Senjutsu Training (4)
A few days later.
The fifty-eighth time.
"That's what the Katsuyu said calmly."
Through its translucent body, one could see a naked girl sitting inside the Katsuyu. A massive amount of Chakra fluctuated violently around the girl, sometimes calm, sometimes surging like a raging storm. The girl's appearance also changed: sometimes she maintained a human appearance, sometimes her limbs softened, showing signs of transforming into Katsuyu.
It was Sakura Haruno who was practicing her Senjutsu.
At the same moment the Katsuyu produced that number, Sakura Haruno's Chakra fluctuations became increasingly violent, finally breaking through a certain limit and breaching the dam forged by Sakura Haruno spirit like a flood. A massive amount of Natural Energy went out of control, surging wildly into the girl's body and eroding her flesh. In an instant, Sakura's limbs quickly softened, and her skin became faintly transparent!
Seeing that its contracted master Sakura Haruno, was in danger, the Katsuyu remained calm and unhurriedly spat her out, also drawing away the rampant Natural Energy within her body, thus averting the danger.
Sakura Haruno landed with a "thud" in front of the Katsuyu, her face pale and panting heavily.
The Natural Energy quickly dissipated from her body, and her hands and feet, which were still a lump of soft, jelly-like flesh when she landed, naturally returned to their slender, delicate fingers and pale feet.
"This time you held out for 1 minute and 7 seconds before losing control, a full two minutes longer than last time. That's progress!" The Katsuyu glanced at the naked girl in front of it and said calmly, "If you continue training at this rate, and try a few dozen more times, you'll be able to maintain your Senjutsu Chakra stably!"
"I wish it went that smoothly." Sakura Haruno shook her head, breathing in the air greedily, and said weakly.
She struggled to her feet, spread her hands, and said, "I've mastered all the techniques for manipulating Natural Energy, and I won't make the same mistakes again. It's unlikely I'll see such rapid progress again. The only thing left is to persevere, accumulate experience in manipulating Natural Energy through extensive practice, and slowly improve."
Sakura Haruno is actually quite close to success. Judging from her progress in manipulating Senjutsu Chakra, she has mastered 90% of the content. However, the remaining 10% is the most difficult part; it will probably take much longer to complete than the time spent on the previous parts.
The cultivation of Senjutsu is like maintaining a perfect balance. On one side of the balance is a weight of Natural Energy, and on the other side is physical and mental energy. The two must be precisely equal for the balance to be maintained; otherwise, even the slightest deviation will cause the balance to collapse instantly. The problem is that on the side of Natural Energy, the weight is constantly fluctuating and increasing, so the other side must also be constantly and precisely supplied with more energy. This is the real difficulty of cultivation.
The Katsuyu smiled and said, "Then let's rest for a bit, Lady Sakura Haruno."
"It seems you've reached your limit today. Don't force yourself to continue cultivating. Eat something."
The girl nodded wearily.
Sakura Haruno knew that the Shadow Clone Technique would be very effective for this kind of experiential training, increasing efficiency many times over. However, she didn't need it—training Senjutsu Mode with her real body was already exhausting enough. Sakura Haruno also wanted to train with unlimited energy like Naruto, but unfortunately, she was just a mortal. Even with a barely achievable cheat of having multiple souls, she was only slightly stronger than ordinary people, far inferior to those who openly used cheats.
Furthermore, Naruto's single-minded personality, which relies more on intuition than careful consideration, greatly reduces the mental pressure that Shadow Clone on the original. Sakura Haruno, with her meticulous nature and love for deep thinking, would not be able to emulate Naruto's way of doing things.
"Sigh." Sakura Haruno sighed subtly.
The characteristic of mortals is that they are easily mentally exhausted. The cultivation of Senjutsu does not consume much physical strength for her, but the repeated attempts and failures, the growing sense of frustration and the nausea from being spat out by Katsuyu, all mixed together, eventually made even the resilient Sakura Haruno feel mentally and physically exhausted, and she subconsciously began to resist cultivation.
