Chapter 29: A Joyful Harvest
Under Hiiro Rinko's and Karura's guidance, Pakura's Chakra control ability improved by leaps and bounds.
Efficiency, circulation speed, and fluidity—these details are easily overlooked, but it is often the slightest gap that determines the flow of battle.
Accumulating small advantages, building them up, and looking for an opponent's opening to seize victory—this is the standard combat style of a conventional shinobi.
Pakura, whose Chakra reserves weren't outstanding, absolutely had to learn this patient, opportunistic philosophy.
Her stubbornness, her competitiveness, and her desire for strength occasionally reminded Hiiro Rinko of an acquaintance from his past who frequently ordered Cursed Tools from him. And that acquaintance's situation, before he died and came here, could not be called "good."
Based on this sense of familiarity, he couldn't possibly ignore Pakura.
As for Karura, while helping tutor Pakura, she also began learning the fundamentals of Medical Ninjutsu from Hiiro Rinko.
Although she never showed it due to her personality, one glance at Karura's delicate Chakra control was enough to know she was incredibly talented in both Medical Ninjutsu and Sunagakure's unique Sand Manipulation Jutsu.
In fact, when it came to the fine control needed for small-scale Sand Jutsu, she was likely even stronger than Rasa, who was better at large-scale techniques.
Rinko, who had sensed her Chakra state long ago, had anticipated this. But Pakura, who had known her longer, had no idea.
After all, Karura had always been the gentle, kind, and agreeable girl at school, never getting into conflicts, let alone proactively showing off her skills.
It could only be said that Karura, with a personality as soft as a little rabbit's, was truly unsuited for the life of a shinobi. But that just made the fact that she would stand up so stubbornly to Pakura for his sake all the more indicative of how serious she was.
Having been shown such one-sided affection, Rinko naturally couldn't just ignore it.
He wasn't some hard-boiled detective from a noir story, allergic to other people's kindness.
Since you don't like fighting, then learn Medical Ninjutsu. Healing others' wounds with your own hands... that should be something you can find charm in. That was the roundabout way he had put it, before stuffing the Medical Ninjutsu notes into her hands.
And Rinko felt he would never, in this lifetime, forget how happy the perceptive girl's smile was at that moment.
After all, counting his previous life, his resume didn't exactly contain much that made other people smile.
Sigh. A mad scientist gets reincarnated into another world, finds the warmth of family and loved ones, and has his heart opened... It sounds just like a Light Novel plot.
Ah? You ask where Hiiro Rinko got Medical Ninjutsu scrolls?
He swiped them from Chiyo, of course.
Don't think for a second Rinko hadn't noticed. That damned Old Hag Chiyo absolutely had a hand in pushing Karura and Pakura's actions.
That being the case, it was only natural for her to cough up some 'operational funds,' right? As one of the top five pharmacology masters in the entire Shinobi World, even the scraps of knowledge she let slip were enough for Karura to study until graduation.
Of course, Rinko wasn't so kind as to help the two girls for free just because of this. On the contrary, he was the one getting the most out of this study group.
Forget about 'spiritual enlightenment'—a concept so cheesy he'd laugh just saying it. His mental state wasn't 'ascending' so much as it was 'falling' or 'integrating' into this world. In short, he had completely adapted to life here.
And... his previously hypothesized 'Split-Thinking' had made massive progress. He had already completed a 'Dual' split and was now moving toward a 'Triple' split.
Being the foundation of the legendary Sages of the Atlas Archive, Split-Thinking was, of course, far more than simple multitasking.
It was the ability to divide the mind into multiple thought-circuits. All circuits shared the same goal, exchanged information, and could even achieve an exponential effect. For example, a four-way split could conduct 256 parallel thought processes, as if 256 high-speed intellects were seamlessly assisting each other for a single purpose.
Because of this, the difficulty of splitting one's thoughts increases exponentially. Even the most basic 'Dual' split was extraordinarily difficult. If you were to rank it like ninjutsu, it would undoubtedly be an S-Rank technique.
Considering the potential damage it could cause to the user, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to even call it a Forbidden Jutsu (Kinjutsu).
If it weren't for Rinko's abnormal spiritual strength (provided by his far-beyond-human soul) and the Uzumaki Clan's overwhelming life force serving as a foundation, he would never dare attempt such a technique, which put extreme strain on the brain.
It was a 'black box' technique he'd found in a fantasy series, which he'd only deemed 'worth trying.' Its principles and training process were completely unknown, so his current success was purely due to 'hardware' brute force.
It was safe to say, this was a technique only he could use. Whether it was spiritual strength, life force, control precision, or processing power—if any one of those was substandard, attempting to split one's thoughts would probably just fry the brain.
Rinko, of course, had not revealed this dangerous jutsu to anyone.
For one, he couldn't explain how he did it. For another, he genuinely didn't want to waste time teaching something that had a 99% chance of failure.
In his past life, Rinko often heard people say that this was no longer an era where one person's talent could push the world forward. He would always point at their nose and tell them to go study advanced calculus.
In terms of difficulty, the two were basically the same.
Beyond that, with Pakura as a sparring partner, Hiiro Rinko had already mastered several Wind Release (Fūton) jutsu.
Clearly, Pakura, the 'combat-type,' was a much better sparring partner than Karura. Whether in ninjutsu or taijutsu, she was better able to keep up with Rinko's rhythm.
And by analyzing the operational principles of the Wind Release jutsu he learned, he had begun to grasp the 'Core of Chakra.'
Chakra circulation and refinement, the mixing ratios of spiritual and physical energy, the limits of instantaneous draw... his body and mind had now firmly memorized all the fundamentals of Chakra.
He finally had the breathing room to begin tackling the problem of 'Cursed Energy.'
And, of course, most importantly: Hiiro Rinko, the master Cursed Tool crafter, with Pakura's assistance, had finally forged a weapon that perfectly suited his hand.