Time is something that humans find difficult to perceive accurately; it can be fast or slow. When it's slow, it's like the clock in an exam room for a bad student, and when it's fast, it's like time in Mount Myōboku, faster than a bullet.
Time flowed quickly like the Ganges River. Since he gouged out his eyes, three months had passed.
Within these three months, the ninja world was peaceful. Naruto's "One Road, One Belt, Every Village Connected" initiative, without a tailwind leading the way, progressed astonishingly. At the very least, the road he pulled out was a straight line.
He blasted mountains and crossed waters, forcefully carving out a straight road from the Land of Lightning to the Land of Fire, and now cars were even running on it.
The ninja world had never seen such a straight road.
But no one bothered Naruto. After all, everyone had families.
No one dared to guarantee that if they provoked him, two more mountains wouldn't appear above their village. It was better to provoke him less. Not only that, they even developed a strange set of rules based on certain characteristics.
No matter how much enmity you had with someone, as long as you heard a loud number, you immediately stopped. Otherwise, a certain blond would inexplicably join your fight.
You couldn't beat him. Even if you could, think about the sky above your village.
A geo-stationary weapon walking the ninja world.
This was the concept Naruto left for each village.
In response, Naruto could only say that his "reason-persuades-people" plan, set when he was young, was beginning to show results, but it was still lacking. He hadn't learned Sage Mode yet. Once he did, that would be true "reason-persuades-people."
At this moment, Naruto was tackling Sage Mode.
Mount Myōboku, Naruto sat cross-legged on the steel gate atop a stone pillar, sensing the surrounding natural energy.
According to the predictions of Fukasaku and Shima, he should have learned Sage Mode within these two days; it could happen at any moment. But this timeline was repeatedly delayed by Naruto. It wasn't that he wasn't practicing, but every time he thought about learning Sage Mode, he'd get excited. When excited, his emotions would fluctuate, and then he'd fail Sage Mode training and fall off the stone pillar—a vicious cycle.
How could he not be excited? He had started training to sense natural energy since he was in the academy, and it had been almost ten years now. Ten years! That's enough time for his mother to have given birth.
Naruto couldn't describe how excited he was, probably less excited than a salesman making his first big sale in ten years.
And whenever he got excited, his brain would, like when he couldn't solve a test question, inexplicably cycle through a jumble of songs and images.
Hallelujah, building our nation. Who's that knocking at my window? It's him, it's him, it's him...
"Thump!"
Once again, he crashed to the ground due to an internal mental storm. Naruto stood up and was about to get back on the stone pillar when Fukasaku emerged to stop him: "Naruto, that's enough for today."
Naruto waved his hand to dispel the dust and picked up the steel gate: "You don't need to worry about me, I'm fine."
Fukasaku looked at the stone pillar, which was a bit shaky at its base, and sighed. I know you're fine, but can you please think about the stone pillar? Even with Earth Release, it's a hassle to put it back to normal, alright?
"Little Naruto, come back tonight. Go look at the starry sky, clear your mind. Your current state isn't suitable for learning Sage Mode," Fukasaku hopped onto the stone pillar and lightly tapped Naruto's forehead.
In all his years of teaching, it was the first time he had seen someone with such an active mind. It was as if he had a world within his mind that he needed to imagine, no, dozens of worlds.
"Okay," Naruto knew he wasn't in good shape, so he nodded obediently and waved his hand to activate the teleportation.
Therefore, it's truly difficult for a materialist to cultivate the idealistic Sage Mode.
Returning to the side of the Extreme Bliss sound system, Naruto lifted the blanket. His voice suddenly amplified, from a range of two hundred meters to several kilometers: "1040..."
Quickly covering himself with the quilt, Naruto pulled Karin over, bit her, and drank some of her blood. Then, chains extended from his back, binding the Extreme Bliss Box and Mojie's Precious Brick.
Just then, Jiraiya walked over, carrying Shunpo. "You're back. How was today?"
"Almost," Naruto replied, and with heavy steps, began to advance.
After he had walked a few hundred meters, Jiraiya followed, carrying a ginger fish cake.
Behind him, Konohamaru secretly followed Shunpo. If he deviated even slightly, he'd get a beating. This was his new job for the past three months: a herding dog.
In the evening, after calming his mind and freezing his body at high altitude, Naruto returned to Mount Myōboku and sat on the stone pillar.
He sat there for tens of thousands... of minutes.
The next day, Fukasaku arrived and saw this very scene: a blond young man sitting atop a stone pillar. Around him, natural energy slowly merged into his body. Black eyeshadow with a red inner circle gradually appeared around his eyes.
