Chương 11: DrIP DrIp Drip

The Academy was two months away. By this point, I'd hit the limit of how much a nearly six-year-old body could improve physically. I was as sturdy as an old oak tree now, with impressive chakra control for my age. I was ready for what was coming. And so, for the next two months, I planned to focus on just one thing. Meditation. I was already tired of physical and chakra exercises, so I decided it was time for something different. Something that wouldn't give me any short-term benefit.

In fact, it might even be detrimental at first. But in the long run, it had insane potential. It's already known that chakra strengthens the user's body, pushes its limits, and allows them to perform insane feats. My idea? Use that principle, but turn it inward. Irrigate every single part of my body. Organs, blood vessels, muscles, bones, and skin with a constant flow of chakra. Not bursts. Just steady pressure. The inspiration came from thinking about Might Guy. That man trained his body to absurd levels.

He didn't use chakra to spam ninjutsu. He used it to push his physical limits. He became one of the strongest shinobi to ever live. I wasn't trying to become Guy 2. 0, and I wasn't planning on unlocking the Eight Gates or push so much chakra into my muscles. My goal was not as specialized to the physical aspect as him. My goal is more focused towards ninjutsu in the end. But I could take his idea and make it mine.

Instead of using raw physical exertion, I'd use meditation and chakra control to create a constant, subtle flow through my entire body. It would drain my chakra slowly throughout the day while I sat still. Useless in the short term. But if I did it for months, maybe even years, I could change the very baseline of my body. Strengthen it from the inside out. And on top of that, the repeated draining and refilling of my reserves would force my chakra pool to grow faster than it ever could with regular training.

I called it chakra circulation. Everything I'd done before. The leaf sticking, the selective chakra control, the ripple training. It was leading up to this. Now that my chakra reserves were already ridiculous for a six-year-old, and my control even more ridiculous, I was finally ready to put them to real use. I'd stop the process when I needed to spar or start ninjutsu training, but until then, I was all in. I knew it would be hard. But I had an idea that just might make it possible.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. So I sat on my bed, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. I slowed my breathing. Focused on my heartbeat. Then I tapped into my chakra and started syncing it with my pulse. At first, it was messy. My rhythm broke every few minutes. My control slipped. Sometimes the chakra would stall halfway through my arms, or spike too strong and make my fingers twitch. But I kept going. One pulse. Two. Three.

Each wave of chakra followed my heartbeat like a current, flowing through my limbs and back to the center. It was harder than anything I'd done before. There was no feedback. No confirmation that it was working. Just silence, effort, and stubborn focus. My legs went numb. My back ached. My stomach growled. I ignored all of it. Every time my mind drifted, I pulled it back. Every time my control wavered, I forced it steady. By sunset, I was exhausted. Not from movement but from effort.

I hadn't left my room, but I'd burned through nearly all my chakra. I opened my tired eyes just before collapsing into bed. The next morning, I woke up groggy and starving. I knew the first time would be rough, but I had to feel it to understand it. I stretched my stiff limbs and stumbled toward breakfast. The food was solid, nutrient-packed and filling, but I wasn't focused on eating. I glanced around at the other kids, the caretakers, the tired walls of this place.

I had come to the Naruto world, but so far I hadn't seen much of it. Just this dull orphanage and a few wild animals in the nearby forest. Not to mention Winnie-the-Pooh. But I knew that there was more. A world full of wonders and monsters and things I couldn't even imagine. I was ready for it. Hungry for it. This orphanage was awful. It was so boring and soul-draining that it somehow made intense chakra and physical training feel like a blessing. That should tell you everything.

If I had to rate this place on Yelp, I'd give it a 0. 1 out of 5. And that 0. 1 is only because the food finally stopped being garbage. After breakfast, I went straight back to meditating. I kept trying to sync my chakra pulses with my heartbeat. I had a reason. If I could get them aligned perfectly, if I could make the flow instinctual, then one day my body would start doing it on its own. No effort. No focus. Just built-in enhancement running in the background like breathing. So I kept doing it. Every day.

For a whole month. I exhausted my chakra reserves day in and day out, and recovered overnight. Each day I decreased the chakra flow just a little, aiming for the perfect balance where my body could handle it without my constant attention. Meditate. Pulse. Eat. Move a little. Sleep. Rinse and repeat. Then one morning, it happened. I was walking back from breakfast when I suddenly realized something. I hadn't started meditating yet. I hadn't focused.

But the process of chakra circulation was already running in the background. My chakra was circulating through my body automatically. No conscious effort. It was a minuscule amount, but the concept itself worked. A huge grin crept across my face. I'd done it. I'd built the first step toward real power. And with time, more focus, and further improvement to my chakra control, the amount of chakra circulated instinctually would increase. And I'd done all of it sitting still, alone, in a room full of nothing.

Imagine what I can do with the knowledge in the Academy.