Chapter 41: Training
The training was more rigorous than I had imagined. We learned the standard diplomatic conventions for all the different nations, as well as any lord's court which deviated significantly from the norm. We learned how to talk, behave, what to wear, the proper gifts, ways of eating, and what to eat in what order to deliver what message. And that was just the beginning before progressing further into poetry, song, dance, theater, literature, both doing so ourselves and appreciation of the same for as many cultures as they could cram in. Some of it was actually quite good, and I memorized enough of the best literature that I could, in a future life, plagiarize (if that was even a possible cross-dimensional crime) for fame and profit.
Sachiko and Yasu, lacking my mental techniques, had a bit of a harder time, though we were all taught advanced Memory Palace and other memorization techniques to improve our recall and begin making our minds harder to interrogate. The mental representation techniques were a bit strange for me; by combining mind and soul, I had in a way skipped that stage. I had no worries of my mind degrading, and the amount or similarity of memories didn't really impact how easily or quickly I could access them. I knew my soul and mind on an instinctive level, and that was enough. As for protecting my mind and memories, apart from my own unique being I was protected by the highest level seals. What the mental techniques did improve however was my ability to visualize, organize and cross-link thoughts and memories, somewhat improving the rate at which I could connect concepts and innovate. In other words, while not necessary, or even particularly helpful for individual memories, concepts or thoughts, the mental organization was useful as a kind of database and library.
I had plenty to add to my mind as well. Apart from the cultural education and diplomatic conventions, there was just so much trivia. For example, we had to learn more than a thousand insignia for the noble houses as well as prominent merchants, guilds, and townships. Honestly, I without my perfect memory formation technique it would have been a real pain, and absolutely impossible for a regular person without the techniques we were taught. With those, however, and my own childhood as the somewhat distant scion of a noble house, I excelled in the niceties.
Sachiko and Yasu actually had it comparatively easy. They already knew how to be retainers to an Uzumaki lord, which was most of what was required of them, and my grandfather Uzumaki Kenichi likely made even the most formal of our trainers seem uncouth. Suffice to say, our trainers were more than pleased with our progress.
The not-so-niceties were very interesting as well. We were taught standard jonin ciphers, keys, recognition signs, signals, battle-cant, and memorized lists of supply caches and contacts. We learned more about poisons and subtle assassination, stealth, infiltration, covert intelligence gathering, how to read body language, even some seduction and counter-seduction. Sachiko took a specialist subtle genjutsu training, while Yasu learned to be even more of a ghost. For my part, I trained in my swordsmanship with the White Fang and learned all the varieties of formalized duel etiquette.
We spent a full six weeks on a diplomatic bodyguard course, in case it was necessary to protect a VIP; I hated it, and banned either of my retainers from sacrificing themselves for anyone, myself included (though I doubted they'd obey in the latter situation). I tested out of the seal-communications and secure-space creation sections of the training designed to teach us how to set up secure rooms and communications to report to Konoha. The section on detecting bugs and other listeners or watchers was quite informative, however, and led to a security overhaul of our own consulate.
Perhaps the most interesting section of our training, however, came from our trade and economics training. It wasn't something that had been covered in detail at any point before, and my own efforts were based almost entirely on my own best guesses and precepts I'd remembered from my first life. Comparing historical analysis and a basic knowledge of a semi free-market capitalism with a feudal-renaissance filled with ninja-sorcerers wasn't exactly a perfect fit, however, and I'd always been an engineering/science type rather than a grand financial genius.
The economics training supported my belief that the world had once been significantly more advanced; their economic and political theory was very well developed. By the end of the year I had no doubt I could whip out a dissertation-worthy work on similar societies. My “assistant Consul” from Whirlpool, who was a trade and policy expert, was always happy to discuss these matters as well, and provide a more Uzushio-centric viewpoint.
Of course, the Arbitrator training wasn't the only thing I did during the year. I also trained extensively outside of it. I had decided to focus on three things:
First, I wanted the kage bunshin. I doubted it was as it had been described in manga/anime of my original world, but even if it were just a bunshin capable of jutsu that was hugely helpful and thus worth learning.
