It was hard to say whether the magic of the wizarding world or the chakra of the Naruto world was more advanced.
However, when it came to sheer malleability, magic was undoubtedly far superior to chakra. That much was unquestionable.
Every shinobi's chakra nature was predetermined at birth. Of course, this didn't rule out a few talented individuals who could master other affinities through subsequent training later in life or through body modifications. But such people were few and far between—not to mention fusing multiple natures into an elemental Bloodline Limit, a Kekkei Genkai.
Though Kekkei Genkai users seemed a dime a dozen in the anime and fan fiction, looking at the ninja world as a whole, they were as rare as phoenix feathers.
In the wizarding world, however, thanks to the intent-based, conceptual nature of magic, it wasn't difficult for a wizard to cast spells resembling elemental Kekkei Genkai—like Storm Release, Lava Release, or Scorch Release.
Kyle had mastered these Release techniques a long time ago.
Yet, these magical versions—or rather, bootleg Kekkei Genkai—were still somewhat inferior in raw destructive power compared to the original versions from the Naruto world. After all, compared to chakra, magic excelled in its multi-functional versatility rather than its function as a pure weapon.
Kyle didn't plan on using these techniques as his primary combat magic anyway. As long as he perfected his ancestral Grindelwald "gas stove," it would only be a matter of time before the spreading Fiendfyre could reduce an entire city to ashes.
Wasn't that much better than those flashy, bootleg Kekkei Genkai?
Of course, there was one Kekkei Genkai Kyle had no intention of abandoning: Hashirama Senju's Wood Release.
Kyle had already mastered a magical version of Susanoo, though he was currently bottlenecked by his total magic reserves, leaving him unable to maintain a Perfect Susanoo throughout an entire battle. But that was just a matter of time.
What he lacked right now was Wood Release, or rather, the nature magic of the Druid tradition. When the time came, he could just cloak the Giant Buddha in Susanoo armor and single-handedly wipe out the other four nations.
The difficulty of executing Wood Release in the wizarding world wasn't nearly as high as it was in the Naruto world. Many young witches and wizards could use the erratic magic within their bodies to sprout flowers out of thin air before they even started school.
However, because the baseline was so low, raising the ceiling became immensely difficult.
It wasn't that there were no wizards studying nature magic, but their spells could only achieve basic landscaping and house building at best—just like Yamato. If they wanted to summon a thousand-meter-tall Thousand-Armed Buddha and treat Tailed Beasts like little kittens like Hashirama Senju did, they were completely out of their depth.
Over the centuries, the only person in the magical world to achieve profound heights in nature magic was the founder of Kyle's own Hufflepuff House—Helga Hufflepuff. After Hufflepuff, the magical world had never produced anyone who could wield nature magic on par with Hashirama Senju.
Consequently, the mainstream of the modern Western magical world remained built upon the convenient, incantation-based spellcasting of the Anglo-Saxon system. As for records of nature magic, they could only be found in ancient grimoires passed down from antiquity.
After scouring an immense amount of documentation, Kyle finally discovered the reason why the power of nature magic was bottlenecked.
There were many variables that influenced a conventional spell's power: the magic expended by the caster, mastery over the incantation, precise control during channeling, emotional attunement, and so forth...
But those factors only applied to regular magic. What nature magic demanded, above all else, was life force, and more life force.
Take Hashirama Senju, for instance. It was precisely because he was the chakra reincarnation of Asura and possessed a Sage Body with ridiculously vibrant vitality that the legendary reputation of Wood Release was forged. Hashirama made Wood Release great; Wood Release didn't make Hashirama great.
Yamato simply lacked this...
Uh, never mind. Best not to beat a dead horse regarding Konoha's environmental specialist and landscaping ambassador.
When it came to life force, that happened to be Kyle's ultimate strength.
Back when Grindelwald used magic to fuse his own genes with Dumbledore's to create Kyle, the old Dark Lord had expended an immense amount of effort using magic to refine the resulting embryo, all to ensure a perfect descendant.
This meant that when it came to raw vitality, even if Kyle hadn't quite reached Hashirama's broken, overpowered level, he was absolutely the undisputed number one in the magical world. Even Helga Hufflepuff back in her day couldn't compare to him.
Yet, the power of Kyle's Wood Release had refused to increase, making him highly curious as to where exactly the problem lay.
The underlying principle of nature magic wasn't overly complex. To put it simply: it was a spell activated by using one's own massive life force as a catalyst, while treating one's magic as the raw energy required to sustain a plant's growth.
While Hagrid was leading the students to feed the newly hatched Occamy chicks born from Melnia, Kyle stood to the side, slacking off as he quietly pondered.
He idly formed a few hand seals, mobilizing the magic within his body. With Kyle's current level of magic control, he didn't actually need to use hand seals to channel his power and cast spells. However, weaving hand seals made him feel like the spell flowed a bit more smoothly, so he had kept the habit.
Infusing a portion of his life force into his magic, Kyle raised his hand and pressed it against a small sapling in front of him, pouring the blended energy into it without reservation.
Under the astonished gazes of the onlookers, the sapling's branches began to writhe frantically, and its size ballooned like a tire being inflated.
In less than half a minute, the sapling, which had stood only twice the height of a person, shot up into a towering behemoth. Its canopy extended far above the surrounding trees, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the Forbidden Forest.
Drawing a kunai from his ninja tool pouch, Kyle gripped it in a reverse hold and stabbed it fiercely into the massive tree.
Like a hot knife through butter, the kunai plunged deep into the trunk without the slightest effort.
Kyle shook his head in disappointment. Given this level of wood density, if the demolition genius Seamus Finnigan were here, any random spell could blow it to smithereens—let alone using it to construct a giant Thousand-Armed Buddha to fight enemies. The magically accelerated wood possessed no fundamental difference from ordinary timber.
Could it be... a problem with the tree species?
After rummaging through his ninja tool pouch for a long time, Kyle finally managed to unearth a few willow twigs from some forgotten corner. The poor Whomping Willow—even though it had been out of commission for so long, it still couldn't escape being exploited in a certain someone's hands.
Checking the vitality of the twigs to confirm that their cells were still alive, Kyle planted them into the soft soil.
"Wood Release: Nativity of a World of Trees!"
Energy surged violently from his body, and the Whomping Willow twigs rooted in the ground rapidly began to sprout and branch out. Beneath the surface, countless roots burrowed aggressively deep into the earth. Above ground, the branches expanded at a rate clearly visible to the naked eye.
By the time Kyle halted the transmission of his magic, the Whomping Willow twigs had grown into a massive tree roughly thirty meters tall. It was significantly taller than the original one planted next to the secret passage by the Shrieking Shack.
A few drops of sweat rolled down Kyle's forehead. Unsurprisingly, accelerating the growth of a magical plant consumed vastly more magic than a conventional one.
Pulling out his kunai once again, he stabbed it into the trunk. The previous feeling of a hot knife through butter was gone; Kyle's hand holding the kunai clearly met a wave of resistance. Without employing his Monstrous Strength, Kyle's kunai only penetrated a few centimeters into the bark before coming to a dead stop.
It appeared that what determined the ultimate power of nature magic, aside from the caster's magic and life force, involved an even more critical variable—
That was the specific plant species chosen by the caster for acceleration.
Kyle really wanted to know: if he could somehow track down the legendary World Tree, then...
————
Supporting me on Pa-treon to gain early access to advanced chapters and enjoy expedited updates. Your support is greatly appreciated.
pat-reon .c-om/Dragonhair
(Just remove the hyphen - and space, to access Pa-treon normally.)