A Seeker's Journey Of Transmigration

Chapter 25: Combat Fuinjutsu

The Hatamo Clan's territory became quiet after Zanko left. He took half of the clan's ninjas with him, which made up 40% of his force. The rest of the ninjas he took to war were assigned by the village to complement his command style.

As Dandin walked through the streets he sighed. He thought, "With so many clansmen gone our neighborhood feels empty. Everyone's nervous. What will happen to the clan in Zanko's unite is destroyed?"

Dandin rubbed his head in frustration, "Why did dad have to leave? I hate being this weak! If only I was stronger..."

Dandin walked to the market to find Komatsu's store. While he walked, he tried to think of ways to get stronger faster. "I am currently stronger than anyone in my class, but that's not strong enough. I know several Ninjutsu techniques well enough that I could use them in combat, but I haven't been able to practice fighting with them yet except against my clones. That's helpful, but I feel like I am stuck. The only 'real' combat experience I have is getting beat by Zanko-sama and dad and my academy drills. Now that those two are gone maybe I should find another mentor. Mom might know someone who can teach me. I could also look around the clan and see if someone is willing to help me.

"I have Fuinjutsu, but I am months away from mastering the basics and I need to develop the inscription jutsu before I can explore creating advanced combat Fuinjutsu. This is a long-term project that can't be rushed. I already have a shadow clone working on it for several hours every day and I've made some progress. When my chakra increases more I can have a shadow clone study the entire time I'm at school. Right now we exhaust our chakra too much so I don't have the capacity to lose 20% of my chakra at the start of each day and keep up with our training. But, I could intensify my practice on the weekends by having three clones work on Fuinjutsu both Saturday and Sunday.

"I have made progress towards upgrading my two talents. I don't know what will happen when they finally upgrade, but it should give me a big boost."

Dandin pulled up his stats and looked at his two core talents, <Hard Work Is A Talent 82%> and <Strengthened Chakra Flow 69%>. While at school they'd both increased by around 20%. 20% in seven months was much faster than he had been averaging before. Even though he had trained hard the breadth of his training was much wider now. Dandin couldn't be sure, but he theorized that these talents grew more with diverse training rather than continually griding his skills in the same way.

The academy challenged him to think outside the box and Mr. Masaru gave them many different training strategies.

Another clue which made him think this was the reason his skill percentage had grown much more was because he finally had his first talent upgrade. <Quick Step> had been stuck at 99% for months and months, yet, in his second month at the academy it was upgraded.

The talent evolved to <Rapid Step> which now increased his dexterity from +7% to +15% and gave him a 5% dodge bonus. This talent also had the potential to evolve and was 15% of the way to its next upgrade.

"At my current pace <Hard Work Is A Talent> will upgrade halfway through my second year at the academy. <Strengthened Chakra Flow> won't upgrade until the end of my second year. In the short term this is also a dead end, but it will be faster than mastering Fuinjutsu. I am very curious about what the second stage of the talents will be.

"My Kenjutsu skills are also improving, but they are weaker than my Taijutsu. It might be time to stop training the sword. I could devote that time to something more beneficial to me. Maybe I should learn more ninja tools, like the chain and sickle or wires. I might have more talent with those weapons.

Dandin thought for a long while, but he couldn't come up with any novel ways to improve his strength in a short amount of time.

"I need more time before I could hope to survive against Chunins in a fight. That will make me a little stronger than a cannon-fodder Genin. If I get a really big boost from upgrading my talents I could graduate from the academy with strength equal to a veteran Chunin. The thing I'd lack is experience.