Chapter 302: Shikkotsu Forest's Sage Mode, The Possibility of Evolution
[After solving the troubles in the Hidden Mist Village, you didn't have any urgent problems to solve for the time being, so you could devote your time to improving your strength.]
[As for the trade between the Sand Village, the Land of Waves, and the Hidden Mist Village, you left most of it to Karin and ordinary people to handle.]
[Although ordinary people don't have the strength of ninja, you don't need to worry about them doing anything out of line. You only need to occasionally send a shadow clone to inspect, and you can solve the vast majority of troubles.]
[You found Tsunade again and explained that you wanted to learn Sage Mode from Katsuyu. Tsunade wasn't surprised by your arrival. In fact, she had long wanted to teach you and Sakura how to summon Katsuyu.]
[Soon, you and Sakura wrote your names on the Katsuyu summoning scroll together, and were then reverse summoned by Katsuyu to Shikkotsu Forest.]
[After a chat to get to know each other, you formally made a request to learn Sage Mode. Katsuyu agreed much more readily than you imagined, but she also warned you that learning Shikkotsu Forest's Sage Mode is difficult.]
[Under her narration, you proved your conjecture. The biggest difference between Shikkotsu Forest and the remaining two sacred places is that Shikkotsu Forest only has one individual, Katsuyu. Although she can use senjutsu, she doesn't really understand how to teach such senjutsu to humans.]
[Therefore, her way of letting humans experience Sage Mode is quite simple and crude: inject natural energy into the human body and see the human's reaction.]
[If the human cannot bear it, she will strip off the mutated flesh and then treat the human to achieve the effect of interruption.]
Seeing this, Makoto exclaimed, "Good lord!"
Originally, the methods of learning Sage Mode in Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave were already dangerous enough, but with Katsuyu, it was simply flaying people alive!
But thinking of Katsuyu's huge body, without even a hand, even if she split into small slugs, it would be difficult to perform fine operations, so one should realize she had tried her best.
Fortunately, Makoto was well prepared to learn Sage Mode in Shikkotsu Forest.
If he couldn't learn it successfully now, then it would probably be difficult to learn it.
What are you waiting for? Start learning!
[You accepted Katsuyu's training method and prepared to start immediately. Although Tsunade couldn't bear it, she still approved of your behavior because she already knew that there was a dangerous organization called Akatsuki coveting the major ninja villages.]
[Tsunade ordered Sakura to stay and assist you, and practice medical ninjutsu by the way. Sakura agreed readily, and you simply built a house with Wood Style in Shikkotsu Forest to live in.]
[Soon, the training of Sage Mode officially began. Katsuyu split off a palm-sized slug, which lay on your palm. After you sat cross-legged and calmed down, she told you how to calm your mind and how to make spiritual power, chakra, and natural energy equal and harmoniously unified.]
[This was originally a quite difficult link. Most Sage Mode practitioners would get stuck in this link, even Naruto was no exception.]
[But to everyone's surprise, you succeeded the first time you were injected with natural energy by the slug.]
[You used your powerful spiritual power to control your chakra, passively maintaining the fusion and operation of spiritual power, chakra, and natural energy, adapting yourself to the fluctuations of natural energy.]
[Eyeshadow appeared on your eyes, and at the same time, powerful power flowed in your body. Just when you thought you were about to succeed, as the natural energy injected by Katsuyu was exhausted, the balance in your body fluctuated, and your body began to petrify.]
[The shadow clone standing by on the side directly cut off the petrified flesh and blood, and then Katsuyu and Sakura with red eyes treated you together. Although you could do these things yourself, you chose to let Sakura practice.]
[Soon, you successfully recovered your health. Thanks to your strong life force, you basically don't need to worry about the upper limit of cell division times, at least this degree of injury doesn't worry you.]
[You began to ponder what went wrong. Finally, Katsuyu's main body saw the clue. She told you that your spiritual power and chakra control ability are unparalleled and can easily forcibly control the balance of a small amount of natural energy.]
[But you haven't truly experienced the flow of natural energy, nor understood the meaning of natural energy. Therefore, when natural energy fluctuates, problems will arise in the balance you maintain.]
[The true way is to become one with natural energy, not to forcibly control natural energy. Otherwise, with a tiny human body, it is difficult to contend with the entire natural energy.]
Makoto frowned slightly, feeling something was wrong.
At least Mount Myōboku's Sage Mode didn't seem to require the user to become one with natural energy.
Instead, as long as the natural energy in the body achieved a 1:1:1 ratio with spiritual power and chakra, senjutsu chakra could be condensed to use Sage Mode.
Why did the requirement become so high in Shikkotsu Forest?
Is this a unique feature of Shikkotsu Forest?
The Makoto in the simulation also had similar considerations.
[After receiving the Sage's teaching, you didn't rashly continue to try, but started thinking. Then you discovered that Katsuyu falls into a deep sleep after eating. When she sleeps, she enters a state of being one with natural energy.]
[Natural energy entering her body didn't have any special effect on her. Instead, Katsuyu's spiritual power and chakra naturally merged with natural energy and flowed in Katsuyu's body, improving Katsuyu's physical fitness.]
[You suddenly realized that what Katsuyu taught you was not a simple Sage Mode, but a further step of treating natural energy as a basic energy in life, letting it integrate into your body and transform your body.]
[If Mount Myōboku teaches ninja Sage Mode to improve their strength, then Katsuyu teaches ninja the method of sage cultivation that allows ninja to live further in life form.]
[As for Ryūchi Cave, that's survival of the fittest. If you don't have the talent to adapt to natural energy, then die. There's no cultivation to speak of.]
Seeing this, Makoto gasped.
He suddenly understood why Hashirama's Sage Mode was so strong.
