Shouta's Training [T/P]

[The Creator]

[40/120]

Many men felt the pressure of time upon their backs; I did not. Time was as fickle as it was relative; who truly knew how to define it? And so how can something one cannot truly define punish him? Such ponderings were that of my own philosophy, and so time I hardly measured. The sun had moved since I had taken my brief repose, but how long the distance it moved equated to I knew not. Refreshed by food and drink, I felt renewed in my energy and strength, and thus was feeling confident in the trials to come.

The pressure to become better took the place of the pressure of time. I had always considered myself as someone who measured achievement and not the way the path took, and thus I found myself oriented around completing things, not working on them. Verily, such a pressure would press me to finish quickly and be done with it! And so I began my ponderings.

When I had left I had estimated that I would be able to finish the technique if I did not put as much energy into the beginning and finishing of the technique. Such happenings I would only begin and nature would happily finish. Such as was nature: the energy differential from chaos across order was a hill, not a drop, and to create order from chaos, energy was needed. But just as that was so, too is the opposite: chaos needs no energy to be created from order, in fact, it releases it. That was how I planned on easily accomplishing both the beginning and the end: all that the beginning was is the building of chaos and the end was ending the order I had created and letting the chaos flow back into the system.

The energy that had been expelled previously, from my first attempt, had been more than I had needed. Careless I was in my reckless abandon of logic, only the strive to better myself had taken my head. In doing so, I had forgone all thoughtfulness in my original planning and had effectively destroyed the attempt before even attempting it. This time, I was much more calculated. I performed the string of handseals deftly, as a strong practitioner of ninjutsu and genjutsu must do, taking my time to be careful with the seals. Such a strong technique would require the gateway to be perfect: else the sweeping torrent of energy could break the weak foundations made by a faulty handseal. The ox-seal was the last and the longest of them all, and it was the ox that was frozen upon my fingertips as I closed my eyes. Careful to limit myself in these opening movements, I quickly stripped particles from particles in order to create the electrostatic force necessary to bring about further clouds. I worked tirelessly in this effort simply because it required so little energy to do. In my previous attempt I had formed whole clouds with my efforts, but I was wary of the way nature acted upon this the second time around. I brought back the chakra with which I had been using in the sky above and opened my eyes. I did not have to move my gaze to feel the blowing winds and cooling wisps that held strong promise of a coming storm.

The full storm was upon me soon; much unlike a natural storm, this one was much more quick-lived. It was to be as violent as it was short. My arms had become tired from holding the ox-symbol upon my fingers but I was soon to be grateful of how trivial such a task was. I quickly checked the clouds with my chakra. It was chaos: if I did not bring order to the system too then the clouds would erupt into lightning. My chakra exploded out of me as I forced it through the gates of my being; it floated up like plumes of smoke into the clouds, and within these plumes I began the tedious task of rearranging these particles. I had begun to work much faster then I anticipated. Closed eyes, mouth, nostrils; my entire being was focused upon the sky above me. I heard nothing, saw nothing, but felt the clouds. It was tedious and exhausting; I was distantly aware of a nausea beginning to quake within my stomach and my legs beginning to shake in exhaustion. Sweat drenched my face as my head swooned in an airy arc. Finally, in what I could not tell was long or short, I had completed it. But I was not done.

It was as if I were a puppeteer of a thousand-puppet show. As he holds a thousand men in suspension, I held this order in suspension. It wanted to break free into the chaos normality; to explode into disarray and electrical downpour but through some will I still held within me I held this order. I suddenly realized that I had sunk to my knees and was panting vigorously. Now I had to think while I held this impossibility within my grasp. How to release it?

[|Ayame Unbound|]

Look who exists. +10

[The Creator]

[50/120]

I had heard once that if a man is not a master if he has not hated his existence at one point in time. It was as if such a time stepped forward to greet me, much like a runaway cart greets a brick wall. My head was suddenly swimming, my thoughts were becoming thick and heavy. Cold pulses shot up and down my frame, shaking it to its core, testing me. But are not these moments that define us as men in arms? Are these not what make us shinobi? Surely! Like the master-in-training, for this moment, I hated my existence. I wanted to die.

