3.34

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Within the wilderness of the Land of Iron, surrounded by snow, ice and blood, I meditated. A couple meters away from me, a snow-white fox was napping, as it was completely unbothered by my presence.

But were any human to pass by, they would immediately feel wary of me as I wasn't sitting on the ground, but on thin air as I levitated some distance from the ground.

However, for animals, who relied on instinct, I seemed totally harmless as I was currently one with the Force. The fox must have barely registered my presence.

After a moment, I slowly descended back onto the ground, and opened my eyes. My iris, which used to be nearly red, had now gained a greenish tint.

It had been a year since I started my training within Naruto, and it had been a pretty uneventful year.

Thanks to Mifune, I had easily integrated in Master Miura's classes, along with the younglings training to become Samurais. Master Miura was the current leader of the Spirit School, and the master of many Samurais. Suffice to say he was a pretty important old man.

I didn't want to take any shortcuts though, so while it was thanks to Mifune I got in, once in I did everything within the rules.

Still, I made stellar progress thanks to not only my Stats, but also my Super Soldier Physique, which increased my talent in basically everything, and the amulet I had gotten in Skyrim, which further increased my talent in Smithing.

It took me three months to reach what Master Miura called a satisfactory level, which is the level required to forge one's lifelong sword and truly start one's training as a Samurai.

And so I did. I forged my sword with Tamahagane, or Precious Steel, the best kind of steel to forge a blade. It hadn't been cheap, but I had brought those precious gems over for a reason.

Of course, I still had my project of fusing the Spirit and Demonic Schools to forge myself the ultimate blade, but I also needed a weapon, as well as to learn how to better use it.

After all, while unlocking the First Genetic Constraint allowed me to awaken my battle instincts and use everything I had to its fullest, I could only do so much with no foundation. Learning how to wield the sword would build that foundation, and turn me much deadlier with a blade.

As for my sword, I had decided to keep things simple. I could have ornamented it if I wanted to, or added stuff to make it look cool, I had the money and skill to do so after all, but I had instead decided to keep things simple.

I had named the blade Shiroishi, which means White Death. Funnily enough, I had managed to learn a bit of Japanese in here thanks to some of the proper nouns not being changed. For example, most swords kept their Japanese names, but I could still learn understand what they meant.

And so, using these proper nouns as well as some guess work and asking around, I had learned a few words.

I found the name to be fitting to the blade too, as it was completely white. I had actually forged it with Wado Ichimonji, one of Zoro's swords in One Piece, in mind, which is why they looked quite similar, although not identical.

That is not to say I did not get any surprises though. Although the forging techniques originated from before the arrival of Chakra in this world, and originally only relied on the spirit to strengthen the sword, with time they had perfected their techniques, incorporating Chakra into their craft.

As someone who did not have any Chakra, I was faced with quite the problem. But I managed to find a solution, and achieved even more than I thought I would.

At first, I thought the whole spirit thing was more of a superstition of old samurais, as a way to make them become one with the sword spiritually.

However, as I learned more and forged Shiroishi, I was surprised to find a real bond was created between my spirit and the sword. It was feint, but it was definitely there. It was quite the strange experience.

Still, while there was a connection, it was very weak. It didn't make the sword sharper in the slightest, and only made me a little more aware of the sword. It felt more natural holding it, but that was about it.

So there was definitely something missing. But since I didn't have Chakra, I could only try to work around it, and I thankfully found the solution in my next training.

Once I was done with my training in the Spirit School, I moved on to the Demonic School. And it was surprisingly easy to find them, as they were not hiding in the slightest.

The practice was quite different, but once again, relied strongly on Chakra, unfortunately. But the concept was simple to catch on.

At first, the technique was a mix of pouring in one's negative emotions using belief towards the Oni to power it up, and cast a kind of spell on the blade.

Nowadays though, while this technique was still used by a few purists, most had replaced faith by Chakra.

And to me, the problem was still the same: I didn't have Chakra.

What I did have, however, was inspiration.

The main difference between Chakra and the Force in this case was the ownership of energy. Chakra was a deeply personal energy that belonged to someone, making it easier to bond something to oneself. Coating anything in Chakra was coating it with one's personal energy.

On the other hand, the Force was the energy of the universe, and while I could harness it, I didn't own it. I didn't have personal reserves of Force within me, I was only capable of manipulating the already existing Force.

But one thing the Force did have, was versatility.

While I trained my smithing skills, and later my swordsmanship, I also spent an even greater amount of time meditating on the Force, deepening my connection with it while learning more about how to use it.

And it was during one of these sessions that epiphany hit me.

Not only did I understand how to fully use both schools, I had also unexpectedly found how to somewhat merge the two practices.

The method of infusing Chakra and spirit energy within the sword could be used with the Force. And that wasn't just a personal discovery, Jedi and Siths in Star Wars were also capable of reinforcing objects with the Force.

But simply infusing the Force within the object would only result in a temporary reinforcement, and would do absolutely nothing to help strengthen the bond between the sword and myself, as once again, the Force wasn't my energy.

I did have one energy source that bore my imprint, and which I was getting really good at manipulating.

Lifeforce.

For my Force training, I had been mainly focusing on practicing my Jedi abilities, as they had been lagging behind by quite a bit, but I still trained in the Dark Side. And my lifeforce manipulation had been getting better and better. It was actually my strongest ability, as I always found anything related to it easier to learn.

I had even managed to create a new way to use it, precisely for my smithing.

Actually, I am very proud of what I managed to do, because it used everything I know about the lifeforce manipulation, and for now was my Magnum Opus of Force abilities.

Lifeforce, by itself, was next to impossible to manipulate. Even while using the Force, moving it without purpose was hard. At my level, all I could do was emit an attractive or a repulsive force on it, with Force Drain and Cryokinesis.

But through extensive research I found a connection between my spirit and my lifeforce. Then, after some more experimentation, I figured out a way to use the trace of my spirit as an anchor for my lifeforce.

And like that, I created Force Smithing, which incorporated both the teachings of the Spirit and Demonic Schools of Samurai Smithing.

Shiroishi was now capable of growing not only from me using it and understanding more about it, but also through the lifeforce I fed it.

It might sound dangerous, but this was my Magnum Opus for a reason. I could only feed it my own lifeforce, but nothing stopped me from recovering through Force Drain.

Of course, there were still limits. The sword itself couldn't simply infinitely absorb lifeforce, the material had to absorb it through time, and pouring too much lifeforce in at once would probably destroy the sword.

I was also limited, as while I could recover my lifeforce through Force Drain, it takes some time for me to fully convert the stolen lifeforce into my own.

But all in all, it was one hell of a technique.