Chapter 28: Continuing Wind Release Training
He reassured himself, thinking:
"It's nothing special. This is simply the result of my dedicated training over the past three years."
He spent the rest of the day testing the full capabilities of the Wind Clone.
Unlike a Shadow Clone, it doesn't transmit memories back to the user, but it also doesn't require a large amount of chakra to create.
Since it utilizes the surrounding air as its primary material, Kaito guessed that this was probably the most chakra-efficient clone technique available.
In just a few hours of practice, he successfully created ten Wind Clones simultaneously. Besides the Shadow Clone Jutsu, the Wind Clone could perform all the other jutsu the original body could execute, and it would dissipate upon being attacked.
After extensive experimentation, Kaito found that in a direct head-on confrontation, the Wind Clone was actually more cost-effective than the Shadow Clone.
Throughout that day, he repeatedly had the urge to return to the Library to learn another jutsu immediately. But he restrained himself, as it might attract unwanted attention.
He sighed, thinking:
"I should find a way to copy those scrolls somehow!"
Satisfied with his progress, he returned home for the evening.
Along the way, he had a peculiar thought about the techniques he had mastered. He realized:
"Among the six jutsu I've learned so far, three of them are clone techniques!"
The next day, he studied and learned the Wind Breathing Technique.
He first had to gather wind-natured chakra, then expel it from his mouth in the form of a gentle, controlled gust.
After several attempts, he was able to correctly perform this jutsu.
This technique was indeed completely harmless.
When he tested it on a tree, it didn't cause any damage at all, apart from causing some old dried leaves to fall off.
After an hour of focused practice, he could already use it to effectively cover up his footprints in dirt and sand.
It took several additional hours of practice to use this technique to subtly change the direction of wind flow in a small area around him.
However, he wasn't certain whether he had succeeded in masking his scent. He decided to find an opportunity later to have someone from the Inuzuka Clan test it for him.
On the third day, he attempted to learn the Wind Levitation Technique. Although he didn't succeed on the very first try, he still managed to correctly perform this jutsu within ten minutes.
He was able to levitate a single leaf about 5 meters high in the air. He spent half an hour achieving the same result with a small pebble.
By the end of the day, he could levitate a stone 15 centimeters in diameter up to 15 meters high and hold it suspended for 78 seconds.
He noticed in the scroll that this technique could theoretically lift a massive boulder a hundred meters into the air.
He suspected that even this shouldn't be the absolute limit. So he could continue practicing and refining this jutsu extensively in the future.
On the fourth day, he attempted the Projectile Control Technique. He finally encountered a genuine challenge. This jutsu required extremely fine and precise control over wind currents.
He created a Wind Clone, had it throw shuriken, and tried to manipulate the projectiles with wind chakra.
A few hours later, he successfully changed the direction of a shuriken mid-flight but couldn't maintain stable control over it.
Since shuriken naturally spin during flight, he realized this made the technique considerably more difficult, so he decided to try using kunai instead.
This significantly reduced the difficulty, and eventually he successfully maintained good directional control over thrown kunai.
To truly master this technique, he continued practicing for another three full days.
After these intensive training days, he felt that his fundamental mastery of wind element manipulation had deepened considerably.
The next day, he attempted the Wind Muffling Technique.
Suppressing sound by manipulating air currents proved to be quite challenging.
Controlling the wind flow around himself to dampen vibrations was the first obstacle.
Secondly, if he created too strong an airflow, he would affect his own movement and balance.
This problem made Kaito wonder if he could create specific wind patterns around himself to optimize this jutsu's effectiveness.
He filed this idea away for future experimentation.
He spent another three days learning and becoming proficient with this technique.
Finally, he returned the Shadow Clone scroll to the Hokage as promised.
Kaito had taken only ten days to learn five E-rank Wind Release jutsu.
With one month of summer vacation remaining, he began training in D-rank Wind Release techniques.
He revised his training schedule, thinking:
"Originally, the plan was to learn techniques in order of combat importance, but since I'm learning so quickly, I might as well organize by difficulty level instead. So I'll learn Great Breakthrough first, followed by Dust Wind Technique and Gale Palm."
After obtaining all the necessary scrolls from the Library, he began training in the Great Breakthrough technique.
The initial process was very similar to the Wind Breathing Technique. The only significant difference was that he had to gather a much larger amount of wind-natured chakra.
The resulting wind force needed to be considerably stronger, and the wind had to be sharpened to cause actual damage.
His first few attempts yielded results similar to the Wind Breathing Technique, but he could clearly identify where he needed to improve.
In just fifteen minutes, he exhaled a noticeably stronger gust of wind from his mouth. He noted mentally:
"It's not very powerful yet, but if used in combination with Fire Release techniques, its destructive potential should be excellent for combination attacks."
In short, this technique still required substantial training to master properly.
The process of gathering chakra and transforming it into wind needed to be much faster. More chakra needed to be gathered to increase the damage output.
He practiced diligently for 7 days until he developed a solid grasp of the technique.
He also tested it on an unfortunate tree, which resulted in it losing most of its leaves and many smaller branches. He thought with satisfaction:
"This is already quite effective. While it might not be immediately fatal, it could easily injure most genin-level opponents."
The next day, he retrieved the Dust Wind Technique scroll and committed it to memory.
This jutsu was also relatively simple in concept. Its execution was similar to the Great Breakthrough, except that one had to focus the wind current specifically on the ground to kick up dust and debris.
It also incorporated characteristics of the Wind Levitation Technique, which helped ensure the dust cloud persisted longer.
He raised a dust cloud on his first attempt, but it dissipated far too quickly to be useful.
It took several hours to correctly incorporate the wind levitation component.
But by the end of the day, he had made significant progress in mastering the technique.
Next, Kaito began training in the Gale Palm technique. This jutsu operated almost opposite to the Wind Muffling Technique.
Here, he had to infuse the surrounding air with chakra and then suddenly release it outward three meters in one specific direction.
To some extent, it was conceptually similar to Nagato's Shinra Tensei, though obviously its power was extremely limited by comparison.
This technique didn't provide exceptionally strong defensive capabilities. However, the reason Kaito wanted to learn this jutsu was that he had some innovative ideas about its potential development.
The first goal was to increase both the range and power of this technique, and the second was to develop the ability to release wind pressure in all directions around him simultaneously.
This would transform this jutsu into something with devastating area-of-effect potential.
If the range and power could be increased significantly, it would be very effective for disrupting enemy formations on the battlefield, and an omnidirectional release would be extremely helpful if he found himself surrounded by multiple enemies.
He took only another day to learn this technique and train it to an acceptable proficiency level.
The next day, he began learning the Air Bullets technique. He planned to use this jutsu as supplementary training for the Rasengan.
For this technique, he had to gather wind chakra, shape it into a compact sphere, and infuse it with a small amount of additional chakra for stability. This was the key difference between it and the Rasengan.
The Rasengan was composed purely of rotating chakra, while this technique was primarily composed of compressed wind with only a small portion of binding chakra.
Due to the smaller chakra requirement, these spheres could be launched as projectiles at enemies.
Since he was already training intensively on the Rasengan's second stage, this technique became considerably easier to learn.
Within just a few hours, he performed this jutsu correctly for the first time.
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