But the difference between a master and a dead man is a thick line. I gathered myself and my resolve and knew that I had to release it. I suddenly understood the copious amount of chakra it would take to control the lightning storm as it was meant to be; in my current state, I could not attain such heights. It was as if I had learned to walk before I had learned to crawl only to learn that I had a hurdle to jump. O woe, I even saw such a hurdle coming! But the fool teaches himself to jump in the strides before the hurdle. The wise man forgets his pride and stops mid-stride and fall into exhaustion. Sure, the man is mocked, but does he mock himself? Nay, I should not believe so; the wise man studies the obstacles before he jumps them!

The puppets' strings were slipping through my fingers. I let them go. Instantly a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Had I been carrying a mountain? The heat built up sundered the air, ripping it and tearing it, causing thunderous tides of deep booms to ebb across the city. Surely the most superstitious of men thought it was the end-times.

Some time passed. The sweat finally stopped pouring from my brow. I finally felt like I caught my breath and the burning sensation had finally abated. I rested myself against the back of a tall oak: one who seemed, too, to rest after worrying about such a terrible storm. I allowed myself to finally bring my mind back unto the technique. Had I been blind? It was as if I had expected such a thing to bend to my control through sheer will. Nay, it was through force I would have to tame such a beast. I took a deep breath, letting the shaky air exit my lungs.

The electricity would take the closest path to the ground. So how was I to best nature? Even if I was able to defy nature's laws, this was such a event that did not happen in nature; was such a monster bound to such meek laws? I stood, using the wide trunk of the oak to balance myself. Another deep breath, another shaky exhale. I would have to create a path: one that was defined before I even began the technique. Before I could hurdle, I had to learn to hop. Learning to control the electricity along the path would help me be able to control it entirely and upon instantaneous command. Yes, that would be the course I would take.

I exhaled another shaky breath. It was the last one.

[Deleted]

Oct 14, 2013 13:36:17 GMT -7 |Ayame Unbound| said:

Look who exists. +10

[The Creator]

[60/120]

Great thinkers, those which surpass my own intellect by leaps and bounds, have come to a consensus that breaks are important to mental and physical growth. I am a humble servant to such great thinkers and thus follow such sacraments closely. It helped that, indeed, I found tedious work to be difficult to maintain in such long stretches and I welcomed refreshment if it could be found with ease. And indeed, within the fortress of my own home I found it readily and bathed in it when I could. But, the thinkers said, one must be careful not to fall into the temptation of stagnant refreshment: for he is refreshed but does not make himself a better man. It was time, I believed, to recede from my stagnancy and make myself a better man.

But even in refreshment I found myself pondering the nature of my training. The warm porcelain cup I held with a weathered hand seemed eons away from my thought as it was quite literally in the clouds. I refused to believe that it was a technique that required as much chakra that my stores could not procure, I had concluded, but rather I needed to create a more efficient way of delivering my chakra to the sky. It was rightly a long travel and as I drained the cup of it's warm remnants, I found myself pausing before pouring another glass. I raised the pitcher higher until it's spout was well above the rim of the narrow cup and began my pour. Tipping slightly the sake dripped into the cup, splashing unto the walls of the porcelain. As I tilted it further, the sake began to erupt when hitting the bottom of the cup, spilling onto the table and amassing in warm pools upon the polished wooden table. Chakra, so I began my train of thought, could be likened to such pours. The further away the spout from the target, the less effecient the pour. It does not take many years of life to learn that pouring water is easier when the source is closer to the target because less water is lost to the surroundings. The problem identified, all it needed was a solution.

I began to brainstorm in my head as to what I could do expelling as little chakra as possible. Surely I could widen the rim of the cup but the alignment of my chakra in the sky was so fine that I doubt that I could extend the boundaries of such nets without losing the effect of the jutsu. Furthermore, I found that narrowing the stream with chakra would only be to expel more chakra than I had before and slowing down the process entirely. I frowned as I found myself failing to find an answer. I set the pitcher down and found my eyes resting upon the spout. Perhaps I cold make it slightly more narrow? It would decrease the flow but it would also decrease the chaotic nature that the stream had when falling large distances. Yes, it was worth a try. Instead of radiating the chakra, as I had before, I could emit it from a single source and slowly build up the chakra in the sky. Surely it would slow the process but it was better than the technique coming to a grinding halt in the end. I found myself wondering if that would completely solve the problem.

