You Go First!

As natural energy flowed into their bodies, Neji, Hinata, and Sasuke gradually developed various toad-like features. Some grew small bumps on their skin, some developed webbing between their fingers, and some had their pupils turn into the horizontal pupils of a toad.

Sage Fukasaku and Jiraiya were unsurprised by this, because it was a process that had to be experienced when cultivating Mount Myoboku's Senjutsu.

Cultivating Senjutsu was essentially a cyclical process of sensing the natural energy between heaven and earth, absorbing that natural energy, and then merging it with oneself.

The advantage of cultivating Senjutsu in the three great sacred lands was that cultivators could use various shortcuts to forcibly sense natural energy and absorb a certain amount of it.

The toad oil Sage Fukasaku had applied to the three children's arms was Mount Myoboku's shortcut for cultivating Senjutsu.

Once toad oil was applied to the body, anyone, regardless of aptitude, could sense the natural energy dispersed through the air for a certain period of time. Through the toad oil, they could also forcibly absorb some of that natural energy into their bodies, completing the first two of Senjutsu's three major steps: sensing and absorption.

However, the truly difficult part of cultivating Senjutsu was not sensing or absorption, but the third and final step: fusion.

Only by merging the natural energy drawn into one's body with one's own chakra and digesting it could one be considered to have truly mastered Senjutsu.

A moment later, the toad-like features on the three children sitting cross-legged beside the toad pond became more numerous and more obvious.

Seeing this, Sage Fukasaku shook his head at Jiraiya.

"Ah!"

Jiraiya sighed.

The increase in toad-like features showed that none of the three children had been able to merge the natural energy they had absorbed. As