Today was decreed by Maruboshi as a rest day, but that only meant they wouldn't be sparring. Their main focus was on jutsu, but he also taught Masaru other skills.
Mainly, the skill of the day was bush crafting. As in, making shelter out in the wild. Maruboshi advised him on useful jutsu as he watched Masaru work. "Another useful jutsu is the summoning technique. Depending on the animal clan it can greatly enhance your daily life, not just your combat."
Masaru nodded absentmindedly as he chopped the branches off of a tree the width of his arm. Many similarly sized branches lay nearby, awaiting use. He had long gotten used to this kind of menial work, though it still felt strange to use a katana to do it. It just wasn't the kind of blade meant for this kind of work, yet Maruboshi sensei insisted that he needed to gain more familiarity with his new katana before he taught him kenjutsu.
Something about not cutting your own fingers off on accident.
Truthfully, his mind was occupied with the two jutsu he'd recently gained from the Akamichi clan. They had not meant for such a thing to happen, but because their head was close friends with his teacher they had to give him an additional gift to apologize for the disrespect he had faced.
And that gift was the B ranked Shadow Clone Jutsu. It would be an immense help when he gained control of it, but first he had to master the academy three for graduation before he could think of other jutsu. Really, the two jutsu were just an investment for his future.
He silently channeled his chakra as he worked, using a shovel to dig a shallow pit, with a small tunnel for a vent. It was a simple design for a fire that almost got rid of all smoke trails as long as the wood was dry, so it was safter than making a normal fire.
Focusing a bit of chakra into his fingers, he grabbed a piece of wood and forced the chakra into it, rapidly heating it up and allowing him to start a fire. It was a trick he'd learnt on his own, and it worked surprisingly well. It would be useless in battle because of how long it took to start a small fire let alone cause an injury, but it was yet another tool under his belt.
Finally, he finished setting up his shelter, a simple thing with a thatched roof and a sleeping area. Masaru sat down and pulled out two fish, gutting them and putting them over the fire.
He sighed as his teacher sat beside him, pulling out the three academy jutsu scrolls. "What should we start with?"
"Hmm, have you been practicing on your own?"
"Some, yeah. I've been trying the clone jutsu, but it hasn't worked very well so far."
"Show me."
Masaru stood again and preformed the hand signs. Ram, Tiger, and Snake. He felt his chakra flow through his body before a portion of it left, and with a poof of smoke there were two of him.
However the new Masaru was deformed. He was taller than the real him, and his skin was pale, nearly white, and some of his features were off as well. He sighed again. "I can't seem to do it right."
Maruboshi smiled patiently. "When preforming this jutsu, you have to have a strong mental image of yourself while you preform the signs. Try again."
Masaru went through the signs again, but this time tried his best to picture his new self. His height, weight, his hair color, what scars were visible, etc.
Poof!
This time, his clone resembled him much more, though if you looked close enough you could tell the difference. "It's better but it's still not perfect..."
"That's fine." His teacher said, surprising him, so he continued to explain. "In battle, every moment can mean the difference between life and death, so if a clone can distract your enemy for even a single second, it has bought you valuable time. The same goes for the transformation jutsu as well."
Masaru thought it over and realized that it made sense. Why go through the effort of perfecting a clone when a simpler one could already benefit him enough?
"Now try the transformation jutsu. It is similar in that you will need to focus on the image of what you want to look like. Keep in mind that there are limitations: You cannot drift too far from your height, weight, and overall size. Because of this, you can't do something like transforming into a pebble."
He nodded at his teacher's words and preformed the hand signs, deciding to imitate Akamichi Toru. His features had been burned into his mind recently, as he had spent quite a long time imagining how to fight him, and that experience had only grown when he reflected back on his fight with him.
There was another puff of smoke, and suddenly Masaru had disappeared, a surprisingly good imitation of Toru standing in his place. Masaru looked himself over, finding that his weight was a bit off. He felt unbalanced as he walked around, so he tried to fix that as he went, which worked.
Maruboshi looked at his student with surprise. He'd just essentially mastered two jutsu he'd been having trouble with after only a little bit of instruction.
An absurd thought passed through his mind, but he quickly washed it away. 'These were the simplest of jutsu, even if he understood these quickly it doesn't mean he will do the same for others.'
...Right?