“Doton, huh?” Bokuden thought to himself as he stood in a crouched position in the middle of the garden in his courtyard, reaching down and scooping up a fistful of dirt from the ground and clenching his fist tightly. He raised the fist up closer to his face and stared intently at it for a few moments, pondering over the prospect of learning how to manipulate earth through chakra from Binsu. It was a common enough shinobi skill, being one of the standard five elements from which all elemental jutsu derive from, but it was never a talent Bokuden thought himself to possess. Truth be told he had zero experience with actually molding doton chakra. He had spent a lifetime mastering the art of raiton manipulation, the element which destroys doton. His secondary element was even suiton, which doton could engulf and make null. The idea of learning doton from Binsu and adding earth manipulation to his arsenal put him right between raiton and suiton on the elemental spectrum, adding another dynamic to his combat abilities that he would be lying if he said he didn’t covet on some level. His interest had only been further piqued by his recent and frequent run ins with Binsu, who had even used his doton jutsu to defeat Bokuden at the High Battle Plateau so long ago.

The High Battle Plateau… it was nostalgic to be meeting with Binsu to train there of all places. It was the location that Bokuden and Binsu had first encountered each other by chance, all the way back when Bokuden was a genin. That was a strange day indeed. Bokuden had only travelled to the High Battle Plateau to be an observer in the training matches of others, but that plan went nowhere the moment that Kenji showed up. Kenji seemed to have the unique ability to throw a wrench into Bokuden’s plans whenever he showed up, which at the time was far too often for Bokuden’s taste. The years he had spent away from the village since then had all but made Kenji a non-factor in Bokuden’s life, but he decided to make a mental note to remind himself to look him up one of these days. Who knows, maybe Kenji had finally caught up to him after all? Bokuden’s own overconfidence would never allow him to believe that was actually a possibility, but a friendly sparring match with Kenji might prove to be interesting at least.

Bokuden slowly loosened his fist, little by little, allowing a small stream of dirt to squeeze through, flowing out like sand from an hourglass. He watched as it flowed out, slowing down as the volume of dirt in his hand lessened, almost like water. “Like water,” Bokuden thought to himself as his eyes widened, “It has to be similar, right?” Thoughts raced through Bokuden’s head as he theorized about the similarities between molding suiton and doton chakra. From all of his knowledge he could surmise that there were definite similarities in the molding of certain elements, raiton and katon for example. By all accounts the molding of katon chakra was distinctly different than his first hand experience of molding suiton chakra. The chakra was more violent and volatile, requiring little maintenance after release, unlike suiton which was easier to mold, but generally required its shape to be actively maintained. The similarities between it and the manipulation of the raiton element were undeniable and from what he had read on the subject the relationship between doton and suiton manipulation was not so different, he hoped not at least.

Bokuden recomposed himself as she shook himself out of his daydreaming daze and stood up from from his crouched position, brushing off his hand against his pant leg. “Enough of that,” Bokuden said aloud removing the remainder of the dirt from his hands by brushing them together, “It’s time to go. You coming along?” Bokden turned his head over to Satomi who was laying out on a bench and awaited her response.

Satomi yawned and stretched out her body as she answered, rolling over onto her back, “You know what? I think I’m going to go ahead and sit this training out. You and Binsu will be fine on your own, right?” With a smirk Bokuden replied with a huff as he walked over to the bench she was sprawled out on. He scratched her behind the ears for a moment before deciding it was time to make the trek up to the High Battle Plateau and took his leave.

As he strolled through the village on his way to meet Binsu at the designated location Bokuden allowed himself to be wrapped up in his own thoughts. How would he go about teaching Binsu teaching Binsu the art of utilizing suiton chakra. The actual molding of it would be simple enough, but practical experience was key in mastering using the element to perform ninjutsu. But what could Bokuden possibly do to get him practical experience? Teach him a low ranked suiton jutsu maybe? It really was too bad that there was not a pond or something up on the High Battle Plateau, a pre-existing body of water really would have made it easier for Binsu. Starting with water that is already present is like training wheels for suiton users, but every child who utilized suiton at a young age pretty much always did it at one point or another. “Whatever,” Bokuden thought to himself, “I’ll figure something out.”

