(2nd of July, year 55 AK)
After waking up in the middle of the night Yuta thought about what to do for the coming four days. It wasn't enough space to do physical exercises properly. He thought about practicing his two main genjutsu techniques, but both of them are already as honed and mastered as possible for him at his current level, so it won't be very productive.
Then he remembered the crude prototype of a genjutsu he put up together to cheat in the first exam, and although that prototype was nothing to be proud of, and the applications of the general idea of that jutsu is not very valuable and usable in combat, still, Yuta suddenly had an idea of developing some sort of a spying jutsu based on the principles of that prototype.
Yuta walked back from the window to his bench in the corner and sat down cross-legged on it.
'What genjutsu should I create out of this? And should I even bother with something like that in the first place?' Yuta contemplated as he analyzed in his mind all the work he had done on that crude genjutsu prototype that allowed him to see what the other person was seeing and to copy the answers.
'In combat the ability to see what my opponent is seeing - is not very valuable, I guess. But for something like spying and gathering intel, the jutsu like that could be very useful.'
'This jutsu won't behave like normal genjutsu does, it won't interfere with the target's senses or influence the target in any way, it only would establish the connection and the access to the target's senses for me.'
'Jutsu like that is impossible to notice with common means like inconsistencies in details of what the target is seeing and things like that, basically all the flaws that directly related to the illusion the target is trapped in.'
'So the jutsu like this could only be detected if the target of the jutsu is sensitive enough to chakra to feel and notice the intrusion of the foreign chakra into their chakra network. Or, of course, the dojutsu users like Uchiha and Hyuga could just outright see my chakra inside someone else's chakra network, I guess, but the dojutsu users are all cheaters, it is hard to account for them anyway...'
'That means the key component of such genjutsu should be subtlety. I should use as little chakra as I possibly could to make it work, so the target won't notice the foreign chakra intrusion. Basically, the same thing as with my Shadow Cloak genjutsu that relies on being undetected for it to work properly.'
'Also, this new genjutsu, if being used for intelligence gathering, it should be able to last for a prolonged time. If I cast it on a person and want to get useful information out of it, it should last for a while, I guess. But my Shadow Cloak is a combat technique, and it wasn't designed to last for a long time, it could last for about five minutes if I really stretch it, but that's it.'
'So, I have to redesign the whole foundation of my genjutsu if I want it to work properly, and with as little chakra as possible... That prototype that I previously made on the foundation of the Shadow Cloak is not suitable.' Yuta realized with a sigh.
'This will not be easy...' He realized as he thought about what he had already achieved with his genjutsu skills.
Up until now, Yuta was entirely focused on his two specific genjutsu techniques, both of them had covered all of the most important areas he could possibly need in combat. Shadow Cloak was being designed from the start for protection and to avoid enemies engaging in close combat with him, but shortly after Yuta realized the true potential of this genjutsu and used it primarily for offense, hiding his or his teammate's attacks with it, or hiding himself to sneak up to his enemies, all is to achieve quick and decisive victory.
Shadow Chains jutsu is different. It is a much more chakra-hungry jutsu, that relies on a forceful taking over of someone's chakra network to make the target unable to move. Such genjutsu could be seen through and recognized as a genjutsu by every ninja right away, so for it to work it has to be extremely forceful, so the target would be unable to dispel it right away on their own.
It's a sure one-hit-kill jutsu, if it works of course. Even a Jonin would die if unable to move while Yuta throws a kunai at their head.
With those two jutsu Yuta felt that all his bases were covered in almost any situation. At least when he fights against opponents of his level or not too much higher than that.
Against Jonin-level opponents, on the other hand – it was an entirely different story altogether, and Yuta doesn't feel ready to step into that realm just yet. Even his chakra being still not enough to restrain a Jonin with his Shadow Chans jutsu, so Yuta didn't see any point in trying to breach that gap just yet, with his current level of chakra strength he didn't think it was even possible.
But since Yuta was the creator of those two jutsu, he could continue to develop them as his chakra, skills and knowledge grows, so he believed that he wouldn't outgrow them and both his main jutsu would always remain useful and deadly, and one day he would be defeating Jonins with them.
