Chapter 9: The Three Techniques

Chapter 9: The Three Techniques

Ishiro stood on the training field of the ninja school, forming the hand seals with four distinct changes. Then with a bang, his entire appearance transformed into that of Ishikawa-sensei. Feeling his body's condition, Ishiro sighed in relief; this was the first time he had successfully cast a jutsu.

The four hand seals took a total of over three seconds, averaging nearly a second per seal. This speed was far from practical for combat, but in a battlefield where things change rapidly, if he had teammates supporting him and bought him a few seconds, this speed might just suffice.

However, casting this single jutsu consumed nearly all of Ishiro's chakra for the day. And as his only mastered jutsu at the moment, the Transformation Jutsu didn't have much practical combat value.

After more than a year of practice, Ishiro had already mastered using chakra to enhance taijutsu. This meant that each of his moves, whether it was a punch or a kick, was now empowered by chakra. Although his body remained human, the strength of his strikes had grown considerably. If he used weapons like kunai or swords, his power was even more enhanced, making him far more formidable compared to a normal person.

Chakra was indeed a miraculous force that could elevate an ordinary person to an extraordinary level. Although Ishiro was still a five-year-old child, his body had surpassed the physical capabilities of a normal adult due to chakra. With a weapon in hand, Ishiro could face ten normal people without much difficulty.

However, relying on chakra to enhance taijutsu was more akin to the traditional way of the samurai in the ninja world. What truly set ninjas apart from samurai were the flashy and intricate ninjutsu techniques.

It was just over two weeks ago that a sensory ninja, who had been working at the school, confirmed that Ishiro's chakra reserves were now sufficient to perform one of the Three Techniques. That's when Ishiro began practicing the Transformation Jutsu. The related knowledge of the Three Techniques had already been covered in Ishikawa-sensei's theory lessons, but the teacher had made it clear that no one could practice them until the sensory ninja confirmed that their chakra reserves were adequate.

Thus, Ishiro had only been practicing the Transformation Jutsu for about two weeks. Don't think that learning one of the Three Techniques in such a short time was an easy feat.

As a personal experiencer, Ishiro could only describe it in one word: difficult.

The past few days had gone like this: Extract chakra, then practice the Transformation Jutsu, fail, chakra exhausted, day ends.

Yes, because Ishiro only had enough chakra for a single Transformation Jutsu, and he didn't dare to push his body too hard, he could only attempt once per day, waiting until his body had recovered before trying again.

Later, to save time, Ishiro began refining his chakra in the morning, then working on hand seals and taijutsu, saving the Transformation Jutsu for the end.

Although this adjustment to his schedule saved time, the feeling of concentrating, trying once, and then having to wait until the next day was truly unbearable. It was like a lottery game where you only got one draw a day. You waited all day with high expectations, and in one second, it was over. And the result? A "Thank you for playing" message.

No matter how frustrating, Ishiro finally succeeded.

At this moment, Tanaka, Shouhara, and the others standing beside Ishiro threw envious glances his way. Don't think that because Ishiro took so long to learn the Transformation Jutsu, it meant he had poor talent. In reality, only three students in the class had successfully performed one of the Three Techniques.

The first was Ikura, the only student in Ishiro's class capable of performing all three techniques. The second was a girl with yellow hair named Meiko. Like Ishiro, she came from a regular ninja family, but unlike him, she had both parents in good health. Her family valued her deeply and spent all the money from their missions on her training.

Meiko had excellent chakra control and was in much better physical shape than Ishiro, and combining the two made her the second student in the class to successfully perform the Three Techniques.

Ishiro was the third. Currently, the rest of the class couldn't perform any of the Three Techniques. Most students' chakra reserves were still insufficient, although a few from ninja families had met the threshold. Still, chakra control was difficult to shortcut, and most students could only rely on their innate talent and hard work.

For example, Tanaka and the others had more than enough chakra, even many times more than Ishiro, but they still couldn't perform the jutsu.

The process of controlling chakra and learning a jutsu from scratch is incredibly difficult. This is why so many ninjas are willing to risk their lives for their ninja path. They all start from nothing and grow through countless trials and tribulations, their will far surpassing that of an average person.

Even though Ishiro was the third student to successfully perform one of the Three Techniques, it didn't mean he was in the top three in combat power in the class. So far, his physical strength was still near the bottom. Despite the increased investment in food and training, his physical enhancements hadn't shown significant results.

