Senjutsu was the art of taking natural energy into the body and maintaining a precise balance between that energy and one's own chakra. By doing so, the user could strengthen their physical abilities and dramatically enhance the power of their ninjutsu.
However, once that balance was broken, the consequences were severe.
If there was too much chakra, the attempt to use senjutsu would simply fail.
If too much natural energy entered the body, the practitioner would begin transforming into a toad. In the worst case, they would slowly petrify into stone.
Because of that, the training method for Mount Myōboku's senjutsu was divided into three stages.
The first stage was to use toad oil as an aid, entering meditation in order to sense and draw in natural energy.
The second stage was to remain perfectly still while maintaining the balance between the absorbed natural energy and the chakra kneaded within the body, allowing the practitioner to enter Sage Mode.
The third stage was to maintain that balance while moving.
Only after completing the third stage could a practitioner truly be considered to have taken the first step into senjutsu and use Sage Mode in actual combat.
Before the formal training began, Fukasaku Sage demonstrated the results of senjutsu training in front of Kizaru.
Under Kizaru's gaze, Fukasaku used the boost provided by natural energy to lift a solid toad statue roughly six or seven meters tall.
For Kizaru, lifting a stone statue like that would have been extremely easy.
But for Fukasaku, whose body was no larger than that of an infant, being able to raise such a massive statue with the power of senjutsu was already an impressive feat.
Fukasaku had done this to show Kizaru just how powerful the enhancement from senjutsu could be.
After finishing the demonstration, Fukasaku began guiding Kizaru through Mount Myōboku's senjutsu training.
The first step was to smear toad oil over Kizaru's body and have him sit still, quietly sensing the existence of natural energy.
Fukasaku stood at his side with a black staff in hand. If Kizaru began turning into a toad, he would use the staff to knock the natural energy out of his body.
For Kizaru, who possessed top-class Observation Haki, this first stage was not especially difficult.
His mental perception was extremely sharp. With the help of the toad oil, he could sense the natural energy drifting through heaven and earth even more clearly.
Of course, in the middle of that process, Kizaru inevitably absorbed too much natural energy more than once. His body began showing signs of turning into a toad, and he received several solid strikes from Fukasaku's black staff.
Even so, it took him less than a morning to make both his body and Observation Haki memorize the sensation of natural energy.
After confirming that Kizaru could truly sense and absorb natural energy, Fukasaku, who was responsible for teaching him, could not hide his shock at the terrifying speed of Kizaru's progress.
"Kizaru-chan, you're the fastest human I've ever seen," Fukasaku said with genuine emotion as he stood in front of him.
"No, no, no... that doesn't make me happy at all," Kizaru immediately denied it.
"No, you really are the fastest I've seen. You could even be called the fastest man in Mount Myōboku's history."
Kizaru's expression became rather troubled.
He wanted to tell Fukasaku that there was a man named Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo who was even faster than him.
But after thinking about it, half of the Sage of Six Paths' bloodline came from an alien clan. Whether he counted as a human was questionable.
In that case, Kizaru really might be the fastest man Mount Myōboku had ever seen.
"It's almost noon. Let's eat first," Fukasaku said, glancing at the sun that was nearly overhead. "After lunch, we'll continue with the next stage of training."
Eat?
Looking at Fukasaku, Kizaru suddenly remembered the scene from the anime where Naruto ate during his training at Mount Myōboku.
For a moment, his mind buzzed.
All the toads here ate insects.
"To welcome you properly, Ma prepared a feast," Fukasaku said. Just thinking about the taste of insects made him swallow.
"How troublesome..." Kizaru said with a smile as he thanked him, already preparing to adapt to the situation.
Following Fukasaku back to his home, Kizaru nearly hit his head against the ceiling because of his height.
When he looked at the three plates of insects already placed on the wooden table, his expression became visibly troubled.
Kizaru had eaten insects and similar things in his previous life. However, those had been fried or grilled. To be honest, they had tasted quite good.
But the insects prepared by Shima Sage looked extremely plain. Almost all of them were steamed or boiled, making them rather difficult for Kizaru to accept.
Seeing Kizaru's expression, Fukasaku, who had once entertained Jiraiya in the same way, could not help the faint amusement in his eyes.
Humans were not used to eating insects. Fukasaku naturally knew that.
Treating contractors to an insect feast was a long-standing prank at Mount Myōboku, and everyone there enjoyed watching it.
Besides, as the sacred land of toads, Mount Myōboku only stored insects.
