In half a month, Kizaru completed the first through third stages of Mount Myoboku's senjutsu training.
He could now maintain the balance between natural energy and chakra freely, whether standing still or moving, and enter Sage Mode for battle without issue.
Beneath the towering stone toad statue that had first been used to demonstrate the power of senjutsu, Fukasaku faced Kizaru.
"Kizaru-chan, first try moving that stone statue using only chakra," Fukasaku said.
It was meant to help Kizaru better understand the strengthening effect of senjutsu by comparing ordinary chakra with senjutsu chakra.
Kizaru tilted his head back and looked up at the stone statue, rubbing his chin.
"Oooh~ what a frightening request."
"Just try it," Fukasaku urged.
"All right, all right."
Under Fukasaku's gaze, as well as Jiraiya and Gamabunta's from a short distance away, Kizaru walked over to the stone statue.
He knocked on it lightly with his hand, then bent down and slid his left hand beneath its base.
Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Kizaru exerted his strength.
He did not use chakra.
He did not use natural energy.
He relied purely on physical strength.
Under that overwhelming force, the solid stone toad statue began to tremble, then slowly lifted off the ground.
Little by little, Kizaru raised it higher.
As the stone statue continued to rise, Fukasaku, Gamabunta, and Jiraiya all stared with their eyes wide and mouths open.
Fukasaku had originally intended to let Kizaru compare the difference between ordinary chakra and senjutsu chakra so he could personally feel how powerful senjutsu was.
But now, even Fukasaku nearly lost his composure.
This…
Was this really something a human could do?
Not only had Kizaru not used senjutsu, he had not even used chakra. He had lifted a solid toad statue with nothing but the strength of his body.
That stone statue was seven meters tall.
And it was solid stone all the way through.
Kizaru was simply not human.
He was more like a monster than a man.
Aside from Kizaru, there were two toads and one human present. All three had trained in senjutsu and possessed excellent sensory ability. They could confirm with absolute certainty that there had been no fluctuation of chakra or natural energy in Kizaru's body.
"Jiraiya," Gamabunta asked in confusion, "is this something humans are supposed to be able to do?"
Gamabunta's own body was enormous, nearly as tall as the stone statue itself.
But even with his size and build, he knew very well that he could not move that toad statue with physical strength alone.
Precisely because he understood that from experience, Kizaru lifting the stone statue so easily shocked him even more.
"Yeah…" Jiraiya answered, no less surprised than Gamabunta. "I'm used to it by now."
After spending the past few years around Kizaru, Jiraiya had long since grown numb to his absurdity.
Gamabunta glanced down at Jiraiya beside his feet and knowingly teased, "Can you do that?"
"I'm not a monster!" Jiraiya snapped, crossing his arms with an angry huff.
The two old friends immediately fell into their usual rhythm of needling each other.
"Cough, cough…"
Ignoring the exchange between his son and Jiraiya, Fukasaku finally recovered from his shock.
He looked at Kizaru, who was holding the stone statue high above his head with one hand, then coughed a few times before speaking.
"Kizaru-chan, put the stone statue down."
Twisting his waist and drawing strength through his entire body, Kizaru tossed the statue he had been holding overhead toward the open space nearby.
Boom!
The stone statue landed heavily, making the ground tremble several times.
Kizaru clapped his hands together and smiled.
"That was dangerous~ If it went on any longer, I might not have been able to hold on."
Not one of the toads or humans present believed a single word of it.
After doing all that, he still claimed he could not hold on?
"You'll enter Sage Mode now," Fukasaku continued. "Then try again using natural energy."
Kizaru smiled and nodded.
He took a few steps to the side and once again approached the edge of the stone statue.
Closing his eyes, Kizaru refined chakra while sensing and absorbing natural energy. Very quickly, he entered Sage Mode.
Kizaru's Sage Mode appearance was somewhat similar to Naruto's future form. Pigmentation appeared over his upper eyelids and at the corners of his eyes.
The only difference was the color.
Naruto's was orange.
Kizaru's was yellow.
With the enhancement from Sage Mode, lifting the stone statue became far easier this time.
Kizaru bent down, reached out, and grabbed the statue. Then, as naturally as if he were simply standing up, he raised the stone statue over his head again.
Still with one hand.
