Eight Trigrams Sealing

And believe it or not, setting aside that ridiculous original novel draft, the second chapter really had given Qiuyang some clues about how to increase his chakra reserves.

The answer was to use the Uzumaki Clan's unique Sealing Jutsu—the technique used to seal the Nine-Tails—to create a space like a chakra power bank.

Most ninjas stored their chakra around their abdomen. How much they could hold depended entirely on their innate constitution and how much they trained afterward.

But the effect of training was relatively minor.

Even Kakashi, who was supposedly "fifty-fifty," still hadn't solved the century-old problem of running out of chakra by the end of the Naruto series.

That was proof enough of how important a large innate capacity was.

Once they understood the basic structure of chakra storage, ninjas who wanted to expand their reserves generally had to train the resilience of the area where their chakra was stored.

As long as their abdomen didn't explode, they could gradually try storing a little more chakra inside, allowing their body to adapt and slowly increase how much it could hold.

But in what his teacher had written, Qiuyang found another viable solution—

They could use the Uzumaki Clan's Eight Trigrams Sealing to temporarily create another small space inside the body for storing chakra.

The principle was similar to Tsunade's Creation Rebirth:

First, create an enormous chakra reservoir. Then, guide the chakra from the body's original, smaller reservoir and transfer a little into the larger one every day.

Small amounts would add up over time. When it came time to fight, he could unleash enough chakra to overwhelm his enemies.

Qiuyang hadn't been counting on finding the "Legendary Sucker" to teach him this method, but when he saw his teacher mention "releasing the Eight Trigrams Sealing" in the scroll, his eyes lit up.

That meant his teacher knew the technique.

With such a safe, fast way to do it, why waste his time looking for some other method to increase his chakra?

So he rolled up the scroll and, for the first time in three days, headed to Happy Home. There, he pulled Jiraiya—who was leering contentedly with a pretty young woman tucked under each arm—aside into another empty room.

"Oh ho, Qiuyang! Your teacher isn't leaving until tomorrow. There's no need to rush over to see me off."

Qiuyang helplessly looked at his unreliable adoptive teacher.

"Teacher Jiraiya, I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'd like you to make me an Eight Trigrams Sealing that can transfer and store my own chakra, to help with my chakra shortage."

"Eight Trigrams Sealing? No way, no way. Just writing the sealing formula takes half a month. I'm not doing that. Hic—"

Jiraiya started to turn back toward his paradise, but Qiuyang hurriedly stopped him.

"It doesn't need to be the complete version. Just make a simple one that'll work for half a year."

That was perfectly fine.

Because before long, when Snake Auntie carried out the Konoha Crush Plan, he would go to her and ask her to help him obtain Hashirama Cells compatible with his own.

Whether it was to increase his chakra production and storage capacity, or to evolve into an Otsutsuki later on, he had to fuse with Hashirama Cells.

If he wanted to survive the likes of Golden Naruto, Kaguya, and Isshiki Otsutsuki—monsters who would break the power scale—Qiuyang had no choice.

So he had to take the risk and meet the scientist Snake Auntie. There was no avoiding it.

He knew all the clues from the main Naruto story and understood what Snake Auntie wanted, so he wasn't worried she would refuse him.

For now, he had no choice but to use the Eight Trigrams Sealing to tide him over. He expected that with this chakra power bank, he could reach the level of an elite jonin.

"Even if it's a simplified version, I still don't recommend—"

Jiraiya had been about to advise his student against trying such unorthodox methods, when the young woman he had been holding close moments earlier cracked open the door.

"Mister, why aren't you coming back yet? I'm still waiting for you!"

Her pitiful expression and the inexplicable allure of her bare feet on the floor made Jiraiya lose a little more of his self-control.

He called back that he'd be right there, and a scroll appeared in his hand with a flick of his wrist.

"A beauty's kindness is the hardest thing to refuse. Heh heh. Anyway, what my student's asking for isn't a big deal. I might as well let him try it."

"Lucky for you, I've written a simplified version before. But it'll only work for eight months, then it'll disappear on its own."

Jiraiya unrolled the scroll and laid it on the floor. After forming a long series of complex hand signs, he slapped the scroll.

Black lines of densely packed seal script spread across the scroll.

Without waiting for Jiraiya to tell him what to do, Qiuyang took off his shoes and stepped into the circle in the middle.

"Sealing Jutsu: Eight Trigrams Sealing."

The black lines on the floor seemed to come alive. Like worms, they burrowed frantically into Qiuyang's body through the soles of his feet, then converged in a spiral around his abdomen.

"Ah... Ngh..."

A piercing pain hit him, and in the final moments before the seal was complete, Qiuyang couldn't help but cry out.

He gritted his teeth and lifted his shirt to look at his abdomen. The ink-black symbols gradually faded, then vanished completely. At the same time, he felt that some strange, otherworldly space had appeared inside him.

With a thought, his consciousness immediately shifted into the mental space inside his body. That was another function of the Eight Trigrams Sealing: it allowed his consciousness to enter his mental space.

He saw a black sphere the size of a water tower in the space. It must have been the storage space for his chakra, though he hadn't transferred any into it yet.

Qiuyang reached out toward the sphere. A black-and-white energy flowed from his fingertips and vanished into the sphere the moment it touched it.

Transferring energy in and storing it both worked.

Qiuyang cut off the flow, then tried the reverse. The energy the sphere had just absorbed began to flow out and into his body.

Transferring it out worked too.

It really was just like a power bank.

Qiuyang brightened with delight, hurriedly left his mental space, and happily reported the results of his experiment to his teacher.

Jiraiya clicked his tongue and pushed open the door. He still didn't approve of this shortcut, and as he left, he made sure to warn his student.

"I only wanted to let you try it, but you can't rely on something like this from now on. Your own strength is what really matters."

"Yes, teacher."

From now on? Once I get Hashirama Cells, who'd still use this thing?

But Qiuyang didn't know that later on, he really would keep using the Eight Trigrams Sealing to contain parts of the various Tailed Beasts' bodies, then fuse their chakra together to create a unique chakra mode.

The most important outcome this time was that it made him take a serious look at the power of the Uzumaki Clan's Sealing Jutsu.

Today was the last day Jiraiya had said he would stay. He went straight to the place where Qiuyang trained and told his student.

Qiuyang realized that he was a little reluctant to see him go.

"Teacher, are you really leaving?"

His adoptive teacher might have been unreliable, but he was still the first person Qiuyang had gotten to know well since arriving in this world.

Jiraiya saw how sad his student looked and laughed as he patted him on the shoulder.

"Leaving? Your master has a mission to complete."

Qiuyang knew that Jiraiya was tracking the Akatsuki at this point in time, and that before long he would return to teach Naruto. He really did have a mission.

"If anything happens, just send a Toad to tell your teacher. And..."

Jiraiya took out a scroll marked "Mission" and handed it to Qiuyang, then continued.

"This is a mission I didn't finish earlier. Complete it before you return to the village. Don't tell me you can't."

Perhaps feeling the sting of their impending separation, Jiraiya vanished in a puff of smoke as soon as he finished giving his instructions.

Qiuyang opened the mission scroll and smiled. Had Teacher Jiraiya already noticed how broke he was?

"Eliminate the bandits assembled at Maple Mountain by the Land of Water's missing-nin"

More than fifty bandits, including a missing-nin at the level of an elite jonin.

This could be tricky!