Shuofang Si stood on the Main God's platform and looked down at his hands.
He finally understood why protagonists in fiction always looked at their hands after a major leap in strength. After all, the signs of training all showed up there.
His hands now looked like those of a seasoned martial artist.
They had developed quite a few calluses.
The muscles across his chest and abdomen were impressively firm. With his eight-pack abs, he looked every inch an accomplished athlete. His body fat percentage was probably extremely low-even if he returned to his old concrete jungle, he could easily work as a model.
In just 160 days, this body had undergone qi accumulation and foundation building through the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art, completed the transformation of its innate constitution through the Muscle-Tendon and Bone-Forging Chapter, and even received thorough conditioning through the Golden Bell Shield's external training. He could safely say he was completely different now.
He had truly been reborn.
Shuofang Si clenched his fists. The sheer power he felt honestly went to his head. It really was that feeling people always described online: being able to kill a cow with one punch.
He had exchanged for time in the Naruto World sixteen times. Although each stay lasted only ten days, whenever he returned, he did nothing but heal his training injuries and buy ingredients. Once that was done, he exchanged for more time and went straight back.
During those 160 days, he rented a quiet little courtyard in the Land of Fire Capital. Every morning, he practiced the Muscle-Tendon and Bone-Forging Chapter and the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art first. In the afternoon, he trained the Nine Yin White Bone Claw, Heart-Destroying Palm, and Golden Bell Shield, then continued with the Serpentine Civet Tumbling Movement in the evening.
Before each return, he intensified his external training so that the hidden injuries it left behind could swiftly heal in the Main God's healing light.
His Golden Bell Shield reached minor completion so quickly largely because he had exploited the Main God's healing.
Ordinarily, practicing the Golden Bell Shield required repeated beatings followed by recovery, allowing it to improve with each cycle of healing.
But he had the Main God. Each time, he spent a dozen or so reward points on full-body treatment.
All the hidden injuries left by his training healed, which pleased Shuofang Si immensely.
Body-hardening martial arts were normally extremely taxing on the body, but the Main God's healing was such a cheat that Shuofang Si had compressed his Golden Bell Shield training into just over a hundred days.
Compared with the glass cannons that were the other ninjas native to the Naruto World, he effectively came equipped with an Earth Spear jutsu that cost nothing to maintain.
The Flying Cotton Strength and Soul-Transferring Great Method he practiced alongside it, however, were still progressing slowly.
Flying Cotton Strength required finer control, while the Soul-Transferring Great Method involved the use of mental power. For now, he had yet to get a handle on either.
He was now at the Aperture Opening Stage, having just opened his eye aperture, so naturally there was no need to rush.
He had only managed to open his eye aperture a few days before returning.
Whether it was something happening far in the distance or a tiny detail nearby, he could see it all clearly. The sensation was truly marvelous.
After officially entering the Aperture Opening Stage, he had used the remaining few days to stabilize his cultivation, firmly consolidating his newly opened eye aperture.
Then he tallied his expenses.
Standing beneath the Great Light Sphere, Shuofang Si connected his consciousness to the Main God to check his balance.
Although he still had two C-rank side plots, he had only 2,600 reward points left-not even enough to exchange for that wheelchair-bound master of meridian management.
The biggest expense had been his earlier exchange for the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art. After that, most of his points had gone toward exchanging for over a hundred days in the Naruto World, along with more than a dozen healing sessions and the cost of ingredients.
A dozen points here and a dozen there added up to a sizable expense.
Fortunately, points were very easy to farm.
He could keep returning to Naruto to farm points, but with this Main God, returning to a world meant he could only move forward along the timeline he had already experienced.
Since the Konoha Crush, Tsunade had succeeded as the Fifth Hokage. He had also heard that Sasuke Uchiha had defected.
The reincarnated Second Hokage had vanished without a trace, and he had no idea what had become of him.
Shuofang Si quickly ran through the plot events he could return to trigger during this period.
Tsunade had only just taken office, and Konoha was still badly weakened by the Konoha Crush. Sasuke had just defected, and Naruto was about to leave to train with Jiraiya.
The Akatsuki was operating in the shadows, and the opening of Shippuden was still a long way off.
He could jump straight to the Shippuden period, but that would waste too many opportunities.
Although the period before Shippuden was relatively peaceful, it was not entirely without side plots he could trigger. Raiga Kurosuki, for instance.
That rogue ninja, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, possessed Kiba and traveled with a boy named Ranmaru, who had the Red Eye Kekkei Genkai.
In the original story, Raiga Kurosuki had died at the hands of Might Guy's team. Shuofang Si could not pinpoint exactly when that plot event occurred, but it should have been around this period.
If he could intervene at that point, both the lightning blades and the Red Eye Kekkei Genkai would be quite valuable.
As for how to get involved, he could simply go to Konoha and commission a mission. He now had a large amount of cheap gold exchanged from the Main God Space. Wouldn't appearing in Konoha as a client be perfect?
Once he commissioned the mission, he would naturally encounter them when the time came.
Besides, he needed real combat. Shuofang Si was well aware of his greatest weakness at present: combat experience.
Granted, after unlocking his Gene Lock, he could fight on instinct without any trouble. But he was still only an ordinary person who loved extreme sports. He had some nerve, but he had never experienced genuine life-or-death combat.
What happened on the Hokage's rooftop had hardly counted as a fight. He had merely awakened his Gene Lock out of defiance and the desire to survive.
By now, he had repeatedly practiced the Nine Yin White Bone Claw and Heart-Destroying Palm against wooden posts, engraving their movements into his muscle memory, but actual combat remained a problem.
He had trained the Serpentine Civet Tumbling Movement to minor completion, but he had never tested it while being pursued by a powerful enemy. He had only hired a few ordinary people to help him train.
Sure enough, these were not problems he could solve simply by training on his own.
At that moment, Shuofang Si also had another idea.
In the original story, the reincarnators in the infinite worlds all leaked energy, making extremely inefficient use of the energy and rare treasures they consumed.
When exchanging for precious ingredients in the food section, Shuofang Si had noticed that the nutrients he consumed genuinely remained in his body and were digested and absorbed normally.
That meant he did not leak energy. In that case, there were certain paths he could pursue on his own.
Pill refining.
Shuofang Si glanced at Battle Through the Heavens on the return list.
When considering how to make use of these worlds earlier, he had thought about visiting Battle Through the Heavens later and finding an alchemist to refine pills that would aid his cultivation.
Back when he was planning his training around the events in Naruto, he had already wondered, Why don't I learn pill refining myself?
That way, even after leaving the Main God Space, he would have a self-sufficient means of improving his cultivation efficiency.
As Shuofang Si thought it over, his resolve gradually strengthened. His cheat had given him the opportunity to travel through myriad worlds, but his growth along the way still depended on his own efforts.
After all, only with strength could he enjoy his journey through those worlds. Otherwise, he might end up in some terrible world one day and be done for.
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