Shojin Make Crossbow For Bigger Booms Cuz Promotion Make Him Self Conscious

As a newly promoted Special Jounin, it was clear to Shojin now that he would be forced to start covering up the holes and weaknesses in his arsenal if he ever planned to become a fully-fledged Jounin. He absolutely thought he'd have more time; he was only promoted to Genin around a year ago, and thought that he'd at least have just as much time as a Chuunin to get his life together as he had as a Genin. He was about as wrong about that as he could be. He thought back a bit to his last mission with Kosuke.

It was emotionally a roller coaster. The duo had fought perhaps the strongest ninja they'd encountered yet, but also saved the lives of dozens of civilians. He wondered why the village even entrusted the two of them to stop what was truly an attempt at mass-murder, as, at the time, they were both Genin. To Shojin, it was a gross overconfidence in the abilities of the two, even if they had been accompanied by some random Jounin they had never worked with and didn't even know was a Jounin. These few moments of reflection led Shojin to wonder if the people in charge of him even had people's best interests at heart. Still, he apparently performed well enough to entirely skip the rank of Chuunin, and had eclipsed his role in Team 3 completely. The way it sounded, there would be no more working with Kosuke and Jun-Sensei; for now, at least.

Shojin took a moment to shake his wandering mind in an attempt to regain his focus on the task at hand. He glanced down at the materials he'd assembled so far for the project at hand. Today's work was on a project that he'd already titled the Cataclysm Ballista. The purpose of the Cataclysm Ballista would be to supplement Shojin's combat capabilities in a way that, as he'd seen thus far, only techniques falling within the umbrella of Elemental Ninjutsu could accomplish. The goal was to be able to create a massive projectile, or massive area of effect that he could achieve with this weapon, in order to fight on the larger scales that he was beginning to encounter on his missions.

Working with things such as crossbows was odd, for Shojin. Absolutely, he preferred working on swords and such; metalworking was closer to his comfort zone. However, crossbows had lots of mechanisms and parts made of wood, which required him to be skilled in working with wood as well. Wood was different from metal in that he could not just shape it how he wanted; the existing shape of the wood, in most cases, needed to be able to conform to his needs. In short, he had to know how to select the correct pieces of wood; and when he messed up, he couldn't just reheat it and reshape it. If you took too much wood away, that wood was gone, and it would require him to completely restart from square one.

Still, Shojin began work on shaping metal pieces first. They would be the frame, for lack of a better term, of the entire project. Shojin followed his usual method of heating and reshaping the metal; but he was forced to do something he didn't often do; this was welding. After applying the general shape of the instrument, Shojin then reheats a specific part of it, as well as the corresponding piece of a crossbar that was going to be used to mount the arms of the crossbow. He had to achieve extreme heats and essentially allow the two pieces to meld together, as they joined and cooled. He'd allow them to cool naturally rather than quenching them, then reheat the location and quench them as normal.

Finally, he began working the wood. Was was simple in at least one way; for the most part, he was just grinding and chiseling it down until it achieved the shape that he needed, which meant that he didn't have to use a ton of tools or methods to shape it how he wanted. Instead, he sat on a stool and went to work, measuring the passage of time by the size of the wood dust that accumulated on his lap and on the ground at his feet. After awhile, he was able to use his rune oil to reinforce the strength of the wood and metal that comprised the weapon, and apply a finish for the sake of fashion.