Hearing my question, Ria looked to be in thought for a moment before she started telling me her story.
It turns out that after I left, the villagers continued the meditation method taught them and every morning, they would all circulate their chakra before going about their daily activities. As the village is all about working and then nothing, Ria took it upon herself to keep doing what I taught her and she became more fluent in it.
The sad part of her story is that she always tried talking to me through the token I made her for communication but I never replied. When she talked about this, she gained a sad countenance.
I patted her head to console her and she brightened up and continued the story.
With her learning how to circulate chakra fluently, she tried expelling it and came up with a way to create chakra balls without elements. Though it looked like the Rasengan, it didn't have the destructive might of the Rasengan. As she talked about it, she created it and showed me. There was no rotation at all, it was just like a ball of chakra, contained in the palm of her hands.
I was honestly impressed. She created this without any guidance whatsoever and managed to reach a stage in chakra control that I didn't even think about. I mean, I knew many anime, manga, novels, and even fan-fiction but I never had the idea to just manifest my chakra and just keep it under control. She really is her own type of genius and she wasn't even 10 years old yet.
The ball of chakra alone carried a destructive might akin to a blunt explosion, which made me wonder what kind of effect it would have should an element be added to the mix. It could be similar to the fireball or water ball or stuff like that that is shown in most magic or mana-related skills.
Continuing her story, she also discovered or more like unlocked her spiritual sense in a way. According to her, she just kept on releasing her chakra and drawing it back in and when she did it once, she instinctively knew what was around her, but this sensing range couldn't exceed 5 meters around her.
Damn, girl, I guess she is a natural sensor. Recalling from the anime, people who are adept in chakra control usually develop their own form of sensing chakra, either from sound, chakra signature, air flow, or even heat signature. Perhaps her own is airflow? I'm not sure. I'll look into it as we proceed, after all, I have all the time in the world.
She then told me how she tried showing it to the villagers and taught it to them, although according to toner, nobody could learn what she was trying to teach. Either it's due to her teaching ability or it's just her genius and nobody has the talent as of yet. Hmm, that reminds me, I guess I would have to teach these villagers more about chakra. Not the dangerous parts, but the parts that could help them develop industrially, at least a little.
And with that, she ended her story. "What do you think about it, big brother?" She asked with a smile.
"Well, you really are a genius, I didn't even think anyone could do what you've done in the future," I said sincerely while patting her head. Truly though, I'm not sure anyone could do so. Even in the Naruto anime, only the likes of Minato, Kakashi, Shusui, and Itachi could be called child prodigies but even then, they all had guidance from adults in one way or the other. Ria on the other hand created all this herself. She could be said to be the inventor of an advanced version of chakra control and even sensing techniques, excluding Indra Ashura and me, of course.
"Hehe," she laughed shyly with a hint of red on her cheeks. I could feel she was happy, whether it was because of the lead parts or the praise I don't know, maybe it could be both.
"How about this, I will teach you how to use your chakra to sense things farther than before and also teach you how to use your chakra for many other things."
"Eh? Really? Thank you, big brother, I'll be sure to learn well" she said with a determined lol on her face though it looked cute, and didn't like something to take seriously, though I could feel she was really determined.
"Haha, that's the spirit, even if I said you are a genius, you still have to put in a good effort to learn, and no slacking. Understood?" I finished with fake seriousness.
"Understood," she said, seriously. Her face looked cute with all the baby fats and all, It made it hard for someone to take her seriously.
"Good, first off, I'll explain chakra in more depth so you'll understand why and what I will be teaching you from now moving forward," I said. Hinami at the side also perked up when I mentioned teaching chakra in more depth. After all, like most people now, they only have the most basic of basic ideas about chakra and she has seen what I can do with chakra so she was interested.
"But you already told me that chakra is the mixture of both spiritual and physical energies, what else is there," She asked confusedly.
"Good question Ria-tan. I said that chakra is the mixture of both spiritual and physical energies, and that is true, but what is this spiritual and physical energy separately?" I asked, this time expecting an answer.
After thinking for a while, she said: "It's the power from the mind and the body" She said.
"Good, that is true but that is not an there is to it. That aside, do you know that there are other energies apart from chakra in the world?" I asked.
She nodded and said "Yes, you said last time you were here that you were breathing in natural energy but I don't know what that is"
"That is true but I don't remember saying that but it's good you remembered. There are other energies apart from chakra. Chakra alone is already the mixture of two separate energies, physical energy, and spiritual energy. Other energies make up natural energy, although I won't go into details now, natural energy in its raw form helps increase our physical and mental faculties to another level" I said while trying to use my illusion to create manifestations of energy in different colors and explained:
"When one takes in natural energy, it turns their normal punch into a super-powered punch and turns their senses into super senses. With the continuous intake of this energy, one becomes one with nature but when taken in excessively, one really becomes one with nature, turning into a rock, a tree, or even an animal. Worse still turning into an animal in form of a rock or something"
"My point is. The moment we are born, every living being, be it the tree, water, insect, animal, or human, breathes in this natural energy, whether we like it or not, and this in turn increases our body all around, we become stronger, more intelligent, run faster, perceive things faster and easier as we grow."
