Chapitre 182: CH_6.11 (182)
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Takuma wheezed as he ran around the farm with the weighted vest, ankle and wrist weights that were more like demons trying to pull him into hell than training aids. A burning and painful amount of lactic acid had built up in his muscles, and after a mere two hours of running with the weights on his body, he was finding it hard to lift his legs and swing his arms. He could sprint for a good chunk of the day, but the weights had slashed all of that to a less than two hours.
He was so slow that while he was trying his level best to run, Anko was keeping up with a light jog. She had been supporting (prodding) him to keep going despite his request for breaks. She had refused all of his requests other than his requests for water.
"Why are we doing this?" asked Takuma, unable to contain the whining tone.
"Finally. I was expecting to get the question an hour ago. You endured beyond my expectations," she chuckled. "Think about what that says about you—you may or may not like that about yourself.
"And to answer your question, let me pose one to you. It's quite simple. What is chakra made of?" she asked.
"… It's a product of two components found within every living being. The Physical and Spiritual Energy which fuse together to produce chakra," he answered.
"Correct," said Anko. "To increase your chakra reserves, one must increase the Physical and Spiritual Energies to be able to create a higher amount. It's simple math. Next question: How can you increase your Physical and Spiritual Energies?"
Takuma spoke with difficulty as he continued to run. "Physical Energy is collected from each of the body's cells and can be increased through training and exercise. To increase Physical Energy, you have to develop your body. The more you train your body, the higher amount of Physical Energy you will have."
According to the prevalent chakra theory, a person's Physical Energy would gradually develop naturally from birth until they reached physical maturity in their mid-twenties. They would remain at that level for the next five to ten years before deteriorating as they grew older.
People who exercised or trained their bodies to extract their body's potential would have much greater amounts of Physical Energy. Shinobi who used chakra and trained their bodies extensively could extend their peak and retain their peak physical potential beyond what was possible by normal people.
But the Physical Energy demanded effort.
Lack of exercise deteriorated physical health, which affected Physical Energy. A peak human specimen at the height of pure physical performance would start going out of shape within two weeks if they stopped training— which would decrease the amount of Physical Energy they possessed. To have the highest possible amount of Physical Energy, a person needed to be in tip-top shape.
Physical Energy was also affected by injury and disease. An unwell body caused a decline in Physical Energy.
Takuma continued, "Spiritual Energy is derived from the mind's consciousness and can be increased through studying, meditation, and experience. Keeping oneself at peace and achieving happiness, and gaining all types of different life experiences is the way to increase Spiritual Energy."
Unlike Physical Energy, which was straightforward, Spiritual Energy was much more elusive. There was no one way to increase Spiritual Energy as shinobi didn't have a concrete way to increase Spiritual Energy reliably. The current chakra theory stated that emotion, life experience, and mental health were related to Spiritual Energy, but there was no consensus on how to harness those components to increase Spiritual Energy.
Spiritual Energies generally increased in a person as they grew up, and they continued to grow until old age when the body would start to deteriorate. There was no peak maturity age or peak period, as every person was unique.
However, Spiritual Energy was fickle.
Like Physical Energy, it was also affected by disease. Impaired mental health, negative stress, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction in life caused a decrease in mental energy. One day, a person could be at 100 points of Spiritual Energy, but the next day, that same person could go down to 80 points because of an adverse incident in their lives.
But simultaneously, negative emotions were good for Spiritual Energy. A person who had overcome depression would see an increase in Spiritual Energy as that was considered another life experience. A person grieving the loss of a loved one could be bad in the short term, but it could have positive effects later on.
Was indulgence good or bad? On the one hand, it made a person happy, which was good for the mental state, but on the other hand, indulgence without limit eroded a person's fortitude against harder times.
Did Spiritual Energy grow more when a person lived a happy life of no difficulties or when they had to face challenges and hardships one after another, leading to a generally unhappy life?
No one concretely knew how Spiritual Energies worked.
Anko slapped Takuma on his back, which almost made him stumble and fall. Almost. He cursed as he wanted to fall so he could rest, but it was already too late to take advantage of Anko's slap for it and fall down.
"Alright, you can stop running now."
Takuma let himself fall down without hesitation and kissed the ground. He didn't care what Anko thought about him and sprawled out without any shame.
Anko sat cross-legged beside him.
"Do you know that most people have higher levels of Spiritual Energy than Physical Energy?" she said. "In an ideal situation, people would have an equal amount of Physical and Spiritual Energy—but that rarely happens."