Fukasaku sat down directly in his seat, grabbed a plump white worm, and put it into his mouth.
"Kizaru-chan, these insects are delicious!" Fukasaku recommended while eating.
"I've done a little research on insect cuisine myself. Why don't you let me cook them for you?" Kizaru took the initiative to suggest, looking at the large, plump insects on the table. They were ingredients that would be easy to handle.
"Kizaru-chan, you can cook insects?" It was the first time Fukasaku had heard of a human knowing how to cook insects, and his curiosity was immediately stirred.
"Pa, Kizaru-chan, hurry up and eat," Shima Sage said, walking into the living room with a plate of steamed insects in her hands and a hospitable smile on her face.
"Ma, Kizaru says he can cook insects," Fukasaku told his wife.
Shima placed the plate in her hands on the table and looked at Kizaru with both confusion and curiosity.
Could a human really know how to cook bugs?
"As thanks for teaching me, let me cook for you," Kizaru said politely with a smile as he looked at the two Toad Sages. "Where's the kitchen?"
"Over there," Shima said, pointing in the direction she had come from.
"Leave the rest to me."
After saying that, Kizaru walked confidently toward the kitchen.
Watching his back, Shima looked at Fukasaku.
The two Toad Sages exchanged glances.
"Pa, can Kizaru-chan really do it?"
"Let's go take a look."
Getting up from their seats, Fukasaku and Shima curiously followed him into the kitchen.
Once inside, under the watchful eyes of the two Toad Sages, Kizaru demonstrated what real cooking skill was and what it meant for cuisine to be deep and profound.
Deep-fried, stir-fried, dry-fried—Kizaru even went outside and made grilled insect pupae.
Salt-and-pepper sandworms.
Stir-fried mealworms.
Spicy grasshoppers.
Charcoal-grilled insect pupae.
Looking at the four fragrant insect dishes Kizaru had prepared, Fukasaku could hardly wait to try them.
While Kizaru had been cooking, Fukasaku had been tempted by the aroma the entire time and had kept trying to sneak a bite. If Shima had not stopped him, he would already have secretly tasted them.
He grabbed a salt-and-pepper sandworm and put it in his mouth.
The moment he bit down, the fried aroma combined with the salty fragrance of pepper, instantly satisfying his taste buds.
Opening his closed eyes, Fukasaku looked at Kizaru with an almost eager shine in his gaze.
"Kizaru-chan, you should stay at Mount Myōboku from now on! The food you make is too delicious!"
Seeing her husband praise Kizaru's cooking so highly, Shima also grew curious and picked up a piece to try.
She grabbed a charcoal-grilled insect pupa and placed it in her mouth.
The first thing that spread through her mouth was the fragrance of charcoal grilling, followed by a savory saltiness and a faint, refreshing spiciness.
After taking in a sharp breath, Shima immediately fell in love with the flavor.
"Kizaru-chan, please teach me how to cook from now on!" Shima looked at Kizaru with admiration as she made the request.
"Oooh... of course, that's no problem," Kizaru said, clearly happy that his dishes were so well received. "But for now, let's eat first."
Picking up his chopsticks, Kizaru, who had been hungry for a long time, began enjoying the protein-packed lunch.
While Kizaru and the two Toad Sages were happily enjoying the insect dishes, Jiraiya, who had been training hard, had just finished his morning practice.
He wondered what kind of reaction Kizaru had shown to that feast.
It had to be hilarious.
Eager to see Kizaru's defeated expression after being forced to eat Mount Myōboku's insect cuisine, Jiraiya excitedly ran toward the home of Fukasaku and Shima.
"Kizaru, you—"
Jiraiya stepped into the living room with a gloating smile, ready to enjoy the show.
Then he froze.
Seeing Kizaru and the two sages eating insect dishes with relish, Jiraiya rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
This... this had to be genjutsu, right?
Why did Kizaru not look uncomfortable at all?
Why?
"Ah! Jiraiya-chan, you're here!" Seeing Jiraiya arrive, Shima stood up. "We saved lunch especially for you."
After saying that, Shima picked up the plate of insect dishes she had made earlier from the floor and placed it back on the table.
"Come and eat," Shima warmly invited him, waving her paw.
It was hard to refuse.
Jiraiya walked over to the table. Seeing that the other four plates were nearly empty, he asked in surprise, "You already finished everything?"
"Jiraiya-san, we saved this especially for you," Kizaru said with a smile, pushing the plate Shima had just placed on the table toward Jiraiya.
