New Discoveries

It was around late in the noon when a boy could be seen with his back leaning against the tree and holding his swollen ankles. They were a disgusting shade of black and purple but the boy still stood up with some difficulty only to fall to his knees. A gasp escaped his mouth and his face contorted in a grimace.

This boy was Naruto who had just started practicing the last and final move of the third style but, no matter how much he tried he could not understand the technique. He tried running, jumping and even getting a start explosive start but only managed to injure himself. With a sigh, he bandaged his ankles and stood up. With a wobble, he again stood up to make his way to his room at the inn.

After a few weeks, Naruto was proficient in all forms of fighting. He was an assassin, a front line fighter, and even support because he could swoop in any situation to destroy the enemy before it could deal heavy damage to someone. His only obstacle remained the instant step move, which heavily relied on technique.

Once settled in his bed Naruto simply fell asleep. It would talk almost two days for his legs to completely heal with his healing factor because the same happened when he practiced this move the first time.

One the next day Naruto looked around the room filled with various books. These new books appeared due to another bout of boredom. When he first time he managed to injure himself and had nothing to do because he had already learned coding enough to hack into a government server and make himself a new ID although he could not do it remotely. He just had to sneak inside the building.

So, he opened the book seal only to be overwhelmed by the vast amount of books it contained. From topics such as chakra and jutsu theory, all kinds of chakra exercises, leadership, information gathering, medical jutsu and medical books to even the pervy books that his perverted teacher wrote. It was everything that a person needed to become a Kage.

Many of the books he simply just memorized word by word without understanding a word just because such as the one written by Sandaima mostly and the ones related to chakra and how to create jutsus. It felt like an entire library was in his room.

Naruto wanted to simply burn all the pervy books but when he read about information gathering, he remembered that pervy sage gave his books to his informers in return for information. With a heavy heart and many curses to his godfather, Naruto decided to keep the books and read them in case he needed to publish them to entice people.

He had already read five out of thirteen books with a face so red that it would put the color of his mother's hair to shame. In the end, Naruto still burned them while laughing madly. He could even hear Jiraya cursing from the afterlife or maybe it was just his imagination but it greatly satisfied him after the embarrassing situation he had to go through.

The books that interested the most were about Uzumaki Clan, he knew that Grandma Tsunade was part Uzumaki but only when he was going through the books and a photo if Mito Uzumaki in white kimono looking prim and proper, fell from one of the books did he understood her intentions. She wanted him to understand his clan. There were books about behavior when meeting with nobles, house rules, and clan laws. He was glad that his clan did not have a stick in the butt but were still proper people when the situation demanded. Other than that his clan was pretty awesome.

Naruto still had to thanks Tsunade in his heart again and again because the more he read the more he understood about his situation. There were many times when he simply laid on his bed late at night thinking about his plans of the future and the books came in handy when he was not sure about what to do.

There were still some books that were related to politics and other boring subjects. The decision was to read them even if he hated politics and will probably never use them in his entire life. There were times when he read some books and thought that he was an idiot to even proclaiming of becoming Hokage. If he knew that the old man had simply wanted to dump this stupid job since he hated reading everything and paperwork so much then he would have pranked him continuously for a year.

.....

It was two days later when Naruto once again stood in a space surrounded by a few trees since he was a little far from the clearing where the guards and some youngsters trained. He took a pose that was similar to running a running start but immediately stopped. Scratching his head in confusion he simply sat down with his legs crossed and started meditating. The stance he was using had already proved that it was not useful.

Memorizing and copying stances was different than understanding and comprehending techniques. In all the previous scrolls the things were simple and completely stated so all he had to was perform these functions but now he truly wanted to understand what he was doing wrong so he decided to meditate by clearing his mind.

It did not take much time for Naruto to slip in the state of perfect balance. His mind was clear and he became one with nature unintentionally. He was a perfect sage and could become one with nature even while standing. his mind cleared up and many things that were disorderly became clear and clear. The information that he had been stuffing in his brain day and night became orderly and many things that he was confused about became clear to him. This state was so ethereal that Naruto never noticed he was slipping into the habit of gathering natural energy.

