"If there are no questions, we'll stop here for today. Once you get home, practice diligently. Remember the order of the hand seals and work on increasing your speed. Tomorrow, we can try taking on some basic missions." Seeing that none of them had any questions, Tenzo sent them home to practice on their own. He had to report what had happened to the Third Hokage.
"No problem. Taking on missions, huh... We'll make sure to practice our jutsu." They nodded, planning to get to know their Summoning Beasts properly once they got home before thinking about anything else.
Zi Xu couldn't wait to get back and try training in Sage Mode. After saying goodbye to Chino and the others, he returned to his room, locked the door, and blocked out all the sound inside. Then he pulled the little black snake, which had been stubbornly clinging to his head, down.
"Hmm... This guy wasn't summoned by me, technically. Even though we signed a summoning contract, he won't return to Ryūchi Cave for any other reason. Is this one of the White Snake Sage's tricks...?" Zi Xu prodded the little black snake's head with a finger. It looked rather vacant—not very bright.
The little black snake seemed quite fond of Zi Xu. It raised its head and nudged his fingertip, its eyes half-lidded.
"Whatever. I'll try training in Sage Mode first. Since you're a snake from Ryūchi Cave too, I hope you can help me while I train..." Zi Xu rambled on. The little black snake couldn't do anything just then, but it still raised its tail encouragingly.
"Right. To train in Sage Mode, I have to sense the Natural Energy around me and combine it with my physical and spiritual energy in a perfect 1:1:1 ratio..." After drawing the curtains, he sat cross-legged on the bed. While the energy left behind by the White Snake Sage was still inside him, he hurried to sense the Natural Energy.
Zi Xu quieted his mind and closed his eyes. In a daze, he really did "see" wisps of white energy floating around him.
At the same time, he looked inward and "saw" a sphere formed from blue and green energy. The two colors each occupied exactly half the sphere.
"Next, I just need to let that white energy merge into the sphere, right? It seems pretty simple..." Zi Xu still hadn't realized how serious the problem was. He began drawing Natural Energy into his body.
At first, he was very cautious, slowly trying to blend the Natural Energy into his body. But he soon realized this approach wouldn't work. Before the Natural Energy could merge with the sphere of the other two energies, the tiny amount he had drawn in was ground away by them.
With no other choice, he increased the amount of Natural Energy he absorbed. But he hadn't expected it to be so powerful. He felt it rapidly transforming the other energy in his body, and his own body began undergoing a terrifying change.
Zi Xu's originally dark, deep eyes gradually grew narrow and elongated. His pupils shifted from pure black to golden, vertical slits, and purple-black markings appeared beneath his clean eyelids. His skin turned as pale as fish left out in the sun for days. Fangs began to grow in his mouth, and his jaw split toward his ears. He looked more and more like a snake.
"Damn, Natural Energy is a little too aggressive..." Zi Xu gritted his teeth and struggled to suppress the Natural Energy as it frantically transformed his other energies. The little black snake beside him whipped its tail against his body, forcibly interrupting the absorption.
He collapsed onto the floor and panted heavily. After touching his face and finding that it had returned to normal, he climbed back onto the bed and resumed training. It was only natural to encounter danger along the way, but he couldn't give up just because it was a little dangerous.
He patted the little black snake's head, somewhat pleased. "I didn't expect you to be useful, little guy. Maybe you really could be trained as a combat Summoning Beast."
This failure hadn't frightened him. If anything, he was even more determined to master Sage Mode. But during his subsequent training, he discovered something: Natural Energy wasn't everywhere. At least, he had already drained all the Natural Energy around his house.
Night had fallen, but the little black snake was growing more energetic by the minute. It kept flicking its tail, urging him to train, but he still couldn't get the hang of it.
The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he got. He simply summoned a Shadow Clone and poured his Demon Power back into it. The clone, which had been perfectly normal a moment earlier, immediately lapsed into a state of despair.
"Did you understand what I told you earlier? You need to grasp the essence of 'silence' to develop your Devil Fruit Ability. Silencing things is just the beginner stage, so stop obsessing over your soundless sleep technique. Apply the power of silence in actual combat and make your opponents' movements still. Taking it further into the realm of space-time is an advanced application..." Zi Xu felt a little like a parent, grieving over a child's failures and furious at their lack of ambition.
The Silent Clone reluctantly got up from the bed, placed a Soundproof Barrier around itself, then obediently tried to quiet the space around it. But it didn't seem to be making much progress.
