Nature Transformation, the End of the D-Rank Missions

During the second month Koichi taught each member of the team the five basic D-rank elemental jutsu, a one for the each of the five basic elements. Fireball jutsu for Fire release, Earth Shield jutsu for Earth release, Water Ball jutsu for Water release, Gale Palm jutsu for Wind release and Discharge jutsu for Lightning release.

[AN: Here and later on whenever the new Jutsu is mentioned it will be explained like that.

Fireball jutsu – Inferior version of the Great Fireball jutsu that Sasuke often used at the start of the series. Jutsu spits a fire ball the size of a head or so.

Earth Shield jutsu – Inferior version of the Earth Wall jutsu that is often being used in the series for defense by literally everyone. Creates a small earth wall for protection.

Water Ball jutsu – similar to Fireball jutsu, but water, can knock someone down but doesn't do much damage.

Gale Palm jutsu – creates a strong currents of wind but it isn't sharp and doesn't do much damage.

Discharge jutsu – lightning attack jutsu that needs contact.]

After first two weeks of practicing this jutsus for a couple of hours every day with equal amount of time for each of the five jutsu, it was clear which affinities everyone has.

Itachi has Fire release as main affinity, Water and Wind release as secondary affinity.

Hikari has Wind as main affinity, Fire and Lightning as secondary.

Yuta has the same set as Itachi, Fire as main, Water and Wind as secondary.

'I got Fire release as my main affinity, Fire affinity in the land of Fire... This is just lame... I was hoping for Lightning, or Water, or Wind also not bad, but Fire? I can't even remember a single case during the whole Naruto series when someone actually was hit by Fire jutsu...

The only case when Fire jutsu looked good is when Madara used it, but I can't even imagine how long it will take for me to come even close to the Madara's level... Well, no point in complaining, I just have to work with what I have here...'

After that Koichi taught C-rank jutsus Great Breakthrough to Hikari and Great Fireball jutsu to Yuta, so both of them learned one C-rank jutsu each for their main elemental affinity. For Itachi he recommends learning some C-rank jutsu of Fire and one of his secondary affinity releases in the clan, as Uchiha clan possesses a vast amount of jutsu of all elements.

[AN: Great Breakthrough – exhaling a strong wind currents that damages and cuts whatever in the way of it. On low-level mastery can shake some trees and leave some cuts on them, on high-level mastery and with a lot of chakra infused – can cut dozens of trees on its path in to pieces.]

After that Koichi gathered everyone and explained, "Now that you barely learned a few nature transformation ninjutsu and at least one C-rank elemental ninjutsu for your main affinity, I should explain the nature transformation basics more to you guys.

First thing is that while you still don't have a lot of chakra to train with those jutsus for prolonged amount of time or use it in combat a lot, you still have to practice it whenever you can, as frequently using up your chakra will help you to increase your chakra reserves, as well as it will increase your mastery over the element you training with.

And gaining mastery over the element, that is your main elemental affinity, is what you should focus on along with training your physique. This will create a good foundation for your strength as a shinobi.

As of now for you Yuta and Hikari, your mastery over the elemental jutsu is low, you will end up wasting a lot of chakra on it and overall efficiency of the elemental jutsu will be very low, as well as its strength. And as for you Itachi, you already practicing the Fire release for some time now, but you still have to practice a lot with it to completely master it.

But just by performing elemental jutsus alone – gaining mastery over the element will be difficult and slow. For that reason, the elemental mastery exercises exist. By practicing those exercises, you can increase your elemental mastery, and at this stage as you don't have enough chakra for training with elemental jutsus a lot, this exercises is the best way for you."

As Koichi make a pause in his explanation and observed his students to make sure that everyone gets what he is speaking about, Itachi asked, "Sensei, is this exercises involves molding the chakra without the hand seals in the same way the chakra molds with the hand seals of the specific element, and then releasing the molded chakra in a way that it will inflict the element's primary property, such as burning for Fire element?"

"Basically yes" Koichi nodded, "For example for the Fire element you mold your chakra in to Fire release chakra on your own without the hand seals and then release the Fire chakra with the intent to burn something, for starters a leaf.

