If Shiki had anything he was proud of the most in regard to this training period, it was his progress in fuinjutsu.
Truthfully speaking, Shiki had only learned three specific seals, and that did not take very long.
What truly took up his time and inspired the boy to pursue fuinjutsu with zeal, even before he learned of the Blood Spiral Sealing Arts, was the fundamentals.
In other words, learning the foundational symbols and arranging methods for those symbols which would allow him to analyze and interact with seals to reinforce, loosen, outright undo or even modify functions.
Ultimately, it even gave the boy the tools to develop his own seals which was precisely what he desired. However, taking his inexperience into account, Shiki decided to start from already created seals he could learn and build upon them to create his own.
For this purpose, Shiki picked three seals he figured would be very useful for the current him. The first of these was the Storage Seal.
It was the obvious choice, rather than carrying around large amounts of supplies, storing them all in a simple scroll would be much better.
Apparently however, the type of paper or fabric as well as ink required to make such seals was not cheap and depending on the skill of the sealing master and their skill with the Storage Seal, the resulting capacity could vary greatly.
It certainly explained which scrolls were not used as a more convenient method of transporting supplies most of the time. With most circulated storage seals not being too impressive, whenever a large amount of material needed to be moved, the seal's capacity was not enough.
And so, if standard methods were going to be used anyway, why waste precious funds on scrolls to fit a little bit of the baggage. Only small amounts of highly precious material were worth the expenditure.
The second seal Shiki learned was the Explosive Seal used for the manufacture of Explosive Tags. Despite the shows of ineffectiveness depicted in the series, these ninja tools were not only deadly but were great at utility.
Demolition jobs, ambushes, delaying boobytraps, you name it. There was no way Shiki would miss the opportunity to learn how to make them himself.
As for the last seal the boy learned, it was the most complex of the three and one of his best investments, the Jutsu Transcription Seal.
Basically speaking, it was a seal and incorporated a jutsu he could use into it allowing Shiki to rapidly activate it from the sealing tag later. Since the tag could store a certain amount of chakra as well, the effective cost would be diminished.
As for disadvantages, there were some, simply because Shiki had not fully mastered the seal. He could only make single use versions.
Additionally, for jutsu that required further action from him like the Rasengan and the Chakra Cutter which he needed to use his hand to hit the target after activating the jutsu, he could not use the tags in the slightest.
Essentially, they functioned as Explosive Tags that released jutsu instead of explosions but even then, they were useful.
By tossing a Earth Release: Practice Brick Tag into the ground, he could instantly create a stone wall, by placing a Water Release, Hiding in Mist Tag at a location, he could instantly fill with mist on command.
Furthermore, while studying the fundamentals, Shiki discovered similar seals could be linked to to exponentially increase their power.
With the Explosive Seal as an example, using several tags at once would result in an additive increase in power and making a large seal composed of several linked Explosive Seals, the increase would be exponential instead.
This inspired the boy to create two specialty items. The Flaming Breakthrough Tag and the Scroll Bomb.
The later was immensely effective in its simplicity, fill and entire scroll with linked Explosive Seals, with Shiki's current mastery, it could unleash the power of an A rank jutsu but with a large area of effect, the boy figured the yet to be born Deidara would most certainly approve.
As for the former, it was a paper tag with two linked Jutsu Transcription Seals, one with Fire Release: Flamethrower and the other with Wind Release: Breakthrough.
Alone, neither jutsu was impressive but unleashed in combination with a power boost from the nature of linked seals, it could match a C ranked jutsu unleashed by an Elite Chunin with full power.
But the crown jewel of Shiki's fuinjutsu achievements was his first original seal which he proudly dubbed the Assault Storage Seal.
It was still in early development at the moment so there were only two additional functions in comparison to normal Storage Seals. In its initial form, with the standard Storage Seal as the foundation, a Jutsu Transcription Seal is integrated.
This seal carries the essence of the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu. Its first function when Shiki created the Assault Storage Seal, was, for a negligible amount of chakra, to create and store copies of all basic ninja tools stored within the seal.
Naturally, things like chakra blades, paper tags and the like, could not be replicated. Still, it was a major help. Unlike in the series where ninja tools only run out when they are not needed, long missions, especially in war time, might leave a shinobi unarmed.
With this seal, so long as Shiki had some time to build up chakra between combat encounters, he could swiftly replenish his stock so long as a single real tool remained to be cloned.
But since he had more time to make further improvements, the boy took it one step further and added the capability to use the Jutsu Transcription part of the seal in the normal manner thus allowing him to multiply his thrown projectiles without even needing hand seals.
Interestingly, despite being unable to make standalone reusable Jutsu Transcription Seals, Shiki managed to make the one integrated into the Assault Storage Seal operate at that higher level.
Feeling very satisfied with his work, Shiki wanted to go show off to Mito.
He had shared his study of fuinjutsu with the Uzumaki matriarch since after learning the theory, one needed quite expensive materials for practice and feeling a little more mischievous than usual, acting the child he was, Shiki refused to share the results of his practice.
"When the training period comes to an end, I'll surprise Mito-sama with the results!" The boy had confidently declared to his mistress.
Mito, incredibly amused by this sudden bout of childishness that was much more in tune with how young Shiki actually was, directly agreed.
The boy taking such an interest in the art she was most dedicated to was obviously pleasing for the redhead and considering his talent, she genuinely looked forward to the surprise to come.
And though he would not go so far as to call it an incident, the Uzumaki matriarch's reaction to his achievements was most entertaining. Though Shiki himself did not emerge unscathed.
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