Supplementing Vitality

The Myriad Spirit Longevity Art functions by absorbing Wood Spirit Qi through a specific method, extracting the vitality within to heal injuries.

Injury is merely a manifestation of lost life force, and because Jiraiya had been extracting chakra for years, he had lost a vast amount of vitality. This was the reason Naruto Uzumaki handed this technique to him.

If one were to cultivate without first replenishing their life force to bring the body to its peak state, it could lead to irreversible damage. This was why Naruto Uzumaki did not pass the entire technique to Jiraiya all at once.

He wanted Jiraiya to restore his vitality first and bring his body to its peak; as for whether Jiraiya could quickly transition to practicing the technique, Naruto Uzumaki was in no rush at all.

After explaining all the reasons to Jiraiya, Naruto Uzumaki asked him to find a forest with dense vegetation. Since Jiraiya had stayed in the Land of Hot Water for a long time, he was very familiar with the area nearby.

Traveling at high speed, it took them only an hour to reach a forest that, as far as the eye could see, was filled with trees. The trees in the forest were towering, with massive trunks that required several people to encircle visible everywhere. Moreover, it was sparsely populated, which meant the Wood Spirit Qi inside had reached an astonishing level.

Arriving at a slightly spacious clearing next to a small pond, Jiraiya sat cross-legged and began to circulate his energy according to the method recorded in the technique. With his eyes closed, Jiraiya gradually sensed the Wood Spirit Qi in the void after the technique began to run, guiding the Wood Spirit Qi over through a special technique.

When the Wood Spirit Qi gathered around his body, Jiraiya formed a strange posture with his hands, then grasped a wisp of Wood Spirit Qi and pressed it against his chest.

At this moment, the Wood Spirit Qi surrounding him erupted, surging into Jiraiya's body like a tide, while simultaneously drawing in the Wood Spirit Qi from further away to converge upon him.

Naruto Uzumaki, who also practiced this technique, saw through his perception that the Wood Spirit Qi had formed a massive vortex, pouring crazily into Jiraiya's body.

As the Wood Spirit Qi entered his body, it began at the heart and transmitted to every part of his frame. With each beat of his heart, the Wood Spirit Qi washed over every corner of Jiraiya's body like a tide, slowly entering his meridians and acupoints, gradually healing the hidden injuries left behind by years of cultivation and combat.

As time passed, the wrinkles on Jiraiya's face slowly faded and eventually disappeared entirely. His skin became tighter and fairer, and his thick, flowing white hair became coarser and stronger.

After a while, gray substances began to seep out from Jiraiya's skin. Naruto Uzumaki, who was standing nearby, murmured, "It has begun," and then retreated far away.

This was another function of the Myriad Spirit Longevity Art—cleansing the marrow and cutting the tendons. While healing injuries, it expelled harmful substances from the body, allowing it to return to its peak after every healing session.

Slowly, more and more gray matter seeped out of Jiraiya's body, forming a gray-black horny layer around him. This was followed by a pungent, fishy stench. From afar, Naruto Uzumaki seemed to see layers of green gas swirling around Jiraiya's body.

Jiraiya, still circulating the Longevity Art, was unaware of all this. At this moment, he was immersed in the repair of his body. Gradually, he heard the sound of his own heartbeat: "Thump, thump, thump-thump..." The sound grew stronger, and he could even hear the rushing sound of his blood flowing.

Upon hearing these sounds, Jiraiya knew his internal organs were slowly being strengthened; once the strengthening was complete, these sounds would vanish.

The vortex of Wood Spirit Qi outside Jiraiya's body slowly shrank, and the surrounding Wood Spirit Qi stopped gathering. Standing in the distance, Naruto Uzumaki knew that Jiraiya's injuries had fully recovered, his vitality could no longer be replenished, and the cleansing of his marrow and tendons had concluded.

As the last wisp of Wood Spirit Qi was absorbed, Jiraiya slowly opened his eyes, immediately catching a whiff of a pungent, fishy odor. Seeing Naruto Uzumaki in the distance waving at him and pointing at himself, he looked down at his hands and saw they were covered in a layer of black horny substance. He then realized his entire body was coated in the same filth.

At this moment, Naruto Uzumaki waved at Jiraiya again and pointed toward the nearby pond. Jiraiya understood his meaning and quickly stripped off his clothes, jumping into the pond. The water where he landed quickly turned murky, and as he scrubbed his body, the murky area expanded rapidly.

After a long while, feeling that he had cleaned himself, Jiraiya jumped onto the bank, leaving several small fish and shrimp floating on the surface of the small pond.

Once on the bank, Jiraiya quickly used the Summoning Jutsu to call forth a toad.

