It had become very apparent during Shigure's recent fight with Riku, that genjutsu was an annoyance. His clan insects afforded him some modicum of protection against it - certainly more than if he didn't have them - but having a workaround still meant he had to work around something, instead of proceeding uninhibited. Thankfully, the shinobi academy offered the perfect solution in the Genjutsu Kai.
The technique was simple in principle - and indeed, in practise. It involved directing chakra to the brain, as a form of 'washing away' any foreign chakra located there. As this is the basis of genjutsu itself, a successful 'washing' meant any illusions lost their grip on the user's mind, though more complex and insidious techniques were typically more tenacious. With the help of one of the academy instructors putting him under genjutsu, Shigeru got to grips with the fundamentals of the jutsu, adding to his arsenal a defence against assaults on his mind. [Learning Genjutsu Kai]
Shigure's training with sealing techniques had also been coming along as well. Now that he felt his clan abilities were up to scratch, he had begun mastering the formula of the Enclosing Technique, one of the fundamental aspects of the jutsu branch. Each stroke was honed to perfection, engraving it in his mind so as not to invite the potentially disastrous consequences of incorrectly ripping a hole into extra-dimensional space. [Learning Enclosing Technique]
With the beginnings of sealing jutsu learned, it was time to progress onto a more offensive application of the branch. Explosive tags were the answer to almost any problem, and the problems it couldn't solve clearly just needed more explosive tags. It was only natural, then, that the next sealing lesson he undertook would be this one.
The basic progression was an altering of the traditional sealing formula; instead of accepting anything, it had to be narrowed down to only accepting chakra. This half of the lesson was the easiest, as it involved tweaking an already familiar aspect to sealing. The second half - namely, putting the 'explosive' in 'explosive tag' - was a little harder. A seal that just accepted chakra was basically a storage seal but objectively worse. To make it useful, it required the external dimension to compress itself as small as it could, creating a rapidly expanding force - the explosion - as soon as the seal was released. Obviously, the trial runs carried the risk of blowing the sealsmith to smithereens, but thankfully Shigeru managed to perfect his training without being subject to that. [Learning Explosive Tag Seal]
The final portion of Shigeru's fuuinjutsu training involved learning a seal that was significantly different from the other two he had learned: the Five-Seal Barrier. As opposed to the other two, which dealt with storing objects in another dimension, the Five-Seal Barrier dealt with sealing away a conceptual possibility. The formula necessitated five individual but linked seals, for both power and outlining the space the seals would affect. This was easily the seal Shigeru found hardest to learn; it dealt in two different properties that the Aburame seal apprentice had never properly learned before. Namely, the outlining of a barrier boundary, and the sealing of a concept (in this case, destruction). While the sealing aspect was the most familiar to him, the application and method was completely alien - conceptual sealing was a different ball game to tangible sealing altogether. The principle was a little hard to get his head around, but eventually he got to grips with it. [Learning Five-Seal Barrier]
With a number of seals now under his belt, Shigeru now needed a way to create them by himself, instead of borrowing his tutor's tools. Brush, ink and paper were the three ordinary items needed, but there were other tools needed to be able to place seals in less ordinary places. An ink pen to place seals on the body, and a chisel to carve seals into harder materials. Thankfully, they weren't too hard to find in a ninja village, and weren't too expensive, either. While he was there, Shigeru also picked up a couple of extra things; he needed a way to carry them around, after all.
[Claiming 30k starting ryo from here]
[Purchasing backpack (50 ryo), hip pouch (50 ryo), ink pot 125 m (400 ryo), ink brush (50 ryo), blank sealing paper x100 (1000 ryo), sealing ink pet (100 ryo), sealing chisel (1000 ryo) - 2650 ryo total]
[Exit thread]
The technique was simple in principle - and indeed, in practise. It involved directing chakra to the brain, as a form of 'washing away' any foreign chakra located there. As this is the basis of genjutsu itself, a successful 'washing' meant any illusions lost their grip on the user's mind, though more complex and insidious techniques were typically more tenacious. With the help of one of the academy instructors putting him under genjutsu, Shigeru got to grips with the fundamentals of the jutsu, adding to his arsenal a defence against assaults on his mind. [Learning Genjutsu Kai]
Shigure's training with sealing techniques had also been coming along as well. Now that he felt his clan abilities were up to scratch, he had begun mastering the formula of the Enclosing Technique, one of the fundamental aspects of the jutsu branch. Each stroke was honed to perfection, engraving it in his mind so as not to invite the potentially disastrous consequences of incorrectly ripping a hole into extra-dimensional space. [Learning Enclosing Technique]
With the beginnings of sealing jutsu learned, it was time to progress onto a more offensive application of the branch. Explosive tags were the answer to almost any problem, and the problems it couldn't solve clearly just needed more explosive tags. It was only natural, then, that the next sealing lesson he undertook would be this one.
The basic progression was an altering of the traditional sealing formula; instead of accepting anything, it had to be narrowed down to only accepting chakra. This half of the lesson was the easiest, as it involved tweaking an already familiar aspect to sealing. The second half - namely, putting the 'explosive' in 'explosive tag' - was a little harder. A seal that just accepted chakra was basically a storage seal but objectively worse. To make it useful, it required the external dimension to compress itself as small as it could, creating a rapidly expanding force - the explosion - as soon as the seal was released. Obviously, the trial runs carried the risk of blowing the sealsmith to smithereens, but thankfully Shigeru managed to perfect his training without being subject to that. [Learning Explosive Tag Seal]
The final portion of Shigeru's fuuinjutsu training involved learning a seal that was significantly different from the other two he had learned: the Five-Seal Barrier. As opposed to the other two, which dealt with storing objects in another dimension, the Five-Seal Barrier dealt with sealing away a conceptual possibility. The formula necessitated five individual but linked seals, for both power and outlining the space the seals would affect. This was easily the seal Shigeru found hardest to learn; it dealt in two different properties that the Aburame seal apprentice had never properly learned before. Namely, the outlining of a barrier boundary, and the sealing of a concept (in this case, destruction). While the sealing aspect was the most familiar to him, the application and method was completely alien - conceptual sealing was a different ball game to tangible sealing altogether. The principle was a little hard to get his head around, but eventually he got to grips with it. [Learning Five-Seal Barrier]
With a number of seals now under his belt, Shigeru now needed a way to create them by himself, instead of borrowing his tutor's tools. Brush, ink and paper were the three ordinary items needed, but there were other tools needed to be able to place seals in less ordinary places. An ink pen to place seals on the body, and a chisel to carve seals into harder materials. Thankfully, they weren't too hard to find in a ninja village, and weren't too expensive, either. While he was there, Shigeru also picked up a couple of extra things; he needed a way to carry them around, after all.
[Claiming 30k starting ryo from here]
[Purchasing backpack (50 ryo), hip pouch (50 ryo), ink pot 125 m (400 ryo), ink brush (50 ryo), blank sealing paper x100 (1000 ryo), sealing ink pet (100 ryo), sealing chisel (1000 ryo) - 2650 ryo total]
[Exit thread]