"… If the energies are in different amounts… which means chakra volume would be limited by the energy with the lower amount," Takuma muttered as he turned his face towards Anko.
"That's right. And do you know that the difference in amount affects the quality of chakra?" she said.
"Quality of chakra? Chakra has quality?" he said. This was the first time Takuma had heard about it—from his knowledge, chakra was all about quantity.
"Of course. You are aware that every jutsu requires a certain amount of chakra to perform it. If that amount isn't used, the jutsu will fail or won't perform as required," she said. "Most people, however, put in more chakra than needed when using a jutsu— the extra amounts go to waste as chakra can't be stored in the body. Shinobi train the jutsu by performing it repeatedly until they have got the right amount perfected.
"But do you know that people can reduce that required amount. It can be done by going beyond the mastery of the jutsu and understanding its intricacies—but it can also be done by producing higher quality chakra that possesses more 'power per unit' so a lower amount can be used for the same effect."
Takuma didn't know that. He had read some books and papers on chakra theory in his time at the Hidden Leaf, but this wasn't a topic he had covered yet. But then Anko said something that shocked Takuma,
"You have a pretty severe imbalance between the Physical and Spiritual Energy," she said. "A severe imbalance means a lower quality of chakra."
"What? How do you know that?" Takuma asked, skeptical.
"It's in your eyes," she pointed. "People with energy imbalance develop flecks in their iris. Your eyes are dark, so it's not noticeable, but if you look closely, you will see that you have a rather high number of flecks in the inner region of the iris.
"Short, spotty flecks on the outer area of the iris means your Spiritual Energy is lacking behind your Physical Energy. Longer flecks on the inner area of the iris means your Physical Energy is lacking behind your Spiritual Energy," said Anko.
Takuma sat up on the ground, the heavy vest weighing him down. "I don't have enough Physical Energy? But how could that be? I train every day without fail. Conditioning and taijutsu take up the largest measure of time in my training!"
His combat style revolved around getting close to the enemy and using augmented strikes to create openings. To be proficient in his style, he needed endurance and stamina along with agility and dexterity to always be on his feet so as to not get hit while in close-quarters. He trained his body more than he practiced his ninjutsu and genjutsu.
"Well… you're either not training your body… or you have an abnormally high amount of Spiritual Energy in your body," said Anko.
"An abnormal amount of Spiritual Energy?" Takuma muttered.
Could that be it?
'Getting transmigrated into another world is one hell of a life experience. Did that cause me to have the abnormal volume of Spiritual Energy?'
"I don't think training is the problem," said Takuma. "A sensory-nin told me that I am on a Grade-2 chakra scale," which was significantly high for someone Takuma's age, "and if my Physical Energy is lacking, then it must mean that my Spiritual Energy is abnormally high; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to reach Grade-2."
"Oh, you had your chakra measured by a sensory-nin? Were you worried about your chakra reserves?" she asked.
"No, I hired a sensory-nin to my team," said Takuma.
He was never concerned with his chakra reserves as he hadn't run out of chakra ever in a fight. He only ever paid attention to his chakra control and efficiency with jutsu. But now, Anko was telling him that he had an energy imbalance that was affecting the quality of chakra—he could no longer ignore
"I told you that I would be helping you with your chakra control, but I would advise that you take the energy imbalance seriously," said Anko. "I can help you with this, but I wanted to see if it would be a waste of my time—which is why I told you to run with that on." She pointed at the vest. "If you had complained too much, I would've stuck with chakra control training, but you didn't complain once.
She asked, "Do you want to train on the energy imbalance?"
Takuma's answer was obvious. "Yes, I would," he said immediately.
"Good choice," Anko nodded, pleased. "But before we seal the deal. I must warn you of something. Are you aware of the genetic limit?"
"I'm not sure I am," said Takuma.
"As you said yourself, Physical Energy is derived from the cells in your body. But there is a limit to how much energy your cells can hold; once that limit is reached, you won't be able to increase your Physical Energy no matter how much you train. You can continue to grow stronger and faster, but once you hit the limit defined by your genetics, your Physical Energy itself won't grow."
Takuma stared at Anko for a moment as questions popped up in his mind.
"… Does that mean it's possible that if I hit this genetic limit before I'm able to close the gap between my energies, I will be stuck with the imbalance?" he asked.