The toad summoned by Jiraiya was only a meter tall, wearing a necklace with the character "Loyalty" on it. This was Gamatatsu, the toad Jiraiya summoned frequently.

Gamatatsu's strength was not high, but his stomach could store items, so Jiraiya usually kept his belongings inside Gamatatsu.

After Gamatatsu appeared, Jiraiya immediately said, "Gamatatsu, take out my suitcase."

Only then did Gamatatsu notice Jiraiya; if not for the fact that Jiraiya's voice hadn't changed, he would have barely recognized him.

At this moment, Jiraiya was completely naked except for his loincloth. Seeing this, Gamatatsu immediately spat out Jiraiya's suitcase.

Under Gamatatsu's strange gaze, Jiraiya rummaged through the suitcase, pulled out a set of black robes, and quickly put them on. After having Gamatatsu store the suitcase again, he dispelled the summoning.

Naruto Uzumaki walked over and asked, "Pervy Sage, how do you feel?"

After sensing the changes in his body, Jiraiya replied, "I feel great. My body feels much lighter, as if I've become decades younger, and I feel that my strength has also increased."

Naruto Uzumaki then took a small mirror out of his bag and handed it to Jiraiya.

Taking the mirror with confusion and holding it up to his face, Jiraiya froze. A face that was both strange and familiar appeared in the reflection.

In truth, Jiraiya was quite handsome when he was young, but that was under the condition that he wasn't peeping into women's bathhouses or wearing that lecherous grin. He had been quite vain back then, but ever since he left Konoha and learned to drink, the alcohol had left him with a sense of decay. As he aged, Jiraiya rarely looked in the mirror.

The face in the mirror had clearly returned to how he looked at twenty. Although the tear marks on his face remained, they were not as long as before; they were now shaped like spikes, reaching only to the bridge of his nose.

These tear marks were not as strange as before; instead, they added quite a bit to Jiraiya's appearance.

With disbelief, Jiraiya raised his hand to touch his cheek and pinched it. Feeling the pain, he knew this wasn't a dream, and in his excitement, he crushed the mirror.

Naruto Uzumaki stepped forward and teased, "Hehe, Pervy Sage, you're actually quite handsome."

Hearing Naruto Uzumaki's praise, Jiraiya proudly tilted his head and said, "Of course, back in the day, I was the object of affection for many a maiden, you know."

This wasn't Jiraiya bragging. As a student of Hiruzen Sarutobi and having earned the title of one of the Legendary Sannin of Konoha in his early twenties—plus the fact that few people ever caught him peeping—the young Jiraiya indeed had many female admirers.

Moreover, having traveled the ninja world for many years, Jiraiya had received many expressions of love when he was young, but he had ignored them entirely; otherwise, he wouldn't have remained alone until now.

The vitality within the Wood Spirit Qi was incredibly powerful, repairing bodily damage, including flaws, and aging was a type of flaw. While removing the scent of decay from Jiraiya, it also caused him to emit a refreshing fragrance that made anyone who smelled it feel relaxed.

Of course, these changes were temporary. If Jiraiya did not practice the technique to absorb spiritual energy and maintain his internal vitality, he would eventually age again.

Naruto Uzumaki smiled and said, "Alright, Pervy Sage, save the vanity for later. You should still have chakra in your body, right? No need to extract more; just use what you have to test the power of your ninjutsu."

Jiraiya nodded, threw his dirty clothes into the small pond, and formed hand seals: Fire Style: Flame Bullet.

He would hold oil refined from chakra in his mouth and ignite it with fire style as he spat it out. This was a ninjutsu that attacked in the shape of a flame bullet. Limiting the amount of oil refined could shorten the activation time of the ninjutsu; if an enemy were careless, they would be burned to ashes by this oil-infused flame bullet. It could also be spat out in multiple bursts. This was a new ninjutsu Jiraiya had developed after improving the Fireball Jutsu.

A fierce flame erupted from Jiraiya's mouth, flying toward the small pond. Before it even touched the water, the water in the pond began to evaporate. When the flames made full contact with the surface, a hissing sound erupted, and the water level began to drop rapidly.

As Jiraiya maintained the output of his chakra, the water in the pond was soon completely evaporated. Jiraiya stopped the Flame Bullet, changed his hand seals, and used the Water Style: Great Waterfall Jutsu, causing a stream of water to pour into the small pond from above.

Once the pond was filled, Jiraiya used the Earth Style: Earth Movement. The ground on both sides of the pond quickly squeezed toward the center, and in the blink of an eye, the original pond vanished, having been filled in by Jiraiya.

The water he had just poured into the pond also disappeared, because the water created by ninjutsu was not real water; not only would it vanish, but it lacked all the properties of actual water.

Source: Naruto: Starting with Asura Chakra by Ti Ta