A meeting of great minds [Ganki]

It was a simple thing training a technique, sometimes… Other times it was an incredible pain to even begin to train a technique, it all came down to a number of things, intelligent, energy, willpower, and yes even luck. For some people the learning of a technique simply came down to trial and error. Some taijutsu masters learnt their iron fists and deadly kicks by punching a wall. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER, ad infinitum, for ever and ever. Ren certainly could not deny the results, it worked, but it was also boring and it was not just taijutsu masters that learnt techniques through rote learning, doing the same thing over and over again until it was so ingrained in the person that they were capable of doing just that one thing as if it was second nature, this did have its advantages after all, but it also had a very significant flaw, these people, the sorts of people that learnt things by performing them over and over, were soldiers, they were not smart or bright, and they did not truly understand what they were doing, even those of them experienced enough to develop their own techniques did not truly understand the nature of what they were doing, after all why would they, as long as they could run faster, punch harder, destroy with more force than their enemies then what use did they have for understanding. Ren on the other hand was different, he was first and foremost a scholar, he was still subject to his emotions of course, bound to some degree by rage, anger, a desire to destroy that which he loathed, but it was a cold anger. What Ren desired was understanding, and through that understanding he found a strength that those who chose the path of repetition and rote learning could not even begin to understand, let alone follow. Ren sat in his room in the inn, the make shift study of which he had been provided by the innkeeper at no small cost. Fortunately even if this had not been the most financially profitable of trips Ren had made enough selling small minor seals to the various townspeople that he was able to afford such luxuries. It was fortunate indeed since without such a room he would have struggled to study as efficiently as he had been. Ren was having a mental boom of sorts, coming up with many ideas all in rapid succession, almost as if the gods had recently granted him the ability to create techniques that were unheard of up until this point. Many of them were simply ideas of course, things that Ren was able to think of not because he was capable of performing a technique but because he understood the technique, down to its most fundamental level. It was this realisation that lead to another thought to Ren, he understood these techniques, these seals, he was still far away from saving kira, ‘god damn I hope she’s alright, I haven't heard from her in ages’ Ren thought, momentarily distracted by thoughts of the creature which was his sister and his first love all wrapped up into one. Unbeknownst to Ren the girl’s lack of communication with him was in part his fault. Ah, you are reading this and expecting some sappy love story involving a scorned lover, but alas that is not what this story is about, Kira, you see was sealed inside Ren, the story of how this came to be was of course an absolute tragedy so horrific and saddening that it would drive many a man and woman to madness, and as such we shall abstain from leaving it where any wandering eyes might come across it, however this is of little import to the story today, suffice to say that Kira had not spoken to Ren since his first blood games the result of an odd two pronged complication that stemmed from the rapid use of chakra that he had been using daily since that moment draining Kira’s own Reserves, an odd result of the Imperfect seal that kept her alive and sealed within him coupled with the heavily suppressed trauma that Ren still carried from his first significant kill, the death of a young boy who had been his charge, his student and perhaps the cause that had set Ren on his path to fight against the tyranny that was so prevalent in this world, indeed, if souls truly did exist the boy could rest soundly in his bed knowing that it was thanks to his sacrifice that Ren was here today, frantically developing techniques that could be used to fight against the horrific tyranny and terrors that this world faced. Shaking his head Ren snapped out of this introspection and went back to work, the idea which had struck him, as we said was the result of his incredible approach to understanding the nature of fuinjutsu on a level incomparable to any other person he’d met. Indeed one would be hard pressed to find any ninja with the level of knowledge on fuinjutsu that Ren possessed, and so the boy was perhaps the only one currently capable of trying what he was about to try. Ren had in front of him a significant stack of simple white blank paper scrolls that he intended to use for this next experiment, the first trick of which was to be attempted on the chakra storage seal, a basic technique that was for the most part considered relatively basic amongst those who considered themselves fuinjutsu masters, that wasn't to say that it was an overall easy technique to perform, let alone an easy technique to understand, quite the contrary, learning the technique required a significant amount of understanding of the fuinjutsu arts and all that entailed, using it effectively was an even more arduous journey of the mind. Ren to his credit was perhaps one of the best living users of this technique, capable of creating seals that were able to store vast amounts of chakra within themselves, far more than any of the other fuinjutsu masters he’d met had been able to, of course the way in which he did this wasn’t exactly refined, whilst some of that power came from his incredible knowledge of the fuinjutsu arts, layering more and more power into the seal by exploiting a support array system he had devised himself, the overall amount of power that he was able to condense into his seals was with a brute force approach involving cramming incredibly unstable fire chakra into the seal before stabilizing it at the moment of critical failure. This simply wouldn't do, it was a messy if useful approach, and Ren felt certain that there were better ways to achieve a far more significant effect. To his credit Ren was correct, and even more so the path he was following in his studies was one that lead to a technique that would work well with the power of the searing seals that he had been using for such a long time now. Ren opened the first of many scrolls and pulled over a book from the pile of many many books on fuinjutsu that he had stacked up next to him. This first book held within it an inordinate amount of content on the chakra storage seal, how it worked, functioned, who designed it, it even had a number of the precursor seals that lead to its development, all of which was incredibly interesting in its own right, of course that was not to say Ren did not already know it all on some level, but simply that Ren was the sort of person that was able to glean more and more understanding from a subject he had knowledge on when he heard, or in this case read the views of others who had a grounding in that field. In this case Ren read through the book, taking note of how the many many arrays that existed within the seal interacted and identifying the many weak points of the seals design. In the past he’d simply used these weak points in conjunction with his advanced sealing to reinforce the weakened location, but now, what if… what if he could do something far better and generally more useful, albeit absolutely insane to try. Rather than improve the seal with patches and band aids, Ren was going to try his hand at completely re-working the seal, creating a newer, better faster stronger version that had the same functionality of the original seal without any of the weaknesses that the original seal possessed. In this case Ren began with a simple circle, that seemed rather odd didn't it, just to make a circle the starting point of his seal, but it wasn't such a bad thing really, even if the seal did not end up needing the circle in the end, it was a good stabilizer for ren to experiment with different and complex arrays; and so Ren added onto his circle, designing first a support array, then a number of suppression arrays to stop the storage arrays that would be overflowing with chakra from exploding, of course the suppression arrays weren’t originally designed for such a thing, indeed Ren had never seen them used in this way before, but this is where understanding vs rote learning through memorisation came into play. By applying these suppression arrays in a new and unique way Ren was able to increase the seals efficiency tenfold… in theory. The design completed Ren flowed chakra into the design only for the paper to catch fire and the boy to have to step back, using his water chakra in conjunction with a flurry of hand seals to create a clone of himself from some water in the back of the room. The clone quickly hurried over and released itself all over the burning paper. “Tisk, that's a pain, now I’m going to have to dry it all out” Ren said flowing some fire chakra into the air around him to heat it up and dry out the paper around him. Once that was all done Ren sat back down to get to work, his first attempt may have failed, but that was not a flaw in the concept, ren was sure it was simply a result of his lack of knowledge, his lack of skill. Of course to anyone who was able to objectively evaluate the boy’s skill and knowledge with the arts of fuinjutsu, they would think this absurde, after all the boys entire considerable repertoire of knowledge and techniques consisted almost exclusively of fuinjutsu techniques, with the exception of a bare minimum number of techniques he’d learnt in his time as an academy student; none the less despite the seeming absurdity of Ren thinking that he needed more fuinjutsu knowledge, he was in fact correct, this was after all the boy who would one day be known as the god of fuinjutsu (hopefully.)
 
