Chapter 30: Learning Basic Fuinjutsu
After summer vacation ended, the third academic year began.
This academic year, Instructor Genshu would focus on other aspects of being a shinobi, beyond just combat abilities.
Kaito was initially surprised that Genshu didn't continue pushing for more advanced ninjutsu training, but after thinking it over, he understood the reasoning.
More than half of the class couldn't keep up with the accelerated pace. Considering Genshu had asked Kaito to learn Wind Release techniques, Kaito guessed he had given similar personalized advice to other high-performing students.
This way, students with weaker grades could catch up on fundamentals, while students who performed well could continue advancing on their own.
Kaito suspected the Academy wanted to ensure every child in this class could become a competent shinobi to fill the ranks depleted by casualties.
However, judging from Genshu's opening speech, it seemed all essential curriculum content would be covered this year.
After class, Kaito went to the Library. He entered Section E and picked up a scroll titled "Introduction to Fuinjutsu."
He remembered reading this scroll briefly a few years ago. This time, he studied it much more carefully. After finishing, he analyzed what he'd learned:
Fuinjutsu consists of two main components. First, the inscription component. However, this also has two distinct sub-parts.
The first sub-part involves the symbols themselves. Fuinjutsu uses special characters and symbols, and one must thoroughly understand them before attempting to create any sealing formula.
Kaito needed to learn how to correctly draw each symbol and properly channel chakra into them in the prescribed manner.
Any mistake would cause the sealing formula to fail and could potentially lead to dangerous complications due to incorrect operation of the seal.
This was actually very similar to hand seals, only with a vastly larger number of symbols to memorize.
These symbols have multiple functions. The primary function Kaito could identify was their ability to manipulate and generate elemental chakra.
Each of the five basic elements has corresponding symbols, as well as symbols that can suppress or enhance them. There are also symbols specifically designed to manipulate time and space.
Simple storage seals contain many space-manipulation symbols, while complex storage seals not only have space symbols but also time-dilation symbols, used to ensure time flows slower within the sealed space to preserve perishable items.
The second sub-part is the logical structure component. This aspect is remarkably similar to programming from Earth.
Since Kaito understood basic programming concepts from his previous life, this part was considerably easier for him to grasp.
However, this didn't provide as much advantage as he'd hoped. Programming logic was relatively straightforward to learn, and he believed the smarter students in his class could master the basics in a week or two.
After mastering the inscription component, the next major part involves shaping chakra to achieve the seal's intended purpose.
For a simple storage seal scroll, dimensional space must be created with the assistance of the symbols, and specific conditions for activating and deactivating the seal must be established.
Unfortunately, this was still quite complex.
Kaito planned to start by learning the symbols systematically, but there were hundreds of different symbols in fuinjutsu. If he wanted to learn all of them, it would require at least several months of dedicated study.
So he decided to first choose a specific seal to learn and master its required symbols. This way, Kaito could better monitor his progress with a concrete goal.
After analyzing all the basic sealing formulas described in the scroll, Kaito decided to learn the most commonly used one—the storage seal.
It utilized 16 distinct symbols. Most of them were different types of space-manipulation symbols. Some expanded the amount of dimensional space in the seal, some restricted and maintained spatial boundaries, some ensured spatial stability, and so on.
He carefully drew the required symbols on a spare scroll and took detailed notes about their functions.
He had observed several other people doing this in the Library, so he wasn't worried about getting into trouble.
However, he was genuinely surprised by Konoha's generosity in allowing Academy students such open access to fuinjutsu knowledge.
After completing his notes, he left the Library.
He went to the commercial district and used the Transformation Jutsu in an alley to disguise himself. After some searching, he found the specialized shop he was looking for. There, he purchased the special ink and special scrolls required for fuinjutsu.
These scrolls were made of specially treated materials.
They were remarkably durable and, if not damaged by external forces, could apparently last for centuries without deterioration.
They could easily withstand the chakra strain applied during the inscription of sealing formulas.
The special chakra-conductive ink made it much easier to channel chakra into the symbols; creating functional seals with ordinary ink was significantly more difficult.
However, there was one alternative to this expensive special ink—shinobi blood.
But these materials were quite costly. The special scrolls were 60 ryo each, and a small bottle of chakra ink was 100 ryo.
He bought 5 bottles of ink and 5 scrolls to practice with. He sighed internally, thinking:
"I hope these materials last at least a few months. I only have 4,370 ryo remaining in savings."
Then he returned home, and upon arriving, he immediately created a Shadow Clone.
Several months of intense physical training, extensive meditation, and continuous ninjutsu practice until chakra exhaustion had made his chakra reserves grow considerably—increasing by approximately 25%.
This meant that if he wanted to, he could now create two Shadow Clones simultaneously.
However, those two clones would each have very limited chakra available to use.
If he created a single Shadow Clone with exactly 50% of his chakra, that clone could function until its chakra dropped to approximately 32% of Kaito's maximum reserves before automatically dispersing.
