Following the violent, world-shattering conclusion of the conflict on the great bridge, Team 7 began their long, quiet journey back to the Hidden Leaf Village.
The ambient tension and lingering stress of their first true, blood-soaked mission still weighed heavily on the three Genin, making the march back silent and contemplative.
During a scheduled mid-day break, while Kakashi and the others rested near the main path, Shi Yan quietly slipped away into the dense, surrounding forest.
Seeking a moment of absolute peace, he made his way down to a tranquil, sunlit riverbank. He collapsed lazily onto the soft green grass, pulling a cigarette from his pack.
Snapping his fingers, a tiny spark of blue Vermilion Bird fire ignited the tip, and he took a long, euphoric drag, exhaling a pristine cloud of white smoke into the gentle breeze.
Rustle.
The incredibly faint, clumsy sound of footsteps crunching against dry leaves echoed from the brush behind him. Without even bother to open his eyes or turn his head, Shi Yan spoke into the quiet air.
"What do you want, Naruto?"
Naruto froze in his tracks, pulling his hand out of his orange jumpsuit pocket. He stood there, visibly hesitating as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure of how to break the sudden silence.
Shi Yan rolled over onto his side, opening his eyes. His brilliant golden pupils locked directly into Naruto's deep blue eyes, cutting right through the awkwardness.
He offered a rare, genuinely warm smile. "Is there something on your mind? You can tell me, Naruto. There is absolutely no need for any weird drama between the two of us. We are good friends."
Hearing those words, the nervous frustration melting away from Naruto's face. He walked over and slumped down onto the grass beside the young cultivator, staring down at his own clenched fists.
"Shi Yan... I just feel so completely powerless," Naruto confessed, his voice shaking with a raw, buried vulnerability. "Back there on the bridge, I truly thought I had gotten strong. I thought I could finally protect and save everyone... but in the end, it was me who needed to be saved over and over again. How can I become truly powerful? It's just... it's so incredibly frustrating! I work so hard every single day, but I don't know what to do anymore."
Shi Yan stopped looking at him, turning his gaze back toward the gently flowing river water. He watched the ripples break against the rocks.
"How to become powerful?" Shi Yan repeated softly, the cigarette smoke drifting up into the canopy. "That is an incredibly complex question, Naruto. But shouldn't you be asking your official squad sensei this question rather than me?"
"It's just..." Naruto trailed off, looking away.
"Kakashi is undoubtedly a world-class ninja and a monstrously talented combatant," Shi Yan spoke bluntly, not pulling any punches. "But as for what kind of teacher he will actually be to you? That is highly doubtful. From what I have observed over the past few weeks, it seems he is only genuinely interested in personally developing one specific member of your three-man team."
Naruto's shoulders slumped, knowing exactly who Shi Yan was referring to: Sasuke.
"Naruto, if you truly want to become strong, then simply running around and loudly shouting that you are going to become the Hokage is far from enough," Shi Yan lectured, his tone turning clinical. "Being the Hokage is not a real incentive for strength. What are you even working so hard for? Just to secure a small, stressful political post sitting behind a desk? Or is it the grand recognition of the world that you truly crave?"
He looked back at the blond boy.
"Because if you think that simply becoming the Hokage will magically grant you that recognition, you are completely wrong. The only individuals who ever successfully become Hokage are the ones who have already earned the absolute recognition and respect of the entire village beforehand. The title doesn't make the man; the man makes the title. If that level of ultimate validation is your true goal, then I must say... becoming overwhelmingly strong is an absolute, non-negotiable must."
"But... how do I do that?" Naruto asked, his blue eyes burning with a desperate desire for guidance. "How do I get that strong?"
"Play directly to your absolute strengths, Naruto," Shi Yan stated, standing up smoothly and brushing the loose grass from his robes. "The exact same way I continuously play to mine. That is the only logical path to ascension. So, the baseline advice I can give you right now is remarkably simple: Use the best jutsu you currently have in your arsenal."
