still needing a map for this big place! (Open, NK)

It seemed Mitako was not happy with his own progress and Hysterio could relate. He had had a much easier time in the world of acedemics, where stuff was learned rote for much of the time, and the rest you could often figure out. In the world of ninjas, physical aptitude played a big role in what one was able to accomplish. In academics, it was entirely possible to get ahead without a good teacher, so long as one was studying extremely hard, more than the other struggling students. In contrast, in the world of ninjas, much hinged on who your leader was, some villages had weak leaders and their underlings suffered, no matter their talent or hard work.

He was getting distracted, it was time to keep training his wind element. He saw Mitako attempt his own recently made up exercise, and it seemed to work reasonably well after a few tries. He spoke to the other boy – “Hey, not bad! I wonder if I can pick it up that quickly. Keep practicing, I think the hardest letter to make using the chakra alone through the paper, would either be a lowercase “I” or an upper case “Q”. This is because both of them have very small extra features that are easy to ignore or forget. So I would save those letters for later, “O” is not bad actually, that circle you made. The easiest letter would probably be uppercase “I” as it is simply a line. That “O” is pretty good, so I would suggest trying a “P” and then a “A” or “R” afterwards, as they are increasing complexity. I better get cracking myself, as you are learning this stuff a lot faster than I am… Though to be fair, even with clones, I am pretty sure that old Hokage, Naruto Uzumaki, the guy with the big mouth, he learned his first element after several days I think, with the help of shadow clones, unlike… well, you. Just watch that the shapes you crumble out are clean, you don’t want to leave little flaps here and there.” Hysterio smiled at the other boy, he was actually doing pretty good.

He needed to get on that training program himself, the other boy was learning this stuff at a rather alarming rate. He clapped his hands over the piece of paper he had, and attempted to focus his chakra into a single line. Unlike with the other boy, he felt he would be needing to practice more to learn his second element. He slammed the chakra in his hands together, and when he took one hand away, using the other hand to hold the paper, a single line greeted his eyes. Ok, that was not too bad. The line was not quite cleanly cut though, that was not good. He clamped his hands over the same spot. This time, he was not aiming to cut a second “I” but to instead fix the existing one, that being significantly harder than merely cutting a line into the paper. He aimed carefully, and then tried launching the chakra between his hands. Taking away one hand again, he was pleased to notice the “I”, though a little larger, was extremely clean cut, the little flaps sticking out here and there completely eliminated.

That was not too bad. He found an uncut portion of the paper and clamped his hands over the paper again. He decided to take things slowly, as he was still not used to all of this. He first tried applying his chakra in a circle. He was ok with the result, so he tried again on a different spot, slamming a full circle into the paper. He had learned enough from making the “I” clean that the “O” was also clean cut as well.

He looked up, curious to see how Mitako was doing.

*****
(total word count: 2589+645=3234/4000 towards learning the Wind element)

Mitako seemed to have struck gold with this kid. His mind was a well of information, and if Mitako were to do this on his own, it probably would have taken him days. The reassurance helped boost his confidence a little, he decided it was time to try the whole damn alphabet from A to Z (well, at least the ones that seemed hard enough). He walked over and got at least 30 cards, to allow for a few messups. He would also be paying attention to Hysterio in case he said anything. 

He took the first card and used his finger to start wilting away the corners until he had a dull arrow shape. He then knocked out the middle section. Leaving a small strip of card, he would knock out another space below the middle hole. He now had an 'A' which wasn't bad, but the way the earth element just broke off small portions of the card meant every letter would look a little messy.

He moved on to the letter B, which shouldn't be as hard as A. He knocked off the edge of the card until he had three shape, with the other side of the card untouched. He then tried to knock out two holes to complete the letter, but messed up on the bottom hole, making it a little too big.... oh well, good enough.

He skipped the letters D, C, E, F, G, H, I, and J due to those seeming too easy. Moving on, he started the letter K by knocking out a large triangle on one side of the card. He would rotate it ninety degrees before moving on to the top and bottom. He had to be careful not to over do it on this part, as he attempted to knockout a trapezoid shape on the bottom. 

[1,591+304=1,895]

The other boy appeared to be doing quite well, and Hysterio said as much. He seemed to be making reasonable progress as well, it seemed. Hysterio was ready to try one more letter, he had another idea that had come to mind that he wanted to try out. Actually, it was based on Uzumaki Naruto’s training before, when he gained his wind element. First though, he was going to cut out a lower case “I” and an upper case “Q” or bust. He tried each of them, but found that they were surprisingly easy now. He seemed to have the quality and control over his wind element that he desired. Next was to train the volume and power of it.