Thinking back, I already had the power to amass the clouds in the sky while expending nearly all the stores of my chakra. Much like a book I found myself thinking I had finished the intro to this technique. The body and endings were hidden to me as if writing my own story, and I did not know when the end would greet me nor what would happen before I discovered it. Nevertheless, I would have to continue my journey by walking the path I had laid out for myself.

Standing myself up I drained the remaining liquid of my second cup. My eyes set towards my destination as I began the walk towards the training site. I mulled over what I had just discovered in my head, thinking of the possible sources I could expel my chakra from, and arrived at my site quicker than I had expected. Black thunderheads that I had conjured before had since dissipated into innocent white cotton balls floating lazily in the sky. The sun shine brightly overhead and I determined that it was time to block it out with a tyrannical thundercloud...

[The Creator]

[?/120]

The Master is someone who, when all others gave up, kept to his craft. The Master is the practitioner and the sage who has gained his knowledge through trial. And thus, it is known that there is no master that lives who has once given up on his craft; he is unfit to call himself so. And it is with such resolve that he gains his title and his skill, and only by that resolve. This all passed through my head as I turned my gaze towards the ground. I took a deep breath, attempting to strengthen my own resolve and willpower, and quickly reminded myself of what I was going to do.

I began with handseals, holding the last one. I had decided that the tips of my fingers would be the source for my steady, yet small, stream of chakra that would pour upwards into the sky. They were small spouts, and ones I knew well and could control, that the stream poured through. Even as I closed my eyes to concentrate my eyes could see what was happening: the thin, white clouds above began to congeal and darken into the monsters that would serve my technique. The pure white turned to smokey gray in the sky as I continued my steady stream. Slowly, I reminded myself, and steadily. I began to weave the polarizing net in the sky, surrounding the darkening sky above, in wispy threads of chakra. The cataclysm of positive and negative charges were separated by force, requiring from me energy equal to that of the attractive forces that had bonded the two in the first place. It was difficult work and took time. The energy was small at first, hardly noticeable from the pool of chakra that I had, but over time, began to take its toll. I could feel my body begin to strain under the stress and the will it required was beginning to chafe my mind. I remained focused, trying to ignore the building fatigue.

I began to narrow my chakra stream further. I had originally began with the source of chakra emanating from my ten fingertips and had since cut it to three. As I wrangled more and more charges in the sky, the harder it was to control. I could feel sweat on my brow as thunder rolled above me. Concentrate. I suddenly noticed that the charges that I had pulled together were much larger than I had done before. The small victory slightly strengthened my resolve but the distraction of it wrested energy from me. It would be a while before I would begin to feel nauseated from the energy draw, so it was time to work quickly. With what I felt was a sufficient amount of potential in the sky, I began to move on to the next step in the technique: execution.

The potential was built, all I had to do was unleash it. But to unleash it all at once would be to forfeit all control of the technique. Surely it would be a strong storm of thunder that ensued but technique would be wasted. I began by tearing a hole in the bottom of the net, hoping that the electric nature of the potential charge would be able to do the rest. As I had predicted, the lightning poured out in torrents. But lightning, as I had known but had not accounted for, was not easily controlled. It lashed out in all directions from a single source, sundering the earth wherever it hit. Thunderous explosions ripped through the sky like fireworks and the thick bolts cut through the darkness with blue light. I could feel the heat of the raw energy on my skin and immediately released the Ox handsign and cut off the chakra flow. The energy net dissolved into the nothing and all of the contained charges shot forth violently. Thousands of bolts of lightning hissed forth through the black sky, illuminating it like veins of shining crystal in black obsidian. The ensuing thunder was deafening; drowning out all other sound in the city. And just like that, it was over. The black clouds stood ominously yet, refusing to be routed, but the lightning and thunder abated so suddenly that one might have thought that it did not happen at all.


For a moment, I was stunned. My body was shaking, but whether from exhaustion or fright I don't know. In my life I couldn't remember such a terrible and beautiful sight but, surely, there was much to ponder on the nature of how to control the lightning. Never would I again underestimate the power of lightning.

