Solo Leveling

"75… 76… 77…" Sakura grunted. "78… 79… 80…"

If someone were to peek through Sakura's bedroom window at this very moment (which wouldn't have been the first time), they would be met with a very strange sight. But for now, the curtains were drawn and the ceiling lamp was turned off, so there wasn't much to see yet in the pitch-darkness of Sakura's room.

"I brought some more!" came Sakura's own voice from the hallway outside. "Who doesn't have theirs yet?"

A split second later, Sakura's bedroom door burst open, finally shining a light on the indecency occurring inside! …Or at least, it certainly looked like something indecent was going on. Sakura was doing handstand press-ups in the middle of her room, surrounded by twelve of her Shadow Clones, who themselves were in various stages of undress… for a reason that will be explained shortly.

"I haven't got one yet!"

"Me neither!"

A thirteenth Shadow Clone entered the room, carrying a bunch of tree leaves in her fists. One after the other, the remaining Shadow Clones lined up to receive their leaves, making sure not to bump into the sharp corners of Sakura's nightstand, before returning to their posts around Sakura.

But the question remained: what in the world was going on? Why had Sakura created thirteen Shadow Clones and forced them to take off their clothes? Was it for some kind of sick, autoerotic, narcissistic play that she had dreamed up for herself?

The answer was: yes… but also no.

The astute reader might have already guessed this from the leaves that the thirteenth Sakura Shadow Clone had brought in, but all of this setup was for training. Not elemental transformation training or anything fancy like that— just the basic, academy-level chakra control training that was Leaf Concentration Practice.

For this exercise, you simply placed a single leaf on your forehead, and you made it stick there using your chakra; a beginner-friendly introductory exercise to chakra control, and a good way to focus your mind. When Sakura had tried to remember the steps to creating a Rasengan the previous day, she had ended up remembering this exercise, after which she had designed a special training regimen for herself to counter Lee's Taijutsu.

Basically, instead of making the leaf stick to her forehead, Sakura was making her Shadow Clones perform the exercise for her, since she would gain their experience. Furthermore, the Shadow Clones weren't restricting themselves to simply sticking their leaves to their foreheads, which was why they had discarded various items of clothing— each one of them had a single leaf stuck to a random part of their body!

It had to be known that the human body possesses 361 pressure points known as the Tenketsu— three hundred and sixty-one chakra pathway network nodes, from which it is possible to expel chakra from the body.

In general, most shinobi would only be able to release chakra from the Tenketsu on their hands and feet, because learning to do so for other Tenketsu would only be redundant and inefficient; hands for Jutsu, and feet for wall-walking and water-walking.

The only exception to this rule are the elites from the Hyūga clan; their Byakugan let them see their own Tenketsu, thereby allowing them to easily train themselves to access them— and this was precisely what Sakura was attempting to master in under a month, because it was her one and only chance at beating Rock Lee.

If even Sasuke's Two-Tomoe Sharingan couldn't capture Lee's figure in his normal, weighed-down state, then there was no way that Sakura's eyes would be good enough to catch sight of Lee running around at the speed of sound, especially if she could push him to use the Fifth Gate. Even if she had Minato's inhuman nerve reflexes, they wouldn't help at all if she couldn't even see Lee coming…

Unlike Sakura, Minato had always been extremely talented at sensory-type Jutsu; being able to track chakra signatures at a great range, he had never really needed to use his eyes for things that were too fast to perceive with the naked eye. But unfortunately for her, Sakura had no sensory-type Jutsu— which is why her entire strategy against Lee hinged on allowing herself to get hit!

Indeed, Sakura intended on tanking a single hit, before immediately counterattacking; Guy's bone cheat would allow her to survive in one piece, while Minato's reflexes cheat would allow her to retaliate in time. And the last piece of the puzzle was chakra's sticky properties; if Sakura could stick to the ceiling by emitting chakra from her feet, then there was no reason why she couldn't stick to her opponent if he made contact with her skin— which was why she was doing Tenketsu training in the first place!

…

There was only just one obstacle in Sakura's path to mastering all 361 Tenketsu: today was July 8, so considering that the third exam would be taking place on August 6, Sakura only had 29 days left to train, including today.

For now, Sakura could divide her chakra a maximum of fourteen times, which would leave each one of her thirteen Shadow Clones with the same amount of chakra that she had possessed during her academy days. Assuming that one day's worth of practice would be enough for her to 'unlock' one Tenketsu, it would take her thirteen Shadow Clones 28 days to unlock them all… which was cutting it pretty close, considering her 29-day time limit.

As for why the original Sakura wasn't partaking in the exercise, and was instead performing handstand press-ups… it was because she was training her body. She needed stronger shoulder, pectoral and back muscles to support her ever-growing breasts— and besides, stronger muscles would mean more fighting power and more stamina to convert into chakra.

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And so, this is how the rest of Sakura's day went:

She would do handstand press-ups while simultaneously kneading more chakra, to replenish everything she had used up to make her Shadow Clones. Every two hours, she'd need to make some more Shadow Clones, because they would run out of energy, despite Leaf Concentration Practice not being very chakra-intensive. Then, she would take a quick pause to eat and drink to replenish her energy, before starting the cycle all over again.

In the background, the Shadow Clones would gossip all day long about the previous night's dinner like Nagoya schoolgirls; both to stave off boredom and to train Sakura's ability to multitask…

"I bet Asuma-sensei never thought that Hinata would eat more than Chōji!"

"He's never going to financially recover from this…"

"I feel kind of bad for him, actually…"

"Do you think they'll use the cream?"

"Karin and Ino, definitely— Hinata, I'm not so sure."

Sakura had given the girls free samples of the Breast-Refining cream as an investment. One day, the cream would show results, and eventually, news of her miraculous product would spread through word of mouth. They'd sell her cream and her revolutionary new bras in hot springs, apothecaries, pharmacies, new age goods stores… and Sakura would never have to be poor again.

"Did you notice how Kiba kept sniffing the air?"

"Maybe he likes the smell of BBQ?"

"I heard women emit a lot of pheromones from their boobs, so… considering the size of these puppies…"

"We made sure to wash off all of the cream before going to the restaurant, right?"

"Ugh, I bet Shino was staring at my chest behind those sunglasses of his…"

'Agh!' Inner Sakura shouted. 'I can't even hear myself THINK any more!'