He walked over to the large shallow enclosed pond, and placed his hands on the surface. Activating his wind element chakra, he slammed the wind chakra against the water, shifting it a little. It seemed he had much work to do here. He tried again, not bothering to lift his hands from the surface of the water. This time he managed to send ripples through the water. He sighed, this would take some time. He slammed his wind chakra many times against the water, each time attempting to make a noticeable hole in the water by blasting it with his wind chakra, but unfortunately, it seemed his wind chakra muscles, if you will, were too weak, and needed training. He eventually sat back, tuckered out for the time being. He would try again in a bit, as the wind chakra was starting to come easier to him now, but he still needed a little rest.

He turned to face the other boy, Mitako. “Unfortunately, as you are trying to gain the earth element, I don’t think trying the same exercise I have been attempting, would help you very much. Instead, it might be better if you were to head over to that sand pit and try manipulating small amounts of earth. That itself is actually the basis of most earth jutsu, just in specific styles and manners.”

*****
(total word count: 3234+347= 3581/4000 towards learning the wind element)

Hysterio had a point, as most of Mitako's letters were coming out pretty half assed, due to not being able to get a clean cut. On the other hand, Mitako already had a good control over the sand, but it never really felt like the earth element, it felt like something else entirely. Either way he'd walk over to the pit, hold his hand out palm down, and make a small geyser shoot out from it. He then picked the geyser up and formed a basketball sized cylinder out of it. The genin pick continued to draw in more and more sand until he had it the size of a human torso. Did he have the earth element this whole time? Probably not, this had to be something else, and he would have to use real dirt for it. Alas, this room held no real dirt, and he would have to go outside and roll around in the mud. He would have to practice more later.

He wasn't quite sure what to do next. He knew, or he was pretty sure it wasn't his control over earth chakra that let him control the sand. But he also didn't know what it was yet.

[(194+1,895=2,089) sorry for this post being shorter than the rest of my short posts, but something came up, and I might be busy until tomorrow evening. Also, Rice Wizard?]

[Nevermind, I'm back]

Hysterio watched Mitako’s progress, he appeared to not be doing too badly, actually. Hysterio turned to the other boy and said “There is a jutsu I think you might find rather helpful, it is called the Moving Earth Core jutsu. This is really just a larger version of what you have already been doing, and depending on how you use it, it can be extremely helpful. I have sort of learned that jutsu myself, not enough to teach someone else I believe, unfortunately, but it should be easier than learning a new element, perhaps half the work. I can explain that jutsu, having read up on it myself, but I can’t really teach you how to do it, but it is mostly a larger version of the training you were just doing, frankly.”

Hysterio resumed slamming the water with his wind chakra. Naruto Uzumaki had learned to manipulate his wind chakra to a far superior intensity in a very short amount of time, using clones, all at once. Hysterio should be able to make up for a certain lack of clones, and frankly, absent mindedness if he was very nice about the former Hokage, and he was doing something much easier. Frustrated, his chakra surged, and the next slam against the water that he tried with his wind chakra, cleanly formed a hole all 1 of the feet to the bottom of the tank. Still, that was quite a major improvement and he felt he would be able to use the wind chakra easier now, blasting the water that last time had seemed to have opened a floodgate of chakra so to speak, and now he could summon the same amounts again with very little effort.

Cool.

He stood up, disregarding his wet hands, and walked over to the opposite side of the sand pit from where Mitako was. Using his earth chakra, he raised tiny structures made of dirt. Using his wind chakra, he was easily able to knock them down. This was no fun. Boring in fact. He knocked over the rest of the little structures by hand, not bothering to use any chakra.

He placed his hands on the ground, the water from the previous bit of training sinking into the sand pit and making it stick to his hands. This would make things slightly more interesting. He tried summoning a large amount of wind chakra, aiming to create a gust of wind that would dry off his hands and remove the sand. Slowly, he tried increasing and decreasing the power of the wind, modulating it to try and knock more of the sand off. Perhaps he had the basis for a jutsu coming along, all in good time of course.

