Substitution Technique
Although Masumi behaved strangely at school, there were not many problems. However, something unexpected happened with Masumi's peaceful work envisioned in the border class.
It turns out that Masumi aroused everyone's curiosity in the boundary class. Although they were recently busy with work, many people still found various excuses to go to the data room to see Masumi.
There are even many people who specifically choose the time when Masumi is on duty to exchange books. So, half of what Masumi thought would be quiet study time was spent copying books.
However, there are also advantages. Masumi quickly became familiar with the internal structure and task division of the enchantment class.
As one of the various departments in the village, the Barrier Class structure is extensive. It includes the sealing team to which Masumi belongs, as well as the perception team, the rune team, and a combat team which, although not part of the Barrier Class, has been stationed there for a long time.
Besides the combat units, each unit has dozens to hundreds of people in peacetime.
It is an organization on the same level as the medical class, interrogation class, ANBU, ninja school, patrol class, political affairs department, logistics department, etc.
Unlike Konoha, Iwa Ninja Village does not have roots or a dedicated security department.
It turns out that when wartime comes, these departments will be divided and assigned to various combat units to enhance the configuration of various special talents in the combat units.
Therefore, the current barrier class is not as large as the several hundred people when it was full. There are only more than a hundred people left, and these more than a hundred people are divided into three groups by shifts.
Among them, the perception class has the largest number of people, while the sealing class and rune class have much fewer people.
The daily work of the sealing class includes two main aspects. One is to regularly check the status of the various seals in the village. Similar to the cabinets in the reference room that can only be viewed with special permissions, the sealing class must regularly check and strengthen them.
Another important task that Masumi did not expect was the production of storage scrolls.
Storage scrolls are consumables; although they do not wear out after one use, they cannot be used for long and are very expensive, so each village has a ninja responsible for making them.
An important task of the rune class is to make various runes, such as the most common detonating runes.
So far, Masumi has not used these two things, for the simple reason that he could not afford to buy them.
The first book on the list given to Masumi by the branch captain was related to knowledge about making storage scrolls.
In the following month, Masumi copied more than thirty books. Although it was a bit tiring, it earned him about seventy contribution value points. Although not much, for a poor family dependent on food and clothing, Masumi was still happy.
An obvious benefit of a strong mental power is that it is easy to acquire knowledge, so Masumi spent a month reading all the books on the book list, which even surprised Fensi.
The branch leader first tested Masumi's mastery of the knowledge, and the results were satisfactory. Masumi not only comprehended the relevant knowledge but also had many insights.
This was a bit different from what was expected. After thinking about it, Fensi did not arrange other tasks for Masumi as usual. Instead, he made a longer list of books for Masumi to study.
Masumi is not in a hurry. He has been practicing the Three-Body Technique lately, and the progress is quite gratifying. He has now learned the clone technique and the substitution technique.
However, he is not yet proficient; the process of executing the technique is slow, the success rate is not high, and it requires full concentration to execute.
The most important thing is that the seal is very slow and far from being usable in one-on-one battles.
The transformation and clone techniques take more than three seconds, and the substitution technique can also be performed in more than three seconds if the wooden substitute is prepared in advance.
If you temporarily use items around as a substitute for wood, it will take more than seven seconds.
In just over seven seconds, Taniya's Senbon could turn Masumi into a cactus.
Faced with this, besides physical training, Masumi's daily training focused on familiarizing himself with the Three-Body Technique.
The practice of the three bodies is divided into two parts. One is the practice of seals. As one of the few ninjutsu that Masumi knows now, the feeling of practicing the seals with real application is much better than just practicing the seals in random order.
And now that the seals are accompanied by chakra mobilization, Masumi does not dare to rashly disturb the order.
After much deliberation, Masumi chose the most suitable ninjutsu for actual combat, the Substitution Technique. As one of the three main body techniques, the Substitution Technique consumes very little chakra and is a common way for ninjas to avoid attacks.
However, there are many restrictions on using the Substitution Technique. First, there need to be objects of appropriate size and weight.
If it is too big or too heavy, the Substitution Technique will be very slow to execute and will consume more chakra, so it is better to use the Instant Body Technique.
If the weight or size is too small, it will be difficult to transform the substitute item into the original.
Secondly, the Substitution Technique requires the connection of one's own chakra with the substitute item, which means the preparation time for this Ninjutsu cannot be too advanced.
If you prepare too early, you will not be able to fight to maintain the chakra connection.
If it is too late, well, it will immediately cool down.
Finally, chakra can be easily detected when separated from the body. Ninjas have good IQ and combat intuition. As one of the most common ninjutsu, the Substitution Technique keeps everyone on guard.
