Chapter 58: The return of our best friend, training!
"I am ready!" Dix shouted out, at which the toad prepared for a second, then shot out from his place. He jumped to almost a hundred meters high, then landed with incredible force that left a crater under him due to his extreme size and weight. Next Gamabunta tried to shake his body around like its a rodeo, but Dix stayed perfectly still. He also tried diving under water, but Dix kept sitting on his back with crossed legs and arms.
This and similar things happened for the next 12 hours, right until the Sun disappeared behind the horizon. In the end, Gamabunta got more tired than Dix did, and had to admit defeat. Dix jumped down, and was greeted by the yawning Jiraiya that watched trough the whole process. Everyone marveled some at how good Dix is, Gamabunta acknowledged he really is better than the Fourth, and Jiraiya said the next morning they will depart right away.
It happened just like that, they met up at the village gate, then they were reverse-summoned to Mount Myoboku. Its similar to FTGT, but for this technique someone has to be present at the destination to summon the targets. They arrived in the blink of an eye, and Dix put down an FTGT formula right away. He also casually knocked a bit on Jiraiya's right arm to mark him as he said:
"Thanks for the ride, pervy sage!"
"Watch it, kid. I'm a sennin, and a sennin always keeps its word. I'll make you the best Senjutsu user alive!"
"Ahhh, Jiraiya-boy... I see you have a new disciple... Would you mind introducing us?" came forward the green small toad with a grey cape on him, he was the one that summoned them there.
"Ah, of course. This here is Naruto, he is a very promising young kid, the son of the Fourth Hokage, that you yourself know. Naruto, this is one of the great elder toads, Lord Fukusaku. He is the one who taught me the ways of the Sage. Now I will hand this knowledge over to you. You should use it well."
"Thank you for helping us, Lord Fukusaku." said Dix then respectfully bowed in front of the small toad.
"You are quite polite for your age, Naruto-boy. You will make it far for sure." Next Jiraiya knocked a bit on Dix's shoulder to get his attention then pointed towards some sort of leaf-building.
"I have a permanent residency set up here, we will live there. You can pack out your stuff there. Settle in, we will be here for a while, take my bag too, I'll wait for you to come back here." he said, then threw his belongings towards Dix, who easily caught them.
He did as instructed, deposited both bags into their respective rooms then hurried back. From there the pair of teacher and student and Fukusaku moved over to a clearing that was surrounded by black statues of frogs that were sitting in a meditative pose. There was also a huge pond of yellow substance there that was constantly replenished by a huge fountain above it.
"Now let me tell you how senjutsu training works. At the basics, you have two kinds of energies. Mental and physical. Combining the two you create chakra, that you use for taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu. Natural energy is very similar, a third type of energy that you can add to the mix of the previous two. If you can merge the three energies and properly balance them, then you would get the power of Nature itself. This is strong, because natural energy is an external power, so using it won't tire you out. Also it activates your body on many different levels, thus it will be stronger, faster and more durable. You can also use it to empower your already existing techniques." Jiraiya started teaching Dix, all the while he walked over to the edge of the pond and sat down.
"To sense natural energy, you have to go against your animal instincts and sit completely still. But I know very well that this is rather... hard to master. There is another way though. Give me your arm." he said, then reached out to Dix. That one pulled his long sleeve back a bit and handed over his hand. Jiraiya grabbed it, then with his other hand he got some of the substance out of the pond and rubbed it on Dix's skin, all the while Fukusaku kept nodding dutifully.
"This is the secret toad oil of Mount Myoboku. This is why we had to come here for you to learn this technique. This will let you get a good idea of the concept of natural energy. After a good bit of training you won't have to use this oil anymore, but it has a risk. If you can't properly control the natural energy that gets into your body, it will start to deform and you'll soon turn into a frog, then later you will become one with Nature itself. All those statues you saw around were students that failed at this part of the training."
Dix looked at his arm and saw only miniscule changes happening on his skin. It was turning into a frog's skin, just like Jiraiya said. He already knew of these, but was surprised to see how little the changes were, together with Jiraiya. Most likely because of his incredible chakra reserves. He closed his eyes and focused on the alien energy entering his body. He wanted to force it out of his system, but it was slippery like the oil itself. He had a really bad grasp on it and it kept getting out of his clutches. He understood the point of the training. Next Jiraiya pulled a long wooden rod out of his coat.
"This rod here can rid anyone of the natural energies in their bodies upon getting hit. I presume you will use this latter technique to get a hold of natural energies, and as you start turning into frog I'll smack you so you can turn back to normal. It will be a painful training, but you will have to suffer for success, kid."
"Yes, Jiraiya sensei. But before that, I want to make a few suggestions." Dix said as soon as he got the chance to speak.
"Go on..."
"I have considerable chakra reserves, so I want to use shadow clones to learn both ways at once. I read about this place before, and I happen to know that there is a rocky area where many spikes of rock grew out of the ground, and at which place I could study the not-moving part. Could you show my clone there?"
"Ehh, you are a studious one aren't you? Sure... I'll take him over there. Lord Fukusaku, could you take over this side?"
"Ahh, yes, of course, Jiraiya-boy. It seems like you got a good student. Just go, I'll handle this."
Jiraiya handed over the wooden baton, then split up from the rest, accompanied by a clone. They would have to go to that spiky terrain, take an already prepared stone slab and sit at the top of those extremely thin, almost needle-like rocks. The clone saw the amount of slabs available, checked out how many spikes there were, then summon around a hundred clones that started the training. He stayed at ground level and would keep summoning other clones if one were to fall.
The original at the pond on the other hand offered to take over the baton from Fukusaku and started playing whack-a-mole on his own clones. He summon a hundred of them too, and used his superior speed to quickly hit the natural energy out of the clones that were about to turn into frogs. He as able to keep up for hours, contrary to how Fukusaku would've fared if he were to take matters into his own hands.
Soon he was called to go and have lunch. He asked Fukusaku to take over with the baton for a few minutes. The frog sage expressed his doubts about his ability to handle this, but Dix told him to use natural energy and maximum speed. It will only take a few minutes. He quickly put down a formula there, then used FTGT to go back to Konoha, really quickly grabbed a bite, then teleported back to Mount Myoboku. He was away for a little over four minutes, but Fukusaku was already heavily sweating and looked strained.
"I'm back, Lord Fukusaku, it seems like you handled yourself well. Thank you for the help, I finished lunch quickly, so I can continue the practice. You can go now and have lunch yourself." Dix said, then took the rod from the frog and rushed back to set a highscore at whack-a-mole.
"Naruto-boy, you really should take a break. Its not good for your health to keep pushing so hard." said the toad with worry in his voice and on his face.
"Don't worry, Lord Fukusaku. If I can have my daily 8 hours of sleep then my health will stay well as it is. I've made sure of that!" came the nonchalant answer.
The training continued like this for 10 days straight until he started seeing results.
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