Eventually, he cleaned off his hands of the now dry sand. Putting his hands to the ground he tried slamming his wind chakra into the ground, aiming to make a clean cut. He grimaced at the result. It seemed he needed more volume again. He put his hands to the ground and tried to open the same floodgate he had felt himself open earlier, that had resulted in an eruption of wind chakra. The resulting gust of wind had nowhere to go, and as a result it sought the path of least resistance, namely, Hysterio.

Hysterio was blasted off of his feet, and tumbled head over heels, coming to a stop via his head becoming good friends with the handrail surrounding the inside edge of the floor. He slowly got to his feet, rubbing his head ruefully, and looked towards Mitako to see what he might be up to. “Ouch, that hurt….”

*****
(total word count: 3581+606= 4187
4000/4000 towards Wind element
187 towards learning Wind Release: Chakra Blade)

"Moving earth core..." Mitako tried picturing it in his head. He imagined someone raising a large platform of earth. "I'll give it a try." This could actually work, as he couldn't make the sand stay solid on its own for more than a few seconds. Doing his usual sand trick on a larger scale, he created a platform that was a meter tall and a meter wide. He began to channel earth chakra into it, and sure enough the sand held in place. But... that was far, far too easy. He turned to Hysterio, "I don't think I did it quite right, can you explain it, since you offered?" He would cross his arms and shuffle his feet while Hysterio replied.

[121/1000
Sorry for the short post, my brain is tired. It's 6:51 AM and I've been up all night. I'd rather keep it short and understandable than long and incoherent.]

Hysterio got up and walked over to a different patch of ground, noticing the small crater he had blown into the dirt. He put his hands to the ground, and attempted to control the output and strength of the wind chakra, focusing it into blades that he pushed into the ground. He liked the result that was revealed when he removed his hands, so he was going to go to the first wind jutsu he intended to learn.

He heard what the other boy said, and turned to face him, having seen some of his efforts out of the corner of his eye while getting up. “Looks like you need to put in more chakra, the biggest ones I heard of were about 5 meters wide, 5 meters long, and 20 meters tall or deep. If you put in more chakra the structure should be more stable, and you can make it much larger, I think. I think you could probably test it out here, but you might want a larger space. We can head outside if you would prefer that instead, I am thinking of trying something out myself and I would rather not destroy stuff indoors by accident.”

Hysterio would walk down all the stairs and out the door if Mitako agreed, a pencil in his hand. The pencil would appear to radiate chakra to those who looked closely – Hysterio was trying to run his wind chakra along the pencil to give it more of an edge than the point.

*****
(total word count: 4187+252=4439
4000/4000 towards Wind element
439 towards learning Wind Release: Chakra Blade

I don't mind if your post is long and incoherent, we ARE doing training after all, and wc helps a lot its up to you though! I hope you slept well later lol

also, I learned the moving earth core jutsu in a topic that chronologically speaking started after this one, so I don't think I can ACTUALLY reduce your word count for you, but I can give you stuff to respond to at least to make things easier)

Seems like he was on the right track at least. "I think you have a point, let's go." He would make a one by one meter block of sand, and bring it with him, it may prove useful later. Mitako was rather happy about the outside part, because he wouldn't be able to cheat, he couldn't control regular dirt. Well... now he could, but I digress. The walk down all thirty three flights wouldn't be as bad as the way up. As they started going, Mitako decided a short conversation would be nice. "So, Hysterio, what rank are you?" This was something he was still unsure about, as the boy seemed to hold a vast wealth of knowledge. He would walk down the stairs, trailing behind Hysterio a few steps.

Once the two arrived outside, Mitako would shield his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden change in light. As he looked around, he noticed that only the training fields on the edge were close to any dirt. "If you'd like, we can go to the court on the end. That way, you can parctice your stuff, and I can stand off the court and practice mine." The choice to follow was entirely Hysterio's. Either way, that's where Mitako would head. Once he arrived, he would plop the cube of sand in a corner of the court, and walk fifteen meters away. He clapped his hands together and touched the ground. Channeling his chakra to the ground, the boy would begin to rise one meter on a two by two meter surface. Well... for a second at least. He still needed to work on controlling the chakra as a small pillar had shot up from the rest of the two meter platform and knocked him down, face first. "Damnit!" Twas a bit frustrating, but the boy picked himself up and brushed himself off.

[323/2000
I may have been a bit cocky when I said 1000, but I do intend to write a 1000 word post before this thread closes.]

