At night, before going to sleep, Higashino Makoto began his usual Chakra Control training.
He had now entered what he defined as the second stage: constantly adjusting the ratio of the two kinds of energy in his Chakra and pushing them toward the extremes of Yin and Yang.
With each adjustment, he not only had to fuse the new ratio into Chakra again, but also familiarize himself with its characteristics and learn to control it precisely.
It took a tremendous amount of time.
But he enjoyed it. Higashino Makoto was eager to find out what surprising results might come from pushing the ratio all the way to either extreme.
For example, ordinary Chakra was a universal type, formed from a mix of 50% Body Energy and 50% Mental Energy.
It could be used for Taijutsu and Ninjutsu. As for its nature, that was a separate area of training. If you were born with an affinity, you simply kept strengthening your Nature Transformation.
If you weren't born with one, you could acquire it gradually through training. But Higashino Makoto wasn't focusing on that right now, since it also took a great deal of time, and for the time being, he had no need to master all Five Elemental Chakra.
Now, if he adjusted his Body Energy to 70%, he could use Medical Ninjutsu. Conversely, if he adjusted his Mental Energy to 70%, learning and casting Genjutsu would become twice as effective.
But the farther he went, the harder it got. He had vaguely defined each 10% as a stage, but the more he pushed forward, the harder it became to reconcile the energies. He could only rely on steady work, day after day.
Was there a good way to speed up the process?
There was, brother. There was.
Just gouge out the Three Tomoe from both eyes of someone in the Uchiha Clan and install them in yourself. I guarantee your Yin Release training will be smooth as silk.
Get Orochimaru to give you an injection of Hashirama Cells, and I guarantee your Yang Release will explode in a short time.
So, what's the price?
Death.
Either the Hashirama Cells would kill you and turn you into a tree, or a bunch of Red Eyes would chase you down and hack you to death, turning you into minced meat.
The power you earned through hard training was safer and more reliable.
He had already dropped his pre-bedtime Hand Seal practice. His speed was pretty good now, and anyway, he wasn't planning to be some model Ninja. The fighting style he had set for himself didn't center on Ninjutsu, either, so it was good enough for now.
Actually, if you trained your Chakra Control to the utmost and learned the energy circulation pattern of a particular Ninjutsu, you could complete it directly within your network of meridians using mental power. No Hand Seals were needed.
Clap your hands together, and you could have whatever you wanted. You didn't even have to clap.
Hand Seals had originally been developed by Indra so that humans could use techniques. His family were born with admin privileges over Chakra; they had no need for Hand Seals.
Ultimately, Chakra belonged to the Otsutsuki Clan. It had merely spread into human bodies and, through generations of reproduction, become integrated into their cells.
It had not only made Supernatural Power cheap and accessible, but had also changed the structure of the human body.
Humans were like Chakra-producing factories. They could use it temporarily, but they didn't possess the ultimate rights to it.
After falling asleep, Higashino Makoto's consciousness once again floated above his body, as usual.
He was used to it by now. Every night, he routinely lured White Natural Energy into his body. The only difference was that as his training progressed, his consciousness had grown much stronger than before, and he could now lure in more Natural Energy at a time.
He'd thought tonight would be another ordinary evening, melding with the White Mist, no different from all the others. But soon, something unexpected happened.
Although he had become quite adept at absorbing Natural Energy, Higashino Makoto had never let up on monitoring his body. He had never forgotten that Natural Energy was no docile lamb. It was deadly.
Halfway through his training that night, Higashino Makoto's consciousness keenly noticed something flash on his forehead.
It was a circular pattern that appeared and disappeared on his forehead. As White Natural Energy flowed into his body, the pattern finally came into clear view.
A design had appeared on his forehead. It was slightly larger than a coin from his previous life, with a circle inside a ring and a small dot set into the top of the ring. It was silver, not much different from his skin tone, but still quite noticeable, as if that patch of skin had developed some sort of condition.
Could this be some kind of pattern that appears in Sage Mode?
As Higashino Makoto wondered about it, the design grew more and more familiar. He felt as if he'd seen it somewhere before, and immediately began searching his memory.
It looked a little like the War Tattoo of Genkai, the Hell Martial God. Could he have trained himself into a Magnetic Field Maniac?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Hey! This was the damn Shinobi World!
Higashino Makoto hadn't gone mad. He soon figured out the difference: the Hell Martial God's War Tattoo was just a circle, much larger than his, and blue.
The good news: he didn't have to become a maniac.
The even better news: this design was made from the same template as the one worn by a certain naked man.
Jonathan Osterman, known to the world as Doctor Manhattan, nicknamed Blue Big Dick. He had drawn this symbol on his forehead. It was the symbol for the hydrogen atom.
Could he have failed to become a Magnetic Field Maniac, only to become a Quantum God instead?
That would be incredible. He'd be omnipotent.
Sadly, it was impossible, even to imagine. Higashino Makoto was still a mere mortal, and he had also noticed the difference between the two designs.
Doctor Manhattan's design was a little larger overall, but the circle in the middle representing the nucleus was smaller. Higashino Makoto's design was smaller overall, but its central circle was larger.