"He finally did it!" Fukasaku was even happier than Naruto. He finally succeeded! This child's solo training consumed more than dozens of Jiraiyas combined. If he didn't succeed, Mount Myōboku truly wouldn't have enough oil. Naruto could also feel his own changes. At this moment, he felt as if he could perceive everything in the world. The birds in the sky flapping their wings, the fish in the water wiggling their tails, the leaves falling with the wind... Everything was an experience he had never had before, clearer than the memories transmitted from his clone's pseudo-Sage Mode.
Feeling the natural energy within his body gradually fill up, Naruto slowly opened his eyes.
The moment he opened his eyes, Fukasaku, who was calculating how much Naruto had consumed from start to finish, froze.
What is this thing?
If he was heartbroken before, Fukasaku's mood at this moment was probably like Shima sensing her child in the delivery room being a toad.
Even though it looked like one, it wasn't a frog.
Why do you have vertical pupils?
"Little Naruto." Fukasaku couldn't help but call out, then jumped onto the stone pillar, staring at his eyes.
"Hmm?" Naruto looked at it confusedly.
This glance confused Fukasaku even more.
Perhaps realizing it was mistaken, the originally vertical pupil slowly turned, and finally, under Fukasaku's gaze, it horizontally aligned itself.
From a vertical "1" to a horizontal "1".
But there was also a difference. If a normal Sage Mode eye was like Jiraiya's, a horizontal rectangle within the eye, then Naruto's looked more like a fox's eye turned sideways, with pointed ends.
At this moment, Fukasaku's mood was probably like Shima realizing she had hugged the wrong child and returning to the delivery room to hug a poison dart frog.
Even though it was a frog, it was definitely not its own species.
Jumping off the stone pillar, Fukasaku immediately began forming hand signs in mid-air.
"Eh!!!" Fukasaku didn't worry about his balance. Naruto couldn't stabilize the steel gate. His excellent physical conditioning allowed him to kick off the stone pillar at the last moment, perform several flips in the air, and land steadily.
"Reverse Summoning Jutsu." Fukasaku slammed his hand on the ground, summoning a bewildered Jiraiya. "What's going on?"
Fukasaku explained the recent changes to Jiraiya. Naruto didn't hear any of it. He returned to the stone pillar, threw a punch, and the stone pillar snapped in response.
He looked down at his hands. Naruto was ecstatic, almost in tears.
Finally... finally, he had mastered it.
After rubbing against natural energy for ten years, he finally got in!
At this moment, Naruto no longer had to worry about the future, nor did he have to worry about his emotions affecting his future entry into Sage Mode. With the first time done, the second time would be much easier, and with practice, it would become faster and faster.
"Naruto, come here." Jiraiya called out to the dazed Naruto.
"Huh?"
"What happened just now?"
"Huh?"
Fukasaku helplessly explained what had just happened to Naruto, and even had him look in a mirror.
After seeing it, Naruto's expression was very subtle. He had seen Minato's Sage Mode; it definitely wasn't like this.
His own looked more like a horizontal fox or dragon-snake pupil.
Is this due to dragon meat, or secretly taking classes at the Ryūchi Cave, or is it because he connected with the Nine-Tails before Sage Mode? Naruto guessed several reasons, but could he talk about taking classes? No. So Naruto threw the blame on his own fox spirit: "This should be because of Kurama."
"Is that so..." Jiraiya looked down, pondering the possibilities, then looked at Naruto's eyes. He felt it wasn't impossible. After all, a Nine-Tails Jinchuriki cultivating Sage Mode was unprecedented.
Naruto didn't pay attention to what Jiraiya thought. Speaking of the Nine-Tails, he now urgently wanted to experiment with another mode: the Cross-Eyed Mode.
"Big Fox, cooperate."
Currently, his Sage Mode wasn't complete. To use Cross-Eyed Mode, the Nine-Tails had to cooperate.
Seeing Naruto's excessive excitement, Kurama didn't want to spoil his fun. It said little, slowly releasing chakra, which fused with Naruto's Sage Mode.
When the fusion reached a certain proportion, the fox automatically stopped. Naruto opened his eyes again. Just as he was about to take out a mirror, he froze first.
"It can be used like this!" Seeing Naruto's reddish, fox-like cross-eyes, Jiraiya and Fukasaku exclaimed.
"I was just trying it out. I didn't expect it to actually work," Naruto replied, then asked Jiraiya with a strange expression, "Old man, do you see people normally when you're in Sage Mode?"
"Yes, just like normal," Jiraiya replied, then, remembering Naruto seemed to have no normal abilities, asked, "What's wrong with yours?"
"Nothing," Naruto waved his hand disappointedly.
Looking at the cross in his own eyes in the mirror, then looking up at the sky, his gaze seemed deep enough to directly peer into the origin of the universe.
Then why do I look like I have auto-aim, always locking onto targets? God, are you testing me?
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