"All right..." Naruto muttered, thoroughly confused by the cryptic instructions, but his absolute faith in his friend overrode his doubts. He crossed his fingers into a familiar cross-sign.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Poof! Poof! Poof!
With a series of loud smoke explosions, exactly seven identical Shadow Clones materialized along the riverbank, blinking in confusion.
Shi Yan swept his hand toward the seven duplicates. "This exact technique right here... this is the definitive path to your ultimate strength."
Naruto scratched the back of his head, his face a complete map of bewilderment. "Huh? What do you mean, Shi Yan?"
"You have already successfully mastered the fundamentals of the Tree Climbing practice to stabilize your chakra, correct?" Shi Yan asked.
Naruto nodded vigorously. "Yeah! I can climb right to the top without using my hands now!"
"Excellent. The natural progression immediately following the tree climbing exercise is to stand atop water and walk across it freely," Shi Yan explained, pointing toward the rushing river. "Water is a fundamentally more dynamic, constantly shifting, and highly unstable ground compared to solid wood. It requires a significantly more delicate, continuous control of your internal chakra output and an immense amount of repetitive practice. So... order all seven of your clones into the river right now and have them practice water walking."
Naruto blinked, his brain stalling. "Wait, why am I sending the shadow clones in instead of training my real body?"
"Just do it."
"Right!" Naruto turned to his duplicates. "Alright guys, get in there!"
The seven clones instantly bolted forward, leaping directly onto the surface of the rushing river.
Splash! Splash! Chaos erupted instantly.
The moment their feet touched the dynamic, moving water, their unstable chakra control failed completely. One by one, the clones lost their balance, flailing wildly before plunging headfirst into the cold river with loud, watery splashes, struggling to find their footing as they were swept down current.
Shi Yan calmly beckoned the real Naruto to step closer to his side, watching the comical display.
"Look at them closely, Naruto," Shi Yan spoke, his voice dropping into a serious, calculated register. "Every single one of those duplicates is currently conducting real-time physical and spiritual training. And the moment they are popped or willfully diffused... their combined, accumulated memories and physical experiences will instantly transfer directly back into your primary brain."
Naruto's eyes went completely wide, his jaw dropping. "Wait... what?!"
"Usually, a standard, average ninja would suffer a catastrophic, lethal mental breakdown if they attempted to compress and absorb that massive an influx of raw psychological information all at once," Shi Yan continued, adjusting his sleeves. "But you, my friend... you can easily handle it without a single issue."
"I... I don't get it, brother," Naruto stammered, his mind blown. "Why can I do it if other ninja can't?"
"Because whenever a shadow clone dissolves after training, the specific muscle memory, neural reflexes, and hard work instantly return to the original wielder," Shi Yan explained, effortlessly throwing in a playful diss with a straight face. "The absolute fact that you have utilized this technique for this long and have never once naturally noticed this mental feedback loop simply proves that you are an absolute, certified knucklehead. And a knucklehead, by definition, possesses significantly less functional mental overhead than a normal person, meaning you suffer absolutely zero information overload or brain swelling. Your density is literally your greatest evolutionary shield."
"Hey! That's mean!" Naruto yelled, turning red, though he couldn't argue with the logic.
"But think of the mathematical implications," Shi Yan cut through his shouting, his golden eyes flashing. "Your clones retain the instinct, the practice, and the grueling dedication of the exercise. Their hard work is directly translated and hardwired straight into your brain. This frees up your physical, original body to focus entirely on two distinct tasks."
"What do I have to do then?"
"Train your physical body," Shi Yan stated firmly. "It is as simple as that. There are no shortcuts. Use your physical body to build raw, brutal physical conditioning, and utilize your shadow clones to systematically grind your jutsu and chakra control. Research your exact chakra nature affinity, discover advanced techniques that correspond to that element, and simply grind them to perfection."
Shi Yan took a final drag of his cigarette, tossing the butt into the grass.