"Thank you... Kizaru," Jiraiya said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile as he sat down with a heart full of misery.
With tears in his eyes, he ate the insect dish that tasted like a delicacy from hell.
No matter how he thought about it, Jiraiya could not understand why Kizaru had eaten so happily.
Kizaru picked up an unused wooden bowl and enthusiastically served Jiraiya a bowl of long purple worm soup. It looked extremely bland, with almost no oil or salt.
"Jiraiya-san, don't rush. Eat slowly. Here, have some soup first."
Looking at the bowl of long purple worm soup Kizaru handed him, Jiraiya swallowed the bug in his mouth with great difficulty, then reached out with a trembling hand to take the bowl.
"Thank you so much, Kizaru," Jiraiya said, grinding his teeth as he thanked him for this overwhelming kindness.
Two more chapters today!
Chapter 177: Wood Release? Grass Release!
While Kizaru was training in senjutsu at Mount Myōboku, all the matters he had arranged before leaving Konoha were being carried out in an orderly manner.
Shintaro, whom Kizaru had assigned to handle the business affairs of Bandai Toy Store, threw himself into the store's operations without regard for sleep or meals, determined not to disappoint Kizaru.
With the help of his family's resources and connections, Shintaro quickly recruited fifty-seven skilled carpenters and worked together with Sasori's parents to upgrade the production line.
At the same time, Shintaro also handled the business negotiations extremely well.
Not only did he sign an exclusive agreement with the merchant for the Bandai brand, he also secured the full gross profit he had promised during the price negotiation.
After calculation, excluding the costs of character licensing and technical design, the current three grades of toy products at Bandai Toy Store had production costs of 285 ryō for the 1,000-ryō store-price product, 784 ryō for the 3,000-ryō product, and 1,203 ryō for the 5,000-ryō product.
After calculating the costs, Shintaro negotiated wholesale prices with the merchant of 600 ryō, 1,800 ryō, and 3,200 ryō respectively.
Both sides were very satisfied with those prices, which could be considered a solid foundation for future cooperation.
The Third Elder, who had been secretly supervising and observing, also praised Shintaro's performance after the negotiation.
Shintaro was very happy to receive praise, but he was not satisfied yet.
What he truly wanted was Kizaru's praise and recognition.
Because of that, even after the negotiation ended, Shintaro continued staying at Bandai Toy Store, assisting Sasori's parents in managing the recruited carpenters and handling external sales.
Knowing the future potential of Bandai toys, the Third Elder was also pleased to see this situation. He did not call Shintaro back and instead silently approved of him remaining at Bandai Toy Store.
As for Sasori's parents, they had no objection.
Rather, they hoped things would stay that way.
Having already died once for Sunagakure, the two former puppet masters now found joy in the research, development, and manufacturing of toys.
Whenever they saw the toys they designed and created being loved and chased after by children, they felt a deep sense of accomplishment.
On top of that, Sasori liked his parents' new work and was proud of it, which made the couple love their current toy development work even more.
Besides, neither of them was especially good at sales or management, nor were they very interested in it.
So after learning that Shintaro was willing to stay and help, they were naturally very happy.
Compared to Shintaro's smooth progress, Kizaru's other partner, Orochimaru, had been feeling rather uncomfortable recently.
With the arrival of the new year, the project he had been working on with Tsunade to develop Hashirama cells for his disciple Nawaki had seen the risk of rejection continue to decrease.
At the same time, Kizaru had brought Orochimaru something he had always wanted—the location of Ryūchi Cave.
With two good things arriving at once, logically speaking, Orochimaru should have obtained double happiness.
Unfortunately, happiness of that kind did not last.
After learning the location of Ryūchi Cave, Orochimaru, who desired senjutsu, immediately took the Root shinobi and went there.
After passing through the harsh trials of Ryūchi Cave's three Snake Princesses—Tagorihime, Ichikishimahime, and Tagitsuhime—Orochimaru successfully met the White Snake Sage and obtained the qualification to practice senjutsu.
Then, Orochimaru was stunned.
Compared with Mount Myōboku's step-by-step and relatively safe senjutsu training method, the senjutsu training of Ryūchi Cave, the sacred land contracted by Orochimaru, was extremely simple and brutal.
Unlike Mount Myōboku, which used toad oil to help contractors gradually sense and absorb natural energy, Ryūchi Cave's method was for the White Snake Sage to use her fangs to inject natural energy directly into contractors who had passed the trials, then teach them Ryūchi Cave's Sage Mode.