Second, I wanted to figure out how to achieve the Hiraishin. Instantaneous movement at low chakra cost was a “holy grail” jutsu, and since Kushina hadn't come to Konohagakure to train Minato in sealing, he wasn't going to be developing it.
Third, I wanted to become a sage. Sage powers were a massive boost, and represented a type of chakra knowledge and understanding that I wanted for no other reason than bragging right. I had strong suspicions though that those techniques would be somewhat applicable across all of reality, regardless of universe or plane. Plus, if that toe-rag Naruto could achieve it, I had no doubts I could as well.
Getting my hands on the kage bunshin actually turned out to be hilariously easy. The basic shadow clone technique wasn't restricted, only the Mass Shadow Clone technique, with the basic being available to jonin. I had learned the technique within a day, and by the end of the week had reverse engineered the Mass Shadow Clone and Exploding Shadow Clone techniques.
It was a good news/ bad news situation. Good news, the clones had high combat potential. Though a bit slower and weaker than I was (and massively less durable), they were otherwise combat ready, which was about what I expected. Because of the durability limitations, they were more limited in the extent of their chakra reinforcement, both physical and mental. The clones could use jutsu however, and think independently, both of which were the main restrictions for elemental clones. With the exploding clone technique, they were dangerous to dispel in close combat, and the clones were even capable of a limited version of my Death Experience. I could make a load of them with my chakra reserves, and did discover they were capable of solid transformations. I could make a host of clones capable of fighting chunin, or a few that could act as jutsu artillery or strike-craft pilots. I could also use the clones to test seals I developed that fell in between the “test yourself” and the “test in a special testing chamber” danger scale, or search through large volumes of information for something specific.
The bad news was that the clones did not have some special memory transfer ability. What they did have was the ability to transfer a few images via chakra resonance, but it was a specific technique that dispelled the clone. Expert users could build in the ability to do the image transfer on death. So, while they could scout, they couldn't train for me. Furthermore, they were somewhat focused on whatever I wanted them to do when they were made, and were significantly less intelligent than I. At a guess, it had something to do with how much of my mental chakra or chi I used, and how well I structured it. Thankfully, being bright enough to begin with and having an excellent idea of my mental chakra patterns, I was capable of kage bunshin that were reasonably intelligent and useful.
Long story short, the kage bunshin was useful, and represented a great combat multiplier (literally a multiplier, I was about two to six times as effective just knowing this technique, depending on the situation) but didn't represent anything game changing. I was happy that it was so useful, but disappointed that it wasn't some magic “I win at all ninja arts because I have the most Chakra!” technique. I had no real desire for “fair play” after so long as a ninja, not that I had much before then either.
The disappointment grew as I wasted months on the Hiraishin. I could go fast. Really fast. But the problem was I couldn't get anything instantaneous, and the speed scaled with a bit more than a squared amount of chakra. In other words, doubling the speed required about four times as much chakra. Actually it was closer to six times as much chakra, the equation for the jutsu seemed to be something along the lines of:
[speed] = S
[Chakra used] =(S)^2 + (S) + [constant].
To make things worse, as I started to push the jutsu and seals I was using, the chakra use started to get less efficient. It was maddening.
I tried a number of things beyond seals that basically translated to “put the thing you affect there”, but had to tap out when I started getting too close to seals that transited through other dimensions. I had a theory that by moving to another plane or dimension, one with a perfect and consistent mapping function to that of the Naruto-verse I was in, I might be able to cheat. In other words, that there was some dimension out there with distances and vectors that perfectly correlated to the distances in the dimension I was already in. If that was the case, I could “step” into that other dimension, transit a few feet, “step” back into my dimension, and end up traveling miles until I was only a few feet away from where I wanted to be.
The problem was I was unsure if I should be transiting dimensions or universes or planes (there was a difference), and mistakes in this sort of thing tended to result in Cthulhu-type entities taking notice. It was in fact risky enough that it was illegal for an Uzumaki to research without the proper contingencies. Even my borderline research ended up losing several clones to the point I never even got any chakra resonance images from them. No way was I using that.