[The Creator]

[??/120]

The black sentinels overhead refused to allow the rays of the sun to touch the ground. It blocked all, casting an insidious shadow over the city. There was a short tree, miraculously untouched by the lightning storm that had just ensued, under which I sat and pondered. I always thought myself more of a tactician than a hard-hitter, one who hit the problem from every angle until he somehow managed to find a weak point. No, analysis was more my own process; I only needed a couple of hits to find the weak point angle. But the solution to this problem was more complex than the previous ones, I guessed, because of simply how much power lightning beheld. There would have to be some way to direct the charges, through some sort of shifting course, while managing the discourse of lightning. I began to come up with potential solutions.

I could simply extend the net and create a path for the lightning to course through. But, I remembered, the only way the charges would follow through is if they were attracted by some opposite force. I remembered how I had created the lightning previously: ripping a hole in the net and allowing the charges to violently normalize themselves in the air. Perhaps I could redirect the lightning but first I would need to contain it. I remembered thick bolts of lightning firing off in all directions in my last attempt, and that would need tending to. I decided that, for the time being, all I needed to accomplish was to figure out how to control the lightning to where it did not shoot off in all directions. I needed a single strand, even if it shot straight down, to be emitted from the clouds. Perhaps I could do that by creating a pillar of chakra, a cylindrical shell, to stop the charges from straying outside of it. It was worth a shot, but I was worried on how much chakra it would expend. I would have to create the shell before I ripped the net, and after that, hopefully, the natural tendencies of lightning would do the rest.

I stood up and walked under the clouds. My gaze turned upwards at them as I performed my handseals dextrously. I mimicked what I had done earlier to procure the clouds. It was much easier this time around because the potential was still mostly there, but I reminded myself that in a combat situation it would take a little more time. I had sat and rested before this to replenish my chakra to its maximum which I knew was necessary for this technique. Because of this, I was able to slowly expel my chakra and not fall victim to over-consumption of my energy. I worked meticulously, separating and trapping the charges within the chakra net. As I worked I began to feel my chakra depleting.

Soon I felt the charges that I had built up were enough. I closed the net entirely and held it shut with small strands of chakra that did not take much from my reserves. I than began to create a cylindrical shell whose properties I have learned from various sand techniques that I learned that assist in stopping electrical charges from flowing through. I made it as tall as from the net to the ground, which turned out to be much higher than I expected. In the end the cylinder was gargantuan and took a hefty chunk of my energy. I was shaking visibly from the energy toll and knew that if I took much longer, I wouldn't be able to hold it any longer. I ripped the bottom of the net with force and watched the rest ensue.

A thick blue bolt, much bigger than any I had ever seen, shot through the rip in the net and erased the darkness in the blink of an eye. Before my eyes the blue bolt shot down at the speed of lightning. It resembled a divine beam from the heavens as it came closer to the ground: a single pillar of heavenly light that shot down at incredible speed. It hit the ground and the earth erupted around it. The rock exploded into bits of heat-hardened stone and rained upon the area around me. The thunder was deafening. I held the net and the cylinder as the lightning pounded against it, threatening to shatter it all. I held it for a couple seconds before I gave into the terrible might of the lightning. Unlike before, it did not implode and shoot through the sky but became still. The crater where the lightning had hit was much larger than I expected, much bigger in radius than the shell I had created. I walked over to the smoking earth it had torn to pieces and looked at the destruction. It was many meters deep and the earth around it was blackened and hardened. It had smote through the grass and dirt and buried into the stone and rock beneath it. My eyes widened as I beheld the destruction before me. A shiver sent down my spine as I imagined what it would be like to be on the receiving end on such a technique. Soon I would be one of the ones who could grant his enemies such an experience...

[The Creator]

[??/120]

Continuing along with the technique would require a little more thought generated towards the strategy of the execution, so I thought, and decided that my meditation would best be onset by a quiet walk. I gathered my things and left the still smoking crater to its doom and took a path along the city. My eyes and feet followed the path but my mind drifted elsewhere. How exactly would I be able to control this lightning? Surely there were techniques to do so or else such powers would not even exist. All that was required of me was to find a solution to the problem that I was presented.