Anko nodded. "You're still young, and your body is still growing, so I don't believe you will hit that limit anytime soon, but if you continue to train your body diligently, you will hit that genetic limit one day."
"Is there a genetic limit on Spiritual Energy?"
"No, there isn't," he said.
"So, let's say I close the gap one day and then reach my genetic limit. But my Spiritual Energy, which is already abnormally high, will continue to grow, and someday I will again have an imbalance?"
"That is possible," she said.
Takuma sighed heavily. That sounded so bothersome. That even after all the hard work, he could once again find himself in the same place.
"Now, now, don't feel bad. It's an unfairness that all of us face," Anko patted his shoulder. "A good part about having excessive Spiritual Energy is that if you work hard on your Physical Energy, your chakra reserves will grow quickly. And unlike Spiritual Energy, increasing Physical Energy is so much more straightforward. So, cheer up now. You won't get a chance to be happy while we train."
"Eh?"
Takuma felt a shiver go down his spine as he gazed at Anko's playful smile.
———
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AN [1]: First, I enjoyed writing his chapter. I love some magic/power system development. My approach is always conservative as I want to respect the source material—but I do enjoy the little changes I introduce.
AN [2]: Mental Energy will be known as Spiritual Energy from now on.
AN [3]: Now, I was looking at Naruto's chakra system to see what I could do, and I saw a few things I found interesting. First of all, I believe I already covered the first half of the chapter about the introductory knowledge of Physical and Spiritual Energies in ARC-01 during Maruboshi's training—but it was such a long time ago that I felt it would be good to do a refresher course.
AN [4]: The part about Spiritual Energy being fickle and elusive is new. I want to present a fact about the world— Chakra is not something that's been completely explored. People are still exploring and researching it. I also like the fact that sometimes there are things that just can't be explained in a power/magic system.
AN [5]: I developed chakra here a little bit. Like if you slack in training, you will get punished as Physical Energy will go down and, in turn, your chakra reserves— it's inspired by real life. Injuries, diseases, bad mental health, and things that affect us in real life also affect the shinobi of this world. In this world, you can't just reach a certain level of chakra reserve and expect it to stay there for the rest of your life.
AN [6]: Chakra Quantity. The key to having high chakra reserves is to be balanced. If you let one of them fall behind, your potential will suffer. It's crucial to be balanced.
AN [7]: Following up with the above point. The Physical Energy Genetic Limit— This is "semi-canon." There is a genetic limit that applies to chakra reserves— Kakashi has poor chakra genetics, which is why no matter how much he trains, he won't ever have huge chakra reserves. I simply attached that genetic limit to the Physical Energy to give it more substance and explanation.
AN [8]: The Eye Fleck indicator. This is my own making. I was inspired by a person's chakra rotation, which was explored during the Rasengan Training with Jiraya. People's chakra rotated clockwise or anti-clockwise— and the way to find it out is by looking at the direction in which the hair turned on a person's head. I thought about what could be an indicator and decided on the eye flecks.
AN [9]: Chakra Quality. It's also canon, but it's barely explored. It's not explored in humans, but it's explored in the Tailed-Beasts. How their chakra is different (and how Kyuubi's chakra is full of hatred.) But I think this chakra quality also balances out the sheer advantage of chakra quantity.
AN [10]: It might seem unfair that someone works hard to resolve the imbalance for it to come up again in the future. It's unfair. But this world is unjust—and it's unfair for everyone. And it also has the connotation that it's difficult to grow and remain strong. A person's Spiritual Energy will continue to grow while the Physical Energy will one day stop growing— so let's say a shinobi reaches their limit when they're a Jonin—but from now on, their chakra quality would decline as their Spiritual Energy grows, so they will have to figure out a different way to become stronger. The journey becomes tougher the closer you climb towards the summit.
AN [11]: Physical and Spiritual Energies are NOT the same as Yin and Yang chakra nature. They're very loosely related, but they are their own different things.
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Chapitre 183: CH_6.12 (183)
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
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Early in the morning, Takuma roused from sleep without the help of an alarm. His biological clock was fine-tuned because of the routine he had followed for years without change. Even his new surroundings, the unfamiliar bed, and the weather could do nothing to disrupt his sleep—but he reckoned that his deep sleep was mainly due to Anko's rigorous training; he had fallen asleep the moment he had hit the pillow top.