Rather than the symbol for a hydrogen atom, it looked more like a natural satellite orbiting a planet.
Or a planet orbiting the sun.
Seen that way, it made much more sense. Natural Energy represented this planet, after all—perhaps even this star system or the universe.
Fortunately, it only appeared on that small patch of his forehead. It wasn't like the Sage Face Paint of the Three Sacred Lands, which covered the face like stage makeup.
He wondered if it would disappear after he stopped absorbing Natural Energy.
Even if it didn't, it wouldn't matter. He could just treat it like another tattoo. Plenty of people in the Shinobi World liked messing up their faces.
Nohara Rin had stuck two squares of makeup on her cheeks. Everyone in the Inuzuka Clan painted Dog Teeth on their faces. Kankuro painted his face to look like a ghost.
What was wrong with Higashino Makoto getting a tattoo?
Finally, Higashino Makoto realized that there was a Sage Face Paint in the Shinobi World that resembled this design: Hashirama Senju.
The difference was that Higashino Makoto's design was smaller than the one on the First Generation's forehead. Its inner circle was larger, its outer ring thinner, and it had an extra dot on the ring.
Most importantly, Higashino Makoto had no eye markings. That was great. Honestly, eye markings just didn't suit his aesthetic.
The problem was that hardly any ordinary people had seen Hashirama Senju's Sage Transformation. It was a secret.
So how would he explain the markings on his forehead that resembled Hashirama's?
Explain my ass. I'm a damn Sage now. Who'd dare demand an explanation?
The next morning, Higashino Makoto stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his smooth, fair forehead. For some reason, he felt a little disappointed.
When he had a tattoo, he worried people would think he was a delinquent. Now that it was gone, he missed it. What a pain in the ass.
It seemed his Natural Energy training still wasn't good enough. Higashino Makoto made up his mind: if absorbing Natural Energy was the first stage, then the appearance of the Sage Tattoo marked the second stage—an initial Sage Mode.
Once the Sage Tattoo stayed put and stopped disappearing, that would mean he had entered the third stage. It should be... Normal Sage Mode.
The thought of having another training goal ahead of him immediately lifted Higashino Makoto's spirits. Cheerfully, he headed out for his daily training.
Aside from Yin and Yang, the Five Elemental Chakra gave rise to all sorts of techniques. What were they meant to do?
They were meant to imitate—to reproduce the visible phenomena of things in nature. Mastering those phenomena turned them into Ninjutsu in a Ninja's hands.
Ninjutsu training mainly involved Shape Transformation and Nature Transformation.
Shape Transformation was relatively simple. Higashino Makoto's ability to form a Rasengan meant that he had already reached an extremely high level of Chakra Control.
After all, in the original story, this technique was said to represent the pinnacle of Shape Transformation. It looked like a simple Chakra Ball, but was incredibly complex inside, formed from countless streams of high-speed, high-density Chakra spiraling around a central point.
Nature Transformation was much more complicated. First, you had to understand the properties of a particular nature of Chakra and its visible manifestations. Only then could you delve deeper in that direction.
At the Training Ground, Higashino Makoto formed Hand Seals and cast Wind Release: Great Breakthrough. A blast of wind swept forward, making the trees rustle.
This was a simple C-rank Wind Release Ninjutsu. Its rank indicated the difficulty of learning it, not its power. Its power depended only on the amount of Chakra used.
An ordinary Genin could blow down a wooden house. If you had Hashirama Senju pour all his Chakra into it at once, he could blow the whole of Konoha into the sky.
This Ninjutsu also used only the most basic aspect of Wind Release Nature Transformation: the rapid flow of wind.
Did Wind Release have other properties?
It did, friends. It did. For example, air pressure, or the cutting force created by the rapid friction of high-density Wind Release Chakra.
If you let your imagination run wild, you could explore even more properties. But a person's energy was limited, and Higashino Makoto didn't plan to keep dreaming up possibilities forever. He only needed to train in the most commonly used ones.
His innate Chakra natures were Wind Release, Earth Release, and Water Release.
What properties did Earth Release have? So many: resilience, heaviness, gravity, decomposition, and more.
What properties did Water Release have? Flexibility, High-Speed Cutting, impact, and more.
There were far too many. No one could understand them all in a single lifetime. No wonder Orochimaru wanted to pursue eternal life.
His ideal was to learn every technique in the world, and the few decades humans had weren't enough.
Fortunately, Higashino Makoto's ideal was different from his. He only needed to train in a few useful properties.
As for the rest, he could research them slowly whenever he had time.
With that in mind, he performed Great Breakthrough again, but this time he aimed it at the ground. The powerful current of air slammed into the earth, propelling his small body upward.
As he rose, Higashino Makoto quietly observed the flow of Wind Release Chakra, deepening his understanding of its properties.
Soon afterward, he created several Shadow Clones. Each pressed their palms together with a leaf between them, trying to split it in two with Chakra and grasp the nature of cutting.
He was so immersed in training that he couldn't pull himself away.
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