I thought shortly of altering the chakra shell so that the electricity would flow through the shape of my choosing. But, as I continued to ponder the idea, I began to come up with several problems with this specific solution that I could not find answers for. Namely, in a combat situation, I would need to constantly transform the shell with my chakra. Not only would I have to hold the shell against the enormous strength of the lightning but I would have to move the lightning with my shell, effectively using enough energy to push back against the lightning and then some to transpose it in space. I found this to be likely an impossible obstacle to overcome and altogether a complete flaw in the plan. My chakra stores were simply not enough to make these kinds of alterations. The thought process had flickered like a bright candle in a dark room, taking only milliseconds to run it's entire course before being discarded.

My thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected bubbling of a nearby stream. My eyes left the path and my thoughts left the clouds and both found themselves centered upon this stream. It was a small brook, easily stepped over, that ran slowly downward over the sloping earth and on towards the horizon. The brook, although small, had cut through the rough earth from its many years of running and ran in an incision in the ground. Suddenly it came to me. The stream, like so many other things, ran in the path of least resistance. If one wanted to control the stream, he need not pick up the entire stream with his chakra, only deter it into a path that he created: a path of little resistance. Such was the nature of lightning: it followed the path that gave it the least resistance, in this case, literal resistance. Resistors, such as air, stopped the flow of electrostatic charges from flowing through it while others, known as conductors, such as water, increased the flow.

I began again on the path, stepping over the brook that had inspired the idea that would allow me to continue this technique, silently thanking it. I did not need to create a shell of chakra, after all, but rather to make a path in the air of little resistance. Of course, there were problems associated with this solution but seemed much more surmountable than the one of the previous plan. Firstly, I would need to move at a rapid pace to stay ahead of the lightning in creating a path of little resistance. To me it did not seem too difficult a task. If the bolt was moving, I would have to replace the old path with regular air, which I figured would happen on it's own, and the worry was quickly forgotten. I likened the pathway to a rubber band, stretched between two points. I could stretch the path in one way and contort it to whichever means pleased me and the old path will simply become the new one. I came across another problem, however, and that was the distance between the source and the target. If I was targeting a moving shinobi with this technique, for example, and he ran too far from where the clouds were emitted, it would begin to consume quite a bit of chakra. The distance would begin to grow at an almost exponential rate, if I remembered my trigonometry correctly. If I were to do this technique, it would be only to be performed in a limited range. I could not find any solution to that particular problem but this concept seemed to be good enough to where I could trouble shoot that problem at a later time.

I turned around. My meditations had ended and it was time to test my theories. I paused at the stream before stepping over it on the way to my training spot. It still stood there, as it did before, with the crater smoking lightly and the clouds standing guard in front of the sun. I walked into position, and took a couple breaths to prepare myself. Control the lightning. Path of least resistance. You can do this.

[The Creator]

[??/120]

I stood with a wide stance and looked towards the sky. Over and over again I told myself: path of least resistance. But perhaps I was hasty in attempting to wrestle with this technique again before truly thinking of all of what I needed to accomplish. I had not even considered how, exactly, I planned on creating a path of little resistance nor how I planned to divide my chakra in order to do so. The technique in creating such a path, I decided, would need to require little chakra or else it would cost too much to be a valid solution. Perhaps my walk was simply not long enough.

In any case, I eased my stance and turned my head back down to the ground. I found the familiar sitting place under the untouched tree and began to go over in my head how electricity worked. Air was a resistor, that was for sure, but what properties did it hold that made it such a resistor? Such knowledge would be found in tedious atomic theory, which I never really payed attention to in class, and atomic properties of gaseous molecules. Masters of this technique probably knew all they needed to know of such principals and I suddenly lusted for the knowledge myself. But I quickly drew away from it; there had to be something that I could use for this technique that wouldn't require weeks of studying to identify and understand. What other conductors were found in air? No gasses that he knew of. Some names popped to his head: Nitrogen, Oxygen...but he didn't know more about them than that. What else conducted electricty? Water was one. But it wasn't in air...or was it? Yes! Water vapor existed all throughout the air, especially in such thick clouds like the ones that loom above me!

