Konan played with the pointy metal. This was the first time she had one in hand and it gave her an example of how sharp and hard her paper should be. She was excitedly waving it around while her other hand held a paper-kunai, visibly changing to resemble the normal one.
It was a cute sight since she nibbled her lower lip in concentration.
Rei chuckled and returned to his own musings. He was sitting above the storage scroll.
The scroll was empty and even Konan gawked when Rei just casually hit the trigger to empty it without even seeing a storage scroll previously. He grinned.
His Godly Nature Energy Attunement Talent is giving him sensing ability. For now. He actually CAN feel senjutsu chakra too but never tried to take it in. Too dangerous. Too little chakra in his system to balance it. While yes, he theoretically should have total control over it... but better safe than sorry. But... the talent worked wonders.
As Rei saw the seal, his third and last talent he picked, worked wonders too. His last talent was Godly Sealing Talent.
Rei didn't know what to exactly expect but the second he saw the seal, he somehow instinctively understood how to work with it. He could... maybe copy it but not tweak. He did not have the knowledge. But the storage seal provided an enormous amount of discoveries to him.
He understood some underlying principles by reading the kanji and how they worked! He was SO disappointed too!
To explain simply what he found out...
Rei did not have knowledge of the inner workings of the seal but he could still read the kanji that made the seal.
Space. Withdraw, Intent. Store, Intent.
And some equations alongside it.
Correction. Some nonsensical equation alongside it that held it all together and described the parameters of the space. The trigger was obviously chakra and the space holder was the scroll.
Rei put one and one together. He also brainstormed for any 'possible' theory...
Rei was not sure but his mind played with a theory. Quite idiotic theory. A theory that said that sealing is basically using a Kanji, imbuing it with chakra, and waiting for the 'magical' effect the intent in the chakra provides when it collides with the Kanji. He also noticed that two of the storage scrolls had a different set-up. It was as if they were written by a different...
Oh... Rei opened his mouth into a silent 'O'.
"I see! They use different sealing languages!"
It made sense, kinda. Both scrolls were in Kanji but the way they were written was different. Meaning a different maker and different 'language'.
Where one had 'Space', another had 'Storage' and so on.
But then... why did they function almost the same?
Rei took out a paper and let his instincts lead him.
He wrote on the paper while pouring his chakra into the ink.
He wrote 'Space. Withdraw, Intent. Store, Intent.' and added parameters. Exactly the same from the first scroll. The catch was, he did it in English.
He took a rock and put it on the paper with his English storage seal. He took a distance while pulling Konan with him and with a chakra string activated the storing function.
The rock disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Phew. So it works that way too? Neat! I just discovered my own Sealing language that this world won't be able to decipher!" Rei almost jumped from giddiness as Konan looked at him in confusion.
In the end, she just shrugged, sat down, and returned to her origami kunai.
Rei then used his chakra string to activate the Withdrawal function and imagined the rock. Needless to say, it worked.
The problem though was the parameters...
Rei groaned and promptly facepalmed. Imagine addition and subtraction in kanji. Now, this scroll was a quite standard one and Rei suspected it was a very simple piece of fuinjutsu. So, subtraction and addition didn't even need to be used as it only needed a definition of the created space.
But... what about spatial fuinjutsu? Containment one? Barriers? Heck... Bijuu seals?
The shit hits the fan and the seal is as long as an entire fucking scroll. Not to say ineffective as heck since this world was a feudal one. They had some electrical appliances and technology but higher mathematics? Pfft. Shinobis were glad when they knew the multiplication table. It just wasn't needed for their job.
Rei knew the shinobi probably developed the sealing arts in a way that mathematics were not needed but unless he saw it... He really doubted it would be efficient though. At least these storage scrolls were definitely not! Rei could make one in English and better equations with one-tenth of the space that was needed for the one in Kanji.
Rei suddenly had a very nasty sinking feeling that Minato Namikaze actually did manage to create a teleportation seal with only addition and subtraction, moreover in kanji... and suddenly he wanted to puke blood.
...
Rei decided to 'widen' their arsenal. He started to experiment. It didn't take a week for him to create a working Exploding tag. If it even can be called that since one of Konan's small slices of paper was enough to hold it with a lot of free space. The point was, Rei could not create much of them and certainly not powerful enough. His best shot was only half as strong as the single explosion tag he found on Kilabi. That stuff really needed much more knowledge on seals and Rei was taping into it head-first without having a book or teacher. It took time.
Nevertheless, even if it was only half of the power of the generic shinobi exploding tag, it was enough to cause injuries. With Konan's ability, it was so worth it!
To create even one tag capable of hurting somebody would cost him 50% of his chakra reserves. He now had the three idiots who attacked them as comparison and he understood that while Konan was on the border of very, very low Gennin, he is a mid-level academy student when it came to reserves. She somehow overtook him while he was busying himself with fuinjutsu!
Sigh, at least my control is much better than even Konan's... He thought.
So far, he was capable of creating one small storage seal and exploding tag.
He then spent the next few days developing a simple stasis seal.
All of his experiments, of course, needed Konan so neither of them made much progress in their own chakra practice but they both knew this could give them the necessary edge to win their fights.
The stasis seal was a very helpful thing but they had to tweak, retweak, and then completely overhaul it so many times, even Konan was a bit fed-up. The point was if they wanted Konan's paper kunais to keep their chakra-sharpened or chakra-hardened state while in the storage seal, they had to put them and the chakra affecting them in stasis until they were released. Otherwise, the chakra would run out in the storage scroll and the paper kunai would just turn into, albeit crumpled, still only a normal paper.
They finally succeeded on the fifth day and a few of Konan's small papers contained a new storage seal tweaked for battle. She could activate it whenever at will since the activation needed only her chakra and the paper was literally soaked in her chakra. What it needed was only her intent to set off the seal.
The seal was a storage one with an inbuilt stasis seal. Inside were contained hardened and sharpened paper shurikens and the trigger had a feature that gave the projectiles a 'push' sending them flying in multiple directions when the seal triggered. Fast. The best part was that the speed and the directions were somewhat adjustable on triggering the seal so it was a really nice surprise weapon.
Rei kept some of these papers with this seal because even he could use it. But Konan? She had already ten stashed away for emergencies and always bugged Rei to create more of them for her.
Rei also made quite a lot of Exploding tags as every day before he went to sleep he was able to create two, almost depleting his chakra.
Konan had seven and he had three. It was not really a question. Konan could remotely activate them whenever she was, as long as she could feel them with her sensory ability. She was born to be a carrier for seals, dammit! Her paper manipulation is golden when in conjecture with a seal master.