Tōma exhaled slowly as the lingering tingles ran across his skin. The sensation wasn't painful—actually, it felt almost pleasant in a strange way.That alone proved how different this world was from his original one. Back on Earth, a shock like that would send someone to the hospital. Here, his body simply accepted it as stimulation.
Lightning-nature chakra.Body enhancement.Shape manipulation.
Tōma sat in thought.
If he was going to walk the lightning path, there was one unavoidable reference: the Lightning Release Chakra Mode of the Hidden Cloud. Their signature technique was legendary for a reason.
Unfortunately, it wasn't something Konoha possessed.
He had no doubt the village had tried to replicate it—every major village probably had. A technique that could drastically boost speed, reaction time, and physical durability? Any shinobi force would kill to get that. And the theory wasn't complicated.
The problem was the reality.Lightning Release was incredibly dangerous when applied to the body. One miscalculation meant permanent nerve damage… or a funeral.
Tōma suspected Konoha already had prototypes locked away in some restricted archive. Experimental, unstable, maybe even lethal—nothing a sane jonin would willingly use.
Still, he understood why every village studied Cloud's secret. Knowledge of the underlying principles made it easier to counter Cloud shinobi in battle.
But as far as actually learning that ability?
No chance.He wasn't Cloud-born and he certainly wasn't going to get access to their clan secrets.
Temporary, small-scale lightning reinforcement like Sasuke used during the Chūnin Exams—that was doable. But Sasuke was a protagonist with protagonist immunity; even his reckless shortcuts had insane payoff. If Tōma tried that blindly, he imagined himself ending up as charcoal.
He needed a safer approach.Methodical. Controlled.
Step one: study the human body.No meaningful enhancement was possible without real anatomical knowledge.
Tōma had already skimmed some medical texts from the library, but this time he'd need to go deeper. Another task added to the ever-growing list.
For a moment, he finally understood why someone like Orochimaru turned into a researcher.Once you start peeling back the layers of how chakra interacts with the body… it becomes intoxicating.
The fastest way to master something like Lightning Release Chakra Mode would be to do what Orochimaru did—live experimentation. Alive subjects. Cloud ninja samples. Dissection. Reverse engineering.
Tōma could imagine it clearly.A captured Cloud shinobi.A corpse still warm, chakra pathways faintly active.Piece by piece decoding the structure of their technique.
In theory, with enough samples and enough experiments, Konoha could replicate the technique.
But that was the problem—samples.
A few Cloud bodies wouldn't get him anywhere.He'd need dozens.
And there was no universe where a six-year-old academy student could get away with that. Even Root wouldn't be able to gather the required numbers without triggering a diplomatic disaster.
Besides, no one was going to hand a child a laboratory filled with dissection subjects.
And honestly… Tōma didn't want to cross that line.Studying dead ninja was fine.Experimenting on living ones was a path he refused to take.
So the "researcher path" was cut off entirely. He'd arrived in this world too late and lacked the institutional support and moral detachment to be an Orochimaru-style scientist.
That left only the traditional shinobi path.
And fortunately… he was pretty good at that one.
As for trying to be a prophet of the future?Laughable.Unless everyone around him was an idiot—which they weren't—prophecies were unreliable. Cleverness only worked when the world didn't hit back.
He'd stick to what he could control.
Tōma crossed his legs, and faint electric arcs danced across his skin again.Even if he couldn't recreate Cloud's ultimate technique, he could still use lightning chakra to accelerate recovery—like a targeted, internal massage.
The tingling sensation seeped into tired muscle groups.When it reached the areas he'd strained the most, he almost groaned aloud from the relief.
The moment his chakra ran out, the sensation faded.
He opened his eyes.
Even with that shallow trial run, his recovery speed jumped significantly. As he improved his control, the results would multiply. Faster recovery meant more training volume. More volume meant more chakra. More chakra meant faster overall growth.
He'd have to rearrange his schedule.
Void-State for shape transformation.Then lightning-based recovery.Then whatever chakra was left would go to refinement and control.
Tōma smiled faintly.The future looked a little brighter today.
He could feel it—the path forward had widened.
And he was ready to sprint down it.