16 Extreme workout

Dix played around with training regimens as he wasn't really well informed in the matter. He actually tried the One Punch Man training, he understood its somewhat usable, but it doesn't work out all of his muscles, so he had to improvise. He tried many different forms he remembered he had seen from his previous life.

The simple 10km run was exchanged to 30km running on trees. He tried his best to acclimate himself to moving as fast as possible in every environment. He jumped trough the trees like a monkey, the same way it was seen in the anime. This actually moved almost every single muscle he had, but it mostly built up stamina, instead of strengthening. It was plenty of fun though.

Instead of regular sit-ups he started doing them while hanging from a branch, with his lower body even using chakra to keep the balance, as he had to complete 300 of them as fast as possible.

Instead of normal push-ups he stood on his hands and had to jump away from the ground and try to land back the same way. This simultaneously strengthened his upper-body muscles while also made his balancing improve.

Also he had to pull himself up on a branch while alternating between pulling the branch up to his stomach or to his back for 300 times each. This excellently shaped most of his back muscles. He had to find a strong and thick branch to use though, as he already broke a few with his speed.

Dix knew that the most important part of physical training was the recovery, which happened trough resting. First he thought he would have to take days off for his muscles to grow properly, but in reality, the miraculous effects of the chakra astonished him once again. Such heavily infused muscles regain energy and regenerate so damn fast they can complete the recovery phase by the time he finishes with a different set of exercises. He just had to alternate them evenly and between specific time frames. This means he is able to keep working out non-stop infinitely until he collapses of mental exhaustion.

His clones didn't sit around either. Well, some of them did, but they didn't laze for sure. Squad A, the inner chakra control training squad kept on circulating energy in their pseudo-bodies, trying their best and experimenting with the ways of better chakra handling. Also they tried to minimize the chakra leaking and experiment with ways to completely prevent it.

Squad B, the ones doing the outer chakra control training were sent to the near pond to practice water walking. That exercise is almost the same as the tree climbing one, but instead of creating a sucking force on their feet, they had to evenly emit a constant amount of chakra while keeping proper balance. It was a bit harder then the tree climbing, so they were occupied with that.

Squad C was about to finish with their daily doze of jutsu. They learned quite a few E and F rank techniques which were mostly useless for Dix, but he still was glad he could get as much knowledge together as possible. He also noticed this squad is a bit too fast, or more like the intake of jutsus is not enough. He will either have to downsize the squad or try to get access to a private library where his clones could freely operate.

Squad D was the combat training one and they were the ones to heavily expend their chakra all the time. Dix had to regularly remake the whole squad to replenish their reserves. Between those, they usually stand up in pairs while 4-6 stand to the side and either tell them what they missed or how the combat forms would be better or summon more clones in place of those that were destroyed.

Squad E was going well with studying seals and developing them. It was a hard topic, all the fine details of a seal are extremely important and they had to get them all perfectly right. Thus, they had a ton of work on their hands which wouldn't run out anytime soon.

Squad X, the oh so mysterious team of 5 clones that are in charge of R&D were having a hard time improving the the Shadow Clone Jutsu. Dix ultimately wanted to use this technique to solve many different problems he faced or will face in the future. But the direction he wanted to head was quite a stretch, like instead of a passive link between him and the clones there could be variants that he has an active link with, which would mean, if he manages to synchronize them, that he could think with many brains at one. Or use the mind-cloning part of the jutsu and write them into seals on his body to set up permanent secondary brains. But it was extremely hard to change an already existing and heavily refined technique such as this one. Dix would have been more than surprised if he saw results anytime soon.

Even though Dix was heavily immersed in his extreme workout, he still kept tabs of the time. The sun was about to hit its highest point on the sky, so he decided to look for food. Also, he cancelled all the clones, as the training session has ended. He stood there, dead in his tracks for around 3 minutes, until all the accumulated knowledge and experience the clones gathered managed to find their places in his brain. He also took back the remaining chakra they had, that was so much it was plainly visible as the huge amount of energy found its way back to him. It looked like a stream of azure blue water levitating trough the air. The first second of the process made his head hurt like its about to explode, but soon the burning pain slowly subsided. Dix, after regaining his senses, decided to lower the session times even more. Half the original, so 3 hours. Also, he did not summon new ones to start the next session right away. Even though he took back the chakra that wasn't used up by the clones, he still was left with less than half of his full reserves, so he opted to regenerate instead of spending all of what he had.

