CH 31: A New Skill

A day before…

Marcus was busy in his home lab, trying to enhance the Extremis virus but even with Deus's advanced simulations, it was a hard thing to do.

At that time, Marcus was conflicted about what to do. Because while doing research, he couldn't train his body and vice versa. Having all this knowledge but having no time made him annoyed beyond limits.

"Damn if only I could spam shadow clones like that goofball, my life would be so much simpler." Marcus thought. But then, it hit him like a lightning bolt. Immediately, he asked the system a million-dollar question.

'System, Can I learn Chakra?'

{yes, the user can learn chakra}

"FUUUUCK! Ah, I can't believe I'm such a dumbass. The answer is before me all this time" he cursed himself for being such an idiot despite having one of the most intelligent brains in the universe. But the system's voice didn't stop there.

{User has a very similar form of energy in his body, so chakra energy manipulation doesn't need to be learned.}

'Does that mean I can learn all kinds of Jutsu?'

{Except for bloodline-specific jutsus, yes you can learn all kinds of Jutsu.}

'Thankfully… ok I want to learn Shadow Clone Jutsu, transformation jutsu, Body flicker technique, Body replacement technique, and Taijutsu.'

{Acknowledged, information is being implanted directly into the user's brain.}

For a few minutes, Marcus felt his head being filled with the knowledge of manipulating chakra and using hand signs to achieve the said Jutsus. But it still only felt like reading from a book.

After all the knowledge was transferred, Marcus familiarised himself with different hand signs by practicing them one at a time. "Monkey, Dragon, Rat, Bird, Snake, Ox, Dog, Horse, Tiger, Boar, Ram, Hare."

He was accustomed to the hand signs after practicing them for two hours non-stop. His increased dexterity helped him perform the signs faster and faster until he was able to perform three hand signs in a second.

Marcus decided to try his very first Jutsu. He started from the basics and decided to use transformation Jutsu. "Alright now for the first jutsu Dog-Boar-Ram, transformation technique."

Marcus imagined himself to look like the man he was the most familiar with, Albert.

And with a puff of smoke, Marcus' whole stature changed into that of an old man. He went ahead and checked himself using the mirror and found that, except for minor things like Albert's wrinkles and blemishes, he had completed the Jutsu nearly perfectly on the first try.

'I guess it will become better with practice.'

After trying the transformation technique a few more times with different characters like Coulson, Nick Fury, Captain America, and even Hulk, Marcus decided to move on to trying other techniques.

'Let's try Body flicker first. From the information, I can see that it is accomplished by using chakra to temporarily vitalize the body and move at extreme speeds. The amount of chakra required depends on the overall distance and elevation between the user and the intended destination. Let's see if I can get it on the first try.'

Marcus prepared the hand sign and utilized his KI as chakra, "Tiger, Flicker."

Marcus' body flickered and disappeared from his place and then, *Boom* his body appeared to fall back after impacting the wall in front of him. Marcus cursed his overconfidence, after his embarrassing fail.

"Shit, I couldn't correctly control the amount of energy I needed to inject. It will probably come with experience, and I need a bigger area to practice this technique."

'Alright, to another one then. So, with Body replacement, I can switch places with something that is at least half the size of my body. That's good, but it still has its limitations…but I can figure that out later.'

Marcus targeted a nearby vase and cast the Jutsu, "Tiger-Boar-Ox-Dog-Snake, Substitution."

And just after the last hand sign, Marcus switched places with the vase, which fell on the ground and shattered.

'Damn, this is cool. And the only limitation it has is the amount of chakra used and the need to see the object…But, why is there no smoke after I perform Jutsus?... Hmm, If I think about it, the smoke could have been used as a distraction or simply to hide the Jutsu in the Naruto world.

I mean, imagine if you see an enemy Ninja, and he does some Jutsu and smoke appears around him. You wouldn't know if he did body flicker or replacement or transformation or any other Jutsu.

And in a world where this is common and everybody knows what to watch out for, the smoke effect is good for hiding techniques and bluffing enemies.' He reasoned with himself.

After going through three of the Jutsus, Marcus decided to try out the Shadow Clone Jutsu.

With the help of acquired knowledge, Marcus had measured his chakra to be around Jonin level, probably because of his ki and the Extremis virus enhancing his physique.

This meant that at max, he could summon 5 shadow clones but controlling them required a great deal of proficiency.

The factor with the shadow clone Jutsu was that the user's amount of clones didn't depend on their proficiency instead, on their chakra pool, but their control depended on the proficiency.

Thus, his current proficiency (which was the same as his KI proficiency) and chakra pool allowed him to conjure 3 shadow clones that could be completely controlled.

'Alright, let's see. If this is successful, my life would be a hell of a lot easier.'

"Ram-Snake-Tiger, shadow clone Jutsu."

This time, Marcus consciously decided to add some effect and with the puff of smoke, three shadow clones appeared beside him.

"Woah! It worked, boss."

"Congrats" x2

Marcus was a little weirded out by seeing three of himself standing in front of him and speaking similarly.

But soon after he started his experiments, Marcus asked them to try and summon the system. They tried but nothing happened.

'Hmm, they can't learn skills individually and then transfer them directly to me. Instead, I would have to learn skills and then conjure a clone so they would know the skill. Then he can practice that skill. Well, it doesn't matter much.'

The next experiment was to see how much damage a shadow clone could take before dissipating.

Marcus ordered a clone to stand still and another one to attack him.

As the first clone's punch hit the second, Marcus noticed a very big disturbance in his focus which almost made him accidentally dissipate the clone.

"Alright, Stop."

The first clone backed away as the second dramatically rubbed his face where he was punched.

'So, it's the disturbance in the focus that causes the dissipation. That means, after creating these clones, they are not completely separate, instead still have a type of connection with me. Not enough to transfer information while still…alive. But I can control their dissipation by focusing on the clone more and providing them with more chakra. Hmm, a good thing in case I need to fake death.'

After he came out of his thoughts, Marcus looked back at the clones who were waiting for his orders.

Marcus pointed at each of the clones and assigned them names and tasks.

"Alright, guys, why don't each one of you practice one Jutsu each? No.1, you practice substitution. No.2, you practice body flicker. And No.3, you practice transformation…I will go and practice taijutsu. That's the task of the day, let's go."

*********

12 hours had passed since Marcus and his clones were training.

Marcus could keep practicing without stopping because his stamina was far above that of even a normal Jonin, mainly because of the addition of his mutation and Extremis, Marcus' chakra would get restored just after he cast the Jutsu.

But, the lower cost of chakra usage was also a factor in the instant recovery. This meant that after the use of higher costing Jutsus chakra wouldn't recover instantly, but it would still be significantly faster than a normal ninja. And if one were to add meditation on top of that then… it would be even faster.

The shadow clones, on the other hand, couldn't copy the Extremis virus, although they did copy his advanced body along with his mutation. So, they had to meditate from time to time to regain their lost chakra.

It was nearly midnight and Marcus was about to dismiss his last clone to acquire the experience of the training when a beeping sound rang on his smartwatch.

'Huh! emergency signal! I only gave the trigger to Jude. That means…'

"No.3, suit up. You are going on a mission."

"Yes, boss."

**********

"Jarvis, did you copy the footage without any trace?"

[Yes, Mr. Stark. I deleted my traces before the other AI could track my presence.]

"Good job, Jarvis. Now…let's see, what this Hunt kid has come up with now?"

********

pic of the armor Marcus wore in the last chapter>

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