It sounded simple.
The problem was that this crude method was extremely dangerous.
Once the practitioner failed to maintain the balance of natural energy, their body would transform into a snake and be eaten.
As a mad scientist, Orochimaru was radical and insane—but that was only when it came to his experimental subjects.
Now that he had to become the "test subject" himself and allow the White Snake Sage to directly inject natural energy into his body, with the rest left entirely to talent and luck, Orochimaru found it difficult to accept such an unstable, risky, and unknown method of senjutsu training.
More importantly, the White Snake Sage also told Orochimaru that his chakra reserves were not especially large, and that the success rate of practicing Ryūchi Cave's Sage Mode would not be very high.
Faced with that situation, Orochimaru did not rashly choose to undergo senjutsu training. Instead, he left Ryūchi Cave.
Of course, Orochimaru's trip to Ryūchi Cave was not entirely without results.
Outside the entrance to Ryūchi Cave, Orochimaru discovered a village.
Because the villagers lived close to Ryūchi Cave, their bodies had instinctively absorbed a small amount of natural energy.
Following the principle of sustainable development, and also in order to observe the long-term effects of natural energy on those villagers, Orochimaru did not directly take all of them away. Instead, he secretly collected many blood and tissue samples.
At the same time, Orochimaru used the promise of becoming a ninja and gaining power as bait, taking several teenagers from the village who were unwilling to remain ordinary and eager to rise above their current lives.
With these gains, Orochimaru and the Root shinobi returned to Konoha.
After returning, before Orochimaru secluded himself to study natural energy, he worked with Tsunade to transplant the improved Hashirama cells into his disciple, Nawaki.
Orochimaru had high hopes for both his disciple and this Hashirama cell transplant.
According to Orochimaru's calculations, Senju Nawaki, who carried the direct bloodline of the Senju clan, should have a very high chance of awakening the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai under the stimulation of Hashirama's cells.
His disciple did not disappoint him.
On the third day after the Hashirama cell transplant, Nawaki awakened the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai.
Originally, this was something that should have made both Orochimaru and Tsunade happy.
However, as expected, an unexpected problem appeared.
There was a slight deviation in the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai that Nawaki had awakened.
Perhaps the awakening was not complete enough.
Perhaps his aptitude was insufficient.
The Wood Release Kekkei Genkai that Nawaki awakened could not create wood.
It could only create grass.
Yes.
When the chakra nature transformations of Earth Release and Water Release were combined at the same time, the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, had created wood.
Nawaki created grass.
"Wood Release: Great Forest Technique!"
At Training Ground Thirty-Seven, under the gazes of his teacher and his older sister, Nawaki practiced using the Wood Release secret technique passed down through his family.
As Nawaki formed hand seals and shouted, his right hand transformed into dozens of relatively thick strands of green grass.
Those tough, thick blades of grass were like steel cables, twisting together in spirals as they extended forward.
Seeing that scene, Orochimaru's expression remained calm, but deep down, he still felt somewhat uncomfortable.
He and Tsunade had worked so hard to develop improved Hashirama cells.
After the transplant succeeded, what awakened was Grass Release?
This child was hopeless.
Forget it.
He was tired.
Beside Orochimaru, Tsunade slapped a hand over her forehead with a strange expression. Clearly, she had also been stunned by the Grass Release her younger brother had awakened.
However, as a qualified older sister, Tsunade knew that what Nawaki needed at a time like this was encouragement, not criticism or mockery.
She smiled and took the initiative to walk over to the disappointed Nawaki.
Raising her hand, Tsunade pressed it against his head, then smiled and praised him loudly.
"You did well. Being able to use it successfully on your first practice is already impressive. As expected of my little brother!"
"But, Sis... what I used wasn't Wood Release," Nawaki said in despair as he looked at Tsunade's smile.
"There's no such thing as a useless ninjutsu. Only useless shinobi," Tsunade said, looking at Nawaki seriously as she guided him. "That Grass Release you just used has plenty of potential."
"Really?" Nawaki asked, lacking confidence.
"Compared to Grandpa's Wood Release, your Grass Release may be a little weaker in attack power, but it's more flexible in other areas. It has great room to develop," Tsunade encouraged him.
"I understand, Sis. I'll study Grass Release ninjutsu!" Nawaki said firmly, raising his right hand and clenching it into a fist.
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