After squeezing the clone dry, Zi Xu shifted his gaze to the little black snake. Its swishing tail froze in midair. He formed hand seals—if Tenzo had been there, Zi Xu would have driven him mad.
"Stay put and don't run off. Reverse Summoning Jutsu!" The familiar white mist dissipated, leaving only the Silent Clone and the little black snake in the room.
Feeling the damp rock beneath him and listening to the sound of water dripping, Zi Xu felt strangely relaxed. He seemed even more at ease in the dark.
"Just as I thought, the Natural Energy here is astonishingly dense. This place is practically a paradise for training in Sage Mode." He hadn't noticed it much before, but once he began training in Sage Mode, his perception of the energy around him became much sharper—like a fish sensing water or a person seeing the air.
"You're here. Time to train in Senjutsu. The White Snake Sage won't interfere with your training, but we can still help you a little." The Three Divine Maidens appeared out of thin air like ghosts, sticking out their tongues as they spoke in eerie voices.
He pushed aside the face of the Goddess who was deliberately trying to scare him, then began preparing to train in Sage Mode.
"How will you help me?" Zi Xu sat cross-legged and closed his eyes, focusing on the energy inside his body.
"We'll make noise around you to distract you, and when you're about to turn into a snake, we'll smack you awake." Ichikishimahime hissed, sounding as if she wanted to get revenge. She hadn't forgotten how he'd dirtied her scales.
"Do whatever you want. That works too. Thanks." Zi Xu knew they wouldn't hurt him anymore, so he didn't bother stopping them. He might have misunderstood what they meant by "noise," though.
He held his breath and concentrated. The Natural Energy in the air around him was so dense it practically spilled over. He drew it into his body without the slightest effort.
"No, no. How can you start by absorbing Natural Energy? Before that, you need a heart that can remain calm at any time. So..." The Goddess's voice sounded from somewhere, echoing through the cave and irritating him.
"Stay calm. I have to stay calm and balance the three energies... Hiss... Ah." Unfortunately, even when Zi Xu managed to keep his mind calm, he kept getting the proportions wrong as he tried to merge the Natural Energy with his own. Sometimes there was too much Natural Energy; other times, too much physical or spiritual energy. In short, he never found the balance. In the end, just as he was about to turn into a snake, one of the maidens appeared and knocked him out of it with her tail.
"I told you not to rush into combining the energies. First, you need the mindset to ignore distractions from outside." The voice came from all around him again. This time, Zi Xu noticed that even their words carried the power of Genjutsu.
"Not letting the outside world affect me..." He forcibly suppressed the irritation rising inside him and carefully considered what the Goddesses had said, trying to ignore their distractions.
Sure enough, once he calmed down, he noticed details he had overlooked. Before, he'd been forcibly drawing Natural Energy into his body and relying entirely on his physical strength to suppress its violent effects. If he kept going like that, he'd never be able to use the energy against an enemy. There was a good chance he'd blow himself up before the fight even began.
He tried relaxing his body and pretending he couldn't see the Natural Energy. Then he quietly absorbed it, using a gentler approach. The Natural Energy seemed to respond better to softness than force, and this time it entered his body more easily.
"Plop!" The sudden sound startled Zi Xu. He lost control of how much Natural Energy he was taking in and failed again, nearly turning into a snake.
"Don't let anything distract you. Keep your breathing under control..."
...And so Zi Xu trained in Sage Mode all night. He didn't succeed even once, but at least his ability to sense the energy around him had improved.
"Yaaawn..." Dark circles hung beneath Zi Xu's eyes as he propped up his chin and let out a long yawn.
"Hm? Zi Xu, you don't seem to have been sleeping well lately. As a ninja, you need to stay in good shape so you can deal with danger at any time." Tenzo could tell at a glance that Zi Xu hadn't slept well the night before. His Summoning Beast, on the other hand, seemed to have slept just fine; it was still fast asleep on his head.
"Ah, Teacher Tenzo, I really didn't sleep well last night. It's fine. I'll go to bed earlier for the next few days, and I should be back to normal soon..." Zi Xu stretched and loosened up his muscles.
"Right. Make sure you get enough rest. We'll be heading out to take on missions in a bit. This is everyone's first mission, so make sure you do well." Tenzo put down the chalk. He wanted to take them on a few missions to familiarize them with how they worked.
"Missions? We can take missions already?" Chino and the others were curious about what ninja missions involved.
"Of course. Taking missions early on will help you understand the process better and gain experience. Don't underestimate any mission, and don't let your guard down just because it's low-ranked."
"If you're all ready, follow me. This is a kind of training, too."
"All right."
Before you continue