Learning The First Three Techniques and Kenjutsu!

By the time Naruto reached the training grounds, he was so giddy that he was unable to wait anymore. There was something about learning Ninjutsu that he couldn't get enough of. He supposed it was because, in his opinion, it was the most diverse ninja art.

It enamoured him that just changing the hand seals used or altering the moulding of chakra could cause such drastic changes to the type, size, shape, and power of the resulting technique.

...

Naruto first picked up the Shunshin Technique purely because it was the easiest to learn while also being the most useful to his current situation. All of the missions he was performing were based in Konohagakure or surrounding areas, which meant there was 0 chance of fighting.

In addition, Kakashi had yet to start any sparring or training. However, he occasionally pulled the team to the training grounds to teach them various formations and teamwork exercises.

Therefore, the Shunshin was probably the most practical technique out of the 3 at the moment. It would allow him, including his clones, to reach their destinations quicker, which meant he could perform more D-rank missions in a day.

After reading the description, hand seals, uses, and the limitations of the Shunshin, Naruto summarised it.

The method to perform the Shunshin was simple. All you had to do was hold your hands in a Tiger seal while envisioning where you wanted to be. This will result in chakra flooding every cell for an instant, allowing the user to move much faster than at normal speeds.

One of the other notes had stated that the Shunshin wasn't particularly suited for very long-distance travel. This is because the high concentration of chakra that the user puts into their muscles (especially the legs) results in the muscles wearing down at a quicker rate.

If the Shunshin technique is overused, it can result in muscle damage and nerve damage in more severe cases. However, this can be mitigated by having stronger leg muscles that can take the same amount of chakra without feeling any strain.

After thoroughly reading the scroll, Naruto stood up and held his hands in a Tiger seal, closing his eyes. He visualised himself standing on a tree branch approximately 100 meters away. Chakra quickly filled his body, saturating his muscles before he vanished from the spot in a puff of smoke before slamming into a nearby tree.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" Naruto screamed in pain as he dislodged himself from the tree, revealing a bloodied face. Even though his body was filled with chakra which stopped some of the pain, it still hurt like hell.

However, it didn't take long for his natural regeneration to kick in, stopping his nose from bleeding. In the meantime, Naruto gingerly rubbed the injured areas on his face while wiping the blood from his nose with his sleeve.

'Maybe it would be better to avoid an area filled with obstacles at the start….' Naruto thought to himself. Slamming into a tree at extremely high speeds wasn't something he wanted to experience often. He figured he would start in a field until he grew used to the technique.

The moment Naruto stopped feeling any sort of pain, he walked to an open area before trying again. This time he visualised himself appearing in the middle of the field before vanishing, almost instantly reappearing in the field.

Naruto looked down, comparing where he visualised himself to where he ended up. "It seems that I am 20 meters away from where I wanted to be. God, I am glad I didn't try on trees again." He guessed that if he continued to practice in the forest, he would be hitting a lot more trees and branches.

The blonde-haired boy continued to attempt the technique, slowly growing more adept as he moved close and closer to his desired location.

After every failure, he would stop and analyse why he failed before trying again. It was a thought process that he had learnt from studying mathematics, which he had started to apply to all manners of training. Rather than the instinctive learning that he used to use, Naruto found that he progressed much faster if he had a specific direction to work in.

It was much easier to correct his mistakes if he had an idea of what his mistakes were. Rather than blindly repeating the same action continually in an attempt to progress, if he guessed/analysed where he made a mistake in a step, he could focus on that specific area.

After performing the Shunshin 10 times, Naruto laid down and curled into himself on the grass, holding his stomach. The technique notes also mentioned that using Shunshin too many times in succession would cause the user to feel nauseous due to the excessive high-speed movement, and they may end up vomiting.

Since he had learnt the Shunshin technique and was able to use it to the most basic level of proficiency, Naruto decided to create shadow clones to continue training. He hoped that after a few days of training, he would be able to use the Shunshin to move precisely where he wanted to.

Naruto knew that he had more chakra than most shinobi in Konohagakure because of his Uzumaki lineage. Hence the main limitation of the technique was the nausea he felt, the tunnel vision he experienced, and the strain on his leg muscles.

