Jace on the Grind

With an extra two days to prepare for the next round of the Jounin Exams, Jace decided it was time to get to work on some things he felt he was too far behind his comrades on. The first of which being able to infuse his chakra into items and weapons. As a Chuunin of Konohagakure no Sato it was one of the many skills he should already possess. He had quickly become a trusted shinobi within his village, even being put in charge of a team of Genin. The team in question was poorly made and, though he didn't feel the need to send them back to the academy, he certainly didn't feel as if they were a good fit for each other. So he reported his findings back to the higher ups and disbanded the team, waiting for a new one to be appointed to him. It had been a while since then and still no other Genin had been sent to him to lead and mentor. 

Now the boy was far from home, visiting the village of Sunagakure no Sato for the Jounin Exams. All things considered he was making great progress as a ninja. Still he lacked the essential skills to properly lead a team or take on higher ranked missions on his own. That was why today he decided to forgo resting and instead focus on some training. Even simply being able to infuse his chakra into something at will would go miles toward advancing himself. After yesterday's events Jace had made his way home immediately and collapsed in his room, taking the time to go to sleep early and recuperate from his fight against Kotsuzui Kaguya under the hot desert sun. 

Needless to say he was awake hours before the sun had risen this morning due to how early he had went to bed. Knowing that he would have plenty of time before daybreak and other ninja began to trickle into the training fields, the young Uchiha took his time getting ready to head out. He made sure he ate a hardy breakfast for the training he had planned for the day. Instead of bringing along the entirety of his equipment, he chose to simply take the few shuriken he owned in one weapon pouch and the Heaven's Sorrow Ninjato which he strapped to his back. His clothing today was a simple short sleeve white T-shirt and mesh arm bands for his upper body; the usual black pants and sandals adorned his lower half. 

Once he was all set and ready to go, he left his hotel room and made his way to the training grounds at a leisurely pace. He still had a few hours before first light. The night air of Sunagakure was pleasantly cool compared to the intense heat during the day. After about fifteen minutes or so he finally made it to his destination, choosing a corner of the training grounds where a few boulders of differing sizes called home. He was almost ready to begin the regiment he had set for the day. 

Jace closed his eyes and stretched out his body. First he cracked his neck and swiveled it in a circle; he moved it clockwise at first and then counter-clockwise to finish. After that ha clasped his hands behind his back and raised them as high as he could until he felt the muscles begin to limber up. He continued to stretch out the various parts of his body including his back, calves and any other muscle region he thought he may use today. Another ten minutes passed before he finally opened his eyes again, this time glowing crimson, as he activated the sharingan. If he were going to practice infusing chakra then this was the best way to do it since his clan's famous doujutsu allowed him to see chakra itself. 

"Alright. Guess I can finally get this training started." he said to himself. "I guess the first thing I should do is choose which weapon to start with. The best thing to use would probably be this sword. It's much larger than the shuriken I brought with me, but it will probably be easier to control the flow of chakra within it since I have to hold it to wield it instead of throwing it like I would with a shuriken." It wasn't like he thought anybody was listening to him, Jace just had a habit of thinking out loud when he trained on his own. 

Now that he had decided on which of the weapons he had brought to begin with, the blonde calmly reached over his right shoulder and gripped the handle of the Heaven's Sorrow Ninjato that he had brought with him, unsheathing the blade and bringing down to stop in front of him in his right hand with the tip of the sword pointing directly in front of him. He held the weapon in place with both hands and took a deep breath to focus himself and then another. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The art of infusing one's chakra into an object required precise chakra control. In order to reach such a degree of control Jace had to first practice focusing on the task at hand entirely. He not only needed to know his chakra network inside and out, but also how chakra flow worked so he could generate it outside of his body without the help of hand seals or jutsu as a catalyst. 

He began to to focus the chakra flow in his body into a single point in his right hand. Specifically, the center of his palm. His eyes picked up the chakra forming where he wanted it to. A bright mass of light blue growing larger and larger. After about a minute of doing this, Jace tried to flow the chakra he had gathered in his palm through the handle of the sword that he was holding. Again he could see the chakra beginning to change course, the bright blue mass beginning to grow smaller as it left his hand and crawled its way up the length of the blade. Unfortunately he could also see that it was getting thinner and weaker the farther out from his body it stretched. When the accumulated chakra reached only six inches up the blade itself before stopping. That was barely one third of the length of the blade. Definitely not enough to cover the sword in it's entirety as he had planned.

