The morning mist clung to the training grounds like a living thing, rolling low over the damp earth. The village was still quiet at this hour; even the usual shouts of early-rising genin were absent. This was exactly how Arata wanted it. The fewer eyes, the better.
His ribs still ached sharply with every breath a lingering souvenir from the last brutal training accident but the dull throb was a price he was willing to pay. The breakthrough he had achieved two nights ago wasn't just a small step forward; it felt like the kind of shift that could redefine his entire path in this world. But he couldn't parade it in front of anyone yet. Not until he understood its limits… and its dangers.
He moved through the back alleys of Konoha like a shadow, avoiding the main streets entirely. This early, only a few shopkeepers and delivery boys were out, and none paid attention to the tall, quiet man wrapped in a plain cloak. His destination wasn't the usual training fields too exposed. Instead, he slipped beyond the village's inner perimeter, moving toward the outer forests where only hunters and patrol shinobi rarely ventured.
When he arrived, the air smelled different wilder, filled with the earthy scent of moss and the distant rush of a river. The trees here grew thicker, their trunks wide enough to conceal his presence entirely. Perfect.
Arata set his small travel bag against a tree root and knelt in the center of the clearing. He closed his eyes and began the breathing patterns he had adapted from a combination of disciplines: the precise diaphragm control of internal Chinese martial arts, the oxygen-maximizing methods he'd learned from free divers in his past life, and the chakra flow meditation he'd painfully forced himself to master after months of frustration.
The air felt alive as it entered his lungs, each inhale drawing more than just oxygen it seemed to pull in a subtle current of heat and vitality. His chakra surged, but differently than before. Normally, channeling chakra for physical enhancement was like turning up the volume on a speaker: louder, stronger, but the same song. Now, it felt like he was rearranging the very wiring of the system.
He rose slowly to his feet, the new technique humming inside him like a contained storm. It didn't have a name yet naming it felt premature, like labeling a weapon before knowing whether it would cut or break in his hand.
The first test was simple: speed.
He planted his feet, focused, and in a sudden blur dashed forward, his body exploding into motion. The trees became streaks in his peripheral vision as he weaved between them. It was more than just raw speed his acceleration was unnatural, smooth and immediate, as if his body had skipped the usual process of building momentum.
But the moment he stopped, a burning sensation ripped through his calves and hamstrings, forcing him to grit his teeth. He'd known the technique had a cost, but the intensity of the backlash was worse than he'd imagined. If that had been during combat, he might've been crippled mid-fight.
He stretched, forcing the pain to subside before moving on to the next test: impact.
Arata wrapped his hands in cloth, adjusted his stance, and took aim at a thick oak. He let the new flow build again not just chakra, but a combination of breath timing, muscle contraction sequencing, and the strange body-alignment trick that had taken him weeks to refine. Then he struck.
The sound was wrong.
It wasn't the deep, satisfying thud of fist meeting wood. It was more like the cracking of bone but it wasn't his bone. The oak splintered violently, chunks of bark flying as a jagged wound tore into its trunk. He stepped back, flexing his fingers. No fractures. No bruising. His knuckles only tingled faintly, but deep down he knew: that strike had pushed his joints dangerously close to their limit.
"Not sustainable yet," he muttered under his breath.
The third test would be the riskiest: endurance under stress. If this technique was to be worth anything, it had to last more than a few seconds without destroying him in the process.
He set himself a brutal circuit: full-speed sprints, tree strikes, acrobatic vaults, and weighted maneuvers with the heavy training stones he'd carried from a hidden stash. For nearly half an hour, he pushed the technique through constant use, varying its intensity, shifting between offense, mobility, and sudden evasions.
By the twenty-minute mark, sweat poured from him like rain, his vision swimming at the edges. His ribs screamed with every twist, his calf muscles twitched uncontrollably, and a faint copper taste coated his tongue.
When his legs finally gave out, he collapsed onto one knee, chest heaving. The technique… worked. But it was eating through his stamina at a terrifying rate, and his muscle fibers felt like they'd been partially shredded from the inside.
He stayed there, kneeling in the quiet forest, letting the pain speak to him. Pain was information. It told him where the limits were.
He was still learning its language.
A distant rustle made him freeze. His head snapped toward the treeline, every sense sharpened. But it was only a deer, stepping cautiously into the clearing before bounding away. Still, the reminder was clear being discovered out here, training like this, could raise questions he didn't want to answer.
Arata gathered his things, taking one last look at the shattered oak and the faint scorch-marks his movements had carved into the ground. He would return. This place would be his hidden forge.
As he slipped back toward Konoha, blending once more into the unnoticed parts of the village, he carried both the thrill of his new power and the certainty of its danger.
He would not show it yet. Not to anyone.
Not until it was more than a weapon that hurt its wielder.