In the part of the forest where Naruto was sitting was completely silent. There was no wind but the leaves were rustling slightly. An invisible pressure started to manifest around his body. Blue wisps of energy started to flicker around his body and the grass around him swayed like it was dancing in celebration. Sweet of scent of nature wafted around the place and dew gathered on the petals of flowers. Misty blue swirls of energy hid the area from perception of every being.

It was a scene of paradise in the mortal world showing the joy of nature. The flowers bloomed at a visible rate and trees grew sturdy in the span of seconds. Naruto sat in the center of it all without being aware of his actions. how can he? since he had already lost his sense of time. The energy flowed through his body empowering him to an unimaginable level, traveling through his skin, muscles, bones, marrow, chakra pathways, and even the tiny cells all the through his body and leave in even a more purified form.

In a dark expense, there was a huge star shining bright with its golden luster covered in chains. No matter how brightly it shined and struggled but the chains didn't budge from their place. Suddenly another tiny star lit up in the dark void and spread its blue light. The star started moving from one place to another until it started reaching the bright golden star and settled down beside it while growing slowly in size. Once the star grew quarter the size of the golden star, it stopped.

In a trance, Naruto slowly opened his eyes which were glowing blue just like his body. Every breath of his was deep and powerful but when he blew out from his mouth it looked like steam. Standing up he took a simple step only to appear 4 feet away on a tree branch. Another step, this time on the air but instead of falling he appeared on the ground. Soon he stepped again and again only to leave behind after images of his. The distance kept increasing as his body worked on some kind of instinct.

It was only when the sun was setting, painting the sky with shades of purple, orange and blue did he stopped. His eyes slowly became focused and he took deep breaths to calm himself down. the experience so bizarre and amazing time that he didn't know how to proceed. The mist around him slowly dispersed in the surroundings leaving him more confused.

His body felt like he was in some sort of sage mode but a never-ending one. It was somewhat weaker but he could still easily project his energy outside the body in a layer just like he used to. He could even sense his surroundings. It was like he opened the window to his room after months. His senses were sharper than ever and his body full of power.

'Is this aura? did nature energy help me unlock it? how come I didn't turn to stone?' there were so many questions but no answers. After a few calming breaths the blue hue around him retreated in his body.

It was a slow walk to his room. Naruto was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't even answer to the person on the counter. Once in his room, Naruto closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was in the dimly lit swear.

There was no water reaching up to his ankles and the door of the seal was completely open. There was no constant dripping that told him of Kurama's chakra merging with his. It was a surreal experience to once again be reminded that he was completely alone.

His body shuddered in thought but he continued looking around. The pipelines all around him glowed blue from activating aura, but the ones coming from the seal were empty. He kept looking around the giant room but nothing seemed out of ordinary.

Naruto came here to find some answers because this was the most easily accessible part of his conciousness. Since this section of mind was like physical storage he thought he could find some answers here. Finally, his eyes traveled towards the large corridor that was always behind him. He never ventured in there because of the constant darkness.

It took some time to make up his mind but eventually he started walking towards the corridor. When his foot landed in the corridor the corridor shook slightly. This started a chain reaction as torches lit up along the sides of the corridor. The torches went on for eternity and a familiar feeling rose in Naruto's chest.

A sense of adventure, something new and exciting. A small grin formed on his face that highlighted his handsome features in the dim light.

With confident steps, he walked in a straight line. There were many branches of the trail but they gave a distinct feeling of wrongness to him as if he ventured in there he would probably get lost. Naruto decided to trust his gut feeling because this was his mind. How could his mind led himself astray and so when he felt he should take a turn he turned and when he felt like ignoring a path he ignored it.

There were times when he felt like backtracking his steps but he stubbornly carried on. It was after quite a while when he reached a staircase of few steps. On the top of the stairs, two massive doors stood.

Both of them golden in color, one of them marked with the sun mark similar to the one on his hand and the other with all the tailed beasts roaring with all their might up in the sky.

Some thinking later he finally pushed open the door with the sun mark and disappeared from the spot with the gate.