Hysterio walked down all 33 flights of stairs next to Mitako, who asked what rank he was. “Me? I’m a genin, why do you ask? If I seem a little weird or something, it is likely because I am quite new to the ninja world. You see, I grew up in a smaller village nearby, one entirely of civilians that escaped notice from the ninja world simply because there was nothing important there… It was over at…” Anyone listening to Hysterio would eventually tune out due to his extremely long description, that many would have wished by left out. The pause fortunately, would help revive any listeners. “Before this, before I moved here, I was studying to enter one of the top academic institutions. One day, several months ago, my parents shipped me off to this place here, Tengakure, without any notice or explanation, and I had assumed that it was merely a boarding school. Really, I would far rather have learned all this stuff sooner than later. I guess they wanted to keep their presence secret hidden or something.”

He took a deep breath and continue his life story, the 33 flights of stairs were going to take a while so he had a bit of a captive audience. “So, I show up for class, and the first thing the instructor is talking about, is the basics of wielding a katana. I was thinking, “what? Seriously?” I mean, it could have been P.E. or self defense or something, and that first day I figured there would be some normal stuff you would see in normal schools, such as a gymnasium, or math class or such. Well, suffice it to say that the equipment at the gymnasium was not quite what I had expected…”

Hysterio smiled, at the thought, remembering his shock at seeing many mangled training dummies, students hacking away with renewed fervor in the presence of the teacher.

Hysterio continued – “As if that was not enough, my parents sent me a letter that I saw that night, apparently I belong to a ninja clan. My guess is that my parents, at least one belonged to that clan, and they did not wish for a life filled with conflict and fear and war and suffering, so they hid their identity and pretended to be normal civilians, hence why they probably only told me much later. Of course, they could not tell me anything useful about myself other than that I have some special ability that most do not have. Too bad they did not have a clue what my ability would be, at least that was indicated in their letter….”

Hysterio sighed. “So, to sum myself up, I am a recent immigrant here. A former class nerd, an honor roll student, turned ninja. I found myself relatively average in most departments compared to other potential academy students, but my study habits stuck with me, being the one relic of my old life that I still have with me. As a result I end up analyzing and thinking about almost everything, as opposed to the trial and error method some lunatics in my class attempted….”

Hysterio glanced at his training partner, then continued speaking his virtual monologue. “Yeah, worse than most. I would not be lying if I said that as an academy student he would use his bare hands to try and break large rocks or buildings, without anywhere near enough training, without using any techniques. I suspect he might still be in the academy, if he has not given up, those incidents of his were not pretty….”

Hysterio practiced using his wind chakra that he had recently obtained, to reinforce the pencil, a whitish glow surrounding the pencil. He made a few experimental cuts in the air but he felt nothing different from normal, himself or the pencil.

The pair reached the bottom of the stairs, finally on the ground floor. The outer world was a little bright and it took Hysterio a little time to adjust his eyes, then he followed Mitako out the door. Mitako suggested going to the end of one of the courts, which sounded reasonable to Hysterio. He followed, and continued practicing using his wind chakra, using the pencil to snap a couple of leaves in two, that had been drifting in the wind. Unfortunately his wind chakra control was not very precise when put into something else, as the leaves broke in mid-air more from the impact than from being cut. He sighed, a little unhappy at his lack of progress.

He watched Mitako train, while he walked up to a small tree. Attempting to sharpen the pencil, he pushed it against the tree which did not budge. Not even the leaf which was taking the brunt of the force. He frowned, and paused to watch his new friend.

Mitako was having a little trouble controlling his chakra it seemed, as part of his attempted jutsu knocked him over. Hysterio refrained from laughing, not wanting to hurt the other boy’s feelings, he had seen worse but the other boy seemed to be slightly sensitive at times and he wanted to be respectful of his feelings. A slight undertone belying a smile could be heard though, as he spoke to the other boy – “That looks closer, I think you are not keeping all of the chakra you exude into the earth under the same control. It usually is easier if you start out a little slower, then you can get used to doing everything until it is second nature afterwards, it is most important to be able to do all the steps when attempting specific jutsu. Say, do you mind if I use the structures you form for my own training?”

*****
(total word count: 4439+958=5397
4000/4000 towards Wind element
1397 towards learning Wind Release: Chakra Blade

I think Moving Earth Core is a D rank, which would mean you need 1k I think
also, notice how much i was able to add with my monologue above, which is an expansion of my character's backstory)