Holding the base of the statue in his palm, Kizaru casually tossed it into the air as though playing with a ball, then caught it with ease.
He repeated the motion several times.
Watching from the side, Fukasaku, Gamabunta, and Jiraiya felt their hearts jump each time.
They were genuinely afraid Kizaru might misjudge the timing, let it slip, and crush himself beneath it.
"All right, that's enough! Put it down!" Fukasaku hurriedly said, mostly for the sake of his own heart.
Kizaru lightly pushed the stone statue forward with his right hand and sent it back to its original position.
"Kizaru-chan, you felt the difference senjutsu makes, didn't you?"
At Fukasaku's question, Kizaru recalled the sensation from lifting the stone statue both times.
"Mm~ The increase is huge. Thank you, old man."
"Hahaha!" Fukasaku laughed warmly. "If you want to thank me, cook us a feast before you leave!"
As he said that, he seemed to remember the delicious insect dishes Kizaru had made before. Fukasaku instinctively stretched out his tongue and licked his lips.
"No problem," Kizaru agreed with a smile.
Kizaru kept his word.
After that day's assessment ended, he used insects from Mount Myoboku to prepare a lavish insect feast for the two Toad Sages.
This time, Jiraiya was able to eat with them.
Unfortunately, his old friend Gamabunta was not so lucky.
Gamabunta also craved Kizaru's cooking and wanted to join the meal, but because he was too big and ate too much, his parents shut him out.
What angered Gamabunta even more was that after Jiraiya finished eating, he came running over with his lips still shiny from the meal just to show off.
Because of that, Gamabunta ignored that irritating old friend of his for three whole days.
"Old man, I'm getting ready to leave."
After finishing the feast and preparing to return to Konoha, Kizaru went to the palace to say goodbye to the Great Toad Sage.
"Who are you?"
Squinting his eyes at Kizaru as he entered, the Great Toad Sage fell back into his usual senile act.
"Stop pretending. It's me, Kizaru."
Kizaru sat casually on the ground and looked up at the Great Toad Sage.
"Hey! Don't expose an old man's little game so easily, you adorable little yellow monkey!" the Great Toad Sage said with a laugh, his eyes opening slightly.
"Old man, before I leave, there's one more thing I want to ask you."
"Do you want to know why I've lived this long?"
"Oooh~ can you read minds? What a scary old toad."
"Hahaha! I guessed," the Great Toad Sage said proudly.
After speaking with a smile, the Great Toad Sage's expression gradually became serious. He then answered Kizaru's question directly.
"As you have likely already guessed, the reason I, Fukasaku, and Shima have lived for so long is natural energy."
"Then why can't humans do the same? Is Mount Myoboku's senjutsu not truly suited for humans?"
"You could say that is true, and you could also say it is not."
"Hey, hey, hey… People who talk in riddles are the most troublesome."
"But I am not a human who talks in riddles. I am a toad who talks in riddles! Hahaha!"
The Great Toad Sage laughed again.
Facing this ancient toad who behaved like a mischievous old man, Kizaru sighed helplessly.
This was why old fellows were always the most troublesome.
After laughing, the Great Toad Sage continued answering Kizaru's question.
"It is not that Mount Myoboku's senjutsu is incompatible with humans. The issue is that your training system and ours are fundamentally different."
"Oh?"
"When Fukasaku guided your senjutsu training, he should have told you that the core of Sage Mode is maintaining the balance between natural energy and chakra within the body."
"Yes."
"When the toads of Mount Myoboku first began training in senjutsu, we did not rely on chakra. We sensed natural energy, absorbed natural energy, and then maintained a balance between natural energy, spiritual energy, and physical energy within our bodies.
"If that balance can be maintained, natural energy can remain in the body and continuously nourish it.
"As the body is tempered through training, our own spiritual and physical energy continue to grow. The more they grow, the more natural energy we can absorb. The more natural energy we absorb, the more our bodies are nourished and strengthened. Naturally, our lifespans become longer.
"In that regard, Katsuyu of Shikkotsu Forest is the most powerful. Her physical and spiritual energy could be called the strongest in the world, and she has accumulated the greatest amount of natural energy within her body.
"In theory, the great slug possesses the longest lifespan in the world.
"But you humans, or rather, you ninja, follow a training system centered on chakra. What remains in your bodies for extended periods is refined chakra. For you, maintaining the balance between chakra and natural energy at all times is extremely difficult.
