But before practicing ninjutsu, he had to write down the knowledge in his mind.
Although the things he recorded with his Sharingan could be actively retained for quite a long time, he was still worried that he might forget a few words if too much time passed.
Qiuyang pulled an extra-long Summoning Scroll from his clothes. Then he began copying the contents of the Scroll of Sealing stored in his memory onto it, one by one.
Aside from those few Explosive Tags, this scroll was the most expensive thing he had bought.
By the time he finished copying everything, the sky had already grown completely dark. His right hand, the one he had used to write, could barely lift, but he didn't feel tired.
After admiring his handiwork several times with satisfaction, he formed Hand Seals and summoned it into a separate space. If he forgot anything, he could undo the seal on his arm and take it out to review whenever he wanted.
But...
Qiuyang glanced up at the sky. There wasn't enough time to practice the Rasengan, and he still had a mission to complete.
"Better head back first!"
Drawing on his years of experience as a Genin, Qiuyang quickly found the medicinal herbs for his mission near the cliff and made it back just before Konoha closed its gates.
After turning in the herbs, he went straight to the mission office and submitted an application for an extended leave.
The staff member checked Qiuyang's file and saw that he had already completed his annual Genin mission quota. They promptly approved his leave.
After all, these Genin workhorses without proper teachers would come collect missions on their own whenever they needed money.
Qiuyang had no idea that, in this world, he had once again become a workhorse, toiling away for the capitalists.
The very next day, he went all in. He sold everything in the house that could be sold, gathering enough supplies to spend three months training in seclusion.
And a few... special items he thought would definitely win over the Toad Sage—the kind that made men unable to resist...
Then he set off on his first training journey.
One thing was great about the Naruto World: its population was spread across a vast land, with people few and far between. A considerable part of it was still uninhabited wilderness.
It was easy for Qiuyang to carry his great pile of belongings eastward for half a day and find a place with mountains, water, and grassland, perfect for training.
Starting that day, he officially began his ninjutsu training according to the special training plan he had drawn up.
He wasn't worried about his constitution at all.
In fact, back in his first year in Konoha, when he had pretended to be a refugee from the war, he had secretly used Chakra Paper to test his nature transformations.
The results showed that he had all five chakra natures—a very rare combination: Wind, Lightning, Fire, Water, and Earth.
On top of that, his Uchiha bloodline naturally gave him a Yin Release constitution. It was no exaggeration to call him a one-in-ten-thousand genius. All he lacked was the Yang Release of the Senju or Uzumaki Clan.
This finally made Qiuyang, who had always complained about heaven's unfairness, feel a little better. It meant his path to godhood would be much easier.
He wouldn't have to go around stealing the chakra natures he lacked, like some of the transmigrators who came before him.
Considering that the teleportation banner he had obtained with his right Mangekyo's God-Meeting Machine wasn't suited for use in battle,
and that although his Sharingan's ocular power had mostly recovered, his Mangekyo's power was still on cooldown, so he couldn't use the banner for the time being,
Qiuyang decided to study the Flying Thunder God Technique while practicing the Rasengan.
Given the connection between his Mangekyo and space, Qiuyang figured learning the Flying Thunder God Technique shouldn't be impossibly difficult.
Naturally, he planned to use a clone to help him train.
Ninja Art: Shadow Clone Technique
Qiuyang formed Hand Seals. With a "poof," an identical version of himself appeared in front of him, standing with its hands on its hips.
"You practice the Rasengan. I'll practice the Flying Thunder God Technique."
"No, you practice the Rasengan. I'll learn the Flying Thunder God Technique, because the Rasengan is clearly harder."
"????"
Which one of them was the original? Was this lazy freeloader really his clone?
Qiuyang was speechless at the Shadow Clone's words. The clone merely shrugged without a care and went off to the other side, where it began trying to make sense of the obscure explanation of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
All right, apparently the clone he'd made was a bit of a smartass. As long as it did the work, that was fine.
There was nothing for it. Qiuyang could only study the more difficult Rasengan himself...
The first day of training ended.
Aside from gaining a rough understanding of how the two techniques worked, Qiuyang finally understood why so many experts in the original story didn't use Shadow Clones to "double their fun" while training.