...

After his stomach felt better, Naruto pulled out a scroll containing the following technique he was interested in. Earth Release: Earth Shore Return, a C-rank defensive jutsu.

The principle of this technique was for the user to channel earth chakra into both hands before slamming them onto the ground. If the jutsu is performed correctly, upon making contact with the ground, a section of the earth is ripped up and leveraged into a wall.

Naruto stood up after reading the essence of the technique and channelled his hands with earth chakra before banging them hard on the floor. The expected wall did not emerge from the ground. In fact, the only thing that emerged was a sharp stinging sensation originating from his fingers.

The pain transmitted from his hand had rapidly grown to the point of making Naruto involuntarily tear up before crying out in pain. The blonde vigorously shook his hands in the air as hard as he could in an attempt to rid them of the pain he was experiencing.

Naruto knew that learning Ninjutsu wasn't as easy as he thought it would be, but he didn't expect the first attempt at every technique to harm himself. Instead, he hoped that it would just be difficult to learn, just like learning the Kawarimi and Henge techniques.

However, the die was cast, and Naruto was determined to master Earth Release: Earth Shore Return. Like how he had learnt the Shunshin, every time he failed, the blonde pondered what possible reasons could be for failure.

Too little earth chakra sent to his hand.

One hand slammed on the floor harder than the other.

Not enough force in smashing his palms against the ground.

Eventually, Naruto had managed to make a rather large, rectangular shape crack whenever he slammed his hands on the floor. Thankfully, using earth chakra on the crevasses caused them to mend. Naruto didn't want to leave a trail of destruction when he was learning this new technique.

…

After an hour of consistently attempting Earth Release: Earth Shore Return, a relatively thick sheet of earth was lifted from the floor, standing tall in front of Naruto. The blonde-haired boy cheered in joy at the eventual success of the technique while rubbing his sore hands.

Naruto was thankful that he had taken the initiative to learn the basics of earth nature transformation before attempting to learn the technique. He knew it would be more than 10 times harder to learn an elemental technique without having experience in nature transformation.

Naruto walked to the front of the wall and pushed his foot against it, slowly adding more and more pressure. The wall didn't seem to budge at all, even after the blonde had put all of his strength into pushing against the wall.

After coming to the conclusion that he had learnt the basics of the technique, Naruto pushed the wall from the other side using earth chakra. It simply fell back into the hole that it had created, making a loud thud and kicking up a small cloud of dust.

Naruto healed the cracks in the floor before turning to the last technique. Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Technique. This was undoubtedly the most dangerous technique out of the ones he had purchased. This is because if the jutsu failed or was deactivated prematurely, there was a high chance that the user would suffocate underground.

Naruto formed 3 hand seals, Bird, Tiger and Ram, as fast as he could before channelling chakra into the ground. At first, it seemed like nothing was happening, but soon the surrounding land turned into fine sand. Shortly after, the sand seemed to harden up, and the ground reverted back to its original state.

…

Several hours later, Naruto could be seen swimming around in a dirt patch in training grounds 7. The sand behind him quickly reverted to solid ground whenever he moved forward, with only the earth in direct contact with Naruto changing into sand.

Clawing through the ground was a novel experience for Naruto as he could safely say that he had never felt anything like it before. Thankfully, due to the earth chakra coating his body, the blonde couldn't feel any resistance when moving through the sand.

A few times, the technique had ended abruptly due to a combination of an unstable chakra supply and an uneven distribution of chakra. Thankfully, Naruto kept at least 1 hand above ground at all times so he could quickly form the hand signs again.

The first time it happened, Naruto panicked as the sand slowly hardened around him, and he quickly fumbled through the 3 required hand seals before relaxing. Yet after a couple of experiences with the technique malfunctioning, the blonde could make a calm judgement when he felt the technique cut off.

However, he had yet to practice going underground in fear of losing control of the technique. Naruto figured that he would let his clones perfect this aspect of the jutsu before he even dared to use it in a practical setting.

After personally learning the basics for all 3 jutsu, Naruto summoned 30 clones, directing 10 clones to focus on each technique.