He continued to fight with his chakra to extend it further for another thirty seconds before giving up on the attempt and starting over from scratch. The chakra quickly faded from the small part of the blade it had been sent to, quicker than it had enveloped it by far. The boy found that to be a little disconcerting, but he shook of the thought and simply cleared his head once more so that he could try it a second time. He performed another bout of slow, deep breaths before continuing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Then once more chakra began to build up in the palm of his right hand. His eyes saw the swirling mass of chakra forming there, a little faster this time than it had on his first attempt. 

He let the chakra in his right palm build up further than he had the first time, taking a full two minutes before continuing on to the next step. He guided the chakra outward from his palm and through the hilt of the sword. Jace's sharingan watched as it slowly crept up the blade of the weapon. It wasn't spreading itself as thin this time as it had before. He watched as it made its way ever so slowly further and further outwards. Two inches. Three inches. Four. Five. Six. This is where it had stopped on his previous attempt. This time it didn't look like it would be stopping any time soon at all. Eight inches. Ten inches. Twelve. Thirteen. Only another six inches to go until it enveloped the entire sword. Jace's chakra continued to expand up the blade until finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the entire sword was infused with his chakra.

Smiling from his success, the boy held the chakra in place for about another minute before letting the chakra dissipate. He couldn't celebrate just yet. It took way too long for him to properly infuse his sword with chakra. Three minutes might be a very long time, but a battle could be decided in seconds. He had to be able to do this nearly instantly or else his training would be utterly useless. "Ok. I think my eyes picked up the right ratio and flow needed in order to do this. Time to give it another shot, hopefully much quicker than before. Third time's the charm, right?" he said aloud to himself.

Once again Jace refocused himself by taking a few slow, deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. This time the boy had closed his eyes as he took his breaths. Now they flew open, determination to get this right flowing through him. Apparently determination wasn't the only thing that flowed. Along with it was the young Uchiha's chakra. To his sharingan it was as if his entire chakra network had flared to life in an instant. There were no outward signs of what he was doing, but to anyone who could see chakra it would have been completely obvious. 

Within seconds the chakra flowed through his right hand and into the Heaven's Sorrow Ninjato that he was still using as the chosen tool for this exercise. Thanks to his clan's doujutsu it only took a fraction of the time to infuse the entire sword with his chakra this time now that he had recorded the exact ration and direction of flow needed to do what he wanted to. These eyes truly were amazing. 

Now that he knew how to infuse chakra correctly, he wanted to try something slightly different. Jace wanted use this new skill of his to infuse his sword specifically with his lightning element chakra. The lightning element was good for bladed weapons because it could be used to both sharpen the weapon and cause a paralyzing effect on those the blade manages to come into contact with. It was actually the main reason he had decided to start with training chakra infusion this morning. With his elemental affinity for lightning it was pretty much a no brainer that he should combine the two to make his weapons even deadlier. 

Changing the flow from normal chakra to that of the lightning element was an easy task after this. Uchiha were naturally gifted at such things after all. Adjusting the chakra flow from his body into the Heaven's Sorrow Ninjato to that of the lightning element, visible effects began to appear along the sword. Lightning arced its way periodically all along the blade of Jace's sword, it now being completely infused with the boy's elemental affinity chakra nature. Finally he had accomplished the first of many things he had planned to do today. After letting the chakra flow continue for another minute or two to make sure that he could hold it, he released the chakra and let it dissipate once more from his sword. 

"Well that was much easier than I had anticipated." he said, a small smile appearing upon his lips. He relaxed his body now and brought the Heaven's Sorrow Ninjato up with his right arm, carefully replacing it into the sheath on his back. The sun still had not risen yet, so Jace decided he would take a short break. Deactivating his sharingan, the boy walked over to a nearby boulder that was only moderately large and took a seat on the cool sand with his back against it. He could feel himself slowly becoming tired, his eyes becoming heavy. There was a refreshing cool breeze now as he sat against the boulder. His eyes soon closed on their own as his consciousness slowly drifted away and Jace fell asleep. Hopefully he didn't stay out too long or he'd have one hell of a sunburn when he woke up.
[exit]
TWC: 2,038
claiming 10 stats and 2,000/2,000 learning Chakra Infusion

Approved