Opening the Second Gate!

2 weeks later

Naruto sat at his desk, scribbling notes in a small notebook, unlike the past few weeks when he would train before and after Team 7's scheduled D-rank mission.

As of last night, one of his clones had completed an experiment that had finally given him enough information to finish exploring the mysteries of The Eight Inner Gates Technique.

Firstly, Naruto wrote down a few facts that he had read from ordinary textbooks about tenketsu and the chakra pathway. He had learned that everyone's tenketsu were the same shape, size, and in the same position.

This was regardless if you had a Kekkei Genkai or a unique chakra, everyone's chakra pathway system was the same. This meant that his experience with The Eight Inner Gates Technique wasn't a result of a special undiscovered Uzumaki bloodline or any other bloodline he might have had.

After initially learning this, there was something that confused Naruto. He was sure that there had to have been some experiments conducted on the Eight Gates and that there was no doubt that one of the experiments would've involved slowly infusing chakra into the gate.

Yet why was the forbidden technique still relevant if they had discovered such a way of opening the gates?

Although he suspected that there were, Naruto couldn't find if there had already been experiments conducted on The Eight Inner Gates Technique or not.

After all, even though he had access to many medical texts as a Genin, the blonde figured that experiment reports on a forbidden technique wouldn't be displayed in the library. Though he did look for them.

In the end, Naruto could only rummage through his memories of opening the first gate with a more analytical mind, attempting to discover if there were any additional factors in his success in opening the first gate.

Despite the negative feelings that accompanied it, Naruto reflected on his experience when he was tied to the log in the training grounds. Upon reviewing the same memory multiple times, the blonde realised that nothing happened initially when he was pushing chakra against the tenketsu.

However, after recalling even more carefully about the moment he had opened the gate, Naruto noticed that a very, very small part of the tenketsu seemed to open up, allowing a strand of chakra to enter.

Once he had discovered this, Naruto was ecstatic as he remembered exactly where his chakra had first entered the first inner gate.

Yet after he closed his eyes and visualised the second gate and attempted to slowly push chakra into the same spot, there was no response.

'Maybe the spot is different for different tenketsu?'

Desperate to confirm his hypothesis, Naruto created a clone and ordered it to verify the assumption that there was a specific spot on the tenketsu by slowly yet thoroughly scanning it with its chakra, trying to find the weak spot.

However, even though tenketsu are smaller than the tip of a needle, the space that the chakra had entered the first gate was much, much smaller than that. Therefore, even though the clone was scanning the tenketsu for several hours that day, they couldn't find the presence of any weak spots.

In fact, the clone didn't even manage to explore 1/100th of the gate before Naruto returned home from training.

As a result, in the morning of every day, Naruto created a new clone that would stay at his apartment and slowly study the gate with its chakra to identify if there was a location in which its chakra could enter the tenketsu easily.

After two weeks of scanning the tenketsu every day, with him not even covering 1/10th of the surface of the tenketsu in total, a clone had discovered that a very, very small part of the tenketsu was slightly different from the rest.

After thinking about the experience in opening the first gate, alongside determining the presence of the weak spot in the second gate, the clone concluded that there was an additional component in permanently opening the gate.

The second component was the one he had initially concluded as the reason for the gate being opened permanently. The slow infusion of chakra.

However, there was a first component, which was the spot of infusion in the tenketsu. There was a tiny location on each tenketsu that was like a lock to a door.

Yet, this 'lock', as Naruto had dubbed it, wasn't in the same position for every gate. This meant that to permanently open the following gates, he had to slowly scour the closed tenketsu using his chakra, slowly finding the 'lock' through trial and error.

Naruto once again lamented how lucky he was to not only inadvertently discover the second component of opening the gate but also the first component.

However, even after coming to this conclusion, Naruto didn't know if there were any additional components that allowed him to open the first gate. Although there were no differences in the chakra pathway system, there were differences in chakra between ninja.

What if because he was an Uzumaki or a Jinchuuriki, his chakra was different from the regular ninja, which resulted in some sort of mutation occurring?

Naruto couldn't confirm any more details about opening the first gate with the limited knowledge that he was exposed to. However, he did make a mental note that once he found a specialist that he could trust, he would ask them about their opinion.

…

In addition to finding out how to permanently open the gate, Naruto had also concluded why opening the gate through the 'lock' had resulted in different abilities compared to using the forbidden technique.

Firstly, The Eight Inner Gates Technique relied on forcefully opening the tenketsu by bombarding them with chakra and blasting them open. As they weren't opened the usual way, the tenketsu would immediately close when chakra was removed from the gate.

The first gate's description is that it unlocks the limit of the user's body by doing this, allowing the user to use 100% of their strength while suffering from muscular damage.

Yet this didn't explain why opening the first gate using the forbidden technique resulted in a significant strain on the body. Naruto continued to study this problem until he stumbled upon a relatively obscure medical entry.