With the rapid expenditure of chakra that the clones maintenance required, he had to take in huge amounts of nutrition to cover his chakra regeneration. He realized the small animals he used to hunt won't be enough anymore. With this, he started running trough the forest at full speed and his senses boosted to the max. This was the best way to look for possible prey.

After a few minutes of searching he noticed the noise of some animal, it wasn't loud, but it definitely stood out. A forest has a vibe of its own. Every animal lived in perfect balance that had a melody of its own. But this noise broke that balance. Dix decided to check it out. He was bored of the endless training, so he wanted to see if an adventure waits for him at the source of the sound.

When he arrived at the scene, he saw two bodies of big animals lying on the ground, both frozen into mostly their own blood. A big dark furred wolf, and an even bigger wild boar. It seemed like they had a huge fight here, and if either one of them did win at the end, they succumbed to their injuries anyway. It was quite the peculiar sight, Dix wished he had arrived sooner to see the fight of these two great beasts.

The boar was all scratched up, with various bite marks throughout his whole body. This one had to endure a lot, probably he was on the loser's side for a long time. The wolf had two huge holes on his body and its chest area was totally crushed, like it was hit by a truck. Probably the wolf managed to fight the boar with guerilla tactics, but was surprised at the last second by the boar and it managed to turn the tables. It looks like the boar finished the wolf off right away, practically one-shotted it, but couldn't revel in glory for long as he soon bled out due to his extensive wounds.

Wolfs usually don't try so hard to get food, only when they are heavily malnourished or other reasons force their hands... paws. The wolf didn't look that scrawny, so Dix was quite confused for a few seconds. He didn't have to look why this happened for long.

There was a tiny wolf cub between the legs of the dead, probably mother wolf. It was staring at Dix with such hostility, like he was the one that killed its mother. As they were staring at each other Dix had a sudden realization and a glimmer of excitement flickered in his eyes. He was familiar with this scene, he had seen it not in Naruto, but in a lot of other anime or manga. Its the famous 'the some kind of animal's parent die and the main character gets a rare opportunity to take the cub in and raise them as their best friend' scene.

Dix wasn't really an animal lover, but if it had to be anything, he would've preferred a dog. He was sure whoever sent the cub his way knew about this.

*Dead parent, weak cub in need of help. This must be his work for sure! If I wanted to piss him off I'd probably just leave the cub here... or maybe even pierce his heart before I move away with the boar. Well, not like I'm that heartless, why would this animal have to die because I have my suspicions and hate someone? Actually I wouldn't mind company that isn't asking questions and is loyal without doubts, so why not?*

Firm in his decision he summoned two clones. One turned to the boar and started processing it, while the other one moved to gather some firewood and make a small camp. All the while the real one sat down in front of the carcass of the wolf and its cub. It looked really terrified when two other unknown beings popped out of seemingly nowhere. This broke the laws of physics it seemed to know, subverted its expectations of the world. When it saw Dix sitting down not far away, it instinctively stared at the closest threat and started growling in a weak and high pitched voice.

Dix on the other hand did nothing, just sat down cross-legged and started meditating. The cub had no idea whats happening, but he could still see the other two moving around behind the closer one as they did their tasks. After around 10 minutes a fire was started and the aroma of cooking meat filled the area. When the boar was fully processed the clone that handled it dispersed, and the second started roasting the meat while also he tried to carve out some sort of bowl from a smaller log so he can bring water for the pup.

It was around another 10 minutes when the first serving was finished and the clone handed it to the real one. He didn't eat it though, he threw it closer to the cub without moving. The meat got to around half way the distance between them, so the pup had to move to actually get it.

But it wasn't willing to. It would just stay there and continue staring. It was quite enduring, as it took more than 2 hours for its stomach to start audibly rebelling. By that time the carving clone also finished and brought water from the nearest water source. He placed it right next to the meat that was on the ground and dispersed. At this time Dix was also quite hungry, so he went to eat the rest of the boar at the barely flickering campfire. It still emitted some heat, so the meat didn't go completely cold, but it wasn't the best temperature either.

Another few hours passed and Dix had already fully recharged his chakra reserves and was actively training both inner and outer chakra control, as he wanted to get better at multi-tasking. He was still thinking about the pup that was not far away, and he started to worry about the time spent. He was about to stand up and force the cub to eat somehow, when it started moving by itself.