In his mind, Naruto sorted, compared, and integrated all this information into categories.
More than forty Shadow Clones had each broken through different stages of the Flying Thunder God. Some first sensed spatial fluctuations, some first completed Chakra engraving, and some found shortcuts in the spatial calculation process.
Under the integration of Absolute Control, these scattered breakthroughs quickly formed a complete logical network.
The two most crucial steps—the formula engraving of Chakra and the spatial perception of the engraved formula—had transformed from principles into tangible sensations in Naruto's mind.
Naruto opened his eyes and took a blank kunai from his ninja tool pouch.
Holding the kunai in his right palm, he followed the engraving sequence of the Flying Thunder God Formula, gathering Chakra at his fingertips and beginning to carve it stroke by stroke.
The Flying Thunder God Formula had no fixed pattern. Every user created a unique mark based on their own Chakra traits.
Tobirama Senju's Flying Thunder God Mark was an exceptionally simplified special rune, while Minato Namikaze's mark was the four characters for Ninja Love Sword.
It was a memento of a certain promise between him and Kushina, and it also symbolized the will to protect Konoha.
Naruto had no intention of following their example. After thinking for a moment, an image flashed through his mind.
A large five-pointed star against a red background, surrounded by four smaller five-pointed stars.
This pattern was an anchor to his past life, and it could constantly remind him where he came from.
This mark was one of a kind in the Shinobi World. There was no possibility of it being mistaken for anything else.
The Chakra at his fingertips made its first stroke across the metal surface of the kunai's handle.
Naruto moved slowly, not because he was unskilled, but because engraving the Flying Thunder God Formula required extremely precise control over Chakra density and penetration depth.
If the Chakra was too shallow, the engraving would not last. If it was too deep, the metal itself would be unable to withstand it and would shatter.
Absolute Control gave Naruto milligram-level precision in sensing the force at his fingertips. The depth of every stroke remained at the optimal point of the metal's tolerance.
When the final stroke fell, Naruto lifted his finger from the kunai.
A five-pointed star was clearly imprinted on the metal surface of the kunai. Its points were sharp and neat, while four slightly smaller five-pointed stars surrounded the larger one in a flawless arrangement, forming a miniature flag.
The mark flickered in and out of view under the metal's reflection, as if it had been embedded deep within the metal's grain.
Naruto looked at the pattern, his fingers brushing the edge of the star as the corners of his lips rose slightly.
"From now on, I'll make this pattern cover the entire Shinobi World."
After saying that,
Naruto gripped the kunai engraved with the Flying Raijin Mark, weighed it in his hand to confirm its feel, then casually threw it ahead.
The kunai traced a silver arc through the air and embedded itself in a crack in a rock roughly fifty meters away, across the waterfall pool.
Naruto closed his eyes and focused on the unique sensory frequency of the Flying Thunder God Formula.
The next moment, Naruto clearly sensed the existence of the five-pointed star mark on the kunai.
It was neither visual sight nor ordinary Chakra perception, but a form of location awareness that fundamentally transcended physical distance.
In his perception, the mark was like a star in the night. Its distance, direction, and even the state of the mark itself were all crystal clear.
Naruto activated his Chakra according to the activation sequence of the Flying Raijin Technique.
Unlike the ordinary Body Flicker Technique, which required hand seals, Flying Thunder God activation relied entirely on the spatial passage connecting the formula and its user.
The instant Chakra activated the formula, the unfolded spatial passage pulled the user directly along the coordinates, point to point.
The dizzying sensation lasted less than a tenth of a second.
Once his vision stabilized, Naruto looked down and saw himself standing at the edge of the rock on the far side of the pool. His right foot was directly beneath the crack where the kunai had been embedded, while his left foot rested on a moss-covered pebble.
He pulled out the kunai and spun it once between his fingers.
"It worked."
Naruto was delighted.
His voice was drowned out by the waterfall's roar, but the smile at the corner of his mouth could not be hidden.
Flying Raijin First Stage: teleportation successful.
No matter how fast a ninja was, their movements left traces. The Body Flicker Technique had the windup of hand seals, taijutsu Body Flicker had footwork trajectories, and Golden Body Mode's high-speed movement was merely the ultimate in speed, but it still had a route.
But space was formless.
Before time entered the equation, space reigned supreme.
With Flying Thunder God, Naruto possessed a trump card in this high-attack, low-defense world of the Shinobi World that most enemies had no way to counter.
Naruto put away the kunai, then engraved five more kunai with Flying Raijin Marks while mentally reviewing the next stages of his Flying Thunder God training.
The First Stage was the foundation: fixed-point, single-use teleportation. It was already complete.
Next, he needed repeated practice to improve activation speed and teleportation accuracy, then he could move on to the Flying Raijin Second Stage.
The Flying Raijin Second Stage allowed continuous teleportation during high-speed combat, incorporating Flying Thunder God into the rhythm of real combat offense and defense.
He also needed a batch of ninja tools marked with Flying Thunder God.
Ordinary kunai were easily damaged, but kunai forged from Chakra-Conductive Metal would not only greatly improve the clarity of spatial perception, they would also be less likely to break.
However, Chakra-Conductive Metal was quite expensive. With his current mission rewards and the occasional C-rank mission bounty, he could still save enough to buy a few.
But where to buy them seemed to be a problem too!
Naruto thought for a moment, and eventually someone appeared in his mind.
Tenten.
One of the Konoha 12 who threw weapons around as if they cost nothing.
Her family ran a ninja tool shop, so they definitely had some.
But he and Tenten did not know each other yet. Looks like I'll have to get acquainted with her during the Chunin Ninja Exams.
After muttering to himself, Naruto found a corner inside the cave and firmly drove a kunai engraved with a five-pointed star mark deep into the most inconspicuous crack in the rock wall.
He smoothed over the surface of the crack with his palm, leaving no visible trace from the outside.
This would be a fixed teleportation point. Whether he was in Konoha or out on missions in the future, as long as he activated the Flying Raijin Technique and locked onto this kunai's coordinates, he could instantly return to this cave.
After setting the coordinate point, Naruto checked the Perception Isolation Barriers inside and outside the cave again. Once he confirmed both layers were functioning normally, he walked out of the entrance.
Standing beside the waterfall pool and facing the clearest first rays of morning light, he dispelled Golden Body Mode.
The golden Chakra cloak slowly faded away, his hair fell back over his forehead, and his vertical beast pupils returned to round blue eyes.
Naruto raised a hand and rolled his shoulders and wrists, feeling the abundant yet restrained Chakra still within his body as he began reviewing the results of last night's training.
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