65. The Science of Sealing
Suddenly, Naruto felt immobilized. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark shadow holding him firmly by the leg.
It was his own shadow!
Honen had apparently mastered the Shadow Control Technique, which was of medium-advanced level and, according to Naruto, somewhat mediocre.
In the Leaf Village, there was a clan that controlled shadows, but they used Chakra, which allowed them to apply and manipulate their shadows in many different ways. The monks could only do a few simple things, like trapping someone, but even that was quite weak compared to using Chakra.
Even with the addition of the Hermit Group's Gift to the shadow, the monks could only use a few simple techniques.
Honen took advantage of the few seconds during which Naruto was trapped. He struck precisely at Naruto's internal organs, causing him to spit out a mix of saliva and blood.
If Naruto were a normal person, he would have been out of breath by now, but it didn't matter to him. He was used to such situations. After taking a few hits, he retaliated against Honen, breaking free from the shadow's grip.
Naruto increased the blood flow in his veins and began breathing only oxygen using a special breathing technique. Naruto's body instantly gained abnormal strength for his size.
The two engaged in a fierce battle once again. Naruto's strength was now much greater than before, so Honen forced his body to increase blood flow again. For any untrained person, this would be unsafe, but Honen was accustomed to it. His body was an enormous abnormality.
At one point, Honen knocked Naruto's staff out of his hands. It flew off to the side, and the energy inside it rushed back into Naruto's body. Honen quickly attacked his opponent, his arm slicing through the air and piercing Naruto's torso, somewhere between his ribs.
"Oh... I see, so that's how it is," Naruto coughed, understanding the source of Honen's sudden speed.
"You noticed...?" Honen asked, surprised.
"Of course."
Honen laughed to himself, why did he even ask?
Electricity flowed through Honen's body, suddenly increasing his attack speed. He had learned this from his Master, who had shown him the use of electricity in the body, but Honen couldn't use it indefinitely because it caused internal damage and fatigue.
Both didn't waste time talking, and after a short break, they attacked each other again. Honen used the situation perfectly, but Naruto didn't want to give him more chances for a direct attack, so he strengthened his defense. The fight entered an even stage.
Naruto and Honen exchanged attacks without giving the other an advantage. Their positions were stable in both defense and attack. Naruto adapted to Honen's personal style, knowing it might be better this way. However, suddenly, from a defensive style, he abruptly withdrew and went on the offensive. He confused his opponent's mind and attacked unexpectedly.
Electricity ran through Naruto's body, shocking him slightly from the inside. This accelerated his body, just as Honen had done earlier. Naruto quickly grasped the technique, understanding that it involved attacking oneself with electricity, which accelerated the specific body part. One had to shock oneself internally at the perfect moment of attack, when the arm was at the right angle. The body would then gain speed akin to electricity or lightning.
It was more of a trick using electricity than a technique. It couldn't be used on the entire body, only on the arms and legs during an attack.
Honen groaned, taking Naruto's sudden attack. Naruto's fingers brutally dug into Honen's torso, causing his body to collapse inward.
"Tch, now we're both marked," Honen couldn't help but chuckle. He lay down on the ground, exhausted, ending their sparring match.
"That was impressive, how did you manage to copy it?" Honen didn't hide his admiration. Learning it was tough and required many attempts; he truly didn't think Naruto could do it on the first try.
"Beginner's luck," Naruto shrugged, also sitting down a bit farther away on the ground.
"So, a draw?"
"I guess so, I don't think you would just lose after this."
"Right. I don't want to push our fight to some extreme," Honen admitted honestly.
Both needed to continue their training, so a serious injury was out of the question. Small wounds could regenerate, but larger ones, taking at least a few days to heal, would be a nightmare for their development.
"Let's do this again sometime," Naruto expressed his desire for another fight with Honen, maybe next time it would be more serious and exciting.
...
For the past few days, Naruto had been learning the art of sealing from his Master according to the monks, using the Hermit Group's Gift. The difference between Shinobi (Chakra) Fuinjutsu and Monks (Hermit Group's Gift) lay in the Energy itself. Chakra had nearly endless applications compared to the Hermit Group's Gift. Working with Human Energy required several times more effort than with Chakra, not due to control, but the way it was used. The Hermit Group's Gift lacked elements of nature and Yin and Yang, which cut about 80% of its applications.
Additionally, the seals were formed differently, based on another principle. Chakra was expendable energy; the Hermit Group's Gift, after use/manipulation in the form of techniques, returned to its container, and so on. Even if Human Energy was used repeatedly during a fight, after a few days of regeneration, it would return to its full capacity.
Chakra was poured into the seal, it had to be used up for the technique or seal to work. The Hermit Group's Gift, for this reason, worked with fewer seals, which were redesigned to adapt to Human Energy.
Naruto practiced creating simple seals, effortlessly memorizing the formula and transferring his Energy into it with ink while writing.
