Chapter 553: Teaching Blue Flame, Riolu Evolves
After a brief explanation, Mugetsu began his demonstration.
A large amount of chakra gathered in his palm, and a blue flame soon appeared above his hand.
When the Azure Flame in Mugetsu's palm grew to the size of a fist, Shisui and Obito could already feel the heat radiating from it.
"This flame is unbelievably hot," Shisui thought as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The Azure Flame Mugetsu released looked no bigger than a fist, yet the energy contained within it was astonishing.
"What a cool flame!" The more Obito looked at the flame in Mugetsu's hand, the more he liked it.
Ordinary Fire Release flames were red. Just from the color alone, Obito knew this Fire Release was anything but ordinary.
Then Mugetsu tossed the Azure Flame onto a rock.
To Obito and Shisui's surprise, the rock rapidly melted into lava, while the Azure Flame continued burning, with the fire already beginning to spread outward.
"The compressed Azure Flame has an extremely high temperature and can melt metal and stone with ease," Mugetsu explained, then called Yamato over.
"Yamato, use your Water Release at full power and see if you can extinguish it."
Yamato nodded, then quickly formed hand seals and gathered chakra.
Obito felt a surge of excitement. Could it be that this flame really wasn't afraid of Water Release?
Teacher Mugetsu would never have to worry about him being hard countered again!
Obito suddenly felt he had wronged Fire Release all this time. It wasn't that Fire Release ninjutsu were weak, it was just that he had never learned a truly powerful one.
"Fire Release, you are the greatest ninjutsu," Obito silently repented in his heart.
"Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique!"
Since he was trying to put out a fire, Yamato used a wide area Water Release with enough volume to overwhelm it.
A massive sphere of water burst from Yamato's mouth and crashed down onto the Azure Flame burning on the ground.
Hiss!
A large amount of water evaporated instantly, and white mist spread through the air before quickly dispersing.
"Teacher Mugetsu, is this flame impossible to extinguish?" Obito asked excitedly as he stared at the Azure Flame still burning fiercely.
If it truly couldn't be extinguished, then it would be a sure kill trump card. Once it landed, the enemy would either burn to death or immediately sever the affected body part.
"It is not truly inextinguishable, but most Water Release users in the Ninja World do not have the ability to put it out."
As he spoke, Mugetsu used Water Release himself to extinguish the Azure Flame.
"Oh, I see." Obito felt a little disappointed. He had thought it was a flame completely unafraid of water.
"Can Hanzo extinguish Azure Flame?" Obito asked after thinking it over.
Although he had never actually met Hanzo, Hanzo was someone Obito genuinely wanted to challenge.
There were two main reasons. First, if he defeated Hanzo, he could show off in front of Jiraiya, since the younger Jiraiya had once lost to Hanzo, and that had been with teammates beside him.
Second, defeating Hanzo might earn him a cool title.
"Probably not," Mugetsu replied.
Obito's eyes lit up. At least against Hanzo, Azure Flame could be considered an inextinguishable fire.
"Teacher Mugetsu is really too humble. If even Hanzo can't extinguish Azure Flame with Water Release, then there probably aren't more than three people in the entire Ninja World who can," Shisui thought to himself.
In Shisui's opinion, even saying three was generous.
Hanzo was already one of the most famous Water Release specialists in the Ninja World. If even he couldn't do it, Shisui estimated that only the Third Mizukage might have a chance.
And the only reason he put the number at three was to account for the possibility of some hidden Water Release powerhouse.
"Besides compressing the flame to raise its temperature and burning power, Azure Flame can also be released the same way as ordinary Fire Release."
After saying that, Mugetsu gathered chakra in his throat and spat out a pillar of blue fire.
Everything in its path was reduced to ash.
"If your control over Azure Flame reaches a certain level, you can manipulate it in even more ways."
"Fire Release: Azure Flame: Great Fireball Technique!"
Mugetsu formed a Tiger seal and expelled a wide mass of Azure Flame, shaping it into a fireball.
Boom!
The blue fireball slammed into the ground and erupted with terrifying force far beyond an ordinary Great Fireball Technique.
When the smoke from the blast cleared, Obito and Shisui saw that the flat ground had been transformed into a massive crater, and everything around it had turned black with ash.
"It's incredibly flexible. If your control is high enough, you can even strengthen it through shape transformation," Shisui thought.