Although I knew nothing of controlling water with chakra, I knew how to control the currents of the winds ever slightly to bring water vapor in the direction I needed. It surely wasn't the design set out in the creation of this technique but I had a feeling it could work. Just to test it, I closed my eyes and reached out with my chakra, attempting to find small droplets of water in the clouds. They were not hard to find: they were in large clumps that, if they had any more weight, would fall as raindrops to the ground. They were easy to maneuver through the clouds with tiny currents of wind, and the chakra that it took was nearly negligible.

I began to test out moving large amounts of water vapor all at once with a series of wind currents. It was tedious work but it was not altogether too difficult. I found it quite relaxing, as I usually did with wind-based chakra techniques, and the feeling would help ease the tension of the S-ranked technique during the execution of this attack. As soon as I was confident in my abilities to gather enough water vapor to create a trail which would end up conducting the lightning build up in the clouds, I began to attempt to form patterns and paths at high speeds, emulating the necessity of being faster than the lightning. At first it was rather difficult and my work was full of mistakes, but it was not tiring, and after several minutes of quick learning I managed to pick up moving the water vapor in a deft manner. Now it was time to perform the technique: all of the prerequisites were dealt with and I felt like I had a firm understanding of the entirety of the technique. With confidence in mind, I moved from my thinking spot and into my execution spot, where I had summoned the mighty lightning in previous times. I looked up in the sky..this technique was all mine now.

[The Creator]

[??/120]

Understanding coursed through me like a running river through a dry land. I could not help but grin as such a technique finally seemed to be bending to my will and power and only one more step separated me from accomplishment. As an experienced cliff diver finally standing over the seas of his last jump, I stood under the clouds that would finally bring about this technique in the fullest. I took a deep breath, remembering all I had learned from this technique, and quickly summarized in my mind the execution of the technique I was about to finally perform in full. For a few cherished seconds, the city seemed to stand in complete silence.

I broke it when I performed the handseals: a tediously long stream that were akin to S-Level techniques. But, without pause, I performed them flawlessly. I held the final seal, the Ox seal, and allowed the chakra to begin flowing from my finger tips. On previous occasions I had used all ten finger tips as a source for the chakra, but I had since changed it to three to limit chakra consumption and optimize the work of the chakra I had used. As before, I formed a net of chakra in the clouds and began to separate and trap charges. It was difficult work due to the charges all repelling each other inside the net, which was probably the largest expenditure of charka, because the repulsive force threatened to tear through it at all times. I managed to build up enough of the charges using this technique without much further difficulty. I seemed to have a little more energy than I did before, but whether it was from plain experience of performing this task over and over or from a stretching in my chakra reserves I could not tell. In any case, I sewed up the net's openings. In the previous occasions now would be the time I would begin creating the shell that would guide the lightning to earth, but now was the time to begin my new method: water vapor. Holding the net still and in place, I began to collect water vapor for trails of electrical conductivity from the clouds to the ground. It was quick word because I had practiced the method before, and soon enough I was ready to let the lightning loose.

I ripped open the bottom of the net containing all the accumulated charges and simply watched. Because of the tendency of the new method I had thought of, I didn't need to hold out against the on-pour of electrical force with a shield of chakra but rather simply hold the net so the charges did not escape from all sides. A blue light illuminated the dark clouds and began to fly earthbound as a pillar of light. The path that I had created with the water vapor was straight down, with a slight bulge in the path to test the movement of the lightning along a bending trail, and then downwards once again. I could feel my muscles tensing up in worry as it approached the bend, hoping that it would follow the path I had set for it. To my surprise and delight, the lightning bent at a lightning speed and shot downward, exploding into the earth. I held it, knowing that the water vapor wouldn't be consumed, and began to shift the vapor. It was much more difficult shifting the water vapor as it was being hit with torrents of electricity, but the idea was all the same. As I quickly shifted the airborne water vapor, I watched as the lightning which seemed to be a bluish pillar of light began to shift in shape and direction. It followed the water vapor almost exactly and began to leave a trail of smoldering earth as it traveled upon the fiery grass. I released the technique and the lightning stopped. Rain began to pour in large, thick droplets that erupted against the earth. Smiling, I looked up in the dark clouds. I could hardly believed that I had just conquered the lightning like that, and it was difficult to think that it was so easy to bend it to my will, that I couldn't help but laugh in a moment of ecstasy.

