Vegeta-Style Special Training (Part 2)

In the afternoon, he pushed his resistance to blows to the limit.

He had requested one of the clan's training puppets and set it to its lowest-power blunt-strike mode. Water-soaked rubber rods cracked against his back, and the pain knocked half the air out of his lungs.

Bruises spread from his shoulders to his waist. His ribs felt like they were being pricked by needles whenever he breathed, yet when he woke up the next day, the bruises had faded and his injuries were completely healed.

That was the terrifying effect of the Saiyan Physique's threefold recovery rate.

At night, he did some rudimentary gravity simulation.

An old vest, its seams stuffed with iron sand, weighed down on his body until his bones creaked—one hundred and eighty jin in total. It was the "gravity chamber" he had bought by emptying his savings.

Practicing taijutsu while wearing it felt like throwing punches through mud, while the iron sand chafed against his skin until it burned with every kick.

Chakra was a gentle stream, but this Ki was like magma, surging through his veins and forcing him to focus completely on taming it.

"Four hundred ninety-eight... four hundred ninety-nine... five hundred!"

His final punch smashed into the sandbag with a dull boom. A tear split across it, and lead blocks mixed with iron sand came spilling out onto the ground.

Lan collapsed onto the ground, his sweat soaking the earth as his chest heaved like a broken bellows.

He could feel that his chakra reserves had grown, and its flow had become smoother.

More importantly, that vague mass of Ki could finally be barely condensed into a thin thread.

"Still not enough..." he muttered.

After resting for eight minutes—three minutes longer than Vegeta's standard—he finally pushed himself up. He was not Vegeta, after all. He was still only a boy a little over five years old.

As he rose, his gaze fell upon an old camphor tree at the edge of the training ground, so thick that one person could barely wrap their arms around it.

A week ago, he had kicked it with all his strength and left behind only a faint white mark.

Taking a deep breath, Lan gathered the Ki he had just recovered into his right fist.

He imitated the cold ruthlessness Vegeta showed when gathering energy in his memories. His Sharingan locked tightly onto the chaotic Ki, dragging it bit by bit toward the center of his fist. With every inch he pulled, the power in his fist increased.

"Hah!"

With a low roar, his right fist slammed into the trunk!

Crack—!

The bark exploded, spraying wood chips and sap in a fan-shaped burst!

The bowl-thick trunk actually let out a sharp crack from the point of impact. A spiraling fracture rapidly spread along the grain, and with a thunderous crash, the half-man-high stump broke away. Its cross-section revealed growth rings shattered by the force of the blow.

Lan staggered back three steps. The muscles in his right arm bulged and trembled, yet the knuckles no longer felt the stabbing pain they had during his previous strikes.

The stronger his body's basic resistance to attacks became, the more monstrous his overall durability grew under the Saiyan Physique's threefold defensive boost.

He stared at the broken tree, then suddenly grinned. Bloody foam seeped from his gums, but his eyes shone with astonishing brightness.

This was not a simple addition of power. Uchiha's eyes of insight had tamed the Saiyan's violent Ki. For the first time, the two powers had truly "shaken hands" within his body.

"The power... is still growing..." he said softly, unable to stop the corners of his mouth from rising.

The feeling of constantly growing stronger was simply too addictive.

Three days later...

Balancing upside down on one hand, he used the other to support a massive boulder weighing a full two hundred jin as he performed slow, difficult fingertip push-ups.

He had maintained this position for nearly ten minutes.

Sweat fell like beads from a broken string, dripping from Lan's jawline.

The muscles in his arm had long been screaming. Every time he pushed himself up, it felt as if countless needles were stabbing into his nerves.

"Huff... hah... huff..."

It felt as though a fire were burning in his lungs, scorching him with pain.

This was already the final day of this week's special training.

Since yesterday, the system's warning that the time limit for the mission [Complete a week of Vegeta-style brutal special training] was about to expire had been ringing through his mind like a death knell, yet the mission's overall completion rate remained stuck at 99%.

"Still... not enough?" Lan gritted his teeth and suddenly exerted force with his arm, pushing himself up once more.

He could clearly feel his physical limits being broken through again and again.

His muscle fibers had become tougher through tearing and rebuilding, while his chakra reserves had doubled compared to a week ago.

More importantly, his perception and control of Ki had gone from somewhat clumsy at first to as effortless as moving his own limbs.

Yet the system still refused to give him a completion notice.

"Could it be... the intensity still hasn't reached Vegeta's standards?" Lan's eyes sharpened further.

That Saiyan prince was a monster who could casually do thousands of push-ups under one hundred times gravity.

Compared to that, his training volume truly was nothing worth mentioning.

"Damn it..."

A fierce unwillingness surged up in his heart.

He clenched his teeth, and his previously slow fingertip push-ups suddenly sped up!

"One, two, three... one hundred!"

Every push-up was accompanied by faint cracks from his bones and excruciating pain in his muscles.

Yet he seemed completely unable to feel the pain, repeating the motions mechanically and madly.

The ground in his vision began to spin, while the sound of his breathing turned into a piercing buzz in his ears.

His body had already reached its limit and could collapse at any moment.

Just then—

[System Mission: Complete a week of Vegeta-style brutal special training (Completed).]

[Mission Reward: Template Progress +5%. Current Progress: 25%.]

[New Ability Unlocked: Ki Control (Intermediate)—Can control Ki, deeply fuse it with chakra and use it, increasing the power of ninjutsu/taijutsu by +200%.]

The cold system prompt sounded sweeter to Lan than any heavenly music.

"Hah... hah... finally..."

He could no longer hold himself up. His body went limp, and he crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

It felt as though every bone in his body had fallen apart. Even moving a finger took all his strength.

Yet a weary but satisfied smile appeared on his face.

Ki Control (Intermediate)!

This meant his strength had increased dramatically again. Including the progress he had made through this week of grueling training, he was at least three times stronger than he had been a week ago. Even against a Chunin now, he was confident he could win!

He tried to mobilize the Ki within his body. Sure enough, it had changed from its former violence into gentleness, rapidly flowing along specific meridians under his will.

He could clearly "see" the energy's path and could even alter its direction and density at will.

"Saiyan Energy Bullet, fire!"

At Lan's shout, three Ki Blasts appeared in his hands almost simultaneously and shot toward the distant woods.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Lan looked at the three foot-deep craters blasted into the distance and could not help smiling broadly.

"Hahahaha! Amazing! I've become stronger again!"

After saying that, Lan finally could not hold on any longer and lay down on the ground.

He looked at the sunset on the horizon, his heart swelling with ambition.

But at that moment, a discordant voice came from nearby:

"Yo, isn't this our Uchiha 'genius,' Lan? Why are you lying there like a dead dog?"