Pulling another book out of the pile Ren cross referenced his data in the first book with that of the new book, “Hmm mostly the same information” he said after a while, talking to himself, ‘god I miss having altar to ramble to over my ideas, the boy was one of the few people who could understand what I was talking about… hmm, well I can always contact him through my telepathy seal, although he probably hardly has time to listen to me now that he has to handle that rebellion almost on his own… who knows if this entire endeavour goes well perhaps I can return to kirigakure with a liberating army.’ He thought, his hopes and thoughts drifting for a moment before returning to himself. ‘No Ren, focus, you have to get this to work’ He thought to himself as he gave himself a quick slap in the face before returning to his work, ‘Oh, of course this makes so much more sense now’ he thought turning the page and coming across an explanation of the initial design of some precursor suppression arrays. You see the original suppression arrays, as implied by their names, existed as a means to suppress the chakra presence of seals, these days they’d become almost a necessity in seals, many fuinjutsu users adding them to designs that didn't even need them, but these basic arrays had a flaw of their own, at least with regards to Ren’s own intentions, since they were designed for seals that did not need to store and use exorbitant amounts of chakra they in turn did not have any way to filter or regulate the chakra passing through them, nor did they possess a way to allow for more chakra to flow through them when they was an overflow of chakra, and so Ren found himself redesigning one of the basic fundamental arrays that served as the building blocks for most if not all modern fuinjutsu. It truly was absurd of course that Ren was even able to do this, but hey, the boy had spent his entire life around fuinjutsu at this point he was basically a prodigy even if he was older than most prodigies. Once the suppression array had been completed Ren tested out the design again, and was pleasantly surprised, by applying the suppression array in such a way Ren was able to render a chakra storage seal far more stable and as a result the device could be pumped with significantly more power.
 