The principle behind the ninjutsu Mugetsu had just shown was not combining two techniques into one. Rather, he was using Azure Flame as the base and applying the method of Great Fireball Technique to it.
"That means all the Fire Release I already know can be upgraded!" Obito grew even more excited.
Learning Azure Flame Fire Release was basically the same as pulling all his previous Fire Release out of the bottom tier.
The disturbance this time was much bigger, and it drew the attention of the other disciples and their Pokémon, who were training nearby.
"Blue flames." Kakashi immediately caught the Azure Flame's most distinctive characteristic.
"Owooo!" Charizard let out a worried cry.
If Obito learned a Fire Release this powerful, then helping him train, or rather beating him up, would become dangerous.
Thinking of that, Charizard trained even harder. It had to become stronger than Obito, or else the hard won good days might once again turn into Obito making it suffer.
"And it can also be used like this."
Mugetsu changed his breathing rhythm, switching to Flame Breathing, then concentrated it into Flame Breathing Chakra Mode.
"Fire Release: Azure Flame: Flame Fist!"
Mugetsu condensed a large amount of chakra around his fist, compressed it, transformed it through Fire Release, and then threw out a punch wrapped in Azure Flame.
Boom!
Another pitch black crater appeared where his fist struck.
"Fire Release: Azure Flame: Blazing Impact!"
The next moment, Mugetsu condensed chakra throughout his entire body, and Azure Flame erupted from him, making him look like a man made of fire.
Obito's eyes widened. This was far cooler than the normal Blazing Impact.
Mugetsu's demonstration pushed Obito's desire to master Azure Flame to a whole new level.
It was powerful and cool. He absolutely had to learn it. It was way better than any Fire Emperor.
"First, I need to make one thing clear. With your current level of Fire Release chakra nature transformation, you cannot yet learn or use Azure Flame," Mugetsu reminded them.
As a skill exclusive to a first class god tier being, the localized Azure Flame had extraordinary power, but it also demanded an extremely high level of control.
Obito stayed silent and kept listening.
After all, Mugetsu had just demonstrated it in such overwhelming fashion. There was no way he would suddenly stop teaching now. There had to be a solution.
"But fortunately, you have already mastered Flame Breathing Chakra Mode. Flame Breathing Chakra Mode can enhance your nature transformation ability enough that you can barely meet the requirement," Mugetsu continued.
"That means in your future training, you will often need to use Flame Breathing Chakra Mode. It will be extremely exhausting, so you must be mentally prepared."
Theory could be learned by listening, but ninjutsu also required long periods of practice and experimentation.
Breathing Technique Chakra Mode was currently one of the disciples' strongest trump cards, but it also consumed a great deal of chakra and stamina. Using it regularly for training really could be described as grueling.
"Teacher Mugetsu, I can take that kind of hardship. And are there any other Fire Release techniques on this level? I can handle a little more pain too," Obito said with a grin.
Obito had always believed one thing. No matter how miserable the training was, as long as he could one day beat Kakashi and make Rin look at him with admiration and joy, then it would all be worth it.
Smack!
"Talk about that after you can use Azure Flame skillfully," Mugetsu said, extending his index and middle fingers and tapping Obito on the forehead.
Mugetsu himself did not even possess another Fire Release on the same level as Azure Flame.
"The key to Azure Flame lies in the compression of Fire Release chakra nature transformation..." Mugetsu officially began teaching the technique.
The moment he started lecturing, he also activated Enlightenment on both Shisui and Obito.
Enlightenment had a cooldown of one week and lasted for two days, so Mugetsu generally used it based on the situation.
If there was something new to teach, he used it immediately.
If not, he waited until the last two days before activating it in order to maximize the effect.
"Don't keep your questions to yourselves. Ask them directly," Mugetsu said during a break.
He also had a Clarification skill. If Obito and the others asked questions, then the effects of Teaching, Enlightenment, and Clarification would stack together.
Even with all three overlapping, however, Azure Flame was still so inherently difficult that neither Obito nor Shisui could learn it easily.
It was not until the afternoon session was almost over that Obito finally managed to raise his Azure Flame proficiency to one point.
Shisui had reached one point near the start of the afternoon, but by the time training was about to end, he was still stuck there and had not yet reached two.
Clearly, learning a skill as powerful as Azure Flame was not something simple. It was a long term battle.