Takuma slept in nothing but his underwear. He groaned in ache as he stood up from his bed, his muscles spiking with pain because of his training; he walked to his travel bag that he hadn't unpacked to take out a set of shirt and shorts along with the toiletries he had gotten from the quartermaster and headed to the toilet start his day. He brushed his teeth and washed his face before returning to his room to put on the weighted vest and ankle and wrist weights, and pick up his weapons pouch to take with him.
The house was silent as Takuma tied the laces on his dirty boots near the front door. Last night, his housemates had stayed up late at night, and it seemed none of them were early-rise types. He was invited—it was a good avenue to get to know everyone, but he was tired and had to get up early, so after weighing the pros-and-cons, Takuma politely declined.
As he opened the door, the moist but cool early morning air hit him. The monsoon season had arrived, and it rained substantially at the border region of the Land of Hot Waters and the Land of Frost.
It had rained last night. The pressed dirt roads were wet and muddy from the rain, and Takuma's already dirty boots picked up more mud as he jogged to start his day off.
The extra weight on his body changed how he moved and breathed forcibly. He had experimented with ankle weights before, but he wasn't consistent with them to achieve any substantial gains. Takuma hoped that someone overseeing his training would motivate him to keep up the weight training.
His body, while mostly healed, was also showing signs of strain. It was minuscule, but after the combat situations he had been in the past few days, Takuma could tell that he wasn't the same as he was before the assassination. His body's limits had changed, shortened by the injuries; he could do everything he was capable of before, but there was a 1-2% shortcoming he noticed he had developed. It wasn't much, but Takuma was concerned that that final couple percent would be all that mattered in a life-or-death situation.
Anko wanted him to develop his body to increase his Physical Energy to close the gap between it and his Spiritual Energy to correct his energy imbalance. Takuma hoped that this physical training would also help him regain the 1-2% he had lost.
The news about the imbalance and its effect on chakra quality wasn't a cause of worry to Takuma. He had been doing just fine until now, and with Anko's training, his situation was bound to improve as long as he wasn't completely screwed over by genetics. The path was straightforward—train hard every day until the fault became a blessing; the more he trained his body, the more chakra he would be able to produce, and that of a higher quality than he currently produced.
There was no hidden catch; thus, he was happy.
Takuma reached the farm designated as the training ground by Anko. Seeing that she had not yet arrived, Takuma jogged around the farmland for a while before moving on to stretching—stretching before training allowed the body to warm up, while stretching after a workout was a good way to let the body settle down gradually.
While stretching, Takuma heard footsteps and turned to greet Anko, only to see that it was someone else.
A short and petite girl with copper-brown hair was walking towards him. Her hair were cut in a horrendous bowl-cut style, and she wore an unflattering brown tracksuit. Takuma stood up from the ground and faced the girl who stopped a small distance from him.
She spoke first. "Are you Takuma?" Her voice was crisp, her tone strong. The expression on her face was unwavering, and her firm body language landed a solid first impression on Takuma.
"My name is Takuma. Who might you be?"
"Heard you defeated Kameko. Fight me," she said.
Takuma was taken aback by the sudden challenge. He stared at the strange girl, wondering who she was. She had found him this early in the morning to pick up a fight against him.
'How did she even know to find me here?' Then, a thought popped up in his mind.
He asked, "Are you Rikku?"
"I am. Come on, let's fight," said Rikku, the final member of Anko's Team-9.
"Uhm," Takuma wasn't sure how to respond. He was not expecting the first meeting with her to be like this. Kameko had picked up a fight against, and he was more than happy to oblige so he could punch that annoying face of hers—but there shouldn't be any ill will between him and Rikku, and even from the looks of it, she didn't seem to be angry with him.
"You want to spar with me?" he asked.
"I want to see how strong you are," Rikku said in reply.
Was this another test? Did Rikku, too, want to see if he was capable of being one of the combatants on the team?
"So? Are we fighting or not?" she asked again.
"Well, I don't mind, but only until Anko arrives."
"Good," Rikku nodded.
Takuma's hand went to the vest's clasp, but he stopped himself.
'—You will not remove those as long as you're awake and not on missions—'
Anko's words popped up in his mind. He glanced up at Rikku, who had assumed a stance. This was only a spar, and his spot was already guaranteed; he didn't need to prove anything. Moreover, the problem with his personal experience with ankle weights failed due to his inconsistency.
Takuma decided to keep his weights on during the spar.
When Rikku saw that, her brows furrowed.