Happy with the results Ren stood and dusted himself off, striding out of the back room and into the inn’s attached bar where he took a seat for a moment, ordering a neat whiskey and kicking back in the corner while he took a break.

[Mid topic claims]
TWC: 2304 (using 25%)
Fuinjutsu Scholar (1500/1500)
Scholaring Chakra Storage Seal (750)

Sure. Approved.

The village was different now, the recent effects now changing the future of the failed state like village. It is was under a new law, an order that seeked to dominate the whole world it seems. The north an empire, it's victory over such a once great village will set the stage of yet even greater conquest in the future, possibly. At the rate of it all, it proved to be too hard to out run it all, Ganki thought. To out run his past, to keep to his own was now getting harder and harder. The north, relentless, the cloud village seeked everything under the clouds.

Ganki takes note of all the armed cloud shinobi that hold this place.

Throughtout the village, in these times of change, where could a man go? To wash away the feeling, to mitigate his feeling of lost? Well, for anyone one that answer was surprisingly simple, especially for a northern like Ganki Sakura; a cloud villager at that. As he continued to walk down the sandy shaded path, he finds himself walking into an inn like establishment. The light smell of ale and smoke was all he needed right now, regardless of its quality.

He walks down towards the bar with both hands tucked neatly in his pockets. The man is dressed in a nice there piece suit, his custom bespoke suit. His somewhat lengthy brown hair went well with his suit. As he reaches the bar table, he orders a rum with a splash of tea to start. He doesn't typically drink beer, it never gave Ganki a buzz so he always thought it was a waste of money. After he received his drink, he removes his right hand from his pocket and takes a sip while looking off to the right of him for something had caught his attention. He sees a white haired man with a red streak going along down his hair. However, the man's hair was not the attention grabber, it was the insane chakra level he was sensing from him. He sets his Steuben glass down only to rub his small chin hair patch in thought. His gaze already diverted else where, his drinking cup.

"I can't wait to get out of this village, if the heat won't kill you, the cloud will soon", he glances towards the white haired man, sitting at the corner of the long bar table, " What do you think about the cloud?"

Ganki was sensing an opportunity to make a sale. Nothing like a few drinks and money to ease your mind of a few things.

Ren glanced over from his position to see a man in a fine suit drinking tea of all things, 'Tea, in a bar?' Ren sniffed, his finely tuned senses picking up on the sent of... sencha? 'Well, he has good taste I will give him that.' At any rate, the man's question had was rather probing, perhaps he was just curious, but Ren wouldn't take that chance and speak out against the cloud in a village controlled by them. "Well they seem reasonable enough on the surface, but I stopped by the Village to try and make a few sales last week and it took them forever to do the paperwork. Seems like the place will be bogged down with beurocracy if their expansion continues" Ren said, shivering slightly as he remembered the age long interview he'd had with the villages commander. "What about yourself?" Ren asked in turn, focusing on the man's chakra to try and discern whether he was lying in his reply or not. Considering his well-made suit the man had an aura of wealth around him, and Ren was sensing the opportunity to make a sale

"Oh, so you're a salesman? Well what do you know, that makes two of us. In Ganki Sakura, current CEO of Sakura Corp", he was surprised to the fact that his company next to him happened to be a sales man like himself. He wondered if he belonged to a big named company, like Yamano industries, or den enterprise. He extends his right hand out towards him, in turn, waiting for him to give out his name. Should he shake his hand, Ganki would retract it, and grab a pack of cigarettes from his inner pocket of his dress jacket.

