Start of Training!

After eating, Naruto reached training grounds 7. The first thing he planned to work on was chakra control because it was the foundation of every ninja skill.

If one wanted to efficiently use Ninjutsu, Genjutsu or create Fuinjutsu, they needed a certain level of chakra control. Even Taijutsu and Bukijutsu required the user to continuously mould and send chakra to the muscles and enhance them.

However, before performing a technique, chakra must first be moulded by combining the two types of stamina, physical energy and mental energy. You need a high enough chakra control if you want to mould the correct amount of chakra. Otherwise, you will pull too much or too little chakra.

Chakra control is also utilized when hand signs are used to initiate a technique. Naruto knew the reason why his clone technique didn't work was because he moulded too much chakra but then wasted too much when performing the clone technique. This resulted in not enough chakra being used for the clone technique.

The leaf sticking exercise was a mandatory class at the Academy. Despite taking far longer than others of his age, he had finally managed to get it to stick to his forehead for the 5 seconds required to pass the class.

'This should be relatively easy….' Naruto placed the leaf on his forehead before moulding and sending a stream of chakra, expecting the leaf to stick like he had managed to do so before.

Yet as if to crush any expectation he had, almost instantly after Naruto sent the chakra to his forehead, the leaf was blasted from his body and disintegrated in the air.

"What?! That has got to be a faulty leaf! I have done this before!" Naruto stared in disbelief at the dust carried away by the wind. Picking up another leaf, he moulded and channelled chakra again, causing the leaf to soon follow its comrade's demise.

At that point, Naruto realized it wasn't a fluke. The lack of practising chakra control over the past two years had resulted in him losing the minute control of his chakra that he once had.

In fact, Naruto considered it a miracle that he could open the first gate without destroying his brain after knowing that his chakra control was completely shot.

*Poof* Naruto conjured 5 clones into existence. It wasn't too high a number, and they were only practising the leaf sticking exercise. He figured that he would be able to handle the mental strain from them dispelling.

Everyone picked up some leaves that were lying on the ground, which were unaware of the fate that they would suffer, and attempted to stick them to their foreheads using chakra.

With each leaf's demise, the amount of chakra that Naruto was moulding and utilizing slowly became less and less. Eventually, the leaf started to blast off his forehead but did not disintegrate in the air. It wasn't much progress, but Naruto was happy that it was progress nonetheless.

An hour later, Naruto dispelled the clones one by one in an attempt to keep himself from overloading with information. To his surprise, he didn't feel much discomfort.

Even though he had dispelled thousands at one point after fighting Mizuki, they were only in existence for mere seconds to minutes before being dispelled. In addition, the clones had hardly transmitted any information back, whether it was because of the adrenaline from the fight or the lack of good memory, Naruto didn't know.

Yet these clones had been focused for a little over an hour on an exercise that he found relatively tricky, but he didn't feel any discomfort from obtaining what was essentially 5 hours of memories.

Naruto picked up a leaf, sticking it to his forehead to check if the feedback from his clones increased his chakra control. True to his expectations, the leaf adhered to his head for almost a second before lightly being blasted off.

"It seems that I am correct in thinking that shadow clones can increase chakra control. Because I can handle the strain, maybe I should increase the number of clones? Nothing too drastic, maybe about 50 clones?" Naruto muttered to himself.

After integrating the clones' experiences into his memory, Naruto realized that summoning 5 shadow clones didn't mean he would progress 5 times faster. However, it was still much faster than exercising alone. As a result, 50 clones wouldn't increase his chakra control 50 times, but it would be a hell of a lot faster than 5 clones.

Making another clone sign, Naruto willed 50 clones into existence. Although a quick headcount made him realize that only 43 clones were actually present.

"Stupid chakra control underpowering my techniques, not making the number of clones I want…." Naruto grumbled and summoned another 7 clones to make a perfect 50. The clones silently sat down, picked up a nearby leaf and placed it on their foreheads.

Now that he had confirmed that chakra control exercises performed by the clones increased his control, Naruto planned to leave them and focus on something his clones couldn't help him with. Physical exercise.

"I'll leaf you guys alone and go train, hehe." Naruto chuckled at his own pun before walking away, receiving a mixture of suppressed laughter, glares, sighs of exasperation and looks of confusion from his clones.

Standing in a large open clearing, Naruto recalled everything he knew about exercise, which wasn't much. He knew the basics, such as squats, lunges, planks, pull-ups, sit-ups and running, but hoped that the library would have a book on the subject that he could read when he visited next.

While Naruto didn't exactly have a goal in mind when performing these exercises, he figured he would do each one until he couldn't anymore. It was reckless, but he never had any problems following this routine at the Academy. So Naruto threw caution to the wind and pushed himself until he couldn't move anymore.

It was his dream to become the strongest ninja ever to exist, and Naruto knew that he wouldn't be able to do that if he didn't push himself harder than others.

He had overheard one of his upperclassmen at the Academy say it while hyping himself up before training. "If you believe in your dreams, you can accomplish them just by working hard."

Although it was a strange ideology, it appealed to Naruto. It didn't matter if he had talent or not, if he progressed fast or not. All that mattered was if he had enough perseverance and determination to reach his goal. At the same time, if you failed to achieve your dreams, you couldn't blame anything except your lack of hard work.

Naruto didn't know what happened to that upperclassman, but he knew that the boy graduated, becoming a Genin approximately a year ago.