[Draven]

e.e

Cool down on the font size increase...

+55

[The Creator]

[115/120]

The earth around me smoked with ruin and the clouds had finally dissipated the allow bright, yellow shafts of light to come down and speckle the ground. I sat under my meditation tree and decided to mentally reflect upon what I had learned. Such practices were often recommended by renowned justsu masters as they helped for retention of knowledge, understanding of the fundamentals of chakra, and insights for similar, future jutsus. I admit that the practice seemed alien to me, because I did not often do it, but I decided that after learning a destructive and powerful, and altogether difficult to learn, technique like this it would be extremely beneficial to do so.

I reflected on the nature of charges and how they were extremely important in the creation process of lightning. The charges were dual in nature, being either positive or negative, and attracted to the opposite charge and repelled likewise charges. Electrostatic potential was necessary in establishing a link between two different sources in order for a current to be formed, and the flow of this current was not only decided by the charges themselves but also by the resistance that the path offered. While something might be a resistor, select components of it might turn out to be conductors.

After my ruminations were complete, I stood up and looked at the smoldering craters from which pillars of smoke rose into the air. I reminded myself of the destructive power and how it was so dangerous to control. I looked up and remembered the lightning barreling through the clouds and the ferocious thunder that accompanied it. Surely, these techniques would have to be approached with a high level of caution from now on.

[Solus]

A bearded man in a suit under gentleman's coat and a multicoloured scarf walked by and whistled as he looked into the crater. "That's some mighty fine work there lad! Here, take this for your efforts!" He remarked, scribbling something on a cheque with his ballpoint and subsequently giving you said cheque. When you looked at it it only said '+5 training points' however. What a curious chap indeed. When you would look up from the paper the man seemed to have disappeared. What was this madness?

[The Creator]

Know Ability
Rank: "E" (5 TP at all times)
Skill: Skill
Effect: Some characters are schooled in the art of careful observation and are able to discern Skills and other Abilities of a target.
Special: ---
Drawback: ---
Description: Some characters are schooled in the art of careful observation. Thus, even without the aid of Chakra, they can observe an individual and attempt to glean a valuable piece of information about them. This ability requires a skill check and approximately one hour of observation for each ability studied. For example, if a user watched a man cutting wood for an hour, they could make a "Know Ability" skill check. If successful, they would learn that the man has 10 movements per round. The user can apply this skill to nearly all statuses and abilities, as well as Skill Level Associated with a character. If you are Schooled in Observation you gain a +10% synergy bonus with Know Ability checks. By Observing for 1 hour this is considered as a Trivial Difficulty. Shorter the observation increases the difficulty. Each time learned user gets 1 die roll to increase the skill.
Limit: ---

5 TP // Unskilled (0)

What a queer occasion. I guess I am not as observant as I once believed myself to be...

Back at the academy they called me “Scout” because of my eyes. But I wasn't really a scout: in fact, I knew nothing of their nature. To discern one's abilities was of extremely important strategic advantage to me and to all warriors, so I thought, because it allowed one to predict one's hidden abilities and techniques. Once he could sum up some ideal hypotheses about the enemies he faced, he would draw up better conclusions: and those who didn't draw good conclusions ended up dying. To know one's ability through observation was crucial. I decided that starting off by observing animals and then drawing conclusions about their unique physique or mental would be a good start.

I activated the Tasukeru and breathed in the new ability. It was a drain to activate it so I rarely did it, but doing it was almost like a drug to me: it was sweet and life without it was so much more dim. I sat under my tree and did not have to move as I immediately centered my vision upon a squirrel. He was perched upon a limb and stood stiffly, looking at the base of the tree. He did this for a while, paced, and stared again, just as rigid. I frowned, some many meters away. I didn't understand animals very well and had no clue as to what he was doing. I was able to scrutinize every inch of his body with the Tasukeru from many meters away. His fur was brown and thick but torn, tangled, and matted. I made the assumption that he was a naturally dirty creature and had no ability nor want to wash himself or his fur. I realized that this was a common trait among animals, however, and knew that my assumption was practically useless. I looked more: a scar of clotted blood above his left eye. It was a dark red and small, and only centimeters above his eye.

