularly meaningful.
At Kuroda Ren’s current proficiency, casting Water Release: Wild Water Wave required roughly two seconds of preparation.
Shinobi were extremely fast.
Creating a two-second opening in actual combat required an extremely good understanding of the battlefield.
Alternatively, he could find a way to increase the speed at which he cast ninjutsu.
For example, by increasing his hand-seal speed or improving his chakra control.
Training in these areas was naturally already included in Kuroda Ren’s plans.
The former—practicing hand seals—was something that required long-term training.
As for the latter, he had already completed the classic exercises of tree climbing and water walking.
He hadn’t yet obtained any more advanced training methods.
Perhaps he could ask Teacher Imai Nobuyuki about advanced methods for training Water Release chakra nature transformation and chakra control?
C-rank Water Release techniques didn’t have particularly demanding requirements when it came to nature transformation.
That was why someone like Kuroda Ren, who had almost no foundation in the area, could still learn the technique after spending enough time practicing.
But if he wanted to further strengthen this ninjutsu, he would definitely have to delve into chakra nature transformation.
Apart from these basic forms of training, he also needed to find ways to increase the technique’s power.
Kuroda Ren had two ideas.
The first was to increase the amount of chakra injected into the technique.
By putting more chakra into a single ninjutsu, he could increase its overall scale.
The most classic example was Uchiha Madara’s Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation against the Allied Shinobi Forces in the original story.
He greatly increased the amount of chakra invested in the technique, thereby expanding its scale.
The individual destructive power might not increase by much, but its coverage could reach a terrifying level.
The second method was to increase the power of the “compressed water stream.”
Taken to its extreme, this would develop toward the direction of Water Release: Water Severing Wave.
Considering that Kuroda Ren wasn’t familiar with chakra nature transformation yet, he decided to try the first method.
He would increase the amount of chakra injected into Water Release: Wild Water Wave and use that to expand its scale.
After sorting out his thoughts, Kuroda Ren formed the hand seals again.
Dragon—Ox—Rabbit.
A large amount of chakra was transformed into Water Release chakra, gathered inside his mouth, compressed, and then released all at once.
Water Release: Wild Water Wave!
A massive torrent of water poured forth, surging toward the area ahead.
A small section of the training ground was completely engulfed by the rushing water, turning it into a muddy expanse.
The chakra inside Kuroda Ren’s body was also rapidly depleted.
In only a few seconds, more than half of it had been consumed.
“Six hundred chakra.”
“That should be equivalent to twelve standard Water Shockwaves.”
“But the actual effect is only roughly equivalent to seven or eight…”
Kuroda Ren frowned slightly.
“The power and scale have definitely increased, but the increase isn’t nearly as large as I expected.”
“Is simply increasing the amount of chakra I inject ineffective?”
“Or did I make a mistake somewhere?”
Having consumed more than half his chakra in a single attack, even Kuroda Ren—with his enormous chakra reserves—felt a trace of fatigue.
He didn’t continue training.
Instead, he found a clean place to sit and rest while carefully thinking through the process of casting Water Release: Wild Water Wave just now.
“The chakra injection and transformation processes were both fine.”
“But once the technique was released, its power and scale were much smaller than expected.”
“If my perception is correct, a large amount of chakra was simply wasted during the process of transforming it into water…”
“Is my chakra control insufficient?”
“Or is my nature transformation still too weak?”
Various questions surfaced in Kuroda Ren’s mind.
He silently made a note of them, intending to ask Imai Nobuyuki about them at school the next day.
A Chūnin teacher might have a limited ceiling in terms of strength, but at Kuroda Ren’s current level, Imai Nobuyuki could still answer most of his questions.
Lost in thought, Kuroda Ren failed to notice a figure passing by in the distance.
The figure suddenly stopped upon seeing him.
“Kuroda Ren?”
Hatake Kakashi looked at the training ground, which had been thoroughly battered by the torrent of water, and fell into thought.
“Water Release ninjutsu?”
“With an area this large, could my Earth Release stop it?”
“What are you looking at, Kakashi?”
He looked toward Kuroda Ren and immediately understood.
“Looks like your classmate’s talent for ninjutsu isn’t bad either.”
“You’ve found yourself a good opponent, Kakashi.”
“I’ll defeat him.”
Hatake Kakashi remained expressionless, but his voice was filled with powerful confidence and pride.
“You say that now, but it’s time to eat.”
“You’ve been training for so long.
You can’t neglect your meals!”
Hatake Sakumo burst into laughter and pulled his son away.
“How about barbecue today?”
“The Akimichi family’s barbecue is second to none.”
The two figures gradually disappeared into the distance.
Kuroda Ren hadn’t noticed them at all.
After staying there for a while longer and thinking about the problem with his ninjutsu, Kuroda Ren soon left as well.
The next day.
Kuroda Ren sought out Imai Nobuyuki and asked about the problem he had encountered while practicing Water Release: Wild Water Wave the previous day.
“Increasing the scale of the ninjutsu?”
Imai Nobuyuki froze.
As an ordinary Chūnin, his chakra reserves could only be described as average.
Whenever he used a ninjutsu, he had to calculate his chakra expenditure carefully.
How could he possibly know how to massively increase chakra input to expand a technique’s scale?
Of course, just because he couldn’t use such a method in actual combat didn’t mean he didn’t understand the underlying theory.
“This is knowledge that ordinary Elite Chūnin, or even Tokubetsu Jōnin, would normally only come into contact with.”
“But since your chakra reserves are so enormous, there’s no harm in telling you about it early.”
Imai Nobuyuki gave him some guidance.
“First, you need to improve your chakra control and your chakra nature transformation.”
“Only when both of these aspects are sufficiently strong can you ensure that you still maintain perfect control over your ninjutsu after increasing the amount of chakra you inject.”
“The reason your ninjutsu’s power and scale didn’t increase as much as expected after you increased the chakra input is precisely because your chakra control and nature transformation are still insufficient.”
“As for the specific training methods for these two areas, I’ll teach those to you as well.”
As he spoke, Imai Nobuyuki took out two scrolls and handed them to Kuroda Ren.
“These contain the training methods for chakra control and Water Release nature transformation.”
“Take them and study them.”
“If there’s anything you don’t understand, come and ask me.”
◇ Bonus Chapter Goals ◇