"So hard, just as expected of the strongest Fire Release!" The difficulty of Azure Flame did not dampen Obito's enthusiasm in the slightest. If anything, it made him even more eager to see how much stronger he would become once he truly mastered it.
After witnessing Azure Flame's power, Obito unilaterally decided that it was now the strongest Fire Release, while Fire Release: Fire Dragon Dance could be ranked second at best.
Taking a long breath, Obito glanced over at the other disciples.
Kakashi was still running and practicing combination attacks with Lycanroc. Yamato was diligently training his Breathing Technique. Rin was training Water Release alongside Milotic. And Might Guy was wiping the sweat off the panting Riolu.
"Another fulfilling day. Once my injuries are fully healed, we'll be able to do high intensity training together again," Might Guy said encouragingly.
Because his injuries had not yet fully recovered, Might Guy's own training volume was still low.
But he was not just standing there doing nothing. He wiped Riolu's sweat, gave it water, and kept encouraging it with words, giving it the strength to keep going.
"Riolu." Riolu relaxed and showed a happy smile.
Although life with Might Guy mostly consisted of relentless training, Riolu was genuinely happy.
Then, in the next moment, a dazzling white light erupted from Riolu's body.
The sudden light instantly drew everyone's attention.
"Guy's Nin Beast evolved too," Obito stared at the white glow curiously, wondering what Riolu would look like after evolving.
Would it become almost unrecognizable like Milotic, or would it mostly just mature further like Lycanroc, still retaining many traces of its old self?
At the same time, Obito also felt a little regretful that his dream of learning Azure Flame and then using it with Charizard to defeat Might Guy would ultimately not come true.
"I wonder what kind of abilities Riolu will gain after evolving," Kakashi also found himself deeply interested in Riolu's evolution.
For reasons he did not understand, every Pokémon seemed to learn some ninjutsu and taijutsu after evolving.
Milotic had changed the most, going from knowing no ninjutsu at all to mastering numerous Water Release techniques and even Medical Ninjutsu.
Charizard and Lycanroc had not improved as dramatically as Milotic, but the changes had still been extremely obvious.
Thinking of that, Kakashi glanced at Zorua on Shisui's shoulder.
Actually, what Kakashi looked forward to most was Zorua's evolution.
Zorua's illusion and genjutsu based abilities were simply too special. If its strength could rise high enough, it would definitely become extremely troublesome in battle.
But for some reason, even though Zorua had hatched relatively early, it still had not evolved.
Originally Zorua at least had Riolu to keep it company. But now even Riolu had evolved, leaving only Zorua unevolved.
Noticing Kakashi's gaze, Zorua widened its eyes and glared back at him. "What are you looking at?"
Kakashi silently looked away and returned his attention to Riolu.
Zorua proudly puffed out its chest and lifted its head. It had won.
Tap!
Shisui flicked the tuft of fur sticking up on Zorua's head. Why was it suddenly feeling so full of itself?
When the white light finally dissipated, the majestic Lucario stood revealed before everyone.
Compared to the cute Riolu, Lucario carried a cool and handsome aura.
The round bulges on the backs of its paws had turned into sharp bone spikes, and a slightly smaller spike had also grown from its chest.
Most of Lucario's changes, however, were the changes of growth. It still clearly retained many visible traces of Riolu.
"It doesn't look that different," Obito commented.
Compared to the evolutions of the other Pokémon, Lucario and Riolu had not changed all that much. It felt more like Riolu had simply grown up.
Kakashi nodded. Obito was right.
When Rockruff evolved into Lycanroc, even though it had not grown wings like Charizard, its fur and overall build had changed a great deal. But Riolu and Lucario still shared the same general color scheme.
"It suddenly got much stronger," Might Guy said happily, giving Lucario a thumbs up as he felt genuinely glad for it.
If his injuries had already healed completely, he would have wanted to test Lucario's strength through a spar right away.
With examples like Milotic, Charizard, and Lycanroc already before them, everyone knew by now that Pokémon underwent a major increase in strength when they evolved.
"Riolu!" Lucario responded by mimicking Might Guy and giving him a thumbs up in return.
Right now, it truly felt powerful.
After evolving, it had not only learned a large number of moves, but its Aura power had increased dramatically as well.
"Want to test your strength? How about a battle with Lycanroc?" Kakashi looked toward Might Guy and Lucario and asked.
.....
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