For the wind element you do the same thing, but you cut the leaf instead. For Water element you try to control water in your environment or conjure water with your Water release chakra. For Earth it's the same as for water. For lightning you create and discharge the electrical charge with your Lightning release chakra.

That is the mostly all that you need to know about elemental mastery exercises. As your mastery increases you just have to increase the difficulty of your exercise, that's all."

"I heard that Lord Third mastered all five chakra natures" Itachi said curiously, "What does this means exactly, sensei, and how long we have to practice elemental mastery exercise for completely mastering the element?"

"That is true that Lord Hokage has mastered all five chakra natures", Koichi replied with pride evident on his face, "And mastering the element means that your efficiency with said element's jutsus becomes perfect and there is no chakra wastage at all. To achieve that level of mastery with element, that you have as your main affinity, usually takes around five years of continuous practice, and even then, achieving the perfect level of mastery is very hard.

And mastering the elements that you don't have affinity with is many times harder than that."

'Well, if that is true that how the hell Hiruzen made it I wonder?'

Right now, after learning those elemental jutsus and practicing them for some time Yuta seems dejected, as it quite hard to perform and requires a lot of effort and still, the effects of elemental jutsus seems weak right now.

For Yuta's main affinity, that is Fire, his D-rank jutsu Fireball seems quite weak, he only manages to create a fireball of the size of a fist, and it moves quite slow, and the chakra amount it requires is high, as a lot of chakra is simply wasted because of the insufficient elemental mastery.

At this state it's unusable for combat and wastes around 5% of Yuta's chakra and he only can perform it up to 20 times before depleting his chakra. And Yuta can sense that it actually uses only 1%, while the rest of chakra is basically wasted.

The same situation is with the Great Fireball jutsu, Yuta only manages to create a fireball of the size of 2 meters, and it uses 20% of his chakra just like that, while most of it is wasted.

And that is his current situation with his main affinity element, the situation with the secondary affinity elements such as Water and Wind is even worse than that, and Earth and Lighting, that Yuta does not have the affinity with, the jutsus is hardly produce any effects at all.

'Well, it seems like I have to spend a lot of time on elemental mastery exercises before I can actually use those jutsus in combat. Even practicing them is very inefficient for the time being... I wonder how Itachi in the series managed to perform the Great Fireball jutsu at his first try, and being as big as it was? Damn all this geniuses around me...' Yuta thought while glanced at Itachi with envy.

After the training day was over, Itachi asked, "Yuta, it seems like you are in a bad mood, this is not like you, what's wrong?"

"It's fine" Yuta replied shaking his head, "It's just that elemental ninjutsu is hard for me it seems."

"Don't worry" Itachi said assuredly, "You will become good at it soon, I'm sure of it. After all you managed to master three basic jutsu, Shunshin and Shadow Clone jutsu to a very high level during the academy. It's just the elemental component is that is new to you, that's all!"

"Yea, you are right, Itachi" Yuta replied, while thought to himself, 'Yea, of course, just another couple years in the time-loop and I'm definitely will be good at it, just you wait... Well, I don't actually want to start the time-loop training yet, as right now Koichi pushes us through a lot of intense physical training, and it will be bothersome to do it now, it's not like I'm in a rush anyway...'

After that Yuta said goodbye to his teammates and went home. It's evening and while Yuta was walking through the busy streets of Konoha and observes the people on the streets he thought, 'I'm getting used to this place, is it fine though? Or should I try to stay less attached to Konoha instead? I don't really have an answer to it right now...'

After that the training and occasional missions and days off for individual training continued until the second month was finally over. And at the start of the third month since the team was assembled, Koichi gathered his team at the morning and announced.

"As it's already being two months since I accepted you as my students and you already completed the required amount of the D-rank missions, I think this is the time for your first C-rank mission today!"

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[AN: Sorry for the delays, I was busy lately. Now I'm dealt with some things and more free now, so updates should be more frequent from now on.

5 extra chapters in advance on my patreon /SycoreNovels

Any support will be appreciated!]