Kuro was walking behind the village elder as they made their way away from the training camp. The elder had told him that he had been doing remarkably well for enduring so much training. Kuro wondered how much this man knew. His training seemed to be very effective. They continued walking through the forest. Kuro wondered where they were heading. He began to hear the sounds of rushing water. They walked down into a small valley with a shallow river running through the forest. A waterfall poured down into the valley giving it a nice peaceful image. The elder walked down to the river bank and turned back to Kuro.

"Your training is going well, but if you want to get stronger we need to do more than raise your experience. Your power needs to be augmented. The children told us about your sword. They said that it seemed to give you the ability to become super strong. That seems to suggest a strong relationship with spirit power. Today's training will be an endurance exercise to boost your power. To begin, please transform your sword Kuro-san."

Kuro thought he saw where this training was going. He reached down into his robes and drew his zanpakuto from its sheath tucked in his sash. Glancing down at his reflection in its blade, he mentally prepared for his session. He clenched his left hand tightly around the handle and released his shikai.

"Focus, Seishou-seijin!"

Kuro's power spiked in an instantaneous flash that quickly faded. In place of his sword was now his ninja gauntlet with a red jewel on his palm. The elder nodded in approval at Kuro's display and pointed at the bottom of the waterfall.

"As you can see," he explained, "there are many large boulders in the river. We'll practice today by having you use your energy to do whatever you want with them."

Kuro smiled and followed the old man's instructions without a single question. Like he had thought earlier, this man knew something about training spiritual powers. Kuro had no idea how he had learned to do so, but he would trust this man and his advice for now. He marched into the river's shallow pool at the bottom of the waterfall, feeling immense pleasure from its cool feel on his legs after the hike through the forest. He picked out a mid sized boulder and walked over to it. He started with a few simple deep breaths to calm himself and start bringing out his power. His eyes got a shining glow in their depths as he surged forth his energy and guided it down into his left hand. The red jewel began to shine brightly as his gauntlet automatically compressed the spiritual power. Kuro bent down and grabbed the boulder. As he released the power in his gauntlet, his arm was filled with an amazing boost of physical strength. He swung his arm up into the air tossing the boulder high into the sky. As the boulder went up and started to come back down, Kuro gathered more energy into his zanpakuto. The boulder came down swiftly, aiming right for the top of Kuro's head. He brought his arm down low and then up again meeting the boulder's advance with an open palmed strike while releasing the power again.

"Kibaku Hirate!" Kuro bellowed as his palm smashed into the descending rock. The energy released from the strike shattered the boulder into thousands of tiny pebbles that splashed harmlessly into the river all around Kuro. He sighed with a light air of satisfaction showing no signs of fatigue. He searched briefly for another boulder of his liking and gathered more of his power. He made no effort to show off this time, choosing only to use his technique to shatter the boulder where it sat in the pool rather than tossing it into the air. He continued to do this for the next fifteen minutes. Feeling bored with the simple exercise, he turned his attention to the waterfall and got a new idea.

Kuro walked slowly to the base of the waterfall, feeling the curious gaze of the elder watching him. He stood underneath the pouring cascade and made a careful analysis of its structure. When he was positive that his actions were not insane, he turned back to the elder for a second and grinned in a way to let him know that he was about to see something incredible. Or he's going to see me die if I'm wrong about this... Kuro spent a whole minute gathering a large amount of energy into his gauntlet. When he was ready, he took a firm stance at the waterfall's base and slammed his palm into the rock face behind the water. He released only a fraction of the stored power, testing a hypothesis he'd formed about his shikai. Until now, he had always let all of the compressed power out of his gauntlet. By storing more of it, he was able to perform multiple super powered strikes in a row without storing the power in between. That fact could come in handy in a battle in the future.

Kuro's strike shook the cliff of the waterfall and large cracks ran from his impact point all the way up to the top. Once the cracks reached the top, two large boulders chipped off from the tip and plummeted towards him. Not fool enough to try both of them, Kuro stepped to the right and jumped into the air, sailing towards one of the boulders. He struck with his gauntlet and shattered it as he passed it in midair. He ended his performance by comming back down, following after the other boulder. He came straight down on it, releasing the rest of his stored power into its top. The boulder was destroyed and Kuro fell into the water breathing heavy with exhaustion. He had poured the rest of his energy into that test. The elder helped him make his way back to the shore, where they rested for a while before heading back to the camp in the clearing.

(ooc: Spirit power thread obviously )

+ 2 Spirit Power

Kuro made his way to the waterfall alone today. He was under instruction to train, but the elder felt that Kuro didn't need supervision for that. Standing at the base of the fall, Kuro relaxed as the cool water poured over top of him. He sat down under the cascade cross legged, planning to start off his training with a quick round of classic meditation.

Kuro cleared his mind of troubles and found an image of himself inside his mind. He focused deeper on the image and saw that the inner him seemed dim and weak. He breathed deeply and started to flare his reiatsu. As he focused on brining out his strength more and more, the image in his imagination got brighter and brighter with energy. His rising reiatsu level made the falling water shiver as it fell on him. He focused more intently and imagined his shikai on his inner self's arm. Now he concentrated on keeping the same power level, but compressing it into his body rather than flaring it out over the surrounding area. Without his real zanpakuto to do it for him, maintaining a subtle precsence with a high energy level was no easy task. He felt his power level dropping, and struggled to keep it high, but then his power would burst out smothering the land again. Kuro kept at this for nearly a half hour, learning to better control his energy without fully relying on his zanpakuto to do it for him. Of course, some things were impossible. He couldn't fully suppress his highest energy levels while maintaining them at that level. Power was a give and take exercise.

Standing up under the waterfall, Kuro released his zanpakuto into his shikai. He remembered that his zanpakuto spirit had instructed him to practice both forms of its ability of power compression. He wondered why that was. Probably had something to do with learning more of its abilities in the future. Kuro pushed that thought out of his mind and focused his power. When he had compressed enough power, he shot his palm up into the pouring water and blasted a stream of energy out of his palm into the falling water. The energy split the waterfall and flew up high into the sky before fading out of sight. Kuro walked a few paces away from the bottom of the falls and charged up more energy. When the amount was adequate, he thrust his palm in the direction of the waterfall's top and released a second stream of power. The energy hit the tip and exploded in a force that shattered the edge of the cliff. Kuro smiled and headed back to training camp, pleased with the level of practice he'd put into his spirit power today.

(ooc: spirit power please.)

+ 1 spirit power