Earth Release

**Earth Release** (土遁, *Doton*) is one of the five basic Nature Transformations. Earth Release is commonly affiliated with the Snake Hand Seal.

## ***Overview***

Earth Release encompasses any earthen material, from dirt to stone to clay, and in fact often entails changing one to another. For most Earth Release jutsu, users place their hands on the ground and use their chakra to alter its form. Less commonly, users create earth within their bodies, which they eject from their mouth. Earth Release is naturally strong against Water Release and weak against Lightning Release, this weakness is explained to be because impurities in the earth naturally conduct electricity.

## ***Schools of Earth Release***

### *Earth Style: Earth Manipulation*

This family of earth jutsu is the most traditional and most used family, and as its name implies it focuses in the manipulation of earthen material and also its transformation from one state to another, typically dirt into rock however chunin and jonin may be able to render earth as malleable as clay and as solid as bed rock.

### *Earth Style: Weight Jutsus*

This family of earth jutsu include **Doton: Kajūgan no Jutsu** (土遁・加重岩の術, *Earth Style: Weighted Boulder Jutsu*) and **Doton: Keijūgan no Jutsu** ­­(土遁・軽重岩の術­, *Earth Style: Lightweight Boulder Jutsu*), and of course their sub techniques known collectively as **Jūgan no Jutsu** (­­重岩の術, *Boulder Jutsu*) or more commonly and simply as **Weight Jutsus**.

As its name implies this family of earth style technique focuses on manipulating the weight of objects and with enough skill can even be applied to the human body to strengthen and empower taijutsu or to achieve outright flight. While flight is a Jonin level technique most Chunin will be able to make themselves heavier and gain enhanced melee attack power at the cost of attack speed, genin however will only typically be able to apply this technique to inanimate objects which in itself is a valuable skill to possess.

## ***Nature Fusions***

The following are other natures that can be achieved by fusing earth release with other chakra natures.

### *Magnet Release: Earth + Lightning*

**Magnet Release** (磁遁, *Jiton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Lightning Release. Magnet Release users generate a magnetic force which they apply to other substances for various purposes, normally this ability is applied to metal objects to manipulate them but some techniques actually involve applying magnetic properties to non magnetic objects.

### *Lava Release: Earth + Fire*

**Lava Release** (溶遁; 熔遁, *Yōton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Fire Release. Lava Release users generate or manipulate prexisting volcanic material which is often pure molten lava but more skilled or specialized users can instead produce quicklime which functions like cement, a rubber like substance, smoldering ash and other volcanic debris and by products such as volcanic glass.

### *Sand Release: Earth + Wind*

**Sand Release** (砂遁, *Saton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Wind Release. Sand Release users generate or manipulate small individual particulates of earth which includes gravel and sand which tends to be the main use but also finer sand and even dust. Not to be confused with Dust Release which reduces things to dust Sand Release has a lot of dust based techniques but is not capable of disintegrating things to dust outside of the normal means of hitting something a lot of times very hard.

### *Mud Release: Earth + Water*

**Mud Release** (泥遁, *Deiton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Water Release. Mud Release is actually surprisingly easy to use due to the synergy and similarity between Water and Earth release as such most Iwagakure ninja do actually know how to use Mud Release, which is considered in fact weaker but easier to use than normal Earth Release.

High level Mud Release users are rare and those that do use it will often simply use it to convert their rock and dirt into mud for ease of shaping before converting it back into solid stone as a way to supplement their earth release instead of focusing on mud release as an art. Converting mud into rock and rock into mud is a staple technique of Iwagakure ninja.

### *Golem Release: Earth + Yin*

**Golem Release** (隷遁, *Reiton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Yin Release. A surprisingly common nature type and a family of jutsu often confused for but fundamentally distinct from summoning jutsu and manipulation jutsus, golem release involves the infusion of earthen materials with Yin Release granting them limited sentience but still enabling the user to enact earthen techniques on the now sentient rock regardless of the distance from the user.

These Golems are often made out of rock in the environment and used in a manner similar to summoning jutsu but certain styles of Golem release which generate rock from chakra aren't unheard of, and some users even utilize other mineral material such as clay to make clay golems or bones to perform a sort of necromantic raising of the dead.

### *Crystal Release: Earth + Yang*

**Crystal Release** (晶遁, *Shōton*) is a nature transformation which is brought about by fusing Earth Release and Yang Release. An extremely dangerous fusion of Earth Release and Yang Release which allows one to convert non mineral matter around them into mineral matter. While this technique is most often performed on the air and thus can generate crystals of various colors and shapes the technique when performed on people is known instead as **Sekka Jutsu** (石化, Petrification) a type of forbidden jutsu which can turn biological matter into rock and thus turn people into stone.

It is because of its possible application to turn people into stone through physical contact that Crystal Release is often taught wrongly and explained in such a way as to not clue in potential users into its application of turning people into stone since using Petrification Jutsu is considered essentially a war crime and a step too far even for Ninja. Thankfully the actual technique to petrify living matter with chakra in it is actually hard to perform so even when someone actually connects the dots they are often unable to use it on opponents that aren't considerable weaker than them and could thus be defeated normally.