Ganki takes note of the mystery sales men recent visit to the cloud village.

'So he's been to the cloud village, well he tried to get in. Were they not letting him in simply cause if the fact they are basically trying to take over? That whole paperwork nonsense could have been BS. Hell, I've used that excuse before when I used to patrol the gates of Kumo.'

"What I think of the place? It's..., changed from what I remember. Its new Raikage is..., changing the rules to how things will be run from now on. This Maku is also a new Cloud I've never heard of.( People from the cloud village sometimes refer to other cloud villages as clouds. I'm trying to create some Kumo slang lol) All of this really reminds me of Viper Uchiha's conquest. But never mind that, you a traveling salesman, what do you sell?"

Thinking back on his previous statement, it indeed reminded him of Viper Uchiha's conquest. He remembered the non stop reports coming from the south, the leaf's hokage, Viper taking one village after another in the name of the fire nation. It was weird back then, for a time the cloud village was once allied with the sky nation, as too was Ganki's father, Gozoburo Sakura. But then, somehow, the cloud ended up on the fire nation's side. The history books never talk about that one, a secret that would remain lost from the books.

With both his hand he removes a cigarette from the pack and stick it in his mouth. He is now seen searching for a lighter, which he swore he put in one of his pockets.

'The CEO of sakura corp, well I'll be damned, that certainly explains the suit... hmm I wonder if he'd be interested in a partnership' Ren thought to himself, a little excited at the prospect of meeting such a, relatively speaking, famous individual. "Indeed, Kenji Kotomine at your service, Its a pleasure to meet you." he said, taking the man's hand in greeting; "I'm an independent trader, at least for the time being" he said, pausing after saying for the time being before asking about the man's views of kumogakure

Ren nodded his head at the man's assessment, "Indeed, we live in troubled times... but then those are often the most profitable times to be a trader" he said, a hint of sadness in his tone despite the casualness of the statement; Ren's eyes lit up as the man asked him what he sold. 'Nows the chance to make a sale' he thought smiling pleasantly at the man. "Well my tagline is Fuinjutsu seals for everyday life," He said, a golden hand composed of chakra extending itself from his ribcage and picking up a bottle of fine whiskey from over the bar and pouring two glasses for them. "I Develop new seals and sell them to anyone willing to buy" He said, not feeling the need to give a fellow trader a hollow speal. "So how about yourself then?"  Ren said, clicking his fingers and causing a small flame to flicker there, hovering above a glowing fuinjutsu array as he offered the man a light.

'Indeed, we live in troubled times... but then those are often the most profitable times to be a trader huh?' The statement made by kenchi was so true. The times we live in now we're tough, people forced to leave their homes, due to destruction. Weapons flying off the shelves faster than a loaf of bread. It was the need of war that really lined the pockets of merchants who sold weapons. He really did understand how the world of business worked.

The more he heard Kenchi talk, the more he started to see how Similar both of them were. Kenchi sold seals, just as Ganki did. A fellow fuinjutsu user. Kenchi skills were probably greater than Ganki's own at the moment. The last time Ganki ever did any real training was when he in the cloud village. Time had certainly passed by.

Speaking of things passing by, Ganki's cigarette now lit, curtesy of Kenchi, he wondered what those gold arms were. It was a nice hook, something Ganki would have done too to get the customer's attention. He smirks at the thought while picking up his first Steuben, for another waited for him to enjoy, once again, curtesy of Kenchi. He removes the cigarette before downing the cup in a few sips. People from the cloud were know from drinking a lot. After that, he lightly put the Steuben down on the table.

"I sell fuin as well, power seals really.. I wonder Kenchi, do I have to worry about you", he said in a joking manner. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of cards, 6 in total. "Here, take a look, they all have brief explanations of what they do. After what you tell me what you think, we will have to talk about your seals too. I wanna see what your messing with too", he said, handing the cards to Kenchi.