While thinking about these random thoughts, Naruto pushed himself beyond every limit his body had until he couldn't move anymore. At that point, he laid on the slightly damp grass and stared at the clouds while he waited to recover some level of movement.

Suddenly, his eyes went blank as he was hit with experiences of reading multiple books and scrolls on the types, details and exercises of nature transformation.

To put it simply, there are 5 basic nature transformations that correspond to the elements, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Water and Fire.

Wind and Fire techniques are primarily wide-area offensive attacks. Water techniques are effective at capturing the enemy. Earth techniques are usually defensive or supplementary, with very few useful offensive techniques. Finally, Lightning techniques involved single target attacks with high speed and lethality.

Every person's chakra has an affinity toward one or more of the five basic nature transformations. This affinity is usually caused by genetics and can be determined by a special type of paper called Chakra Induction paper.

"Chakra induction paper? That's going to take another load of Ryo out of Gama-chan…." Naruto wept; Gama-chan was going to be starved for a while.

However, even though Naruto didn't know his affinity, he wasn't planning on waiting until he saved up enough Ryo to purchase Chakra Induction Paper to find out.

Naruto had read that, even if it is more difficult, it is still possible for shinobi to train in natures that don't match their affinity. Hence even if he didn't know what affinity he had, he should pick 1 or 2 natures to focus on.

After thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of the different elemental natures, Naruto decided to focus on Earth and Lightning.

Earth because, in his opinion, it was the most versatile element. It was primarily used in defensive techniques but also had several stealth and reconnaissance applications. Meanwhile, Lightning was undoubtedly the most suitable offensive element for him, with its quick attacks and lethal nature.

After thoroughly analyzing the clone's memories and determining the natures he wanted to focus on, Naruto stood up and headed back to the group of practising clones.

He started to dispel the clones in groups of 5s every couple of seconds. After dispelling the 50 clones, Naruto felt a slight strain in his mind due to the constant influx of memories. 'Ugh, I feel like 50 is the limit.' He thought as he massaged his temples to numb the pain a little.

Naruto picked up a leaf, placing it on his forehead. After almost a minute, he could finally no longer sustain a stable stream of chakra to his forehead before the leaf finally slipped down onto his face.

Even though the leaf eventually fell, the boy could be seen smiling. In less than a day, he had surpassed his old chakra control. After rejoicing about his progress, Naruto created a new batch of 50 clones, directing 25 to perform the leaf sticking exercise and the other 25 to start the first stage of earth nature transformation exercises.

The first stage involved moulding and converting his chakra into earth natured chakra and channelling it into the leaf. If he converted his chakra correctly, the leaf would crumble into dirt.

'I should make my chakra feel like it is solid and immovable, just like a rock', Naruto thought to himself, picking up a new leaf. However, even after understanding what his chakra should feel like, he struggled with the concept of converting his chakra into earth chakra.

The book didn't explain in detail the concepts of transforming his chakra into any nature, leaving Naruto with many questions. How does one change the properties of their chakra? Is it based on the user's imagination and intent for the chakra? Or is a manipulation of chakra similar to chakra control?

Naruto figured that as soon as he discovered some inkling of how to convert his chakra, his clones could continue to make progress through trial and error.

Naruto picked up a small pebble instead of a leaf without paying attention and instinctively channelled chakra into it. Before he could realize his mistake, Naruto lost himself in the feeling of the rock, his chakra spreading into the ground below him.

It felt… stable. All-encompassing. Which made sense as the earth was practically boundless, completely surrounding him.

Naruto compared the feeling he received to his chakra when he tried to change its nature. It was worlds apart.

When trying to convert his chakra, all he did was imagine it being hard and stuff. Yet the chakra had nowhere near the solid and stable feeling he felt in the natural earth around him. It felt too… rigid.

After opening his eyes, Naruto picked up the leaf once more and recalled the feeling of the earth around him. He felt his chakra slowly change, feeling more and more solid before infusing it into the leaf.

Naruto closely inspected the leaf after several seconds of infusing chakra. At the very tip, which one could barely see unless they studied it closely, he could see a slight shade of brown, causing him to smile widely.

"Hey guys, look!" Naruto grinned, holding out the leaf in pride to his nature transformation clones.

The clones looked up from their respective leaves and gathered around Naruto, looking like curious children. Naruto passed the leaf around, getting various reactions from the group.

"What? I don't see anything…." "No, wait, look at the very tip!" "Ooooh!" "Boss, you're awesome!"

Naruto grinned sheepishly at their praise, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. It was very easy for him to forget that they were him, but he still enjoyed their compliments nonetheless.

"I will dispel you all, and we can all start from this point!" Naruto dispelled the clones. Even though the original clones didn't make any part of the leaf change into dirt, they had all increased their proficiency in converting their chakra while sending it into the leaf.

The new 25 Narutos appeared, picked up some more leaves and continued training.

By this point, Naruto realized that he had finally recovered from the intense physical training. He had always recovered faster than others of his age. Whether he suffered any injuries or just exhaustion, it would vanish in less than an hour of resting.

Now that he was fully restored, Naruto dropped the leaf he held. He left the clones to train their respective exercises and started more physical training.

He could see the visible progress he made when he managed to perform 1 or 2 more pushups than he did a little over an hour ago, and it only motivated him to work harder.

End of chapter 5