As expected, she's not Superman yet.
The Katsuyu was a little puzzled by the girl's sudden sigh, only thinking that the extraordinary amount of training she was undergoing was taking its toll. Sakura didn't explain further, but Earth Flow the side and stood on the edge of the platform where she was, looking out.
The magnificent scenery of Shikkotsu Forest can be seen in its entirety.
The magnificent scenery instantly relaxed her tense nerves.
The platform where Sakura Haruno and the Katsuyu stood was actually a huge branch of an ancient tree in Shikkotsu Forest. The fork had miraculously created a flat platform, about the size of an ordinary house in Konoha, and located at a very high position. They used it as the place where Sakura Haruno trained and lived during this period.
Beneath their feet lay the misty, Shikkotsu Forest, where countless ancient trees with their pale, slender trunks stood like bones atop the vast, azure lake. Wisps of white mist rose from the lake's surface, swirling around the base of the forest. A few wisps of white clouds drifted in the air, some high, some low, some near, some far, hovering within reach of Sakura Haruno.
If it weren't for the fact that the lake water beneath their feet was a highly acidic substance that would obliterate any body upon falling in, and if the white mist wasn't actually an extremely toxic and corrosive acid mist, this magnificent scene would probably be considered a paradise on earth.
Looking down from such a tall ancient tree, even a giant Sage Katsuyu appears much smaller in view, making it easy to see its full form. The colossal creature, two to three thousand meters long, swims faintly in and out of sight in the misty acid lake below.
A cool breeze gently blew by, playfully lifting the soft strands of hair on the girl's forehead and caressing her body, bringing a touch of coolness to the sweltering July heat. It felt so comfortable; Sakura Haruno felt most of her fatigue vanish in an instant. She unfolded the scroll containing her belongings, took out some food, and inadvertently found Naruto's letter as well.
--This wasn't the letter that came from Hoshigakure earlier, but rather a letter Naruto sent after learning that Sakura was going to Shikkotsu Forest to train in Sage Senjutsu.
"... Good luck, Sakura! I've lent you my energy, train hard!" She picked up the letter and happened to see this passage. Sakura Haruno could perfectly imagine Naruto's excited expression as he wrote those words, as if he were right in front of her.
Heh, Naruto.
"I'm not trying to train for the Spirit Bomb," Sakura Haruno thought to herself, but a smile unconsciously crept onto her face. As she took out her cutlery to eat, the words "Sakura Haruno's Team Will Never Disband" on her cup were facing her, Sakura Haruno inexplicably thought of the people in the village and their smiles again.
"Tsk." Sakura Haruno felt as if she had truly been replenished with energy, and suddenly she was no longer tired. Just like the arduous training she underwent in the Land of Snow, whenever she felt like giving up, remembering the wonderful things in her life always gave Sakura Haruno renewed her motivation.
"Katsuyu, let's do it again after we finish eating!"
The 195th time.
The Katsuyu diligently counted the number of times it needed to practice its Senjutsu.
A week later.
After extensive, even excessive, training, Sakura Haruno had mastered Senjutsu Chakra to near perfection, and the first stage of her training was slowly drawing to a close. Previously, Sakura Haruno had been able to sustain her training for over an hour at a time; now, she faced the final hurdle: here, Katsuyu would infuse a massive amount of Natural Energy into Sakura Haruno body in an extremely short period. This unruly energy would instantly shatter the delicate balance the girl had painstakingly maintained, causing her training to fail—in fact, she had already failed many times.
This is an extremely dangerous process. The massive amount of Natural Energy has a very strong corrosive effect. If you are not careful, you may not even be able to save the Katsuyu!
Conversely, if Sakura Haruno can overcome this difficulty and tame this Natural Energy, her Senjutsu Chakra manipulation will be considered passable.
As the Katsuyu finished speaking, the fluctuations of Sakura Haruno's Senjutsu Chakra began to intensify.
[I was writing until after 2 AM last night and couldn't write anymore... so I had to stop updating. This is the first of three updates today.]