Because the method was damn exhausting.
When he released the Shadow Clone, it felt like he had lived through forty-eight hours in a single day. He was worn out and had a splitting headache; all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
And that was with only one Shadow Clone helping.
One clone meant twice the exhaustion, two meant three times the exhaustion. If he made hundreds, like Naruto...
Just thinking about it made Qiuyang shudder. He could only guess that, as a Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Naruto had offset ninety percent of the fatigue.
Second day of training: no progress;
Third day: the Shadow Clone figured out how to inscribe the Flying Thunder God Formula with chakra, so it tested the technique using kunai. It ruined more than ten without succeeding. Qiuyang was heartbroken.
Fourth day: he basically got used to the negative effects of releasing the Shadow Clone Technique.
Fifth day: no progress
Sixth day: he successfully popped a balloon, completing the first stage of Rasengan training.
One day, half a month later, it was another perfectly ordinary day, with training continuing until well into the afternoon.
"Hey, come look at this."
Qiuyang was still fretting over how to compress the released, vortex-shaped chakra into a sphere. At the sound of this, he hurriedly put down the balloon in his hand and asked his clone:
"Did you wreck the kunai again? We don't have any new ones left. Just make do with the broken ones, big shot..."
After more than half a month, he was still stuck on the final step of compressing the Rasengan, while the Flying Thunder God Technique was still stuck at the very first step: engraving a space-time mark.
The frustrating lack of progress had even made Qiuyang doubt his own intelligence.
"No, Original. Take a good look at the amazing thing I made!"
After speaking, the clone suddenly hurled a kunai at a tree more than twenty meters away.
The kunai went "whoosh," then "thunk," embedding itself deep in a thick branch.
Before Qiuyang could ask anything, his Shadow Clone raised its right hand and formed a sword-finger sign. With a flash, it instantly appeared on the tree where the kunai had landed.
There was no afterimage from high speed at all. This wasn't the Body Flicker Technique, but a leap through space?
Th-this was the Flying Thunder God Technique, wasn't it?
Qiuyang was overjoyed. He thought that staying up late the previous night to study the Uzumaki Clan's notes on the Formula had really paid off.
He immediately wanted to dispel the clone and upload its experience to himself, but the returning clone waved a hand and gave him some bad news:
"According to my tests, with our current chakra reserves, we can only move between three marked kunai within a radius of thirty meters."
After saying that, the clone voluntarily released the technique. With a poof, it disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
A flood of the clone's training memories from that day poured into Qiuyang at once. He immediately raised his hand in a sword-finger sign and, in an instant, flew to the branch where the clone had just been standing.
"Awesome."
But he could only travel to three marked locations within a thirty-meter range... It felt a little underwhelming.
Then he let it go and cheered up again. Once he had enough chakra, couldn't he use it freely, just like the Yellow Flash?
There was a saying: a towering building rose from the ground, and glory could only be earned through one's own efforts. Society... society...
Qiuyang hurriedly shook his head, banishing that wickedly catchy tune from his mind. After resting for a while to recover his chakra, he created another Shadow Clone.
"Let's keep at it and learn the Rasengan in one go. Are you confident?"
The clone rolled its eyes at the original for making promises to himself. Then it suddenly thought of a good idea and hurriedly asked if the original wanted to try the method the Prince of the Ninja World used—
That was, working together with a clone to create the Rasengan: one focused on compression, while the other handled power and rotation.
But Qiuyang rejected the idea without hesitation:
"What we're going to become isn't someone who has to cower and hide like we did before. Can't we set our sights a little higher?"
Seeing that the clone still wanted to argue, Qiuyang quickly added:
"Think about it. If you make the Rasengan with one hand, everyone who sees it will think you're an unparalleled expert."
"You do have a point!"
That successfully convinced the clone... and Qiuyang himself.
Actually, after failing eighty-one times, he had considered using a Shadow Clone to help him make the Rasengan.
But somehow, it felt strange. It wouldn't make an enemy watching him gasp in astonishment.
So he decided to keep trying with one hand. He was going to develop in the direction of the Otsutsuki, after all. He needed to maintain appearances.
Before you continue