So the usable chakra available for a single Shadow Clone had more than doubled during this training period.
Kaito and his Shadow Clone began studying the first fuinjutsu symbol. After half an hour of practice, Kaito confirmed:
"As I suspected, the amount of chakra required to practice this is relatively low."
This was excellent news for Kaito, as it meant his Shadow Clone could last much longer during training.
Based on monitoring the remaining chakra of his Shadow Clone, he estimated it could practice for approximately four hours before needing to disperse.
After one hour of initial practice, he dispelled his Shadow Clone.
Upon dispelling, he received all of the clone's memories and training experience, along with a mild headache.
He then created another Shadow Clone. This time, the clone practiced symbols for 2 hours, rested for 2 hours, practiced for 1 hour, rested for 1 hour, and then practiced for another final hour.
Kaito himself, meanwhile, went outside to practice throwing shuriken at moving Wind Clones and work on expanding the radius of his sensory field.
He didn't practice any chakra-intensive ninjutsu because training with only half his chakra reserves wouldn't be sustainable for long.
Seven hours later, he dispelled the clone. This time, the resulting headache was somewhat worse but still quite bearable.
Then, remembering the Hokage's explicit warnings, he decided to go to sleep rather than create another clone.
He felt very satisfied with what he'd accomplished today.
Waking up early the next morning, he thought with satisfaction:
"Excellent, the experiment was successful."
Now his Shadow Clone could last 7 hours and dedicate 4 of those hours to productive fuinjutsu practice.
When Kaito left for the Academy, he left his Shadow Clone at home so it could continue practicing fuinjutsu symbols throughout the school day.
Kaito calculated that his chakra reserves would need to increase by another 20-25% before his Shadow Clone could practice continuously for the full 7 hours without rest breaks.
However, he also needed to decide what the Shadow Clone should do with the remaining 3 hours of downtime.
He thought for a while and suddenly had an idea:
"Yes, why not? I should buy some cookbooks for the Shadow Clone to study. Over the past two years, I've learned to make various breakfasts, but I haven't learned to prepare decent lunches or dinners because I haven't had much free time. This seems like an excellent opportunity to learn proper cooking! Okay, I'll go buy the cookbooks after school today."
Extremely pleased at the prospect of finally eating delicious home-cooked meals, he decided to plan out his complete daily schedule:
"Given this arrangement, I'll continue physical training in the mornings. My Shadow Clone can practice fuinjutsu during class lectures, while my original body concentrates on listening to Genshu-sensei's lessons and practices expanding my sensory field range during any remaining time."
After classes ended each day, Kaito would need to return home, dispel the clone, and then take a short nap for about an hour to recover from the memory feedback. Then he could dedicate his afternoons to ninjutsu training and shuriken practice.
The year continued following this intensive routine.
Genshu taught extensive practical knowledge that shinobi needed for survival and missions. Kaito, meanwhile, continued his diligent self-directed training.
Kaito noticed that the students in this year's class seemed noticeably more serious and motivated. He thought:
"Genshu's individual counseling sessions worked quite well."
Six months into the school year, Kaito could already perform all E-rank Wind Release jutsu without hand seals—only the Wind Clone still required a single hand seal.
Among the D-rank techniques, he could perform Wind Pushing Technique without any hand seals, but the remaining jutsu still required one to two hand seals.
Twenty-three days before the end-of-year exam, he successfully reduced all his techniques to seal-less execution except for two stubborn exceptions.
Only the Dust Wind Technique still required a few hand seals, and Wind Clone could be reduced to just one hand seal.
Similarly, the Shadow Clone Jutsu was also reduced to requiring only a single hand seal—the signature Clone Seal that couldn't be eliminated from the technique's structure.
His Great Breakthrough and Air Bullets techniques could now inflict significantly higher damage, and his other Wind Release jutsu had all been mastered to an impressive degree.
His Shadow Clone spent three months mastering the 16 required fuinjutsu symbols and another month to successfully create his first functional storage seal. He practiced for an additional month to complete storage seals with ease and without any errors.
So far, he had spent four thousand ryo on fuinjutsu materials, leaving him with only slightly over two thousand ryo in savings.
Each time he purchased materials, he did so from different shops while using different disguises.
He had successfully created five authentic storage seal scrolls.
Among the five shop owners he'd encountered, he observed that one of them seemed particularly greedy and less ethical than the others. He thought carefully:
"I can't keep spending money on fuinjutsu materials at this rate. If this continues, I'll be completely broke in about four more months. So I must sell some of my storage scrolls to fund further training. The problem is finding a buyer. I can't expose my real identity, and I don't know if any shop owner would agree to purchase without knowing the seller's identity. I'll just have to approach the one with questionable morals and a greedy nature."
"Fortunately, one of the shop owners fits that description perfectly. I should also take proper precautions. It's best to send a transformed clone in disguise to conduct the transaction safely."
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