Huan had made it. He had arrived in the Land of Earth, with more than ample time to spare. Initially, he had calculated the journey would take him hours longer than what it actually was, as he had taken into account the need for stealth. After all, it was extremely common for a village's ninjas to be patrolling the country's borders to avoid any spies being planted behind their backs. Needless to say, Huan was surprised, in a delighted way, when he had not met anyone on his journey there.

As he stood, he found himself in a barren wasteland, a land clear of most vegetation except for the occasional cactus here and there. It reminded him heavily of the Land of Wind, of the deserts that made up most of the said country, and of the lack of visible vegetation and source of fresh water as compared to the other three countries, where such things were almost readily available at every corner. He remembered he caught six deer in two days in the Land of Lightning, releasing three of them and netting himself a buffet with the remainder.

Huan felt a warm breeze on his face. Breezes were not uncommon in the Land of Earth. In fact, many of the country was similar to the Land of Wind, with one of the reasons being that the two countries were side by side that both experienced almost the same seasons and happenings. The only difference was that the Land of Earth was far more fertile than the Land of Wind, and so relatively more crops were grown in the former country than the latter. Breezes, however, were fairly common in both countries, as the uneven yet continuous heating of the lands caused areas of differing pressure to build up constantly, causing the occasional wind movement.

Sitting cross-legged, Huan swung his light backpack off of his right arm and placed it beside him. His position was just behind a small pillar of rock, just tall enough to shield him from the descending sun for a few hours until evening came. During that time, he would try to get as much training done as possible, honing his affinity for fire as much as the warm conditions allowed. Of course, doing this training would reap him more benefits if done in the Land of Fire – it was called the Land of Fire for a reason – but in the end, he had decided that his dislike for Konoha extended too much for him to accept stepping foot into the Land of Fire with little dark intentions.

The ground beneath the brunette felt warm as the young boy began meditating, eyes closed. He tried to concentrate on the warm feeling beneath him, trying to get attuned with his inner flame, as he liked to call it when referring to his fire affinity. Of course, having a teacher help him out here would be far more beneficial and would speed up his training immensely, but there were things that one had to learn to do himself. There were things that one had to experience to speed up their learning curve, to enable them to climb the steep curve that would hinder their improvements.

Warmth... Huan felt warmth. First, it started out beneath him, one he recognised as heat emitted from the ground. Then, he began noticing the more subtle heat signatures around him, notable that emitted by himself, as he himself began feeling warmer. The air around him heated up and sweat began oozing out of his pores, coating him in a fine sheen of sweat. Huan ignored the urge to wipe his forehead dry and instead remained in his meditative pose, beginning to catch on to the heat radiating from the rock pillar that sprouted up from the ground behind him. It had a lot of warmth in it, as it was shielding him from direct sunlight, and he could feel every single bit of that heat radiating off the structure as he invested more and more of his focus into his meditation.

While for most people, the best method of learning would be to do it practically and learn from there, working out the kinks, Huan's method was slightly different. Huan himself preferred to first meditate to get himself in tune with his surroundings, to get himself more attuned to the element he was trying to improve on, before turning to the more practical portion of his training, in which he would try to manipulate the element with his chakra, preferably forming it from nothing. For example, Huan first learned how to properly control the flame within and around him by concentrating in front of a campfire and reaching out for its warmth. Then, he had done something that had surprised his late father, who was overseeing his little training from across the fire. Huan had reached out with his right hand, holding it palm down directly over the fire, until his skin was almost touching the flickering flames. Then, he emitted a steady stream of chakra out of his hand, slowly surrounding the flames while also directing a small portion of it to the center of the flames, to the fuel of the fire. And then, he had decreased the size, making the fire smaller and smaller before finally extinguishing it successfully, all the while never touching the flames.

Huan would have loved to improve on that ability, something he had read up on called pyrokinesis, or more specifically the power to directly control fire. However, time limited his learning, and before long, he had given up on his training. It had taken him close to hours to even get into the mood to do so, hours to nurture the feeling of being one with the fire, and he doubted those hours would be easily decreased into mere milliseconds, which was roughly the amount of time he would have to prepare such a technique in a real life battle. He had tried for months, and he had only managed to cut it down by a second for two, with the time required actually fluctuation, sometimes requiring him to concentrate for hours longer. He had then given up on the technique, something his father advised him to do, not wanting to stunt his growth in other areas.

However, Huan had realised that doing such training had vastly increased his unity with his fire element. He had been able to utilise fire chakra much more easily since the heavy training, and he had begun using the training method once more, knowing that he had to get stronger and fast. He sped up his learning curve even more by then using what feeling he had garnered – the mood to sync with the heat around him – to actively train his fire jutsus, a method he realised helped him immensely. He actually felt his control over his fire chakra improve at twice the speed when he made use of this training method. And this was something he was not going to ignore.

After sitting there for roughly an hour, Huan's eyes shot open. He stood up slowly, arms opening up by his sides, moving from his waists to high above his head in a wide arc, before they slowly descended and stopped in front of his waist, palms next to one another and facing the ground. He took a deep breath and exhaled, before molding chakra in his lungs. He felt his lungs get hotter as the fire chakra flowing through that area of his body increased, and he breathed in once more.

When he exhaled, it wasn't an ordinary breath. He stepped forward with one foot, one arm moving up to his mouth, thumb and index finger formed into a ring in front of his mouth while his other hand shot behind him. As Huan blew into the makeshift ring, what emerged was not ordinary air, but three small balls of fire that flew a rough twenty metres in front of him before exploding. Normally, they would be unable to do that, but Huan had been focusing for quite a long time on his fire chakra, so their intensity had increased somewhat. He would not be able to use such a technique in battle still, not only because the time taken was too long, but as the damage done was only slightly more significant, it was not a fair trade off in any manner.

He breathed, calming himself down, aware of the thin layer of sweat that now coated his body, drenching his robe a bit. With that, he dropped back onto the ground in a cross-legged position, leaning back against the rock pillar and looking up at the clear blue sky. The shadow the rock casted extended far around him, and for the first time since his arrival, Huan took note of the cool air that was now flowing around him. Having focused so much on heat, it was nice to get some reprieve in the form of some coolness, and Huan gave a satisfied sigh.

It was just a single jutsu. He had just performed a single jutsu, but that was already enough to convince him that his control over fire had improved. Normally, the flames would not be able to travel that far, and for them to explode, they would require something hidden in them, perhaps a small bomb that was timed to explode instead of triggered by heat. Sure, the explosion he just experienced was caused by concentrating his fire chakra, but his comparisons were always made after his meditations, enabling him to see the true extent of his fire abilities, ones he would most likely never be able to test in combat. It was enough though. The small explosions he had just witnessed was enough to convince him of that. No need to further strain himself. He still had a long journey to make to get to Iwa.

Huan let himself lie still against the rock behind him, relaxing for a few minutes. Training was done for now... Time to get back on the move.

Word Count: 1690

Training Katon [C -> B] 1641 + 359 = 2000/2000

Training Katon [B -> A] 49/3000