Once he arrived at the High Battle Plateau Bokuden needed only to walk a few meters in before spotting Hades, Binsu’s enormous polar bear partner who all but assured Bokuden of Binsu’s presence. It wasn’t like there was a surplus of armored polar bears running around Kumogakure for that not to be Hades. Bokuden wasted no time in approaching the bear only to see Binsu standing beside him. “Good morning Hades, good morning Binsu,” Bokuden said, waving his hand once to signal to them, “Shall we get right into it then?”

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Learning Doton: 1021/4500

"Ok, firstly i'll need to explain in a little bit of detail how doton element works and what things a person can do with it. Unlike most elements, doton can change between 2 states: Liquid and Solid. Most people think of solid rocks when they think about doton and at times forget that mud is also another state of the doton element. Most of the time, people use doton to form strong defensive structures to use as barriers between themselves and an attack, but this is only one of the many different uses for the element: the possibilities for the uses of doton are only limited by the user's imagination," Binsu explicated as he began his explanation, "All one needs to learn about doton, is how to extract it, how to manipulate it, how one can interact with it, how to change its state and what it can and can't be used against. As for extracting it, you can practically extract doton from the ground, or your own body. One can either use it internally or externally, and by that i mean, you can either use doton through your own body or through the terrain and the objects on it. Changing the state of doton, is similar to changing your state of mind: the more practice you get of doing it, the faster you can do it. Doton can be used against practically any attack that is aimed towards a solid object, like your body, as a defensive move. Doton can be used to grant you advantages during a battle by changing the terrain to your liking, or can be used as an offensive mechanism."  Bokuden listened intently as Binsu spoke of the technical usage of doton, nodding his head every so often just to make Binsu aware that he was still listening. After a moment’s pause, to break up the potential monotony of his rather wordy explanation, Binsu continued, "After this, i'll get into the more hands-on parts about learning how to use Doton, such as raising a small part of the ground up by a few centimeters, then back down… but i'd say it is your turn to teach me now."

Bokuden responded with a silent nod of his head as he began to rub his chin, thinking of an appropriate introduction to the suiton element just as Binsu had provided for doton. “Hmmmm,” Bokuden hummed to himself before proceeding, “Well I’m not sure I can follow that up as well as you’d like me to, but I can make an attempt. The fact that you are already well versed in the molding and utilization of doton chakra will probably serve you better in practicing your control over suiton chakra than any words I may be able to offer you. The two elements are not so different in theory at least. Unlike katon or raiton, suiton chakra is not violent or explosive. It can of course be made so if you so choose it, but in its most natural state it is more pond than raging torrent. You are a raiton user as well, if I recall correctly. From personal experience you should be able to understand a bit of what I’m referring to by saying raiton chakra is more violent than suiton. When utilizing raiton jutsu most find themselves merely gathering the necessary chakra and releasing it in a blast. That is the most basic and common use of raiton chakra because to those with an elemental affinity towards raiton it is the easiest way. For the most part once raiton and katon chakra have been molded into a jutsu all that is needed is for them to be launched and their natural properties will take over and serve their intended purpose, destruction. Mastery of the suiton element generally demands a higher level of commitment to the jutsu being performed due to the maintenance of both shape and nature manipulation that is ever present when attempting to use techniques affiliated with the element of water. Like you said with doton, suiton also demands the ability to manipulate it in different forms. The most common form you will need to encounter is just pre-existing water. This is where almost all suiton users begin as they attempt to learn to manipulate their element. More advanced users may also begin utilizing water in its gaseous state in their arsenal, but this is generally reserved for shinobi who have demonstrated a high level in their aptitude of suiton manipulation. Maybe one day I can teach you that as well, but for now let’s begin with the basics. I shouldn’t need to explain why it is easier to manipulate pre-existing water rather than simply generate it every time you need to use a jutsu. In my opinion at least, the suiton element offers the user the greatest amount of utility. The options for what can be done with Suiton are only as limited as you’d like them to be. So where do you want to go from here?