((The cards are linked to the app, they will tell you what each are suited for. They do not reveal the risk of death however lol. Link))

Ren smiled at the man's joking question, at least he hoped the man was joking, after all, it wouldn't do to run afoul of such a large corporation this early in his career. "Well I wouldn't say you have to worry about me" Ren Chuckled, smiling at the prospect of meeting another fuinjutsu user, they were so rare these days, "after all there's nothing wrong with some friendly competition, although I'm always open to working with someone if it benefits the both of us," He continued nonchalantly.

Glancing over the cards Ganki offered Ren flicked through them, "They are quite interesting, not as versatile as some of my own designs, but I must admit I'm rather curious about this one myself." Ren said, tapping the card with the heaven's seal on it. "I'm afraid I don't have something as simple as these cards to describe what my seals do, however, this should suffice," Ren said, holding up his hand and allowing one of his ledgers to appear out of thin air, a seal marked upon it that he'd recently designed. "The first few pages detail all my seals available to the general public, as well as the prices I usually charge, of course, for a fellow trader I think we can wave a few of the more supurflous, costs, if you're interested, that is" He said, sliding the book over to Ganki. 

Assuming the man Read the book Ren would sit there sipping his drink and examining the rest of the man's cards more closely. 'The cards are actually quite a good idea, I'll have to have some made for my own seals' Ren thought whilst the man Read the book, mentally making a note to design his own when he got a chance.

Ganki took note of Kenchi's interest in the heaven seal.

Once again, another customer has chosen the famed heaven curse seal. It was a good thing he chose to raise the price. 4000 Ryo was to be paid, no less. "Excellent choice, that will be 4000 Ryo." he said enthusiasticly, while picking up the book which was given to him by Kenchi.

"I'm pretty sure you know how seals work, but for my piece of mind and respect towards all my customer, I'll explain to you how it works, in case you want to buy it. All I have to do it place the seal on either your hand, arm, neck and the mark will form. Consider it like a tattoo. In order to activate, all you need to do is channel chakra towards it, and it will augment your body in way depending on which seal you pick. Now you must start off slow, get used to the seal, play around with it before you start doing crazy things with it. The more you get familiar with it, the more control you have."

He takes a moment and takes a puff from his cigarette, before continuing on.

"However, there is one side effect. When I place the seal on you, will have a few minutes to head back to your place, or room.  You will pass out, allowing the seal to fully bind with you. Don't worry, you'll be fine when you wake up. It's just a stupid bug my employees could never fix. It only happens once."

Ganki opens the book skims a few pages, there were some interesting stuff.

Ren nodded as the man spoke, he knew what he was going to say of course, but it was only polite to give him the time of day with his explanation. Once the man had finished his explanation Ren would scratch the back of his head, as if trying to decide whether or not to take the man's deal. It seemed like it could be a risky gambit, at least for most people, but Ren was pretty confident he could remove any seal he didn't want so, mentally shrugging he spoke up, "Well why not, I'll give it a try" He said, holding up his hand and allowing a small roll of bills to appear in it, counting out four thousand Ryo exactly he placed the money on the table. "Your surprisingly affordable, I've found people willing to pay far more than this for even some of my simpler designs," He said earnestly to the man once the money had changed hands, there was no harm in letting him know he could probably put his prices up now that their deal had been struck.

Once Ganki asked him where he wanted the seal Ren would lean in and, pulling the front of his shirt down and slightly to the left as if trying to cool off on a hot day, "How about my left shoulder?" He said, inadvertently looking to the bar like he was flirting with the man. Ren would blush a little as some of the other bar patrons eyed the two of them, which would probably just lend further to their imaginations.

Once the man had applied the seal, Ren would scratch his head again "Oh right I'm probably going to pass out soon aren't I? Well I tell you what, I'll leave you with a telepathy seal so you can contact me if you ever want any of my services." He said, holding up his hand to apply it. Assuming the man allowed him Ren would give him a smile and a short bow as he stood up. "It's been a pleasure doing buisiness with you Mr Sakura, I hope we meet again" He'd say before turing to leave the room. "Oh, you can put the rest of his drinks on my tab" He'd say to the bartender with a wave as he headed up to his room."