Chakra Refinement and Testing

In the basement, Hyuuga Nen held a book about chakra refinement and read it carefully.

"Chakra is made up of physical energy and spiritual energy. Physical energy comes from the 130 trillion cells in the human body, but the book's description of spiritual energy is rather vague." Hyuuga Nen frowned and set the book down.

After a while, Hyuuga Nen stopped dwelling on the question. He sat down, took a deep breath, relaxed, and pressed his hands together. Following the method in the book, he tried to sense his spiritual energy and combine it with his physical energy to refine chakra.

Half an hour later, Hyuuga Nen silently lowered his hands. "It's no use. I can't sense either my spiritual energy or my physical energy. Never mind. There's no need to rush."

Hyuuga Nen calmed himself and reminded himself not to get impatient. Then he picked up a book on physical training and began to read.

An hour later, Hyuuga Nen put down the book and stood up, ready to find somewhere to practice taijutsu. He tucked the book inside his clothes, walked out the door, and headed for the forest.

Once he reached the forest, Hyuuga Nen first practiced punches and kicks according to the methods for generating force described in the book. Afterward, he added supplementary exercises for strength, endurance, and flexibility, doing squats, push-ups, long-distance running, and stretches.

By the time he finished all his training, it was already noon. Hyuuga Nen was panting, drenched in sweat, and his legs felt weak.

"My body isn't used to training yet. It's my first time." With that, Hyuuga Nen slowly made his way home.

This training continued for three days. Hyuuga Nen gradually got used to exercising and finally managed to refine a wisp of chakra.

That morning, Hyuuga Nen sat on the basement floor with his eyes closed and carefully sensed his chakra. After confirming that he hadn't made a mistake, he slowly raised his hands and looked at them. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"I finally refined chakra. This feels so good!" Hyuuga Nen calmed himself and began to think.

Judging by my training over the past few days, my aptitude should be decent. I have plenty of energy. I used to be drowsy before I turned six, but that's no longer the case. After resting, I can recover quickly from high-intensity training. Refining chakra in three days is already very fast.

Then Hyuuga Nen thought of how drowsy he used to be. What caused that? Was it because I crossed over, or was there some other reason? I can't figure it out right now. I hope it won't have any adverse effects on me. Hyuuga Nen pushed down his worries and thought silently.

Hyuuga Nen was quite pleased with how he had done over the past few days. From then on, he refined chakra and practiced taijutsu in the mornings, then studied the ninja theory textbooks his father had given him in the afternoons.

Through these textbooks, Hyuuga Nen learned about the methods, precautions, and taboos ninjas faced while carrying out missions.

At night, Hyuuga Nen put what he had learned into practice. During this period, he mainly trained in tracking and counter-tracking, with Taro as his training partner.

During their tracking practice, Hyuuga Nen would either track Taro or be tracked by him.

At first, Hyuuga Nen suffered a major setback. He had a hard time finding Taro, and even when he finally managed to track him down, he couldn't catch up. After all, Taro was stronger than Hyuuga Nen.

With his keen sense of smell, Taro could easily find Hyuuga Nen. This made Hyuuga Nen wonder for a while whether he had any talent for being a ninja.

Hyuuga Nen got his mindset in order and put the methods in the book into practice. He tried wading through water and smearing all sorts of strange things on himself, then combined those methods with the Transformation, Clone, and Substitution Techniques he had learned during this time to throw Taro off.

When tracking Taro, Hyuuga Nen also learned from him, using fur, footprints, and scent to follow his trail, in addition to what he had read in the book. At last, his "record" improved a little.

Sometimes, Hyuuga Nen and Taro would track wild animals in the forest together. After training for a while, Hyuuga Nen's tracking and counter-tracking skills improved greatly. He was no longer a complete novice.

That night, Hyuuga Nen returned home after finishing his "hide-and-seek" with Taro. When he got back, Rika looked at him with a complicated expression and said, "Nen, I've told them that you want to become a samurai."

Hyuuga Nen nodded when he heard her. He was thinking about his own plans and didn't notice Rika's expression.

It's been three months since I refined chakra. I haven't let up on chakra refinement during that time, and aside from the Three Basic Techniques, I haven't learned any new ninjutsu. I've accumulated enough chakra to conduct that experiment. I'll start tomorrow.

The next day, after waking up, Hyuuga Nen didn't refine chakra. Instead, he went straight into his taijutsu training. Throughout the day, he only did basic taijutsu exercises and read books. He also stopped his evening training to minimize chakra expenditure as much as possible.

Hyuuga Nen was doing this to find out how long chakra remained stored in the body after being refined and how quickly it naturally dissipated. After all, he was now in a real world. His previous understanding of chakra had only been superficial; he needed to learn the details to master it better.

After conducting the experiment for half a month, Hyuuga Nen had reached a preliminary conclusion:

"Once refined, chakra can be stored in the body, but as it flows through the chakra pathways, it gradually dissipates. If it isn't replenished, it will disappear completely after about half a month. As for how quickly it dissipates..."

"I can only say it's neither fast nor slow," Hyuuga Nen added quietly. "At least a ninja's body isn't a sieve. If it were, that would be terrible."

"As for whether people with chakra recover automatically after using it all up, maybe they do, maybe they don't. The amount might just be too small for me to sense. I'll explore that later, when I have the chance. For now, I should focus on getting stronger. I also need to revise my training plan."

After that, Hyuuga Nen revised his training plan. During the day, he studied the theoretical material in his books and practiced the lessons that didn't require much space in the basement.

For the exercises that required more space, Hyuuga Nen would sneak out to the forest late at night to practice, such as throwing techniques and ninjutsu. During these sessions, he had Taro stand guard to avoid being discovered.

Hyuuga Nen also added practical combat training to his schedule. Since he had few options, he could only spar with Taro for now. Through day after day of study and training, Hyuuga Nen felt himself growing stronger little by little.