After all, Ishiro was originally at the very bottom of the class, and based on his physical strength alone, he would never be able to reach the level of the elite class. His progress over these two years could only be attributed to his persistence and effort. Moreover, being an adult soul in a child's body gave him the advantage of a mature mindset, allowing him to train more diligently and analyze his mistakes, which helped him adjust his methods. This was another advantage he had.

So, although his physical strength was still ranked low, Ishiro's chakra reserves, thanks to his Proto-Yin Chakra extraction method, allowed him to reach the level required for the Three Techniques and put him in the first tier of the class. Unfortunately, the Three Techniques didn't provide much help in practical combat. Most students still relied on taijutsu in combat.

Although Ishiro's chakra reserves were greater than many of his classmates, it only meant that he could use chakra-enhanced taijutsu longer before it ran out. In any case, before his chakra was exhausted, he'd likely be defeated based on physical strength alone.

Over these two years, Ishiro had lost more battles than he had won. His physical limitations meant that his use of weapons like kunai and shuriken was nowhere near the level of his physically stronger classmates.

Thankfully, Ishiro was aware of his shortcomings. Over the past two years, his progress had been quite significant. From being at the very bottom, he was now able to leverage his endurance and learned how to avoid direct confrontations. His class ranking had risen to the mid-lower tier.

He believed that with more chakra and experience in combat, his strengths would gradually become more apparent.

As Ishiro pondered these things, he heard a sour voice from beside him.

"Hmph, it's just the Transformation Jutsu. I'm almost there too. And even if this guy learned it, it's not like it matters. I can still knock him out with a single punch."

Ishiro rolled his eyes in disdain. Although he'd been beaten by Shouhara many times in combat over the past two years, and he was still no match for him now, getting beaten was one thing, but losing in a war of words? Never!

Ishiro turned to Shouhara, speaking in his best Ishikawa-sensei tone: "Ahem, Shouhara, this is where you're wrong. You can't even admit when you're behind, and yet you're still talking. Go and rewrite the basic theory of kunai throwing ten times, right now." Ishiro, in Ishikawa-sensei's body, said slowly.

Hearing this, Shouhara went stiff, his breath faltering. Shouhara was the type who excelled in real combat but was poor in theory. His kunai throwing wasn't bad, but his theoretical scores were terrible, and he was the only one in the class who had failed the basic theory exam for kunai throwing. It wasn't the first time he had been criticized by Ishikawa-sensei in front of the class.

Hearing the laughter from around him, Shouhara fumed, shouting, "You bastard, change back right now!"

Ishiro smiled slightly and formed the hand seals again. Bang—he transformed back into his original form. It was enough to tease him for now; after all, he didn't want to get beaten again.

At this moment, Ishikawa-sensei came over to praise Ishiro and told everyone to learn from him. He also took the opportunity to promote the will of the stone. Ishikawa-sensei wasn't surprised that Ishiro had mastered the Transformation Jutsu so quickly. After all, he was the one most familiar with Ishiro's talents.

Ishikawa-sensei asked Ishiro what his next jutsu would be—Substitution Jutsu or Clone Jutsu.

Ishiro was prepared and immediately said, "I want to learn the Clone Jutsu."

Ishikawa-sensei nodded and briefly explained the key points and precautions of the Clone Jutsu before walking over to other students. Although Ishiro had already studied the theory, he still listened carefully to Ishikawa-sensei's explanation. There could be no room for carelessness in casting jutsu, especially since he didn't have much chakra to waste.

After mentally reviewing the key points of the Clone Jutsu, Ishiro didn't overthink and instead turned to practice taijutsu. His chakra reserves were now low enough that he could only manage some basic exercises.

After dinner, Ishiro didn't go home immediately. Instead, he headed to the village's barrier class. Yes, he was there to work, and as a five-year-old student, he was technically too young to take on missions. But considering the increasing expenses of being a ninja, Ishiro approached Tsuchikage to ask for a job.

Tsuchikage had asked Ishiro what kind of job he wanted, and Ishiro's answer had been one that would allow him to learn something useful. Given the urgency of manpower due to the ongoing war, Tsuchikage didn't refuse and arranged for Ishiro to work as an intern in the barrier class.

As a genius with extraordinary spiritual power, Ishiro was perfectly suited for the job. The work here mainly required sensory perception, and Ishiro's spiritual strength, which had already surpassed that of most middle-ranked ninjas, made him exceptionally good at this.

However, Tsuchikage had one condition: Ishiro could only officially start working after successfully casting one of the Three Techniques. So, today was actually Ishiro's first day interning at the barrier class.

As agreed beforehand, Ishiro found the person in charge there and presented the task certificate that Tsuchikage had written for him.