"Ninja do not constantly maintain a large amount of chakra within their bodies. You refine chakra and consume chakra according to the situation.
"That creates a problem.
"If a ninja wants to maintain Sage Mode, they must continuously preserve the balance between chakra and natural energy.
"But the chakra in your bodies is not a stable energy to begin with.
"Because of that, you cannot maintain Sage Mode indefinitely. Nor can you allow the natural energy you absorb to remain in your bodies for a long time and nourish them."
Listening to the Great Toad Sage's detailed explanation, Kizaru nodded thoughtfully.
He more or less understood why ninja could not maintain Sage Mode for long periods, and why they could not rely on natural energy to extend their lifespans.
A ninja's chakra was different from the internal energy described in martial arts stories, where the more one trained and accumulated it, the more it remained within the body.
The way ninja used chakra was based on the situation at hand.
When chakra was needed, a ninja combined their physical energy and spiritual energy, refined chakra, and used it.
In ordinary daily life, when there was no need to fight, most ninja only kept a small amount of chakra in their bodies for emergencies.
That was why one of the most basic forms of ninja training was learning how to refine chakra while in motion.
Every ninja assigned to lead and guide new genin would teach them this once they became genin.
Because of this, even ninja who learned senjutsu found it difficult to maintain Sage Mode constantly.
Naturally, they could not keep natural energy within their bodies for long periods the way the sages of the Three Great Sage Regions could, nor could they use it to nourish their bodies and prolong their lives.
The toads of Mount Myoboku were different.
From the very beginning of their training, they directly absorbed natural energy into their bodies and maintained a balance between natural energy, spiritual energy, and physical energy.
They did not, like ninja, focus on balancing natural energy with chakra.
This fundamental difference determined the gap between the training methods and combat styles of Mount Myoboku's toads and ninja.
The toads of Mount Myoboku usually did not refine chakra.
The energy within their bodies was natural energy.
Only when they needed to release ninjutsu in battle would they refine chakra and merge it with the natural energy inside them, creating powerful senjutsu chakra.
Ninja who trained in senjutsu were the opposite.
Most of the time, their bodies contained only refined chakra, not natural energy.
Only when they needed to enter Sage Mode would they absorb natural energy into their bodies, briefly maintain the balance between chakra and natural energy, and fuse the two into more powerful senjutsu chakra.
The final combat forms of the two systems were similar.
But from the most basic training concept and starting point, they were completely different.
That was also why ninja who trained in senjutsu could not live as long as the toads of Mount Myoboku.
Of course, not every toad of Mount Myoboku could maintain the balance of the three energies within their body for long periods like the Great Toad Sage, Fukasaku, and Shima.
Even in Mount Myoboku, only a handful of talented toads could extend their lifespans through natural energy.
Those ninja who had learned senjutsu might understand the difference between the two systems.
However, their strength was mainly built upon the chakra system.
For that reason, they could not abandon their daily combat system, which revolved around chakra, nor could they give up the power they had spent years building in order to start training in a completely different system from the beginning.
After all, ninja who could come into contact with senjutsu were already powerful figures in the ninja world.
They had people and things they needed to protect.
They had enemies they needed to face.
They needed strength to deal with all of it.
But coincidentally, Kizaru did not have those concerns.
It was not that Kizaru had no enemies.
Nor was it that he had nothing to protect.
Rather, even without relying on chakra, he was still one of the strongest beings at the top of the ninja world.
His awakened Devil Fruit ability.
His physical strength at the peak Admiral level.
His two forms of Haki, also at the peak Admiral level.
His swordsmanship at the level of a great swordsman.
Kizaru had completely integrated the peak Admiral template.
Even if he did not use chakra, there were almost no opponents in the ninja world who could stand against him.
From that perspective, the senjutsu system, which took natural energy as its core, suited him quite well.
The ninja world was relatively stable for now.
He could completely shift his focus toward the senjutsu training system, rather than limiting himself to using Sage Mode only in battle.
In Kizaru's eyes, the senjutsu system had a higher upper limit and could even extend one's lifespan.
Compared to the chakra system, it was far more suitable for him.
Thinking of that, a slightly crooked smile slowly appeared on Kizaru's face.
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