Shadow

"Chi~"

Steam rose in wisps, Yuan Wei's hand on his vest shifted slightly, glancing at Yuan Wei who was diligently chopping leaves, and Lin Ke who had caught two rabbits and didn't know what to do with them.

Taking a breath, Xia continued to release Chakra to bake clothes for the boss.

Speaking of which, it felt a bit strange. The ninja she imagined shouldn't be like this. A ninja like a clothes dryer...

Could it barely be considered a form of training? Whatever, it was the boss's request anyway, definitely for my own good.

She gave up thinking and earnestly began to dry the moisture inside her vest.

[Excellent labor force, making my vest dry!]

Lin Ke glanced at Xia, who was working hard, nodded in satisfaction, and looked down at the two rabbits. "It's you." He picked out the slightly stronger rabbit, stepped on it, and tied the other one with a rope, setting it aside for later.

Refining Chakra, forming seals, releasing—

*Shadow Clone Technique*, success!

The shadow in his vision fluctuated again. He released his foot, letting the rabbit scramble up and run away. Then, with a thought, the Rabbit Shadow separated from the main body.

"Huh?" Changing the target from plants to animals, he discovered something interesting. The lively rabbit that was originally running away fell to the ground after the shadow separated, its legs kicking weakly, its mouth open, and its breathing noticeably more rapid.

Then the rabbit climbed up again, trying to escape, but a large, uh, small hand quickly caught it, carefully observing it up and down.

"After the shadow separates, the main body feels tired, could it be..."

Lin Ke had a vague guess in his mind. The rabbit's struggling was much weaker now, as if it had exhausted too much energy.

He tied up the rabbit without a shadow and threw it next to its unfortunate companion, focusing on the Rabbit Shadow.

The two-dimensional, flat Rabbit Shadow ran across the ground at about the same speed as the rabbit's escape when he had the thought—

It looked quite strange.

I don't know if you've ever seen those flipbooks where you can see the characters inside moving slowly by pressing your fingers and flipping the pages quickly. The Rabbit Shadow's running in the two-dimensional picture was a bit like the movement in those flipbooks, moving frame by frame, very fast, but it felt like it was dropping frames.

It was very uncomfortable.

Lin Ke commanded the Rabbit Shadow to run around for a while, and the more he looked at it, the stranger it felt. There was a fast-moving black shadow that was desperately dropping frames on the open space under the bright sun.

It felt like it should appear in a Cthulhu movie.

With a thought, the Rabbit Shadow standing not far away quickly stood up, turned into a pitch-black rabbit lying on the ground, its posture and habits very similar to the main body without a shadow.

"Try its attack power..." Under his command, the Rabbit Shadow ran madly towards the big tree (the big tree whose shadow was separated yesterday), and crashed into it head-on.

"Dong!"

The tree trunk made a dull sound, feeling like there was no difference from an ordinary rabbit hitting the tree.

The only good thing was that the Rabbit Shadow was not stunned and was still trying to continue its barbarian charge.

"Dong!"

"Dong!"

Such strange and dense sounds quickly attracted the attention of the two teammates. When they saw the strange Rabbit Shadow, they were both a little surprised.

There was no need to hide it. He would use the technique in front of his companions sooner or later, so Lin Ke didn't specifically run to a place where no one was to experiment.

After about a dozen collisions, the Rabbit Shadow suddenly froze halfway, the entire rabbit collapsed and turned back into a shadow on the ground, then spread into black dots and disappeared.

The shadow reappeared in front of the rabbit that had lost its shadow.

"Interesting."

Lin Ke's eyes lit up. He seemed to vaguely realize one of the uses of this technique.

Refining Chakra again, dividing it equally, forming seals, releasing—

This time the target was his own shadow.

So, after a brief one-second delay, the shadow under his feet stepped to the opposite side and stood up.

A pitch-black shadow exactly like him faced him, as if looking in a very unreliable and colorless mirror.

"My own shadow has a much deeper connection with me, as if another limb has appeared..."

"Whoa!" Yuan Wei exclaimed.

Xia quickly made a shushing gesture.

Lin Ke ignored his two companions, controlled his shadow to take a step forward, then ran, jumped onto a tree, did a backflip, a front flip, a ninja run, and a series of other movements. A look of understanding appeared on his face.

His stamina was being consumed! Almost as much as when he was acting himself. Whether it was existing, standing, running, or making any movement, it was consuming his stamina. In other words, the shadow was consuming the main body's stamina. If it could mimic the main body's actions in reality, then it was reasonable that when the stamina was exhausted, it would revert to a shadow state that could not interact with reality.

"No, that's not right."

Lin Ke quickly realized that his shadow seemed to have subtle differences from the Rabbit Shadow.

He turned his head to look at the rabbit next to him, which was tied up with ropes, but definitely hadn't reached the point of exhausting its stamina, and even seemed to have recovered a bit...

After the Rabbit Shadow was separated, the rabbit felt fatigue and a large consumption of stamina, which means...

"When I separate someone else's shadow, I take away their stamina."

Lin Ke made a preliminary judgment. As for how much stamina was taken away, he thought of the characteristic of the Shadow Clone evenly distributing Chakra, and reasonably guessed that it would likely be half of the stamina.

The reason he didn't feel the consumption was likely because it wasn't his own stamina and Chakra that were being consumed, but the stamina taken from others. Once the stamina was exhausted, the technique would automatically be dispelled.

"Let's try again." He dispelled the technique. After all, the shadow self would continuously consume stamina just by existing, and although it wasn't much, it was better to save as much as possible.

However, there was still no Chakra return. It seemed that the mutated Shadow Clone Technique completely lacked the Chakra return process.

A single case doesn't prove anything. He needed to try more to verify his results. He should start with the rabbit, at least to prove that this technique was harmless to life. Then, it would be best to find two people who were willing to help, not too old, and without too much Chakra...

Extract Chakra, distribute evenly, form hand seals, release—

*"Bang!"* The Shadow Clone Technique failed.

Okay, he was thinking too much. With too much stamina consumed, he didn't grasp the distribution of Chakra well, resulting in a failure to distribute it evenly, and ultimately, failure.

It's definitely not just taking away stamina, there must be some special aspects that I haven't tested yet...

Would damaging the main body affect the shadow? And what extent can the shadow actually reach? Is there any interaction between shadows...?

Lin Ke pondered, sitting down on the rock next to him to rest.

The development of the Shadow Clone Technique should be much more interesting than the Earth Dragon Concealment Technique.

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