The 'Storage Seal' was the basic sealing technique among monks, similar to Shinobi. It was the most popular seal known by every Shinobi in the Leaf Village, very simple to learn, almost trivial. Naruto wrote it on a blank piece of paper, infusing it with Energy, and the seal came out perfectly. Naruto sealed his wooden staff in it, and after a few seconds, unsealed it and repeated the process several times for better efficiency.
When the seal was no longer needed, Naruto extracted his Energy from it, leaving only empty and meaningless text.
If Naruto were using Chakra, it would be easiest for him to create the seal while writing it. He would write it and simultaneously infuse it with Chakra. It was more challenging to pour Chakra into an already written seal, as one had to guide the Chakra into the ink perfectly to avoid making a mistake that could destroy the seal or the text itself. The 'Storage Seal,' however, was very simple, and anyone with basic Chakra control could handle it.
"The Marking Seal" was another basic seal among the Monks. It involved marking a dead object or a living organism to be able to track it.
Very similar to the previous one, the "Summoning Seal" involved summoning a specific object or person.
There were many basic seals that were essentially identical to Shinobi seals. The only difference was in their construction.
Over the past few days, Naruto had learned to create all the basic Monk seals without any problem. Unfortunately, due to the limited amount of the Hermit's Gift, he couldn't afford to waste it on creating seals that would involve long-term separation of Energy from his body.
Interestingly, the Hermit's Gift was exclusively Naruto's Energy, which meant he could sense it at any distance, making the "Marking Seal" theoretically useless. However, the longer the distance, the harder it was to sense his Energy, so in some cases, the "Marking Seal" could be useful.
Now it was time for Naruto to learn how to create intermediate seals. Like Kontorōrujutsu, the seals were divided into three simple stages: basic, intermediate, and advanced.
For the Monks, memorization was the biggest challenge in creating seals. The more advanced they were, the more difficult and complex the seal patterns became. Learning a single pattern could take several days, with dozens of similar patterns appearing in a single seal.
Control of Energy wasn't an issue, so that was one thing off the table. However, Naruto was different from typical Monks. The Monks were focused most of the time on physical training, and when it came to learning sealing techniques, they often gave up, even despite having a great amount of Spiritual Energy that should enhance their memory. Physical effort was much simpler than memorization. For Naruto, it wasn't a problem; learning and remembering things had never been difficult for him, so the art of sealing came easily to him—one could say he had a talent for it.
Of course, he had to spend some time on all those patterns to analyze them thoroughly, but the learning time was only slightly extended.
...
Chō-sen was sitting in her apartment at a small wooden desk. It was already evening, and the room was completely dark, so she had to place several candles to illuminate the text in front of her.
Every day after training, she dedicated at least an hour to learning seals. She memorized patterns and repeated them on the pages of her notebook. Unfortunately, all this happened without actually creating seals since Chō-sen hadn't yet achieved the Hermit's Gift, though she was close. She needed about a week, maybe a week and a half, to finally generate new Energy in her body.
She was already able to sense and manipulate Life Energy at a really good level. What she lacked now was understanding the method of generating the Hermit's Gift. Unfortunately, no one could help her with this, and she had to solve the problem on her own, but this wasn't something she feared.
In a short time, she would understand the process and finally achieve Humanity's Energy in her body. She could hardly wait for the next day to continue her training.
Chō-sen finished her studies for the day, sighed, closed her books, and extinguished the candles. All-day physical training and even short study sessions caused her a slight headache at the end of the day. She really utilized every minute of the day for continuous development, but unfortunately, her talent wasn't as exceptional as that of true geniuses. She had never seen any results without hard work; her talent wasn't even average, it was rather meager, slightly below average.
The first time she saw and heard about Naruto, an unpolished diamond and a genius who had become her grandfather's student, she was genuinely jealous. He appeared out of nowhere, did nothing significant, and even when she saw him, he never seemed to be trying hard—she never saw him break a sweat from strenuous training. How could someone like that be her grandfather's student? One of the most outstanding Monks of the previous generation?
However, when she challenged him to a duel, he overwhelmed her in everything she had learned. She had been training at the Temple of Fire for three years, yet she lost. Naruto had only been here a few weeks, and he was already better, stronger, and more perfect.
Then she realized that what they did in training didn't really pose much difficulty for him. Even if he was an exceptional genius, without training, he couldn't achieve such results. After her defeat, she became humble but wanted to take revenge on him, which led her to use cunning tricks that... turned against her. She sincerely wanted to forget about it.
The only path to revenge that would soothe her emotions and restore her lost pride was an honest match that she would win. The thought of another duel with Naruto strangely excited her. These emotions motivated her to train harder and study more, and Naruto's existence on her life path accelerated her development by at least half a year.
One could say he was her rival or the person she wanted to catch up to and then surpass.
The difference in their level was enormous, like a chasm. The only way to surpass Naruto was her grandfather's technique, which he left to his family and descendants.
The Body Sealing Technique. It was a highly demanding advanced-level seal that enhanced the body in many aspects. The seal inscribed on the body added new strength and even vitality. The only downside, or rather the cost of power, was the excruciating pain.