Four weeks after their last assessment, Chizuki finally woke up. She was about to get out of bed but was surprised to Uehara in his little dragon form lying all curled up next to her. She couldn’t resist rubbing her hand on his back and sides, especially focusing on a particular spot that always got him vibrating in pleasure.
She soon got out of the bed and began exploring the immediate area. Suffice to say, she didn’t recognise the region she was in. She slowly flew higher from the ground, taking in the sights before her. Obvious animal paths, a small stream a couple of hundred metres away and thick sturdy trees choked on chakra surrounding them. The place around them was rife with life so to say. There were flowers, shrubs and all sorts of greenery.
[I’m guessing the density of the chakra here more than makes up for the lack of sunlight.]
She was about to explore further when she felt the mark on her chest that Uehara gave her tingle. It was the same triskele mark Uehara had given her that night in the forest six years ago. Initially, it was a one way connection he used it to track her but as time went by and Chizuki learned to use chakra, the one-way connection became a two-way.
She could then find out where he was at all times and also detect his current state (e.g. asleep). Of course, that only worked when Uehara allowed it.
[Master is about to wake up.]
She quickly flew back and landed quietly outside the house. She opened the door and walked inside. Once she made her way to the room, she opened the door to find Uehara on the bed scratching an itch behind his neck with his rear leg.
[So cute~]
She walked over to him and knelt down on both knees.
“Good morning master.”
Uehara didn’t reply, merely walking over and rubbing his head against her hand. Chizuki couldn’t help but smile and pick him up. After all, it was one of those days where Uehara was training with Volkarin in his subconscious, leaving only his instincts and a small bit of his consciousness to control his body within the real world. In short, he was like a 3-year-old child running on pure animalistic instinct. Chizuki naturally didn’t know about Volkarin. She only knew that he was doing internal training and her job was to care for him.
“Mhaa~ master~. Don’t bite so hard~”
Uehara had used her arms as support to stand up and bite her neck. As always, when he drew blood from her, he reinvigorated her with his chakra. A feeding session usually lasted a few minutes and were spread out during the day.
Meanwhile, inside Uehara’s mindscape…
“Pick up the tempo boy. I’m going to fall asleep at this rate.”
For the past three weeks, Volkarin had given Uehara the mission of landing one blow on him. Until now, he had failed. Volkarin had never moved once from his spot, always blocking, dodging or redirecting whatever attacks Uehara threw at him.
“Maybe it’d be much easier if you just-”
Volkarin crushed a rock pillar that was forming under him.
“Stand still? Did that.”
“GRAAA!”
Uehara was slowly losing it. Three weeks of continuous combat and not once had he been able to make his father budge from the small circle he had drawn around himself. He tried shaking the ground beneath him but Volkarin would just cancel any of those attempts with his superior control in chakra. Even when Uehara conjured literal tsunamis, they didn’t even manage to wet his clothes. He resorted to assassination techniques, trickery, binding him with tree branches or his bones, etc and none of them worked. It was slowly being ingrained into him that Volkarin was way above his pay-grade.
He finally stopped his fruitless attempts.
“Damnit dad. You’re just messing with me aren’t you? It’s impossible to move you, nevermind actually sneak past your guard and land an attack.”
“Now that we’ve established that you can’t move me, what should you do now?”
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He paused for a few seconds before speaking.
“Run away and come back stronger.”
“That’s my boy. Never be afraid of running. However, never…”
“Give the enemy your knees.”
“Exactly. You’re a surin. Our pride is the same as a dragon’s. Being subservient is not in our blood. We’d sooner die and reincarnate as grass. But don’t be prideful to the point of being stupid. If you can, run…or die fighting.”
A solemn look appeared on Uehara’s face.
“So does that mean I can’t use under-handed methods to kill enemies father?”
Volkarin scoffed.
“We’re prideful, not chivalrous. Only idiots would ignore a good chance to kill. Ignoring that, this will mark the end of our sparring session. Seeing how you fought, I should give you a bit of advice. You’re too varied. You have too many attacks but you haven’t comprehended how to perfectly use them.”
“That’s why I’m thinking of using clones to manage the workload that I have.”
“Don’t. You’ll only set yourself up for failure in the future by doing that.”