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Learning Doton: 1872/4500

After Bokuden finished his lecture on suiton manipulation theory there was a brief pause in the conversation before Binsu decided to reply. "Ok, firstly I am going to teach you how to raise extract the doton element from an existing doton suppliance, which in this case happens to be the ground. Then you are going to learn how to lower it, then after that I can teach you how to change its form and then we'll finish off by learning how to change its state," Binsu explained, finally deciding it was time to put aside the theories and lectures and get straight into hands on training with more practical applications. The fellow jounin proceeded to weave a sequence of hand signs, Bokuden studying each movement of his hands. It had become a habitual practice of Bokuden by this point in his life to study and commit the performance of foreign jutsu that he had witnessed to memory, a practice he had become very skilled at and found to be a great asset in his line of work. Even if his skills in the deciphering of jutsu could not match those of a sharingan user, preventing him from copying jutsu simply by virtue of seeing them used, his keen observation did allow him to recognize sequences of hand signs that he had seen before, allowing him to react to opposing jutsu more efficiently. Bokuden’s concentrated shifted from the completed sequence of hand signs upon hearing Binsu call out what could only be assume to be the name of the jutsu he was performing, "Earth Style: Earth Changing Terrain!" Bokuden recognized the jutsu immediately. It was the same jutsu that Binsu had used against he and Kenji during their first encounter, their spar at the High Battle Plateau. He winced a bit at the thought of the doton dome that Binsu had imprisoned him in towards the end of that match, but his eyes immediately shifted down to the ground before them as a small earthen pillar erupted skyward from the floor, not unlike the enormous one that he Binsu had used in their past sparring match.

Once the pillar had completely emerged from the ground Binsu turned his attention to Bokuden before speaking, "Unfortunately, I cannot teach you my KKG, which allows me to manipulate any doton substance in any way I want with just one jutsu, but usually most of the time you'd have to create multiple jutsu that all manipulate doton in a different way to one another. For example, you could make a jutsu that rises and lowers curtained shaped doton figures from a doton surface, or another that is meant to just change the state of the doton from solid to liquid and then back. Although I cannot teach you one jutsu that does all this, I can teach you how to generally manipulate a small portion of the doton element and how to control it in larger quantities."

Bokuden’s eyes darted back down to the pillar before turning his gaze back to Binsu, connecting the dots between his words and the versatile doton jutsu Binsu had shown himself capable of using. “That’s his Kekkei Genkai, huh?” he pondered in his own mind as he processed Binsu’s words, “Well that explains why the jutsu is so powerful. It’s unfortunate that he is unable to teach it to me, but it is understandable. Divulging clan secrets is a serious offense within most families. The Ryuzoji consider it a crime punishable by death.” Bokuden’s train of thought was cut off by Binsu’s approaching the pillar and placing his right hand on top of it before prompting Bokuden to do the same.

“The easiest way to learn how to manipulate doton, is by first learning how to move it in any way whilst applying direct contact with it. I want you to try and move this pillar a couple of centimetres to the left, but rather than trying to physically push it to the left I need you to feel its weight and mentally try to force it to shift a bit to the left. Like with any other jutsu, I want you to apply a bit of chakra into the pillar, but more importantly focus on the weight of the rock," Binsu explained as Bokuden approached the pillar himself and placed his right hand at its top. Once he finished speaking Binsu removed his hand from the pillar and stepped away, leaving Bokuden to test out his first lesson on doton manipulation on his own.

“A couple of centimeters to the left,” Bokuden repeated to himself before he took a deep breath, “That’s such a short distance, that should be easy enough.” Bokuden exhaled and closed his eyes as a gust of wind blew across the elevated platform, pulling the tail of his coat along with it in the breeze. Both his own theories and Binsu’s words ran through Bokuden’s mind as he began to focus on his hand and the pillar that it was placed upon. “Just a few centimeters to the left,” Bokuden repeated in his mind as he proceeded to pour his chakra down into the pillar, paying heed to Binsu’s words and trying to imagine the weight of the pillar and using his chakra to slide it over. He felt his chakra flowing down into the ground, feeling the saturation of his own chakra within the doton structure, before using one final pulse of chakra to “push” the pillar.