Initially, Naruto had to replenish several clones that had perished when improperly performing the Shunshin and Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole. Some had run out of breath while underground, while others had injured themselves by hitting an obstacle.

Naruto didn't expect the clones to reach the point where they could shorten the number of hand seals needed. However, he wanted every technique he had to work without failure.

The majority of books he had read in the library stated that there wasn't a point in learning a Ninjutsu if you couldn't use it with a 100% success rate. What if he had put all of his hopes into defending an attack with Earth Release: Earth Shore Return, only for the wall to not emerge from the ground when he wanted it to?

Therefore, even if a clone had failed the technique 1 out of 100, or even 1000 times, Naruto would continue sending clones to practice it. After all, even a 0.1% chance of not activating could result in him getting injured or dying in real-life combat scenarios.

Only after the clones managed to make the jutsu work 100% of the time would he direct them on working how to make the technique stronger, use less chakra while using it or reduce the number of hand seals.

Although he figured he was being overcautious, Naruto knew that he still had a long time before going into combat with other ninjas, giving him enough time to prepare. Therefore he wanted to be as versatile as possible while also developing the skills he had failed to learn at the Academy.

His chakra control was already far better than before, with him making quick progress on tree walking. Meanwhile, his knowledge had advanced by leaps and bounds. With perfect memory and Shadow Clones, it took less than a week to fill in the gaps from 5 years of studying at the Academy.

Now Naruto was focusing on learning everything that a Genin was expected to know, alongside other subjects such as learning the foundations for Jutsu-Shiki. He hoped that he would be able to start learning the basics of Jutsu-Shiki in a month's time.

In addition, his studies in medicine had yielded some results. By now, he had read multiple books on chakra pathways, tenketsu, the organs in the body and especially the brain.

Naruto estimated that he would soon be able to confirm if it was safe to open the second inner gate and how to open it. He hadn't forgotten the benefits of permanently opening the first gate.

…

Looking down at the wooden sword that he bought alongside his Ninjutsu, Naruto didn't immediately begin to swing it aimlessly. If he had learned anything about Kenjutsu and Taijutsu at the library, bad physical habits were easy to form and hard to break. If he wanted to learn any Taijutsu or Kenjutsu style, he needed a professional to teach him.

However, he wanted to be familiar with the sword even if he didn't know any techniques. Naruto estimated that it could be the same way as nature transformation. That he could learn techniques easier and faster by getting acquainted with the sword.

From what he had read in the library, the sword had to be stable, accurate, and quick. One must be able to swing it like an extension of their body at all times.

What followed stability was accuracy. If the hand holding the sword wasn't stable, how could the wielder guarantee that their blade would hit their target? Finally, speed came last. Even if the sword strike was fast, it was useless if it wasn't accurate.

After thinking about many different methods to test and improve his stability, Naruto figured that if he could balance an object on the end of his sword without it falling off, he would have some level of stability.

Hence, he picked a relatively large rock and balanced it on the end of the wooden sword.

At first, he struggled to let the rock sit on the sword, but eventually, he had it stable enough to let it rest comfortably. Every time the weight from the heavy rock caused the tip of the blade to tilt forward, Naruto would forcefully raise it back up until it was level.

If the sword leaned too far forward and the rock fell off, Naruto would pick the rock up and start again, repeating the process.

Regardless of the fact that his arm was completely numb by this point, Naruto continued to hold the sword steadily. He knew that if he gave up here and took the easy way out by resting, he could die in battle in the future. If any pain he felt right now would prevent him from dying in the future, it was worth it.

Author's notes: Two chapters in one day! There were a lot of ideas I had that I wanted to put down on paper before I lost the inspiration.

If anyone is wondering, no, the library containing and selling techniques isn't canon. Or should I say that it isn't stated that it is canon or not? I personally think there has to be a way for civilian ninjas to learn techniques not taught by their Jonin instructors. Hence I thought of this method. At the same time, I made it so A-rank jutsu and above cannot be purchased because other villages send spies to buy them.

Finally, hopefully, this chapter illustrates the difficulties of Naruto's Ninjutsu training and the reason why I hadn't mentioned much about Taijutsu and Kenjutsu prior to this.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Share any suggestions you have for the future of this fanfic!