"I notice that you don't have a weapons pouch on you. Should we make it a taijutsu-only spar?" he asked.
Rikku raised her fists up and center. "You can use whatever you want."
Takuma stared for a moment before shrugging. If she was going unarmed, then he would do the same.
"We start the moment this lands on the ground." Takuma held up a shuriken in his hand.
Rikku nodded, and he threw the shuriken up into the air. In the moments that the shuriken descended from the air, Rikku fully faced Takuma and bent her knees.
'She's planning to make the first move,' deduced Takuma. He immediately switched to a defensive stance because of the training gear weighing him down.
The shuriken hit the ground, and Rikku shot forward with full force.
'She's not that fast,' he thought.
Takuma took a step forward the moment Rikku stepped into close quarters to close in the gap prematurely, attempting to throw her off by preventing a first solid, satisfying strike. Takuma threw in a jab as he shifted forward to get the first strike.
Rikku weaved her head to the side and threw a full-windup fist. The move was all but telegraphed, making it easy to block. Takuma used his hand to catch the fist, so he counterattacked, but when the fist hit his palm, a heavy force shot up his arm. It was so intense that Takuma's elbow buckled under the pressure.
While Takuma was surprised, Rikku followed up with a fast uppercut aimed at his chin. Takuma barely evaded the strike, but he felt a draft of wind brush his face.
'How can she generate so much force?'
As someone who used chakra augmentation as his bread-and-butter, Takuma could tell that the girl before him was not using any form of augmentation. That one punch was purely physical force, and it was at least as strong as one of his augmented punches. He had only faced another person capable of generating that much force just from their body—and that was his teacher, Maruboshi, who Takuma bet could take on jonin.
The distance between them was small, and Takuma would've leaped back to make some if not for the weight. He went for the alternative and went for a lead hook to Rikku's face, but she bobbed her head in a dodge. The lead hook was just a setup as Takuma used his forefoot as a pivot and rotated his body to build momentum for a seamless spinning back fist into Rikku's head as she rose up.
The fist struck her solid in the jaw. Rikku staggered from the impact, and Takuma took advantage of the situation. He didn't have his usual speed, so making the most of every opening was paramount. Takuma unleashed a combo to do the most damage.
The spinning back fist flowed into a body shot followed by a palm strike to push Rikku away so he had enough space for a side-kick from his lead foot. He aimed for his face, but with the ankle weight, Takuma's foot only reached her upper chest despite Rikku being of a short stature.
Rikku fell to the ground.
Perhaps it was the strong punch from Rikku that Takuma didn't throttle his usual aggressiveness. He pursued the fallen Rikku to keep the pressure on. He jumped towards Rikku, tucked his knees to generate power, and aimed for the girl. He was going to use his full weight to dig both of his feet into Rikku.
Rikku rolled away to the side, and Takuma landed on the field, cracking the ground underneath his feet. Takuma turned towards her only to catch a foot on his chest. Once more, he felt an overwhelming amount of physical force that sent him flying into the air. He tried to control his posture in the air, but the weights made everything infinitely difficult.
Takuma wasn't even given the chance to properly crash on the ground as Rikku chased after him. He managed to crash on his back but immediately saw a thin foot coming his way; he covered his face with his arms. He dragged the ground with him as he was kicked, his arms trembling from the impact.
Rikku was once again within range as Takuma stood up. She struck out with a heavy strike that rang the bones in Takuma's arms. He felt them go numb. Rikku wasn't particularly fast, but neither was he in his condition. She had him on the defensive as she attacked him with powerful strikes—he could only use his augmented strikes at certain times, but she was continuously assaulting him with equivalent force.
He used his vest and weights as guards to dull the force, but because they were so heavy, every other strike almost made him topple.
"Kameko told me you were strong, but this is disappointing," said Rikku suddenly; her brows furrowed as though displeased that her expectations weren't met.
Takuma felt irritation sizzle in his heart. Despite barely having exchanged a few words, Takuma roughly understood the girl's personality in front of him. As Daiki had told him, Rikku seemed to be the straightforward kind, someone who said whatever was on her mind bluntly without any tact. He didn't dislike such people, and he was somewhat experienced with the kind as Masaaki did that too occasionally, but this girl…
"Fine then," he said. "I hope you aren't a glass cannon."
It had been a while— and even though he was trying to adapt his combat style to not take as much damage, even if it meant losing out attack opportunities— he switched to 'Scars' mode.
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———
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The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
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