The medical entry showed a patient that suffered from similar symptoms as a ninja would when opening the first gate. It was a case about how a civilian mother had lifted a bookshelf that she shouldn't have been able to raise to save her child.

After learning about this and confirming with other medical texts that he had read on the topic, Naruto hypothesised that blasting the first inner gate with chakra did precisely that.

The violent method of forcing the gate open resulted in the body releasing a stress response, removing its internal limiter and allowing the user to use 100% of their strength.

In addition, it wasn't opening the gate that caused the strain on the body but the fact that the limiter was removed. This was also why most of the damage was in the muscles. They aren't meant to exert 100% of their strength.

After logically writing all of his thoughts while being satisfied with the conclusions he drew, Naruto burned the book, destroying all of its contents about his research into The Eight Inner Gates Technique.

Naruto had no idea if someone would break into his house and inadvertently look at his research, which he considered to be a significant breakthrough in both the medical world and the ninja world.

Even he had improved by leaps and bounds just by having the motivation and gaining the abilities provided by the first inner gate. Naruto couldn't imagine what it would be like with a whole platoon or army of ninjas who had permanently opened their gates.

He would keep this technique to himself forever, especially until he had enough strength to defend himself in this dark, cold world.

After making sure that the book was nothing but ashes, Naruto washed the remains down the sink, hoping it didn't clog his pipes.

He then sat cross-legged on his bed. Now that he had learnt everything that he needed to, Naruto decided that he would open the second inner gate.

Naruto envisioned the second inner gate, The Gate of Healing, located in the brain's right hemisphere. He then took a strand of chakra and gently pushed it against the lock of the closed tenketsu.

Like the first time around, Naruto initially felt like he was hitting a solid wall. However, after his chakra made contact with the lock, he felt a minuscule hole where his chakra was, allowing a strand to pass through.

Naruto slowly pushed more and more chakra through the gate, widening the gap slowly but surely. However, unlike the first time he expanded the gate, which took a matter of minutes, the gate had barely expanded even after an hour.

'Was my idea wrong?' Naruto thought to himself in disappointment. Initially, he was expecting the gate to open at the same rate as the first gate had done, with it opening and stabilising within a matter of minutes.

After guessing that he had made a mistake in his hypothesis, Naruto dropped intentionally, sending chakra to the gate. However, despite not deliberately sending chakra, there was still a tiny stream in his body that was involuntarily being moulded, which moved towards the hole, slowly expanding it.

Naruto watched in fascination as the chakra was moulded and flowed in the gate at the perfect rate. No chakra was wasted, with the hole in the tenketsu slowly widening.

The blonde watched the speed at which the hole expanded, estimating that the gate would approximately take a month before it fully opened if it continued to grow at the same rate.

…

3 Weeks later

By this point, Naruto had mastered the 2 C-rank earth techniques and the Shunshin. He started to direct his clones to increase the versatility of the jutsu by attempting different applications.

For example, for Earth Style: Earth Shore Return, Naruto directed the clone to attempt to make the wall emerge from the ground quicker by changing the amount of earth chakra used or the amount of force used to smash the floor. Or to test if it was possible to use one's feet to perform the technique, using the same principles as using their hands.

The other two techniques were simpler to improve. Naruto ordered the Earth Style: Hiding Like a Mole Technique clone to start moving through the ground quicker while focusing more on the magnetic forces to get a clearer picture of what was happening on the surface.

While the Shunshin was the most straightforward technique to improve. The clones increased the distance travelled while using the jutsu while maintaining its accuracy. He had also started attempting to reach different heights by visualising himself on top of trees.

Naruto had also mastered tree walking, taking it to the same extremes as the leaf sticking exercise. After being able to stick to the tree indefinitely, his clones combined it with the leaf sticking exercise to make it even more difficult. This resulted in moulding two different amounts of chakra, sending a smaller stream to the forehead while larger to his feet.

Naruto directed the clones to start water walking on the lake after mastering the tree walking. Using their previous experience from tree walking, they quickly deduced that the next step was different because water had a different surface tension compared to trees.

In addition, water, unlike the solid surfaces he was used to walking on, was a fluid. This means that the amount of chakra that needed to be emitted from his feet changed constantly.

Upon realising this fact, the clones had taken a different approach to water walking rather than attempting to stabilise their bodies on the water.

They started using their hands coated in chakra for it to stick to the water. They then moved their hands over the water's surface while changing the amount of pressure exerted on water.

This means that they could focus on the changes in the amount of chakra required as the hand moved, or when more or less force was added onto the water's surface.

…

Naruto had also spent a lot of time trying to find a way to train his Taijutsu prowess. By now, he had memorised several katas that were publically available in the library, such as the Goken, Hummingbird and the Whirling Tides. There was even a style that was created based upon the Hyuuga Taijutsu, focusing on the tenketsu and joints in the body.