But although there are so many shortcomings, the advantages are also obvious. The most direct is that it is simple and easy to learn. The Three-Body Jutsu are all basic level ninjutsu and, in terms of levels, are level D ninjutsu. There is no simpler ninjutsu.
In the following days, Masumi changed places every day and practiced the substitution technique in various environments.
Only three months later was Masumi able to perform the Substitution Technique with 100% success under normal circumstances and was able to ensure that the entire technique could be completed using the wood or branches around in about five seconds.
Then Masumi started to have a whim. Instead of using wood, he used some items that ordinary people would not imagine to perform the Substitution Technique, such as water.
Compared to stone, water is less dense and consumes much less chakra.
And most importantly, it is unexpected.
The Substitution Technique can swap the position between the ninja and the substitute item, allowing the ninja to move in the water, which is a good way to escape or hide.
It's been about five months since Masumi's chakra amount first met the requirements of the transformation technique. Compared to before, Masumi's chakra amount has also increased significantly.
For convenience in calculation, Masumi refers to the amount of chakra that can perform a D-level ninjutsu as 1D. Now Masumi has increased from 1D to about 1.7D.
Additionally, due to chakra control practice during this period, Masumi was able to perform the Substitution Technique with about 0.8D of chakra.
But this is limited to the Substitution Technique. The proficiency of the Clone Technique and the Transformation Technique has not changed much, and the chakra amount required is still above 0.9D.
Moreover, Masumi's greatest advantage, his mental power, has also started to gradually increase. The most obvious is that he has become the only ninja in the class who can refine chakra while fighting.
Masumi, who is more than seven and less than eight years old, barely meets Konoha's standards for selecting genin in peacetime.
In the memory of his previous life, Kakashi graduated at the age of five and said that if he had entered school two years earlier, he would have done the same.
To describe Masumi's mentality in one sentence: "If Kakashi can, so can I."
Of course, all this is Masumi's narcissism. To gain some confidence, it is mandatory that Kakashi graduated at five years old, and the difficulty of the assessment definitely is not limited to the three body techniques.
Additionally, Masumi's ability to reach the standard in the Three-Body Technique is entirely due to his chakra control ability. His chakra amount, physical condition, and other conditions are far inferior to other notable people of the same age.
For example, Shinohara, a muscular guy with a simple mind, now has at least 7D of chakra, and his physique is dozens of times greater than Masumi's.
Don't be surprised, the physical difference between the two is actually increasing.
This physical difference is despairing and manifests in physical abilities. That is, if Masumi and Eri fought, the two would form the opposition seal, and before Masumi could use it, Eri's fist would be in front of him.
However, although Shinohara's and Eri's taijutsu are far superior to Masumi's, Shinohara is still in the stage of practicing the three-body jutsu and, so far, has not been able to successfully perform the three-body jutsu.
Eri is better and can already perform the transformation technique.
Now, there are seven or eight people in Masumi's class who can perform the three ninjutsu, but only Igura, Masumi, and Misaki have learned all three ninjutsu, and Masumi learned all three ninjutsu before Misaki.
The students in the class can no longer judge how strong Igura is.
His physique is far superior to others, and his chakra capacity and control are not comparable to ordinary people. When competing with his classmates, there is no one who can make Igura use his full strength.
He is a genius known in the village.
Sometimes Masumi wonders, according to Igura's talent, he is not much worse than Kakashi, so why is there no such person in his memory? Did he die in childhood? Or is he useless?
This is something I can't understand now, so I won't waste any more time, but focus on the Substitution Technique.
How to use water as a substitute item? Water has no fixed shape and is extremely fluid, which greatly limits the use of the Substitution Technique.
After much deliberation, Masumi decided to first solve the shape problem and practice with water in a bucket. This can eliminate the influence of flow. If possible, proceed to the next step.
But the idea is beautiful, but the reality is cruel. Masumi deliberately chose a bucket that was approximately the same size as the wood. After filling it with water, he began to use chakra to establish a connection with the water in the bucket.
There is no problem with this step, but there is a problem when the position change with water is able to swap positions between the two. After the spell was completed, Masumi successfully reached the bucket, and the water also reached Masumi's location.
But the water whose position was swapped cannot become Masumi's appearance.
Is this a success?
According to the original intent of the substitution technique, in terms of avoiding attacks, it should be considered a success. But the essence of the substitution technique is to be able to confuse the enemy for a short period while avoiding attacks. In this aspect, it failed.
An important advantage of the substitution technique is launching a surprise attack from the side when the enemy's attention is focused on the substitute. To achieve this, we must solve the problem of water's shape.
(End of the chapter)