It turned out that Hashirama's Sage Mode and Mount Myōboku's Sage Mode were not the same thing at all.
Hashirama was essentially evolving life further. No wonder his cell activity was so abnormal that just a few cells could create a White Zetsu army and even allow Madara Uchiha to evolve the Rinnegan.
Perhaps the path Hashirama took had exceeded the general sense of Asura's reincarnation and was stepping towards the level of the Sage of Six Paths.
No, it could even be said that he was walking a path different from the Sage of Six Paths.
After all, the Sage of Six Paths only learned Sage Mode and used natural energy. Although he could control all things in creation, it was not permanent evolution in life form.
Looking at the huge bodies of these summoning beasts, perhaps this huge body itself was a manifestation of evolution caused by natural energy.
So should he continue to train and cultivate?
The answer was obvious: definitely yes!
Even if cultivating natural energy turned him into some giant, he had to continue cultivating. Isn't the simulator used for testing?
[After deep thought, you decided to seriously learn Katsuyu's life form and cultivate natural energy, not just Sage Mode in the ordinary sense.]
[And this means letting senjutsu chakra transformed from natural energy completely transform every cell of your body, which is obviously a huge project.]
[For this, you decided to devote all your energy, and even with Katsuyu's permission, built a huge medical laboratory here, taking your own cells to try to merge with senjutsu chakra.]
[This huge project lasted for a full year. During this year, you have learned Sage Mode. It's just that the Sage Mode you learned follows the route of Mount Myōboku, forcibly controlling natural energy to achieve a 1:1:1 ratio with chakra and spiritual power.]
[You achieved perfect Sage Mode, eyeshadow appeared on your eyes, and your combat power and ninjutsu power were greatly improved. You have stepped into the range of Super Kage. It's just that your Sage Mode can only last for five minutes, which obviously doesn't satisfy you.]
[And in this year of attempts, you finally discovered the possibility of further improving life form. That is, not sticking to specific ratios, but letting each cell experience and find suitable ratios to improve its performance.]
[This means you must experience the pain of every cell in your body mutating, and you have to remove these cells after mutation failure. If it's just this level of pain, you can endure it, but when it comes to the final moment, how to deal with the evolution of the brain?]
[With your medical ninjutsu, as long as the head is still there, you can recover even if your whole body is shattered. But when it comes to operating on the brain, you have no confidence.]
[For this, you also consulted Katsuyu, but Katsuyu's answer made you not know whether to laugh or cry. For Katsuyu, although she also has important organs like the brain, she can separate different individuals.]
[No matter which individual survives, she considers herself still alive. Therefore, when carrying out this last step, Katsuyu's main body has actually died countless times, she just doesn't care.]
[You obviously can't be so open-minded. If there is one person in the ninja world who can be so open-minded, then it is obviously Orochimaru. The Living Corpse Reincarnation used by Orochimaru has long abandoned the original body, so there is no pressure to experiment with the original body.]
[Thinking of this, you suddenly had a brainstorm. Can you clone a large group of your own bodies through cloning and experiment on yourself? You can even separate a part of your spirit, let the spirit temporarily occupy the body, and experience physical evolution.]
[But in this case, the scale of the experiment must be further expanded, and Orochimaru must know the details of the experiment. And once Orochimaru masters such powerful power, this guy will definitely not be content to be Makoto's subordinate researcher honestly.]
Seeing this, the Makoto in reality also fell into contemplation.
If it were himself in reality, he would definitely not do such a thing.
Although for Orochimaru, the body was a toy that could be replaced at any time, Makoto was still reluctant to part with this body.
Then he could only let himself in the simulation try.
Of course, Makoto wouldn't force himself in the simulation to take the path of Living Corpse Reincarnation.
In comparison, experimenting with clones was much more reasonable. As long as the clones didn't develop consciousness, it was within the acceptable range for Makoto.
As for what would happen if Orochimaru knew all this—that would be researched after the dust settled in the ninja war and Orochimaru had no power to resist.
Then Makoto proceeded with guidance.
[You realized that the scope of this experiment was too huge, so you chose to temporarily stop the experiment and consolidate your current cultivation results.]
[Using shadow clones, you can almost achieve infinite endurance Sage Mode, which gives you Super Kage-level combat power. It's just that the current you is almost a replica of the Fourth Hokage, but without the Nine-Tails chakra.]
[Although your own chakra endurance is not much weaker than the Fourth Hokage under the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki state, the Nine-Tails provides not only chakra, and you are not willing to just be a support in the final battle.]
[For this, you began to explore the path of combining Sage Mode with other ninjutsu to further improve your attack power, but in the end, the results you explored were still too far from things like Susanoo Clad Majestic Attire: Susanoo.]
[So you turned your attention to the research of the Byakugan version of Susanoo. You started cloning Byakugan to collect Byakugan pupil power. Finally, after your research, you successfully created a skeletal version of Susanoo.]
[It's just that unlike the original Susanoo, your version of Susanoo borrows the experience of Lightning Release Armor and uses Lightning Release chakra, so it can be considered a pupil power version of Lightning Release Armor.]
[Compared to the original ribcage version of Susanoo, your Susanoo has similar defense, and can also stimulate the ninja to have stronger speed and attack power, and no longer affects the ninja's use of ninjutsu in the general sense.]
[Therefore, it is more like peeling the Lightning Release Armor from the body using pupil power, no longer using the body as the support for the Lightning Release Armor, and at the same time allowing the ninja to gain freedom in using ninjutsu.]
[Of course, compared to the original Susanoo, it also has its weaknesses. That is, your Susanoo itself has almost no attack capability, because that attack capability is driven by the Sharingan.]
[But for you, this is already a huge achievement, which means that driving a Byakugan version of Gundam is no longer a dream!]
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