So I shelved the Hiraishin for a time, and used a bit of that time to practice the shunshin, specifically using it without hand-seals. Once I had that mastered, I intended to try partial shunshin to accelerate my body in combat and make myself a real speed demon. Unfortunately, my chakra control, though excellent, was still adjusting to my body changing from puberty, and I reached the limitations of what was safe until I finished growing physically. So no partial shunshin for me.
Part of the reason I spent time on the shunshin was that I had no idea how to train the Sage arts. I didn't have a summons, and certainly not one with experience with senjutsu. I knew that Jiraiya did, but Minato was the heir to those techniques. My grandfather had the Sea-Hawk summons, but I wasn't sure if they used sage mode and even if they did, one of my uncles had already signed the contract years ago. Frankly, the number of contracts available versus the number of ninja that wanted them meant that I was pretty screwed; at least unless I risked my life with a contract-less summoning technique to summon myself to the demi-plane of whatever summoning animal fit me. I decided that was too risky though, and so spent the month I was somewhat training the shunshin to search the library for any hint as to how to become a sage without a summons to both teach you and prevent natural chakra poisoning.
Finally, finally, I figured it out, and when I did I wanted to smack myself. The secret was in what everyone was told when they start tree-walking: “By mastering tree-walking, you can truly master any jutsu.” I doubted that anyone else had figured it out from Hashirama's semi deranged ramblings; they just liked the saying since it sounds wise.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The saying was, in fact, the first Hokage's though, and that is what made me look at it a bit deeper, since he was the only person I found who was reputably reported to have developed Sage powers without a summons to help. The man was apparently something of an idiot-savant when it came to chakra. People thought it was because he could use Mokuton (tree release), but after my realization I believed that Mokuton came about because of his earth and water abilities and large exposure to natural tree chakra as a child.
When I describe Hashirama as an idiot savant, I mean that quite literally. He was notorious for taking things at face value and exhibited several other signs of the syndrome; in fact, the Senju on a whole showed a predilection for at least mild savant syndrome which led to both their random areas of expertise, as well as some of their slightly less public issues (or, in the case of Tsunade's alcoholism, more public issues). As the Senju inbred more and more, the negative aspects began to overwhelm the positive, partially leading to their decline.
As for Hashirama, he was famous for his inspired understanding of chakra. What most people don't realize is how much savants have contributed, despite whatever issues they had. For example, in my original life, on Earth, much of mathematics and engineering owed their progress in actually making calculations to savants, at least until the advent of the computer. The logarithmic and sin/cos/tan charts used during the 19th century, for example, were often generated by savants gathered from all over Great Britain under a number of mathematicians at Oxford and Cambridge. Similar practices were in place in France and elsewhere. The famous concept of “Mentats,” a type of artificial savant used as human computers to replace electronic ones in Herbert's Dune may have been based on the historical use of savants to perform the kinds of calculations we now perform by machine.
After I figured out that Hashirama was a savant, I realized that he had in fact hidden the secret to the sage arts in his description of tree walking. Whether this was on purpose or lack of communications for certain concepts was uncertain.
Someone who mastered tree-walking didn't actually use any of their own chakra. They used the tree's chakra. Nature's chakra. Anyone capable of this was capable (in theory, at least) of high-efficiency healing that used the patient’s own energy. They were (again, at least in theory) capable of manipulating anything with chakra, first with a touch, then at range. That was an honestly terrifying possibility, and what I decided to aim for. They could use jutsu in the right environment without using a drop of their own chakra.
One of the important differences between Nature chakra and that of a person was the potential; Nature chakra can be thought of as unfiltered light, while that of a person is a specific color. This meant that it was harder to block a technique that uses Nature chakra, since a person's chakra was only really effective at blocking their own bandwith and an opposing bandwith. So if I became a good enough Sage I would have been able to remotely destabilize chakra effects (including enemy jutsu), create my own effects at range by using natural chakra manipulation (something enemies couldn’t track), and empower my justsu even more.
