Bottleneck in Developing Ninjutsu
## Chapter 28: Bottleneck in Ninjutsu Development: The Clone Jutsu as an Example
When he initially mastered the Clone Jutsu, the standard Clone Jutsu's Chakra could only separate his arms, head, legs, and torso. Fingers and palms were considered part of the arms. Later, after extending the duration of the Clone Jutsu to one minute, he could separate his fingers.
However, even after pushing it to the limit, releasing over 80% of his Chakra in one go for the Clone Jutsu, he still couldn't separate flesh.
He could separate fingernails, hair, eyeballs, ears, and noses, but that didn't seem very useful in combat.
The horror factor, however, did increase.
During testing, he thought that if he could travel back, he could open a haunted house that would be incredibly terrifying. Even he felt a genuine sense of dread looking in the mirror at his bald, faceless self without eyeballs or ears.
The thing was, after his body separated, the original positions weren't wounds but smoothly fused together. When he held his eyeball and looked in the mirror, his face was genuinely smooth.
There were many uses outside of combat, like throwing an ear to eavesdrop or taking out an eyeball to peep.
But this required 80% of his Chakra, leaving him exhausted after one use. As amazing as it was, what would he do if he encountered a battle?
Soldier Pills weren't some magical cure-all. Their Chakra recovery effect didn't stack, couldn't restore him to full, and couldn't break his Chakra limit.
Their ingredients were very simple: one spoonful of vegetable juice, six bean snacks, eight small biscuits, ten mixed nuts, two teaspoons of sesame seeds, a pinch of chili powder, and 25 raisins.
[This recipe is from Ebisu's Soldier Pill recipe in the "Book of Soldiers"]
Although he didn't quite understand why such a simple structure could restore Chakra, Lin Ke found them quite palatable. Thanks to the simple structure, the price wasn't too high.
But eating them regularly was still a considerable expense...
Strangely, Lin Ke had never found or heard of the kind of Soldier Pills that Choji mentioned in the manga, which were "said to be a secret medicine that allows people to fight tirelessly for three days and three nights... with stimulating and calming effects."
Was he just ignorant? Or perhaps there really was a type of Soldier Pill with such miraculous effects? That's why Lin Ke had his eyes on the Tailed Beasts to increase his Chakra release, leading to his subsequent plans.
Back to the main topic, the Clone Jutsu's development was stalled due to Chakra constraints, and the Substitution Jutsu's development direction hadn't been found due to its randomness.
The Body Binding Technique was awkward. Lin Ke really couldn't bring himself to spend money on it. As for fake money, even he didn't recognize it as 'money,' so how could it be used as a target for the Body Binding Technique?
Hell Money... the Naruto World didn't have that at all. After all, as a Japanese setting, although the Japanese have the concept of spirit money, it's different from Chinese paper money. It's mostly coins or antique coins, not for burning, but for offering.
The Headhunter Technique was even worse. It consumed too much Chakra and had a completely vague Genjutsu effect. Without someone cooperating, he didn't know how to develop it.
Finally, there was the Transformation Jutsu.
Lin Ke initially had high expectations for the Transformation Jutsu.
Truly transforming into other things, not just the illusion of the original Transformation Jutsu, seemed to have a high upper limit.
However, its actual performance was too disappointing. He needed to have sufficient knowledge of the thing he was transforming into.
For example, the first time he transformed into his father's long sword, he knew many details about the sword's feel, sharpness, length, material, structure... It was a vague feeling, but he understood the sword, so he could transform into it.
Once he didn't understand something, he couldn't transform.
He understood things like Kunai, Shuriken, clothes, food... But some things he thought he understood, he still didn't have that familiar feeling.
Like many things he had in his previous life, he thought he knew them well enough, but when he thought about them, it was all blank. What material were they made of? What was the internal structure? What were the principles?
Currently, the most lethal thing Lin Ke could transform into was an Exploding Tag.
But that was a one-time use! Was he supposed to have a Clone Jutsu rush up and transform into an Exploding Tag while hugging someone? It sounded ridiculous. What if the Clone Jutsu couldn't recover the exploded limbs?
The ninja tool was one-time use, and he was one-time use too?
As for transforming into mythical beasts or Saiyans, that was even more far-fetched. If he had the chance to dissect an Uzumaki Bloodline, would he be able to understand the secrets of the Uzumaki Bloodline?
Or would dissecting a Tailed Beast allow him to understand the operating principles of the Tailed Beast?
Wasn't that pure nonsense?
In his initial development direction, he had thought about transforming himself into water, mud, or other small things. To put it bluntly, it was copying the elementalization from the neighboring set.
But the problem was, his Transformation Jutsu couldn't negate damage and would maintain his original shape. Investing a lot of Chakra to become a mud man or a water man would only make him more vulnerable. Others could easily scatter him, and a fire would burn his body to ashes.
He wasn't truly elementalized and couldn't control the corresponding elements. If he wanted to negate damage, why not just use the Clone Jutsu?
And his head couldn't transform...
Even increasing Chakra investment could only break the size limit based on the amount of Chakra, not make it more magical. That's why the highly anticipated Transformation Jutsu had become the awkward state it was in now.
Perhaps he wasn't investing enough Chakra?
The above is why Lin Ke wants to become a Genin, aiming to become a Chunin, and hoping to learn more Ninjutsu to find a way to break the situation, because all five Ninjutsu he has learned have no direction for continued development in the short term.
Limited by the amount of Chakra, even if he becomes a Chunin, the Ninjutsu targets he can choose are not many. All kinds of messy Jutsu are directly excluded because they consume too much Chakra and have extremely low cost-effectiveness. Learning them is okay, but they are useless in actual combat.
Since the mutation direction of all his mutated Ninjutsu is towards the literal meaning, his goal is naturally to find Ninjutsu with names that sound very powerful.
Like Kirin (not yet created), Lightning Blade (S-rank Chakra consumption is too high), Flying Thunder God Technique (S-rank difficulty is too high), Mystical Palm Technique (A-rank Chakra consumption is too high), Adamantine Sealing Chains (suspected Bloodline Limit ability), Reanimation Technique (only seen in manga), Super Beast Imitating Drawing/Super God Imitating Drawing (special secret technique, difficult to obtain)...
He thinks about them all the time, but unfortunately, the difficulty of obtaining, learning, and releasing them is higher than the other. There is no hope in the short term, it's simply out of reach.
Not to mention becoming a Chunin, he doesn't even know if he can get his hands on them even if he becomes a Jonin. Therefore, apart from occasionally fantasizing about becoming a Flying Thunder God himself and trying new ideas for developing existing Ninjutsu, Lin Ke spends most of his time honestly exercising his body.
Fundamentals, ah, fundamentals are very important.
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