Naruto: Kage of Kages

The Shadow Clone Jutsu proved to be extremely easy for Shiki, it only took him a couple of minutes to get the full basics down to perfection.

And with that done, he set about doing some tests.

First, he sent a shadow clone to read a random scroll and then dispel itself which resulted in the contents of the scroll being transferred into his mind.

Satisfied with this first test, Shiki moved on to a less certain one. He wished to see what effects his breathing method had in the hands of his shadow clones.

The results were mixed.

Predictably, the passive physical training aspect of the method was entirely useless but the spiritual side actually worked.

‘Well spiritual energy is affected by experience and mental development so with all of the clone’s experience being passed to me, it is not strange that the passive spiritual training works through the shadow clones.’ Shiki evaluated.

Another thing expected was the fact that the shadow clones’ experience of maintaining the breathing method helped the boy work towards the goal of constant breathing.

Finally, there was the enhancement provided by the breathing method. The boosts to physical and spiritual strength as well as chakra potency, molding and control worked as usual.

However, the boost to endurance surprisingly made shadow clones noticeably harder to dispel, at the very least, any random hit would not be enough to pop the clone body.

The most surprising development however, was the effect of the breathing method’s recovery function. With it, the shadow clones could actually recover expended chakra with their original amount at creation being the limit.

It was a revolutionary ability. Shadow clones could not recover chakra on their own without external assistance but with the Three Bodies Breathing Method, they could recover until they reach whatever amount Shiki gave them at creation.

‘Excellent! This means I can leave my shadow clones to practice without fearing them running out of chakra because my reserves are not sufficient for regular shadow clone training.’ Shiki thought.

Concluding his initial experiments, he created a single shadow clone with half of his chakra and sent him off to practice chakra control while perfecting the Body Flicker Jutsu.

The boy then took advantage of the fast chakra recovery facilitated by his Three Bodies Breathing Method and quickly recovered the missing half of his chakra.

‘Shadow Clone Jutsu’

With another use of the famous jutsu, Shiki created two more clones, each with a third of his chakra to spend their time reading through the rest of Mito’s library while he focused on yet another scroll that had taken the place of the Shadow Clone Jutsu scroll in front of him.

The name of the scroll was very indicative of its content, “The intricacies of the Five Basic Nature Transformations” by Senju Tobirama.

Opening it up with excitement, Shiki began voraciously reading through it, absorbing the knowledge of Konoha’s greatest genius in jutsu creation.

Tobirama was a man that created a jutsu capable of bringing the dead back to life in his late teens early twenties. For all his talent, Shiki did not have the slightest idea of how to go about creating something of that level without a foundation to build upon.

The future Second Hokage however, engineered it from the ground up and succeeded. Even if it was just an analysis of the five basic nature transformations, Shiki felt there should be some genius ideas in the scroll he could build upon or even directly make use of.

And while he was indeed correct, the content also proved to be somewhat disappointing.

Not because it was basic, uninspired or useless, none of that. The problem was what the words Shiki read meant for him. Particularly, the following text.

[All shinobi possess, to an extent, affinity to all nature transformations, the only question being whether they are high enough to merit development.] The boy read.

[High affinity allows a shinobi to mold chakra of that nature with greater ease while also producing more power with less spent chakra.]

[It is not impossible for a shinobi to master all five basic nature transformations but even with complete mastery, if one’s affinity is not high enough, the power they can ultimately produce using reasonable amounts of chakra will be limited.]

Shiki knew he was an exception that could raise his affinities so he was not particularly worried but the next part hurt anyway.

[Using special seals provided by the Uzumaki, affinities can be accurately tested and, based on my research, the bare minimum affinity required for a chakra nature to be worth developing is 50% but ideally, 70% or higher.]

[To use A and S rank elemental jutsu efficiently while still producing the expected power of such high ranked jutsu, an affinity of 80% is the reasonable minimum.]

With those words, Shiki knew that his nature affinities were, beyond any shadow of doubt, utter trash.

