Team eight had once again gathered in training ground 19 and after finishing their individual training and spars, Yogi said, "You've all performed very well in today's training, did your clans start teaching you their secret jutsu?"
Both Hyori and Inumaki nodded their heads, normally no one would be foolish to ask such a question and if they did they were guaranteed to receive silence as an answer. But seeing that it is their instructor who is asking they didn't hide anything and answered truthfully.
Shinra kept fiddling with his kunai, his mind was occupied by the sealing scroll he had received from Kurosawa yesterday. 'I managed to decipher about 15% of the entire scroll with the help of my shadow clones, if I don't face any unexpected block I might be able to start engraving the seal in a week or two.'
Before he could sink deeper into his thoughts Yogi's next words pulled Shinra out of his head, "Tomorrow we will undergo a C-rank mission, Inumaki you will be the captain." Then he looked at Hyori and Shinra and said, "We will meet at the mission center at 8 am, make sure you are on time."
"Alright, now that this is out of the way you are all free to go except Shinra." Inumaki and Hyori glanced at Shinra for a split second before leaving the training and heading back to their respective clans.
With only the two of them left in the field Yogi pulled five scrolls and stated, "Each scroll contains a list of C and D rank elemental ninjutsu of a certain element, you are allowed to pick any 5 you want to learn."
Shinra received the scrolls in his hands and felt a warm feeling in his chest, 'I will make sure to return this debt one day.'
Shinra had always wondered why out of all the Konoha 12 the only two civilian ninjas didn't specialise in ninjutsu, one was a taijutsu specialist and the other relied on tools for her fighting style.
That was until he had arrived in this world and realized that most higher level ninjutsu was controlled by the higher-ups and clans. If he didn't stand out enough he would end up mediocre at best, unless he dedicated his entire time to taijutsu.
Hiruzen had given him the shadow clone jutsu, Reigen gifted him lightning flow; a C-rank ninjutsu and Yogi who taught him most of his fighting style and sensory skills. But even if they only taught him due to his potential, Shinra wasn't going to act ungrateful and decided to repay his debts to them in the future.
Shinra laid the scroll on the ground and immediately picked the lightning release scroll, there was dozens of C-rank jutsu with their names and effects written on this scroll alone.
After deeply analysing the entire scroll, he was left with two jutsu that he deemed would be relevant to him.
The jutsu he chose were:
Lightning Beast Tracking Fang
Thunder Bomb
'Lightning beast tracking fang can be counted as both short and mid range attacks, it requires gathering a decent amount of lightning chakra into the hands and then shaping the chakra into the shape of a beast.
Thunder Bomb is much more simple but more chakra consuming, by gathering enough lightning chakra on both hands and releasing them into a sphere it essentially becomes a bomb that discharges lightning upon impact.'
After picking these two jutsu he made his way to the Earth-release scroll and once again began analysing the scroll and took almost no time to find the jutsu he was looking for:
Hiding like a mole jutsu.
'I now have two mid range attacks. Earth release is famous for being the best defensive element out of the five elements, what else is better than hiding underneath the earth itself. Being able to evade an enemy attack and sneaking up on them is a major advantage, if only that camouflage jutsu used by Iwa ninja was here I would've definitely picked it. Unfortunately I doubt it is even a C-rank to begin with.'
He moved on to the next scrolls being fire, water and wind. He unfortunately didn't find any useful fire ninjutsu that fits his fighting style, as for water and wind he picked one jutsu each:
Water Prison: traps a target in a sphere of water; the water inside the sphere is much heavier to restrict the target.
Wind protection: forms raging winds around the user to protect him.
'A jutsu to restrict movement and a jutsu for protection. All I need now is a short distance from of attack, but I don't need it from the scrolls since the person who can teach it is right in front of me.' Shinra glanced who was busy humming and remembered the wind chakra sword he had created during their spar.
"Are you done already?" Yogi asked as he noticed Shinra's gaze on him.
Shinra nodded his head and answered, "Yes, I just wanted to ask if you could teach me the chakra flow you used in the last spar."
Yogi looked at Shinra with renewed interest and said, "That's a B-rank jutsu, although it is classified as such it doesn't require any hand seals and mostly depends on the users chakra control. I could teach it to you, but whether or not you manage to learn is up to your talent."
"Thank you sensei!" Shinra said with deep gratitude.
"No problem. Now what did you decide to learn?" Yogi said as he paid attention to Shinra's answer.
"I've decided to learn Lightning release: Lightning Beast Tracking Fang and Thunder Bomb. Earth release: Hiding like a mole jutsu. Water release: Water Prison and Wind release: Wind protection.
Yogi thought about it for a second and asked, "Why did you choose Wind Protection over Great Breakthrough? Your lightning release choices are focused on pursuit and area damage, your earth release is for stealth, your water release is to trap your enemy, I thought that you would choose a jutsu to deal with long ranged attacks over short range."
Shinra nodded and said, "Wind protection only requires two hand seals to activate making it very useful in close combat. Great Breakthrough is very useful disrupting formations, dealing with projectiles and creating openings."
Yogi nodded his head and continued listening, "But you already know it."
"The scrolls are an opportunity to learn jutsus I might not have access to again."
"If I decide I need Great Breakthrough later, I can simply ask you."
Yogi grinned and thought, 'You are finally starting to think like a true ninja, others may call you opportunistic, like or not civilian ninjas are in a starting disadvantage from the moment they are born. To truly become stronger you need to capitalise on every opportunity you meet.'
Yogi clapped his hands to show his approval and said, "Well done, Shinra. I will hand over the scrolls to you after the mission tomorrow, do your best to learn them quickly since the chunin exams is only six weeks from now."
Shinra nodded his head and carefully gathered the scrolls lying before him and handing them back to Yogi.
Six new jutsu
New training weights
Multiple C-rank missions
And only six weeks remaining until the chunin exams.
For the first time in a long while, the path ahead of him seemed clear. There is no point wasting any more time, he needed to get even stronger.