And rather than developing a few more genjutsu to be better prepared for some unexpected and rarely occurring situations, Yuta had something different in mind. He had some ideas how to further improve his two main genjutsu and add new elements to them instead, to make different variations of them. But all those ideas have to wait a bit longer, since right now both his jutsu already perfected and honed to the best of his ability and there is no room for improvement with his current chakra level and chakra control.
But it was different for the new spying genjutsu Yuta has in mind. It will have different principles in its core than his two main combat genjutsu.
For the first time in a while, Yuta was excitedly thinking about new applications for genjutsu. Up until now the genjutsu arts was just a means for him to quickly dispatch an enemy and nothing else. But after that spontaneous improvisation during the first exam Yuta finally realized that he was missing out, and that there were many more applications for genjutsu than just combat.
After some time while working on the new foundation for his spying genjutsu, Yuta realized that it would be much more convenient to work inside his mindscape instead, so he entered his mindscape and after observing the vast and unfathomable waters of the River of Time for a few moments, and feeling how his emotions were being washed away, he return to work.
First, he dismantled in his mind the foundation of his Shadow Cloak genjutsu into much smaller components than he did in the classroom before. Then he looked over the components that were perfected and optimized for the combat purposes, like those that were designed to help his genjutsu to influence the chakra network of his opponent as fast as possible, or those that designed to optimize the genjutsu so it could be cast as fast as possible.
Next instant Yuta decisively got rid of all of those components and was left with an empty skeleton of a genjutsu that was missing a lot of major bones in it, metaphorically speaking.
'This will take a while.' Yuta concluded as he looked over the half-disassembled bare-bones template of a genjutsu in his mind.
'Casting speed is not important. This is not combat oriented jutsu, so the casting speed should be sacrificed entirely for the better chakra efficiency, so the genjutsu could last as long as possible, while using as little chakra as possible, so the target of it won't detect the foreign chakra easily...' Yuta calculated as the new ideas were popping up in his mind one after another.
'The speed at which the genjutsu takes hold of the target's chakra network is not important, it should be sacrificed for the increase in subtlety while genjutsu is slowly infiltrating the chakra network...'
'All of those combat oriented components are useless here...'
'Since the speed of casting is not important, I could increase the complexity of the jutsu significantly, increasing the time I need for casting, but also increasing the potency of the genjutsu effects, that means that I would be able to further decrease the amount of chakra needed for the jutsu, further decreasing the chances of the target to notice the intrusion. I will mold a complex jutsu with the tiniest amounts of chakra to maximize the most important aspects of such jutsu, while sacrificing everything that is not important for the sake of it.'
'It would be a long cast jutsu, dozens of hand seals with no sealless casting possible... Not ideal, I'll have to hide myself from the target before I start casting if I couldn't do it sealless. But there is no solution to this, I have to accept this limitation for maximizing the results. Min-maxing is the way to go, I'm sure of it.'
'The jutsu would infiltrate the target's chakra network slowly, it would be about thirty seconds before the jutsu takes full hold of the target's chakra network and establishes the connection to the target's senses. Not ideal, but not important either. It's a long lasting jutsu, it is supposed to last about a half a day or more, I can wait thirty seconds or so at the start... But the return for this drawback should be incredible, it would be extremely hard for the target to notice the infiltration...'
'And the duration of the jutsu... This is the most difficult part to solve, there is no perfect solution for this as far as I can see. I need the jutsu to last long, and also, I can't pour a lot of chakra into my target to achieve this, since that would be easily detectable... The only way I could solve it as far as I could see with my current skills, is to remain in the general area with my target, so the distance wouldn't be too far. This way I could maintain the chakra expenditure remotely on my end and keep maintaining the jutsu, preventing it from dissipating over time...'
...
'Definitely not ideal solution, but it'll do, for now...'
With that, all the bases of the new jutsu were covered in theory, and all that remained now for Yuta is to get to the actual work of building it all up from the ideas and simple theory into reality. And Yuta already could tell, that it was a lot of work to be done, and the four days remaining before the second phase of the exam would end is not nearly enough for him to accomplish something this big and completely new.
'Well, time waits for no one, better get to work... Oh, wait... Right, I have unlimited time, I forgot...' Yuta thought half-jokingly with a bit of amusement as he immersed himself into work on his new genjutsu...
--- AN ---
I just found out that words like genjutsu, ninjutsu and such – have no plural form with 's' at the end, so I was writing it all wrong this whole time, and not a single person had pointed it out... :iwannadieemoji:
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