Far away from the events unfolding in the Hidden Leaf, Naruto was completely unaware of the growing tension back home.
At this moment, he sat cross-legged in deep meditation, eyes closed, immersed in the flow of Sage Mode.
That pervy old man Jiraiya had, once again, wandered off to some pleasure district.
According to him, it was "for intelligence gathering on Tsunade."
Naruto nearly snorted out loud at that. "Yeah, right," he thought. "As if Tsunade would ever hang out in a place like that. Does he really think women go there to have fun with other women?"
The lie was as transparent as glass.
If Jiraiya hadn't been sharing stories about his parents recently, Naruto might have already left him behind and gone searching for Tsunade himself.
A faint orange glow bloomed beneath Naruto's eyes. The markings of Sage Mode solidified as he slowly opened them again.
This time, the transformation had come faster.
A small smile curved his lips. Progress.
If he kept this up, one day he'd be able to enter Sage Mode instantly no meditation, no delay.
That, he knew, was when Sage Mode would truly have no weakness.
He rested his chin thoughtfully on his hand. "So, what's next?" he murmured.
Physical training was always an option more drills, more conditioning. His body was already honed to a weapon, every muscle refined by years of battle. But that path was slow, like grinding stone with water.
As for ninjutsu, he had already mastered all five elemental releases, and even the Yin and Yang styles were steadily progressing. Once he completed all seven natures, he planned to begin experimenting with nature transformations combining elements into new forms of power.
He believed firmly in one thing: a strong foundation makes everything else flow naturally.
That belief had carried him far. When he first trained the Rasengan and later the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, his solid fundamentals had made the seemingly impossible possible.
Every step from chakra control to nature manipulation he had perfected.
In truth, most so-called advanced jutsu were nothing more than clever rearrangements of those same basics.
Genjutsu, however, remained his weak point.
He lacked the talent for illusions. The best he could do was rely on his enormous spiritual energy to resist being trapped by them.
Still, with Sasuke now possessing the Mangekyō Sharingan and their chakra resonance granting Naruto access to similar visual powers even that gap had started to close.
He exhaled, murmuring to himself, "So what I really need now is a trump card. Something explosive a technique strong enough to turn the tide of any battle."
A technique that could serve as both his ultimate weapon and his everyday tool.
His thoughts instantly turned to one forbidden art: the Eight Gates.
That technique multiplied the user's power many times over by forcibly breaking the body's natural limits. The stronger the body, the greater the result.
In other words, if both he and Sasuke opened the same gate, Naruto's power boost would be far greater simply because his physical strength was superior.
But the cost was brutal.
The Eight Gates came with terrifying side effects.
Even with intense conditioning, the body could only handle the first few gates safely.
Once the Sixth or Seventh Gate was opened, the strain became unbearable bones cracking, muscles tearing.
And the Eighth Gate? The Gate of Death was exactly that a final, suicidal technique.
Naruto frowned. "The reason it destroys the body," he reasoned, "is because the internal organs can't handle the sudden surge of energy."
Muscles and bones could be trained and hardened over time, but internal organs were another story.
"Maybe… if I trained under gravity," he muttered, his eyes lighting up as inspiration struck.
Somewhere in the hazy fragments of his dreams, he remembered people training under extreme gravity or using special devices that multiplied their body weight their results had been extraordinary.
"Yeah," he nodded, excitement building. "When I get back, I'll have the village engineers build me something like that a gravity chamber."
But that still left the organs.
How could he strengthen what couldn't be trained?
Naruto's gaze turned distant, his mind slipping into the fog of memory the dream that had haunted him for months.
After a long silence, he murmured, "Dao Palace… build the Dao Palace within the five organs… protect the viscera… and something about divine spirits?"
He ruffled his hair in frustration. "But what the hell is a Dao Palace? And how do you even build one?"
The fragments in his dream were vague symbols, half-remembered chants, flashes of light within the body.
"It's called a palace," he thought aloud. "So maybe it's like… a temple? Inside the body?"
He tapped his chest thoughtfully. "If I can build a palace inside my organs like a shield maybe it'll protect them when I use high-level techniques."
"And as for the divine spirit thing… I'll figure that out later. Let's start with building the palace."
Determined, Naruto created two shadow clones.
He had no idea if this training method was dangerous, so he'd let the clones experiment first. Their memories would return to him when they vanished, and any mistakes wouldn't risk his real body.
Truly, the Shadow Clone Technique was a genius invention the perfect shortcut for training.
Under his watchful eyes, the two clones sat cross-legged and began channeling chakra toward their hearts.
Minutes passed.
Naruto swallowed nervously. This was his first time testing something straight from his dreams.
"It should be real, right?" he whispered. "It can't just be made-up nonsense…"
But the next moment
Poof!
Both clones exploded into smoke.
Naruto blinked, stunned. Then the memories rushed back into him and his expression twisted into a grimace.
"Okay… so shaping the chakra into a palace isn't the problem. The problem is maintaining it. Once my focus slips, the structure collapses and if that happens inside my body…"
He winced. "Yeah. It'd shred my heart into paste."
He rubbed his chin again. "So step one: build a stable structure."
He had no idea what a real Dao Palace looked like, so he could only experiment mapping out stable chakra nodes, refining the internal architecture one piece at a time.
It would take time. A lot of time.
But Naruto had a plan.
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he shouted, forming the hand seals.
With a loud rush of air, two hundred clones appeared around him, all ready to work.
"Alright, everyone," the original Naruto said, grinning, "our goal's simple build the heart's Dao Palace as fast as possible!"
"Leave it to me!" one clone shouted.
"Shut up, I'm concentrating!" another barked.
"Hey, do we get lunch after this?" someone called.
Their chatter filled the clearing.
Then, one by one, they sat down and began the process.
Poof. Poof. Poof.
Within seconds, they all vanished in bursts of smoke.
Naruto stared, wide-eyed. "Huh?! What just happened?!"
The memories flooded back again, hitting him like a tidal wave.
After several long seconds, he sighed bitterly. "So that's it. Ordinary chakra can't form the Dao Palace. It's too unstable."
He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. "Only Sage Chakra the perfect balance between natural energy and chakra has the right quality."
Unfortunately, his Sage Mode had already ended, and he didn't have enough natural energy left to sustain it.
He chuckled ruefully. "So much for making two hundred clones. Guess I'll have to try again two at a time."
Even in failure, determination burned in his eyes.
Somewhere deep inside him, he could feel it the faint outline of something vast and ancient stirring within his soul.
A palace waiting to be built.
A divine path waiting to awaken.
And as the orange markings began to flicker once more beneath his eyes, Naruto sat down again ready to keep trying until the dream became reality.
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