An hour later, inside the volcano.
Seimei paused his physical training, extended his senses, and locked onto the Flying Thunder God marker on the island above. With a single thought, he activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
In an instant, he teleported to the central clearing of Moon Island.
"Phew…"
Letting out a long breath, he dispelled the lightning membrane around his body and finally relaxed.
Then, he focused his mind inward, carefully assessing the results of the past hour's physical training.
The proof was in the progress: switching to this new training ground had boosted the speed of his physical enhancement.
Still, a single hour wasn't enough to accurately predict when his body would undergo its next transformation.
So, he had to keep going!
With that thought, Seimei glanced at the shadow clones training across the island, then dispelled the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique with a thought.
As usual, he absorbed the past hour's worth of training experience and memories from the clones, then repeated the process, diving into the next round of training.
Time slipped by, second by second.
In the blink of an eye, two days had passed.
It was noon again.
After completing another round of physical training and teleporting back to the central clearing of Moon Island, Seimei checked his progress. Based on the results of the past three days, he could finally make a fairly accurate estimate of when his body would transform.
He figured that switching to this new training ground had shaved about half a month off the timeline.
In other words, instead of mid-October, he could complete his next physical transformation by the end of September at the latest.
Today was July 14th.
That meant, in about two and a half months, his body would hit that transformation point.
And that wasn't even the final timeline.
Over the past twelve days of training, his Wood Release was also on the verge of a breakthrough.
Seimei estimated that, at most, in another day or two, it would level up.
When that happened, his body's transformation timeline would shift even earlier.
And judging by the effects of his previous Wood Release upgrades, the boost wouldn't be small.
Seimei was really looking forward to it.
That said, this timeline was already a bit delayed.
Originally, he'd expected his Wood Release to level up on the eighth or ninth day after developing Storm Release—meaning yesterday or the day before.
But as his Wood Release progressed, training with the Wood Clone Technique started yielding weaker results, dropping more than he'd anticipated.
It was only five days ago, when his Wood Clone Technique leveled up to Level 8, that the effects started to rebound.
Otherwise, forget one or two days—even a bit longer might not have been enough for a breakthrough.
Oh, and there was more.
His Ice Release, after passively building up for so long, was now close to (900/1000) in progress.
At his current pace, he'd need at most three more weeks—early August—to level it up.
When that happened, his aptitude would improve, pushing his body's next transformation even closer.
That's why Seimei said the end of September wasn't the final timeline.
"Suck… phew…"
Taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, Seimei calmed his mind.
Then, he opened his ninja pouch, pulled out a few enhanced soldier pills, popped them in his mouth, and chewed them down.
Soon, a wave of fullness hit him.
Closing his eyes, he rested quietly.
It was already noon, and after training all morning, it was time for a break.
Half an hour passed in a flash.
Suddenly, Seimei's eyes snapped open.
Without hesitation, he raised his hands, formed the "Boar" seal, and cast the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique.
Poof! Poof! Poof!
With bursts of chakra smoke, three hundred clones appeared in the clearing.
Looking at them, Seimei assigned their tasks as usual: 250 to work on developing Dust Release, and 50 to optimize Body Extreme.
It's worth noting that, after nearly a month of research, he'd started forming ideas on how to integrate physical enhancement into Body Extreme.
Next, he just needed to carve out some time for his real body to work with the clones and run experiments.
If things went smoothly, he could merge the two this month, allowing Body Extreme to break its limit and level up again.
With that in mind, Seimei sent the clones off.
Then, he teleported back to the volcano's interior and kicked off a new round of training.
…
In a flash, it was the evening of the next day—the final stretch of this intense training session.
As Seimei cast the Wood Clone Technique again, the stimulation pushed his Wood Release to finally accumulate enough progress for a breakthrough.
With a thought, he opened his proficiency panel.
There, his Wood Release progress flickered and jumped to (1/10,000)!
A warm sensation flooded his body, as if his very life force had surged.
And that wasn't all.
He stretched out his hand, and with a single thought, a vibrant green vine sprouted from his palm.
Under his control, the vine moved like a nimble snake, sometimes stretching out to probe its surroundings, other times wrapping around his fingers playfully, almost like it was showing off.
It was brimming with life.
Clearly, this upgrade had boosted his control over Wood Release by a significant margin.
This would make learning related ninjutsu much easier in the future.
But that was a side note, not his main focus.
Right now, his biggest concern was how much this would speed up his body's transformation.
With that thought, Seimei closed his eyes and carefully sensed his body.
Just as he'd expected, since Wood Release was so closely tied to his physical body, its upgrade had a massive impact.
By his rough estimate, this breakthrough would save him at least another half month—about the same boost as switching training grounds.
That meant his body could hit the transformation point by mid-September.
And that was just the immediate benefit.
Since Wood Release improved his aptitude, every future physical training session would take less time than before.
In other words, until his "Constitution" stat reached a certain threshold, he'd keep reaping these benefits.
A flurry of thoughts crossed his mind. Seimei glanced at his Ice Release progress one last time, then closed the panel and resumed training.
However, it was clear that practicing the Wood Clone Technique now barely moved his Wood Release progress.
He figured that even if he maxed out the Wood Clone Technique, it wouldn't add much to his Wood Release progress.
There wasn't much he could do about it.
After all, with Wood Release now at a 10,000-point progress bar, advancing further was like going from a three-tomoe Sharingan to a Mangekyo Sharingan.
That kind of leap was huge and couldn't be achieved by relying on something as simple as the Wood Clone Technique.
So, for now, Seimei wasn't counting on Wood Release progressing further anytime soon.
Clearing his mind, he quickly finished his daily quota of Wood Clone Technique practice.
After that, he packed up his gear and returned to the Hidden Leaf.
As for the final bit of Body Extreme training?
As always, he'd handle that back in the Leaf.