Bokuden stood in silence and blinked for a moment as he looked at the result of his attempt. He had succeeded in moving the pillar… although it wasn’t exactly to specifications. The pillar was certainly moves, but the chakra pulse he sent through it had apparently been too powerful as the pillar was sent sliding several meters to the left rather than centimeters. Despite his own warnings to himself he had done exactly the same thing that caused him problems when he was first training his suiton; he treated the manipulation of doton the same way he treated raiton, that is to say letting his chakra flow unrestrained rather than controlling it deliberately. “Errrrrr,” Bokuden hesitated as he turned his attention back to Binsu to speak, “Close enough?”

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Learning Doton: 2926/4500

"Well, the good thing is you managed to move it, but unlike Raiton or fire, you want to have full control of how the doton moves and where it moves to. If you want it to move only 5m to the left, you have to make sure it doesn't move no more or less than 5m away or towards you. Ok, image this: you want to 'catch' your ally's fall by emerging a rock pillar up 5m in the air, so that it is high up enough for them to land on the pillar without suffering casualties, but not too high so that they are able to actually land on top of it and not just slam themselves into the sides of the pillar. Should you raise or lower that pillar by a meter or less, it will greatly impact the success of the overall attempt. A clearer example would be emerging a doton pillar in front of yourself in order to stop an attack coming from mid-air at a certain height and speed. You want to raise your earth-based defense so that it isn't too low to let the attack pass over it and the only way to get this right, is by mastering your control over the doton element. However, since it’s your first time working with the element, I'll say you did pretty well. Most people can't even move the pillar in the first few attempts, let alone the first attempt." Binsu used his own doton manipulation abilities to move the pillar back into its original location before continuing any further with his lesson. The ease with which he moved the pillar with such precision slightly irked Bokuden who had just made it obvious that we was unable to control the doton pillar through chakra without going overboard.

"Ok, now i want you to try and lower this pillar's height, but this time i want you to lower it to any height you want. Similar to when moving the pillar, i want you this time to focus on the doton's height rather than its weight. Like before you'll have to put in a little bit of chakra when attempting to manipulate it, Oh, once you manage to lower it, i want you to then raise it using the same concept you used to lower the pillar, only this time you are focusing on increasing its height from the ground up," Binsu continued as he directed Bokuden into the next portion of his doton training. This time the exercise was a bit more sophisticated, but not by much. Adjusting the height couldn’t be so difficult could it? Assuming Bokuden didn’t overdo it again and send the pillar flying up into the sky by accident.

“Oh well,” Bokuden said to Binsu as he flexed the hand he had just used to funnel chakra into the pillar, “I guess it’s something that takes some getting used to, huh? I’m so used to kind of just letting it fly with my raiton jutsu that actively limiting myself is a bit odd. You don’t need too much precision to blow people away with lightning after all, the techniques just about do the work for you. This doton manipulation is a bit out of my element to be sure, but I suppose it would be a bit misleading to act as if I have no experience with complex chakra control. It isn’t all that different from suiton really. Different elements, same principle I suppose… although I did struggle a bit with that as well when I first learned to manipulate suiton to be honest. It took me weeks to get it down pat, but with any luck my years of using suiton will trim that time down to a couple of minutes. So let’s try this again. Control, not force.”