However, the blonde didn't forget that learning these different katas without developing bad habits required someone to teach him rather than blindly learning independently.

This fact didn't stop him from attempting different methods to improve his Taijutsu and Kenjutsu skills. Originally, he had wanted to practice against his shadow clones, but one decent hit from him, and they would dispel.

Naruto had even tried creating several clones at once, with the clone switching places when the one he was fighting against got dispelled. But that was more of a hassle to get working than the fighting experience he got out of it.

In the end, he settled with slow contact sparring until he could find a Taijutsu trainer. By making slow movements, each with very little power, there was almost 0 chance of a clone dispelling.

While this wasn't effective as full contact sparring, it allowed him to slowly develop the technique for each style and determine which stance would be the most efficient at disabling another.

As the clones slowly became more and more proficient in Taijutsu, they slowly started to speed up their movements in fights while always ensuring their stances were correct.

In addition to this, there was a clone on the side watching their stances, comparing them to the images he saw in books, and pointing out any mistakes he could see.

Initially, Naruto had even asked Sasuke a few times if he wanted to practice together because the raven-haired boy was the top Taijutsu user in the class.

However, he was immediately blown off by Sasuke, who had stated it would be a waste of time, while also receiving an admonishment from the pink-haired girl who thought he was trying to compete with Sasuke.

As a result, using slow, light contact sparring to learn Taijutsu was as good as it was going to get for him. Naruto figured that it was the best method he had to train before he could figure out a way to make shadow clones more durable for sparring.

He did, however, make a mental note to search for a Jonin called Might Guy, who he had overheard to be the best Taijutsu user in all of Konoha. Naruto guessed that the man might be willing to tutor him if he paid a fee to the Jonin.

However, after asking about him while under a Henge, Naruto found out that the Jonin and his team were currently on a mission, with nobody knowing when he would return.

Although strangely, he had received some warnings about the man, something about an infectious green beast that tried to spread his youthful ways.

…

Naruto made a mental summary of the clones he had currently active. There were 15 clones on chakra control, 10 on earth and 10 on lightning nature transformation, 5 on reading, 3 on jutsu training, and 9 on missions. Making a total of 55 clones.

After enough trial and error, Naruto learnt that 55 clones was the highest number of clones that he could have at a single time. With 50 doing either training or skill-based D-rank missions and 5 reading.

Naruto figured that he was able to create and dispel thousands at once in his fight with Mizuki because it was before awakening his impeccable memory. Even his clones had a strong memory, which meant they took in a lot more information (even if it was involuntary) than before.

As a result, every clone sent back even more memories and experiences, so he received an even stronger strain when he dispelled them.

However, despite not being able to actively use as many shadow clones as before opening the first gate, Naruto didn't mind too much. He would rather have fewer clones learn more than more clones learn less. It also helped him in keeping track of the numbers.

In addition, Naruto wasn't sure if he could explain the library being filled up with 100s of his clones, even if they were transformed.

…

During the past few weeks, Gama-chan had once again become bloated after his rapid weight loss from spending almost all of his Ryo on the 3 jutsu that he bought. As a result of the excess money, Naruto purchased several things he was interested in.

A custom-made ink brush, specially made with highly chakra conductive materials, which was suitable for learning Jutsu-Shiki and Fuin-Shiki. He had also ordered several hundred chakra papers and chakra ink for writing with.

After a month of studying, he had become proficient enough in mathematics, nature transformation and chakra control to start practising making Jutsu-Shiki and Fuinjutsu.

His clones had read 10s of books in the different script styles, the amount of pressure used in the brush when drawing in ink and how to stably channel chakra in the brush.

As a result, the only thing that kept Naruto from practising Jutsu-Shiki and Fuinjutsu was his writing skills. Although he had read multiple books, he had yet to translate that knowledge into practical skill.

Naruto hadn't forgotten that his clone had complained that his writing was hard to read, and he was determined to make it as clear and as fluent as possible.

Maybe then he would create some sealing scrolls and sell them to various Ninja stores in Konoha to make some additional Ryo to purchase the B-rank lightning technique that he had his eyes on.

Author's notes: Yo whaddup, this chapter is a mix and match of a few things that Naruto had been working on.

Hopefully, the explanation of the process of how Naruto deduced how the gates work was easy and understandable to read. Although it makes him opening the first gate less unlikely, but hey, at least it's somewhat believable.

Jutsu-Shiki will be explained in detail later on, but to put it simply, Jutsu-Shiki is what a lot of fanfictions make Fuinjutsu out to be. For example, The Hiraishin is a product of Jutsu-Shiki, not Fuinjutsu. It basically means Jutsu/Technique formulas. I've got a few creative ideas for that in the future; hopefully, I will write them down!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you leave a review for any suggestions that I can add! The next chapter is going to be their first C-rank mission!