"What does this tell you? It tells us that we already have everything we need to grow and be stronger than we were the day before, but it then depends on our efforts to make us better than the other person"
"As it stands now if everyone in this village is growing by 5 points a day both spiritually and physically without doing anything but circulating their chakra, then what about the men who put in more physical effort in the field?" I asked
"They become stronger?" She asked back.
"Yes, they do both physically and mentally. If we all have a certain container that stores our energy, the more strain we put on It, the more it expands and the more it expands, the more the quantity of energy inside becomes"
Creating human physiology with illusion and making it less disgusting, just good enough for a child to understand, I continued: "When it comes to physical strength, every muscle fiber, tendon, vein, and bone plays a role. The stronger the muscle, the less fat one has, the stronger the bone, the more effective its blows become, and the thicker the muscle, the stronger one is. What am I trying to say" I asked rhetorically
"We should work on our body?" Ria asked back.
"What? No, I mean yes but no, I didn't want you to answer that, was going to do that" I said.
"Oh"
Creating the chakra pathways within the illusion, I continued: "Such, as I was saying, the body, Is a very important aspect when it comes to strengthening the body. Our chakra pathways and veins are almost joined together. If you notice right here" pointing to the chakra pathway and veins, I continued: "they both are connected to the most important parts of our body. The brain, the heart, and the chakra pool, or as I like to call it, the dantian. These two, help circulate the chakra and blood around our body."
Facing her, I asked: "What do you think would happen, if I snap an important vein in the body?"
"Something bad?" she asked again with her head tilted to the side cutely instead of answering.
"Exactly, should I cut an important chakra vein or blood vein, I could disable someone's hands, legs, sense of touch, sight, hearing, or even worse, make that person disabled for life. But what if we strengthen our muscles that protect these veins and also strengthen the bones for extra protection"
"Is that clear?" I asked.
"Yes"
"Good, now with the physical part of chakra understood, I should talk about the spiritual part now. Spiritual energy has a lot to do with our mental strength. When you think of spiritual energy, you think of intelligence, thinking process and most importantly, will. Someone's spiritual strength increases normally, true, but when you have a direction you are moving towards, it increases your mental faculties, awareness and with proper guidance, increases your willpower."
"Everyone has a goal, a path in life, and everyone has that one obstacle in their life and that driving force pushing them towards that goal. It is left for us to decide that goal or path and strive to achieve it. In the process, your willpower will be trained, and with that comes an increase in spiritual strength."
This time around, there wasn't any need for the illusion, so I just sat there with Ria and Hinami.
"Another important aspect in spiritual training is imagination, Spiritual power all comes from up here," I said pointing at her head.
"With proper imagination and control, you could even do what I did and bring things to reality. What I used to reach you now is one of the many applications of spiritual energy alone."
"Now that both energies have been explained, it has now come down to how both energies mix to create what we call chakra and this is where the natural energy comes into play. Since the moment we were born, we are continually taking in natural energy in its most neutral form and this energy we take in deposits itself in small quantities in every path of our body. Through the circulation of our chakra, we mobilize our spiritual energy unconsciously and extract what little is available in our system albeit unconsciously and dump them in our chakra pool
"Although there won't be a visible increase in the amount of chakra immediately, the circulation of chakra, helps us train in control and fast mobilization of our chakra thereby increasing the rate at which we draw out the chakra from our system"
"This, in turn, increases the amount of neutral natural energy we take in from the air" I finished
This theory I explained to them both was discovered by me after much observation, trial, and error. Although I didn't notice it at first, after my soul and body came to balance, I discovered that I no longer needed to circulate chakra to perform any jutsu, I could do anything with a thought and that brought about my curiosity about why it is so.
My body could now be said to be chakra in and natural energy at the same time. My chakra pathways and what was left was a massive pool of energy I could draw on at any given time. I also noticed that I couldn't get any stronger by training and will have to just keep living as usual for my chakra to increase on its own.
{A/n: Although I said 'massive pool of energy' I intend to keep using chakra as the general name}
This means that without external means, my chakra levels will increase at it's own once, no matter what I do. I had thought of taking the chakra from the tailed beasts but I scrapped that idea as the chakra won't be mine and my chakra will become influenced by Kaguya's.
I then remembered that Ishiki had a mini ten-tail beast at the time of Boruto Canon and had the idea of taking it from him, but I then remembered that he should still be in recuperation now in the body of Jigen and even if I find him, the ten tailed beast would not be available.
After much thought, decided to just leave it as it is. It's not like anyone would be able to bet me as I am now. In 500 years, my chakra levels would have increased by a large margin, not to talk of 700 years. And with that, I decided to live life as it comes.
Snapping out of my thoughts, I looked at both Ria and Hinami who were deep in thought about what I just taught them and said: "For today, you should think about what I said, and then tomorrow, we would start putting them to practice. If you have any misunderstandings, come and ask me. Alright?"
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A/N: This is my understanding of almost all energy-related stuff. Don't judge me on it. If you have other ideas, don't forget to comment on them. Thanks for your support and sorry for the late releases, I'm kinda studying and have exams coming up by month's end so I'm trying to separate time judiciously.