Since Binsu had already moved the pillar back into its original location Bokuden could get right back to work, not having to worry about running over to reach the pillar every time he wanted to move it during this training session. “First things first,” Bokuden thought to himself as he reached down with his right hand and placed it on top of the pillar, “Add some chakra and lower it to my desired height. Shall we say half its current height? Yeah, that seems like a good enough degree of difficulty.” Once Bokuden was done musing to himself in his own mind he refocused his attention to the task at hand and pressed his hand a bit more firmly into the pillar before beginning to channel his chakra into the doton structure. Doing as Binsu suggested and focusing on the height and distance from the ground the pillar was rather than its weight as he did with his last exercise, Bokuden surged a bit more chakra into the doton pillar causing it to sink back into the ground about halfway. “Success!” he shouted in his own mind as he stepped back for a moment to admire his own work, “Oh wait… I’m only halfway done.” Bokuden begrudgingly shuffled himself over to the doton pillar once more and using the same principal as he did when he lowered it he placed his hand onto the doton structure, flowed some chakra into the earth, and raised it back up to its original heigh… give or take a few inches.

“Not bad for a beginner, huh?” Bokuden said in a snarky manner as he turned his head to throw a glance over at Binsu, “My first go was a bit over the top, but it isn’t so hard once you get a feel for it. Although, this is about as basic of an exercise as it can get. I suppose the good news is that I’m not completely talentless with doton. So, are there any other fundamental drills that I need to know of… or rather that I am able to practice at my current level? If not I would suggest we move on to getting you some suiton training in. We can always have a little doton review at the end if I feel the need to clarify anything about the element.” Bokuden tapped his finger on the top of the doton pillar twice before continuing, “Given that there is no water here at the moment I’m going to have to make some for you to use. Mind using your doton manipulation ability to make us a giant bowl? It might be easier to get a hold on a sitting pool of water than a puddle seeping into the ground.”

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Learning Doton: 4043/4500

Fortunately for Bokuden Binsu complied and wove a sequence of hand seals, this time markedly different from his previous doton manipulation jutsu. Almost immediately the earth between them began to rise up into a large bulge. “I was thinking more concave than convex, but I suppose I could think of something to do with this,” Bokuden thought to himself as he watched the ground beneath his feet rise slightly at the outer edges of the bulge. He raised an eyebrow as the center of the bulge began to sink back downwards into the earth, resulting in a large crater in the ground which then began to smooth out around the walls and creating a perfect bowl shape, presumably all as a result of the earth manipulation jutsu that Binsu had just used. “I guess I spoke too soon," he mused to himself as a smirk grew on his face, “It’s a little bigger than I had in mind, but I can make it work.”

"Hope this will do," Binsu said in an almost open ended manner, making it clear that it was Bokuden’s turn to create his addition to this training session. “Yes Binsu, this will be more than sufficient for our purposes,” Bokuden replied as he stepped to the very edge of the submerged doton bowl and exhaled. He then proceeded to weave a sequence of hand signs, likely too fast for Binsu to be able to catch all of them, but he had performed this jutsu so many times that hand signs at that speed were almost habitual at this point, which he used to create six water clones of himself.  These clones then all proceeded to jump into the center of the bowl and stand in an inward facing circular formation in which they would all perform the Water Prison jutsu to combine all of their suiton orbs into one large globe in the center of the bowl. The original Bokuden then abruptly released his Water Clone jutsu, causing his six clones to revert back to the water that they were composed off and thus causing the giant water prison orb that was previously being maintained by all six of the water clones’ individual Water Prison jutsu to be released as well. No longer being supported by the chakra of the six clones afforded through physical contact the giant water prison lost stability and fell back down to the ground as nothing more than a large sum of water, filling up the doton bowl Binsu had formed earlier almost all the way and providing a source of water which Binsu could use to practice his suiton manipulation since he lacked the ability to produce water himself or condense it from the air around him.

“Alright, now that we have acquired some water for you to use it is time for you to put it to good use,” Bokuden proclaimed, “Unfortunately suiton is not as simple to maintain as doton is, therefore I can not make you a suiton pillar for you to train with as you did with doton for me.  I could make a water spout, but it revert back to water the moment I release it for you to control. Unlike doton the shape does not need to just be manipulated, it needs to be maintained. Constantly. So instead of me just showing you water tricks and expecting you to just keep up I would like you to manipulate the water in this bowl as you see fit. Find something that you can do with your current skill level and try it. Once we have a tangible measure on where your skill is currently I can begin giving you more focused instruction.”

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Training Doton: 4662