Checking his status, the boy felt like crying at the sight of his highest elemental affinity, Fire and Earth which both stood at 40%.

According to the words of wisdom left behind by Senju Tobirama, Shiki should decisively abandon any efforts to develop elemental nature transformations.

‘Fortunately, I can raise my elemental affinities by training the corresponding nature transformation.’ The boy thought.

‘However, until I raise the affinities to an acceptable level, I should just stick to basic nature transformation training since elemental jutsu will be practically useless for a while.’ He swiftly concluded.

Fortunately, around the ending parts of the scroll, Tobirama had left a method of practicing nature transformation he developed, one with inherent benefits besides skill mastery.

‘Truly genius . . .’ Shiki dazedly thought as he read the details of the practice method.

It was called the “Ninja Art: Five Element Body”.

The name felt more at home in a cultivation novel but it was not really like that.

It was basically a way to mold chakra of all five natures simultaneously and cycling them through one’s body.

According to the scroll, while it did nothing for one’s affinity nor did it increase the power of one’s jutsu, it made elemental jutsu easier to use due to getting the body used to that particular chakra nature and the action of molding chakra into it.

Tobirama used it to practice all his nature transformations but he counseled beginners to select the element they had the most affinity with and start with that first though Shiki was going to ignore it.

A method to practice molding chakra for all five basic natures was perfect for training his affinities up and there was even a hidden benefit, even if it was not that significant.

While studying nature transformation, Tobirama noted that the physiques of shinobi that were heavily specialized in one element seemed to adopt similar characteristics.

Earth Nature specialists tended to be physically strong and resistant but not that fast nor flexible.

Water Nature specialists, like Tobirama himself, tended to be the opposite, quite flexible and balanced in terms of physical abilities.

Fire Nature specialists tended to be strong and explosive but rather fragile and their strength was better suited for bursts rather than sustained effort like Earth Nature specialists.

Wind Nature specialists and a similar tendency for fragility but compensated with sustained high agility.

Finally, Lighting Nature specialists tended to have explosive speed and high reflexes with moderate physical resistance.

They were just tendencies and in the end, innate physical talents were what determined one’s physical characteristics.

Tobirama noted the Second Raikage’s heir, the current Third Raikage as a prime example of this, being extremely strong, fast, agile and physically resistant while being capable of both bursts of intense prowess as well as sustained performance.

A monster of physical talent whose great affinity for Lightning Style probably had little to do with. 

Hashirama was also noted as simply excelling at all aspects of physicality regardless of his elemental affinities though Tobirama theorized this had to do with his brother’s potent Yang affinity.

According to his theory, a shinobi would only see any real physical effect from long term practice of the Five Element Body or one of its parts if their affinity surpassed 90%. Even then, the effect should not be too pronounced.

Regardless of this pretty insignificant side benefit, Shiki was looking at the technique as a way to raise all his affinities at the same time so while interesting in theory, the possibility of physical enhancements did not matter much to him.

The only problem was that Shiki knew raising his affinities had to be done with his real body and not shadow clones so he had to prioritize.

‘Pure physical training is not that important yet. The Three Bodies Breathing Method passively trains my physique and that is probably sufficient at my current age because my immature body would not be able to handle hard physical training that well.’

Coming to that conclusion, Shiki decided to abandon physical training temporarily and focus on improving his elemental affinities.

So his main body would be practicing the Five Elements Body and Kukyo, his mental technique simultaneously since training while under Kukyo tended to go much better and one of Shiki’s goals was to be able to maintain it at all times.

And all of his clones along with the original would be practicing the Three Bodies Breathing Method while performing their assigned tasks.

Additionally, in regards to Shiki’s two library clones, while one was still endeavouring to read all useful info within Mito’s library, another decided to abandon that task in favor of something he considered far more important.

“Whirlpool Sealing Style (Basic)” The shadow clone Shiki read out loud.

‘If the original were here, he’d agree on this switch in priorities.’ He thought before dedicating himself to reading and practicing the contents of the scroll.

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