In other words, a sage could make stronger techniques, do so with less energy, and can even potentially manipulate others' chakra, or at least that of the environment for some truly epic possibilities. And that was just the beginning; I had ideas as to how to use Sage Arts to perform what was basically magic. It all came from tree-walking. Of course it wasn't all that easy; I already knew, for example, that the source of natural chakra effected the energy signal (or color of the light, to use the previous analogy), so unlike using my own chakra, using a sage technique could be easier or harder depending on where I was. But I had a direction for the next major upgrades to my ninja capabilities, and so I dove right in.
After I developed that theory, I spent months meditating while sitting sideways on a tree, trying to develop the technique. And I succeeded. Granted, it was the absolute lowest form of Sage arts. All I was capable of was wall-walking on a number of surfaces without any chakra use. It was useful for stealth or those without much chakra reserves, but not all that great. I was having real difficulties accessing the tree's chakra, possibly because I was more oriented with Wind and Water than with Earth.
Overall, it improved my chakra manipulation and recovery, and I began a long term project as to how much natural chakra I could control, for how long, at what range, and how much I could absorb safely. It was painfully slow progress, but I felt that it was reasonable for the two hours a day I spent on the task and total lack of any guiding information. I expected to be capable of something useful after about a year, and something astounding a couple years after that. That was slow for me, but fast enough to be worth pursuing.
As a further bonus, while I was meditating I figured out what I was missing with the Hiraishin. It was a time-space technique. I had thought that the “time” was a holdout from when people understood the relation between time and space, that it had some meaning due to the Elemental Nations' history. I was wrong. The Hiraishin worked, or at least this was my theory, by taking some defined space and making the entire region indeterminably defined by time, making it also undefined in space. The trick was controlling the space of that non-definition, effectively superimposing the space along some vector, and then reinserting the defined space into time at the lowest energy location, which would be by the target seal.
That's why Minato was the “Yellow Flash”; for a non-moment of time, he occupied all the space along that vector and none of it, resulting in some weird visual artifact effect. It was actually, from my initial calculations, a fucking genius solution. Oh, dangerous as hell, and vulnerable to some exotic attacks and a number of sealing-field interactions, but both the sealing knowledge and especially chakra requirements were pretty low compared to the Hiraishin’s functionality.
My own version would be a lot safer and a bit more chakra intensive. For example, I planned a triangulation technique to come out anywhere within a space defined by the seals. But that alone would be a major challenge, since it would have to respond to change the effected region rather than act as a beacon.
Still, I had a starting off point; the rest was engineering.
By the end of the year, I hadn't quite figured out the seals I needed, let alone the array including the safety features, but I was making a lot of progress; I had a very productive collaboration going on with Hikaru jii-san. When I did finish was going to ask the Head Priest of the Uzushiogakure sealers to take a look, since he specialized in these kinds of effects and liked me enough.
Perhaps most usefully, I was finally really advancing my seals intuition. Before, I was advancing my sealing knowledge, but not really the level at which I understood how seals and reality interacted. It was more “Applied Seals Engineering” than the kind of “Sealing Scientific Philosophy” needed to advance as a sealer. As the year of training came to an end, I finally broke through and achieved Seventh level intuition, making myself a High Master of sealing at the age of fifteen.
The Head Priest actually sent me a note that I “wasn't the youngest to achieve High Mastery, since (he) knew (I) would be wondering.” He went on to note though that he was very impressed, and with a bit of humor that I was obviously a credit to their teaching. My prototype Hiraishin seals were finally done and basically waiting review and testing by the Uzushiogakure Sealing Department, so I expected to be able to start using those anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after I finished my Arbitrator training.
As the year of training wound to a close, our training focused on current events and political briefings. Generally, not too much had changed. Fire Country had a strong alliance with Whirlpool/Water Country, mirrored by Konohagakure's alliance with Uzushiogakure and all of the subordinate ninja and samurai forces. Fire Country had further stabilized the alliances with Grass, Waterfall and Rice, and the traditional alliance with Tea Country was going strong.
Whirlpool, which was then also the capital province of Water Country, had stabilized its own alliance block with the Lands of Hotsprings and Noodles. Frost Country was increasingly influenced by Water-based trading companies, which had largely taken control of the sea-going trade by the combination of Cyclone seals meaning well-protected ships and sets of navigation and seafaring seals meaning faster, more robust vessels capable of carrying larger cargoes. The new air-mail business was showing large profits, and the Uzushiogakure fielded air-force was unmatched and unchallenged. Water Country itself was completely pacified, and happier than ever under its new, relatively enlightened rule. The neighboring island nations Nagi and O'uzu were beginning the long diplomatic dance to improve relations and perhaps form an alliance.
Wind and River Countries were still trying to recover from their losses at Hanzo the Salamander's hands following their poorly executed invasion of Rain Country, while Earth Country was too busy trying to replace losses due to their war with Wind and River to cause much trouble. Earth Country was in fact dealing with a small rebellion in the Western Mountain region near the border with Bear and Mountain countries.
Wind Country was dealing with a rather more serious rebellion, verging on civil war, in their Western River Basin region, which was one of the wealthiest and densest populated regions of the country and somewhat difficult to invade given the massive desert in between it and the Capital or Hidden Sand village. Their Daimyo had just sent in an army to stabilize the situation; if it failed, the situation was likely to become a full on civil war.
Lightning Country meanwhile was still agitated by their reduced status in the world, and both it and Kumo were becoming more and more belligerent. This linked to a number of “bandit” and “pirate” actions, and Frost Country was a hotbed of subterfuge and secret conflict. The Fire-Water alliance was interested in curtailing Lightning influence and capability.
Other than the concern with Lightning, Fire Country, and thus Konohagakure, were interested in three main areas. First, they were interested in establishing friendlier relations with Iron Country. Iron Country was a major source of not just metals, but Chakra metal. It was also now bordered on all sides by Fire Country allies, and under a bit of pressure to establish deeper trade ties including favorable tariffs or even free trade across the border. This went somewhat against their policy of neutrality, and was a major subject of discussion.
Second, Fire Country was interested in establishing even basic relations with Rain Country. Hanzo had conducted a coup – well, theoretically, bandits overcame the Daimyo's convoy and killed him, his family, and a hundred-strong company of veteran chakra-wielding samurai but everyone knew the truth. Bandit forces capable of taking on elite chakra active companies didn’t exist. Following that “tragedy”, Hanzo had himself declared Daimyo. He then totally closed the border to lawful traffic, which was a problem as Rain Country included the major land-route into Earth Country, as well as access to Claw and Fang Countries. His regime was rumored to be conducting purges of anyone with any loyalties to other lands.
Furthermore, and least acceptable, Rain was full of disreputable missing ninja and ronin samurai leading bandit bands. Hanzo had a non-interference policy so long as they raided outside of Rain, but aggressively pursued any forces chasing these criminals. Fire and Grass were displeased with the raids, and with Hanzo's uncooperative nature. Wind, Earth, River and Claw had been raided as well, but were less capable of complaining given recent events and military weaknesses. River country was, however, in talks with Fire Country, which if successful might be cause for more pressure against Hanzo.
The Daimyo were unhappy with the fact that Hanzo declared himself Daimyo as well, since it was a bad precedent. And Hanzo's personal power made him something of a threat. If a diplomatic solution failed over the next few months, it was entirely likely that Hanzo would be facing a multinational land-grab backed by strong ninja support and, in the case of joint Fire and Grass forces, air-strikes. The initial diplomatic teams, sent to deal with “Hanzo, Lord of the Hidden Rain Village,” had been sent away and forbidden from returning; new teams formed to deal with “Hanzo, Regent of Rain” were en-route.
Third, Fire Country was interested in relations with the Land of Rivers. Although Wind Country had established better relations there a few years prior, the bad taste between them over the failure of the Rain Campaign had cooled relations, and improved the standing of both the pro-Fire and isolationist factions within River’s internal politics. Fire Country was looking to improve relations, not least because it would secure the majority of the western border.
Apart from the major political events, there was rather a lot of interesting events for trade and merchant houses. The breaking of the pirates operating in Water-Country and the new industry developments in Whirlpool and Water Country had led to a massive expansion of sea-faring trade, with commensurate increases in trade and merchant activity in general. A number of negotiations were available due to this.
Overall, when my team finally finished our training as Arbitrators, it was a good time to be in the diplomatic/negotiations business.