Uehara furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
“I don’t understand father.”
“It’s better if I show you right now. Mould a piece of your consciousness and create a shadow clone here. Make sure it’s completely separate from you so that you can’t feel anything from your clone until it disperses.”
“Yes father.”
Although Uehara didn’t understand what Volkarin was trying to do, he didn’t question it any further and created a shadow clone.
“Good. Now I want you to look away while I handle your clone here.”
“Yes father.”
Uehara looked away while his clone looked at Volkarin.
“So, what do I do father?”
Volkarin didn’t reply and simply stretched his hand. A massive tree came into being. The diameter of the trunk itself was as thick as forty men standing next to each other. The span of the branches covered an area the size of four soccer fields.
Volkarin turned to the clone.
“I want you to take a good look at this tree and then disperse yourself once you’re confident you’ve memorised every single detail.”
“ Yes father.”
The clone stared at the tree for minutes on end. Each time, it’s head would shift angles as it looked at another part of the tree. Soon, it looked at Volkarin again.
“I’m finished.”
“Now disperse.”
“Yes father.”
It dispersed in a black wisp of flame. Volkarin called over Uehara.
“Now I want you to do the same thing as your clone. I want you to look carefully at this tree and make sure you didn’t miss any part.”
“Yes father.”
Uehara was confused as to what was the point of all this but he chose to listen and not question his father who has much more knowledge than him. Like his clone, he looked at every inch of the tree and he couldn’t find any discrepancies with what he sees versus what the clone saw.
Volkarin sighed when he saw that Uehara wasn’t seeing the point.
“Follow me.”
He flew over to a section of the tree two hundred metres above. He pointed at a spot that had a dead leaf.
“Did you notice this?”
Uehara widened his eyes.
“No…no I didn’t father.”
He lowered his head in shame.
[How could I miss such an obvious thing!]
Volkarin looked him in the eye.
“If you looked at the tree yourself from the beginning, you wouldn’t have missed it. It’s all due to your clone. You see son, shadow clones aren’t truly you. They only have a shadow of your ability and ability doesn’t just mean combat. It included comprehension ability, memory retention ability and amongst other things as well. What you would be able to see immediately, your shadow clone may gloss over it. That’s why I don’t encourage you to use shadow clones to learn. Yes you will gain the ability but you will also miss certain things.”
He held his shoulder.
“It’s like learning how to throw a fireball son. If I give you a scroll and you give it to the clone, it will miss certain things like how to get the temperature right, how much chakra you must channel in relation to the size of the fireball, how much you must spin it for the perfect penetration ability in relation to size, how far you can streamline it without losing firepower and so on. So yes, you will be able to make a fireball but it won’t be the best fireball you can make. What’s worse, you will keep making a fireball that same way and so when you learn advanced flame techniques, you will carry over your inadequacies and soon you’ll reach a limit that you can’t break.”
He crouched down.
“It’s the same as building a tower son. If you leave the foundation to your shadow clone, they will miss certain things. It won’t matter early but as your tower grows taller, those certain things that were missed will now become an obstacle that will prevent you from building further or the reason for your tower toppling over. Do you understand son?”
Uehara lifted his head.
“Yes father. I completely understand.”
Seeing the resolution in his eyes, Volkarin smiled.
[That’s my boy.]
He stood up. Three shadow clones formed out of red mist and stood next to Volkarin.
“Shadow clones were meant to be used for combat. They’re an efficient division of power that can also disillusion the enemy.”
Each of the clones began having different coloured aura’s surrounding them. One had a pale translucent aura colour, one had a blue aura colour and the last one had a brown aura colour.
“I’ve told you about the four basic elements. As you can see with my clones, the first is circulating wind chakra, the second is water chakra and the third is earth chakra.”
Red aura surrounded Volkarin.
“I’m circulating fire chakra.”
Uehara was awed at the sight before him. The auras they were releasing completely shattered his world view.
“Now. I will fight you using these clones of mine. We will suppress ourselves to just below your skill level and your job is to fight us using your prowess in the four basic elements. You can use any number of shadow clones you want.”
Volkarin displayed a dangerous smile.
“I will show you exactly how shadow clones should be used.”