Climbing up the mountainside had never been easier as the teen’s rebreather puffed out white fogs from either side of his mask. Instead of the slow climb that he had done so many times before, Shin was now focusing a steady stream of chakra towards his feet and leaping from snow covered tree-to-tree with an ease he had once only dreamed of. He finally finished his quick ascension upwards and leaped towards and open field covered in a deep blanket of snow. Shinjo kicked off his sandals before landing feet first into the crisp ice while also tossing aside the cloak and scarf that kept him warm on his way up. He wouldn’t be needing either soon. The teen held out his hand and then suddenly grasped at the air, causing a katana to appear in the hand. With a quick spin around he made a perfect circle in the snow before stomping his foot down in the same imprint of snow where he first landed. The stomp was full of chakra that had been instantly molded to ‘pop’. It caused the circle of snow Shin had cut around him to lift up suddenly in a two-foot thick donut that was cut into six times before exploding away from the swordsman. With a patch of ground now cleared away from the snow, Shin stepped off the two little banks of snow shaped like his feet and knelt down to touch the frozen grass beneath. His fingers gently patted the foilage for a moment before activating his dojutsu to take his chakra and levy out the perfect amount of it to the plants he touched to start a natural regeneration process. Within a minute the ground’s color changed to something more spring-like and then began to show shades of health and growth only possible during certain months of the summer. With the grass now swaying in the frozen winds, Shin once again began to pet the grass while running his fingers through it, until the thin coat of chakra protecting his hand caught a little ‘prick’. With his second hand he drove his katana into the ground and pushed aside the grass until he found a deep red vine covered in thin needle-like spikes hiding beneath the thick mountain grass. Reaching behind him the Student removed a field knife and a small leather pouch.
The roughly translated ‘Crimson Spider Root’, was a deadly genus of nightshade that only grew in high mountain altitudes. It had a neurotoxin capable of shutting down a full-grown man’s nervous system in seconds, and the poison was injected from the root itself via the tiny barbs that surrounded it. They usually tended to hibernate and lay dormant for years at a time until a good hot summer melts the snow around long enough for them to release a harmless pollen to repopulate; and for causal hikers to die to sudden paralysis by accidentally touching them. Harvesting it usually could only be done during these times as well, since trying to find it in the snow was even deadlier than picking it fresh. The poison inside the root was a strange liquid that actually becomes a solid when exposed to heat and reverse when cold. So, cutting a root from the snow would cause it to spray deadly neurotoxin everywhere which not only ruined the entire reason some one would harvest it in the first place, but also potentially blind whoever was around. The ‘cherry on top’, so to speak, was that harvesting the Spider Root was also highly illegal as the liquid inside just happened to naturally be tasteless/odorless as well; unless you worked for the Kumogakure military. However, as Shinjo found, their supply in this rare root was pretty much gone. Used up supposedly during the last war and never saw a day with weather good enough to go harvest some more; it was a problem he personally saw to rectifying.
After about a good ten minutes of careful self-taught harvesting techniques he taught himself using his clan’s books on…well, harvesting poisons, the Student tied his leather pouch tight and placed it safely back into the larger pouch at his hip. He stood up and stretched while looking around for his cloak and sandals, expecting to see the indents where they would be. It seemed, though that he could not and that either he had kicked them off too hard or a fresh blanket of snow had covered them. With a hop Shin landed back on the top layer of snow and summoned another sword; might as well get some practice in.
He held the sword parallel with his face, facing the edge away from him as he channeled chakra into a perfect copy of one of his actual blades before suddenly twisting his wrist to turn the edge facing his left. The blade scattered in an explosion of what appeared to be pink leaves of a sakura tree that surrounded Shinjo before spreading throughout the field around him until they became invisible. The snow bank around him cracked apart in perfectly cut squares that broke off the mountain and slid down in a small avalanche that would be mostly broken by the pine trees below him. Within the moving snow he saw the missing items of clothing and hopped between the falling blocks of ice to retrieve his footwear and cloak before landing in a pine tree to wait out the rest of the sliding snow below him. Shin casually tossed the hilt of his weapon away as if it were trash, and it exploded into further deadly petals that drifted off elsewhere before fading entirely.
[MFT]
The roughly translated ‘Crimson Spider Root’, was a deadly genus of nightshade that only grew in high mountain altitudes. It had a neurotoxin capable of shutting down a full-grown man’s nervous system in seconds, and the poison was injected from the root itself via the tiny barbs that surrounded it. They usually tended to hibernate and lay dormant for years at a time until a good hot summer melts the snow around long enough for them to release a harmless pollen to repopulate; and for causal hikers to die to sudden paralysis by accidentally touching them. Harvesting it usually could only be done during these times as well, since trying to find it in the snow was even deadlier than picking it fresh. The poison inside the root was a strange liquid that actually becomes a solid when exposed to heat and reverse when cold. So, cutting a root from the snow would cause it to spray deadly neurotoxin everywhere which not only ruined the entire reason some one would harvest it in the first place, but also potentially blind whoever was around. The ‘cherry on top’, so to speak, was that harvesting the Spider Root was also highly illegal as the liquid inside just happened to naturally be tasteless/odorless as well; unless you worked for the Kumogakure military. However, as Shinjo found, their supply in this rare root was pretty much gone. Used up supposedly during the last war and never saw a day with weather good enough to go harvest some more; it was a problem he personally saw to rectifying.
After about a good ten minutes of careful self-taught harvesting techniques he taught himself using his clan’s books on…well, harvesting poisons, the Student tied his leather pouch tight and placed it safely back into the larger pouch at his hip. He stood up and stretched while looking around for his cloak and sandals, expecting to see the indents where they would be. It seemed, though that he could not and that either he had kicked them off too hard or a fresh blanket of snow had covered them. With a hop Shin landed back on the top layer of snow and summoned another sword; might as well get some practice in.
He held the sword parallel with his face, facing the edge away from him as he channeled chakra into a perfect copy of one of his actual blades before suddenly twisting his wrist to turn the edge facing his left. The blade scattered in an explosion of what appeared to be pink leaves of a sakura tree that surrounded Shinjo before spreading throughout the field around him until they became invisible. The snow bank around him cracked apart in perfectly cut squares that broke off the mountain and slid down in a small avalanche that would be mostly broken by the pine trees below him. Within the moving snow he saw the missing items of clothing and hopped between the falling blocks of ice to retrieve his footwear and cloak before landing in a pine tree to wait out the rest of the sliding snow below him. Shin casually tossed the hilt of his weapon away as if it were trash, and it exploded into further deadly petals that drifted off elsewhere before fading entirely.
[MFT]
