Moving on to Water Release practice, Shiki had plenty of devious ideas as well but first, he decided to start with a more simple yet effective improvement to his water jutsu.
That's right, rather than try and develop entirely new water jutsu from the get go, the boy wanted to try out a way to improve his Water Release capabilities in general, Heavy Water.
While water loaded with chakra was heavier and denser than normal, Shiki wished to try and alter the characteristics of the water itself, making it even denser and heavier that normal Heavy Water, thus making the power, weight and impact of most water jutsu that much higher.
The boy found moderate success in this endeavour and as his skill in water release improved, he decided his ability to make the water heavier and denser would also increase.
But that was just the beginning.
Changing the characteristics of water in water jutsu was a path already traveled like with the Water Release: Syrup Trap jutsu which created a highly viscous liquid to trap targets.
Shiki was more interested in one of its metaphysical properties, namely, the existence of various water jutsu dedicated to draining their targets of chakra.
Various jutsu like Grudge Rain, Mist Rain and Bloody Mist Absorption which allowed the user to neutralize opponents without harming them and even nullify jutsu in the case of Mist Rain which had a significantly more powerful chakra draining ability.
Finally, there was a brand of water jutsu with an emphasis on how and where the water was obtained from that caught the boy's eye.
The Blood Conversion jutsu that drains the target's blood on physical contact and transmutes it into water for subsequent jutsu.
The Infinite Sea Watchtower that drains moisture from the earth, plants and even people as well as animals to create a powerful mist based genjutsu. Its nature means it can kill by means of dehydration as a ninjutsu/genjutsu hybrid technique.
Unfortunately, much like the water based chakra absorption most of these were secret techniques not widely spread around.
There were exceptions though.
Jutsu that, even if not widely available, Shiki still managed to dig up. One from Mito's Library and one from an Amegakure shinobi he encountered on one of his missions.
The latter was Grudge Rain, a jutsu that created black clouds that flooded the enemy with chakra absorbing rain though the drain speed was low unless one can box the target in with the water.
It was best used as a cooperation jutsu by multiple shinobi but with his power and the boost from Elemental, Shiki could achieve better results by himself.
An additional jutsu also came from the same shinobi that was entirely separate but perfect to use as a combination with it, called Water Release: Falling Rain Needles that turned the falling raindrops into thin needles with high killing power that struck unseen when masked by the rain.
Rain was actually required to use the jutsu so Grudge Rain, which could create the necessary environment and even add a chakra drain effect, was perfect to set it up.
As for the former, it was named Water Release: Water–Heavens Convergence, its effect was the rapid collection of water from ground sources and plants, after which it could be manipulated into various shapes for multiple offensive and defensive uses.
Then there was the multi-use Bubble Ninjutsu, the signature of Utatakata, future Jinchurike of the Six Tails which had similar abilities. It allowed its user to create bubbles with all kinds of different functions.
Tobirama had actually "convinced" the Six Tails to share some of its secret bubble techniques at the time Hashirama was gathering the Tailed Beasts and Shiki intended to learn them.
The innovative Heavy Water, Grudge Rain and Water Release: Falling Rain Needles which Shiki wanted to combine into a single jutsu as well as Water Release: Water–Heavens Convergence.
Combined with the various Bubble Ninjutsu that came as a set, this was more than enough to fully occupy all twenty shadow clones of the boy practicing their Water Release.
All that along with a few staple water ninjutsu quickly learned on the side made up the entirety of Shiki's Water Release training.
*
Next up, Earth Release.
In this discipline, Shiki did not have as many ambitious ideas.
One thing he wanted to perfect was the ability to forgo the use of his hands to channel earth release.
Many earth release jutsu required the user to place their hands on the ground after weaving the hand seals but this felt unnecessarily restrictive to the boy, if he managed to to transfer his chakra into the ground through his feet, the efficiency would immediately increase manyfold.
For example, the Earth Release: Earth Tearing Palm, which Shiki had already learned, would become the Earth Release: Earth Tearing Impact with the user merely needing to touch the ground in some way, be it with their hands or feet.
The most ambitious idea Shiki had was to try and approach Crystal Release from Earth Release.
In the Naruto Novels, Kakashi managed to convert his Earth Flow Wall into glass, making it more fragile but resistant to Lightning Release.
To the boy, this was simply a knockoff of Crystal Release that had yet to reach the level of a separate Elemental Kekkei Genkai.
While actual Crystal Release might prove impossible before the Nirvana Seal: Transcendence was in place to help, this knockoff version was plenty achievable, would help against Kumo's Lightning Release users and also got Shiki started on the path to an actual kekkei genkai.
The was also extremely interested in the gravity and weight manipulation abilities of Earth Release but those jutsu were coveted secrets of the Tsuchikage Lineage so there was simply no way for him to get them for the time being.
As such, Shiki decided to instead focus on some staple Earth Release jutsu rather than making a pointless effort to create something new just because.
These staples were jutsu like the Earth Flow Series as the boy called them:
Earth Release: Earth Flow Divide which split the earth to create ravines, capable of making targets fall in or just opening up hazardous terrain;
Earth Release: Earth Flow River which basically created mudslides that could wash away targets and destabilize structures;
Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears which caused earthen spikes to jut out from the ground to skewer targets;
Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall which could create defensive earthen walls and possessed many advanced versions Shiki could learn in the future;
And Earth Release: Earth Flow Wave which can manipulate the surrounding terrain and create waves of hardened rock to fight at mid range.
Beyond those, Shiki learned an advanced version of his Earth Release: Rock Gun called Earth Release: Rock Scattergun which, instead of firing a single high velocity rock that turned into a boulder mid air, it fired multiple rocks at the same time like a shotgun.
Finally, the boy endeavored to grasp the Earth Release: Earth Spear, the body hardening technique famously used by Kakuzu in the original series which Shiki obtained from Kumo's Dogan, the first Elite Jonin he killed in combat.
It was plenty useful by itself, especially in combination with his purely taijutsu based Iron Body Technique but it was also an excellent assistance towards the development of his Nirvana Art: Dragon Aspect.
The Earth Release practice was limited to this for the time being and in truth, it was mighty impressive considering all the other aspects of his skillset that the boy was training at the same time.
*
Onwards to the next element, Lightning Release.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -