58 BSWS CH-58 The Chunin Exams XXVI - Pain and Growth

Sakura's new schedule was extremely packed. While she visited the hospital with Karin during the mornings to learn medical techniques, at night she would train by herself secretly.

She was working at night like this because she was working on a few jutsu and techniques that were practically forbidden to be learned by civilians unless expressly permitted by the Hokage.

She had devised a perfect way for her body to grow stronger rapidly. It was based on a combination of the Eight Gates Technique, Body Revival Technique, and Cellular Activation technique.

Eight Gates pushed open the limiters on the body's chakra pathways, which increased the body's performance, while at the same time harming the body by making it go beyond its limits.

Body Revival Technique took advantage of the muscles' ability to grow stronger after repairing itself from damage. As per the theory, the Body Revival Technique could repair the user's body and increase its strength by manipulating the "Destruction and Rebirth" cycle of the muscles.

Finally, Cellular Activation Technique gathers chakra to the area of the body where the damage will take place, preemptively starting medical treatment in order to minimize the damage that will be received. The more extensive the damage, the more chakra it takes to heal.

By combining these three techniques, Sakura had created a way that would rapidly strengthen her body even through normal exercise.

She will begin exercising by opening the gates. As the pressure of the gates starts damaging her body, Body Revival Technique and Cellular Activation Technique will heal it at an equal pace while also making her body stronger simultaneously.

To make sure she doesn't bulk up like a monster, Sakura also devised her own personal technique made with a combination of medical knowledge and Yang release that would compress and condense her muscles, so that she could have the same amount of power in a slimmer and swifter body.

While it sounded all good, this combination of techniques she was going to employ had major drawbacks.

The first drawback was an obvious one: Pain. There was no way that such a perfect combination technique, that made her body rapidly stronger and better, would not make her go through hellish pain.

Even Lee went through huge amounts of pain when activating just the Eight Gates, let alone Body Revival which would reconstruct Sakura's body into an optimized form at the same time.

The second drawback, Body Revival and Cellular Activation were both techniques that require huge amounts of Chakra. So she could only activate this combination of techniques she invented for a short duration of time before she would run out of chakra.

Once her chakra ran out, she would have to rest and meditate for quite a while before she could refill her chakra to its full capacity.

The third and final drawback, these procedures were incredibly delicate with high chakra control and mental focus requirements. If she activated this combination in an unfocused state, then she could very well end up crippling herself.

With these three drawbacks in mind, Sakura decided she would activate them for short periods of time in each session, before meditating to increase her spiritual aspect while also recovering chakra.

However, she was confident that despite only activating for short intervals, this combination of techniques would improve her physique more rapidly than if she simply exercised like Lee for the entire month. She decided to name this combination 'Heavenly Evolution'.

The first night when she activated Heavenly Evolution, she could barely hold on for three to four minutes before passing out due to pain and exhaustion.

She had only activated First of the Eight Gates, yet when combined with Body Revival the pain magnified by tenfold. For the first time after reincarnating to this life, Sakura cried hard until her voice became hoarse.

After coming back to consciousness an hour later, Sakura forced her aching body into a Meditative pose. While Meditating, she used Cellular Activation to heal her soreness and muscle fatigue.

From that day forth, Sakura spent each day in the same routine. In the morning she would spend her time learning medical techniques along with Karin. At night she would force herself to go through with this torture again and again.

Second by Second, Minute by minute, Sakura slowly increased her limits of endurance and increased the time limit for which she could hold on to Heavenly Evolution.

As her physique became stronger and vigorous, her chakra amount increased rapidly too. This was because she had never neglected the meditation aspect to increase her Spiritual Energy.

The increase in Spiritual Energy and Physical Energy contributed to the rapid increase in her chakra quantity and quality.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Three Weeks after the Preliminaries

In a training ground, two young Kunoichi were battling against each other. Red and Pink streaks flew all over the place as they battled.

While at the first glance it looked as if they were battling, if someone examined closely, they would see that the Red one was focusing on dodging, while the pink one was focused on attacking.

But it was understandable, as every step of the pink-haired Kunoichi left cracks and foot imprints on the ground, while her punches and kicks displaced the air around them with low booming sounds.

The pink-haired Kunoichi suddenly jumped into the air and brought her leg down in an ax kick. The red-haired Kunoichi dodged with a somersault timely, as the ax kick of the pink-haired Kunoichi left a deep gash on the ground.

"Okay stop!!!" Karin shouted as she held her hands up in surrender while looking at the deep gash on the ground "Gosh, just how much weight have you increased on yourself, you lunatic?"

"20 times," Sakura replied as she panted with her hands on her waist.

To test the improvement in her physique, Sakura had been battling Karin in a Taijutsu battle, while increasing the gravitational force on herself through Added Weight Jutsu.

As a by-product, her punches and kicks produced similar effects to Tsunade's Strength of a Hundred Technique, creating pure physical destruction.

"God, you are crazy, Sakura," Karin said with a gasp as she came up to heal Sakura's muscle fatigue "What kind of crazy training did you do these past few weeks that you can withstand such physical burden?"

"Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that," Sakura said with a nonchalant wave of her hand "But it was worth the effort. I think I can now match up to Lee in pure physical prowess to a certain extent. I may not be as fast as him, but I am definitely as strong."

"Only you would be crazy enough to try and match up to that Master-Disciple duo." Karin said with a shudder "Do you know that after the preliminaries they have become even crazier? The other day I saw them racing 500 times around the Konoha perimeter!! 500 times!!!"

"Yeah, that is how they are," Sakura said with a laugh "Lee is probably the most hardworking Shinobi of our generation. Only he would have the guts to stand up once again after being utterly defeated by Gaara."

"You know Karin, if I had not stopped him that day, that crazy fool would probably have thrown his life and future career away, just to match up to Gaara's full power. I don't think I will ever have the same level of conviction as Lee. That is why I strive to at least emulate a little bit of his dedication."

"Anyway, at least my training bore fruit. My chakra is easily at Top Jonin Level now. My physique is also comparable to the top Taijutsu experts of our generation like Neji and Lee. Whether it is Genjutsu, Fuinjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, or Medical Techniques, I am proficient in them all."

"I think I am finally ready for the Chunin finals," Sakura said with a grin as Karin shook her head amusedly.

"I think there is one last thing you could master though, as it will give you a decent edge in future battles," Karin said.

"And what is that?" Sakura asked.

"Summoning," Karin replied with a grin.