Why would he have a scratch above his eye? He would have had to been facing the assailant for that to happen. He thus could not have been caught off guard because he was facing his enemy, unless, perhaps, he was camouflaged. But it led me to believe that the squirrel was rather courageous or overly curious. Unfortunately for him, the wound looked infected and he wouldn't last much longer. He was probably weak, tired, and hungry. That would explain the stiff motion. Suddenly I realized that I had drawn many conclusions about this squirrel that I had only observed. Was this what it was like to be gifted with such an ability?

[The Creator]

Ignore, please. Will be deleted shortly.

[The Creator]

Ignore, please. Will be deleted shortly.

[Draven]

+5tp

Known ability 0-5sp

[The Creator]

Continuing Know Ability skill training...

5 TP // Novice (5)

The squirrel continued to pique my interest. I had just made the assumption that the squirrel was mortally ill and wanted to verify with a series of other tests. I quickly used the Tasukeru to scan the squirrel with thermals. A red blotch bloomed against a cold, blue background. However, I used the thermal scan to see various birds and other small rodents in the radius of the Tasukeru and their colors bloomed dimmer than the squirrel's. I was no medical ninja but I knew a fever when I saw one: and this definitely was one. So indeed, the squirrel was sick. But I wanted to confirm that the infection indeed originated from the scar and used the Tasukeru to scrutinize the squirrel's blood. It was not blood that Shouta was used to seeing: but darkened, slightly congealed blood with a blackness branching from the squirrel's head. From this he made several observations: perhaps the squirrel could not see very well at all, which would explain his reluctance to move very often or to descend from his branch. He could very well be not receiving a lot of oxygen and feeling numbness in his ligaments, which could also explain his rigidness. But I did not want to stop there.

I switched my sight back to seeing visible light and looked carefully at the squirrel's rising and falling chest. I was not well knowledged in the average breathing rates of small mammals but I knew that it probably wasn't very good for it to breathe once every five seconds. From that I could assume that the creature was closer to death than I had imagined and might be knocking on the Squirrel Reaper's door at any minute. I was not keen in the interest of his life and actually cared very little for his future death, for death is just another part of life in the wild, and decided to move on to something a little more difficult. A bird would be much more difficult to determine in nature simple because their body was so alien to that of the familiar mammal's, it would be a more difficult test of ability to attempt to make conclusions about such a creature's physique based upon observation. With Tasukeru I found one with a simple whim of wanting to find one and studied it intently.

It was a red feathered bird with a black face and a orange beak. It was either fat or had a very fluffed down feathers upon it's breast, I could not immediately tell, and scanned it with the Tasukeru's X-Ray ability to look at the bone structure. I was not able to tell much from it, given my lack of medical knowledge, but I was determined to find something out about this bird. Suddenly it took flight, but with Tasukeru I could track it, and only hope it didn't fly out of sight...

[Draven]

+5tp

Know ability 5-14sp

[The Creator]

Continuing Know Ability skill training...
5 TP // Novice (14)

To my luck, the bird did not fly out of sight as I had hoped it would not. I perched itself on a narrow branch in a high tree above the city, calling out to some other bird or mate I could not find. Much like the squirrel I had observed before, I looked for anything that might set it apart from the average bird. I spent a good time looking, and a good time watching it call, before I gave up on finding anything special. Instead, again it took off, and I watched it's movements. It was not a straight-flying bird but rather one that made erratic mid-flight decisions and movements such as changing direction suddenly or swooping on a moment's notice. I could not find the reason for this but noticed that there was pattern in it's flight: it was circling around. Whether looking for food or mate I did not know but I was lucky enough to have been able to see it for so long without it flying off. I continued my gaze.

Time ticked on and in tedious work it ticks faster than it seems. And so minutes melted to hours as I watched this bird fly around until I realized that its shadow had lengthened steadily. I had discovered quite a bit in my observations about the speed and agility of the winged creature and how much energy it had. It could beat it's wings while mid flight perhaps 90 times a minute and could reach speeds of about 14 miles per hour. I had grown connected to the bird in our short time together and finally my observation was finished after he seemed to look at the setting sun and flew out of range of my Tasukeru. I was slightly saddened at its departure but seemed it timely. It was time to answer to the rumbling stomach and aching eyes I'd been neglecting.