"There is absolutely no magical trick to becoming stronger in this universe, Naruto. It is nothing but unadulterated hard work. I spent twelve straight years doing only one singular thing: training from the absolute dawn of light to the deepest dusk of the night. Over and over again, on a relentless, grueling repeat. I didn't maintain friends. I didn't attend village celebrations or festive parties. I had absolutely nothing else to occupy my existence other than what I must do to ascend. And the terrifying power you witnessed on that bridge is the direct, unearned result of that training. That is exactly what you must do."
He stepped closer, his shadow looming large over the blond boy.
"If you are foolish enough to sit around believing you are somehow uniquely special, waiting for some grand, mystical power to be lazily endowed to you by some supernatural entity... then I must tell you that your delusion is operating on the exact same frequency as blind faith. Look at Sasuke. He genuinely believes that the exact moment he unlocked his basic Sharingan, he was automatically destined to become the single greatest ninja in the annals of history. Absolute garbage. Nothing of the sort will ever happen. Even Madara Uchiha—the single most terrifying and powerful Uchiha to ever walk the earth was far from the strongest ninja of all time, and he possessed the most absolute, supreme evolution of the Sharingan imaginable. Do you want to know why? Because those visual dojutsu are merely weapons. A weapon can never make the ninja; only the ninja can make the weapon."
Shi Yan patted Naruto's orange shoulder.
"Similarly, you currently possess a massive array of raw, unsharpened weapons within your vessel. You must sharpen them to absolute lethality if you wish to survive. Train your Taijutsu and muscle density with your physical body, and conquer your Ninjutsu and chakra control using your clones."
A devious, brilliant smirk crossed the cultivator's handsome face. "And as your best friend... I suppose I can accelerate your progress with a few advanced techniques."
Before Naruto could even offer a response, Shi Yan rapidly extended his right index and middle fingers. A brilliant, snowy-white spiritual light violently erupted from his fingertips, radiating a dense, ancient energy.
Moving with blinding, absolute velocity, he pressed his glowing fingers directly against the glabella the space right between the eyebrows of Naruto's forehead.
THRUN!
Naruto's body went entirely rigid, his eyes glazing over as a massive, torrential gush of unredacted cosmic information violently forced its way directly into his consciousness. Images of ancient warriors, complex muscle-refining pathways, and dense energetic exercises flooded his mind, systematically embedding themselves into his memory banks.
It was a highly advanced body cultivation manual.
Shi Yan slowly retracted his fingers, his white light fading. "This is a highly specialized gift that I personally prepared for you, Naruto."
In truth, Shi Yan had taken one of the most versatile, high-tier body-refining manuals he had inherited from the memories of the fallen Immortal Cultivator, dedicating years of extensive research to systematically alter its core matrix.
Ever since he had solidified his deep friendship with the lonely blond boy years ago, he had continuously entertained the idea of gifting him a transcendent technique something to narrow the vast martial distance between them so they could walk the apex of the world together.
However, modifying an ancient immortal cultivation technique to perfectly align with the foreign, volatile laws of native chakra was an incredibly taxing endeavor. It was only quite recently, following his sudden breakthrough into the Nirvana stage, that he possessed the necessary cosmic insight to completely finalize the adaptation.
The technique required an incredibly dense, near-limitless, and highly volatile reservoir of energy to fuel its progression which was exactly what Naruto possessed in spades.
Shi Yan locked his golden eyes onto the panting, shocked boy. "Naruto... as you are well aware, you are the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox."
Naruto's entire body violently flinched. The innocent, hyperactive look in his blue eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by a deep, defensive panic. He instinctively tried to force his trademark, loud fake smile across his face to deflect the comment.
"You don't have to wear that pathetic mask in front of me," Shi Yan spoke softly, his voice full of absolute sincerity. "I do not judge you for the monster sealed within your gut; I judge you strictly for the person you choose to be. But from a purely structural standpoint, the Nine-Tails is a massive, highly problematic variable. The seal continuously leaks a dense, malevolent energy into your system. If harnessed correctly, it can provide you with an absolute, world-shattering power. But currently? Because you lack the refinement, that violent chakra is completely destroying your natural control, making your standard ninja training an absolute nightmare."
Shi Yan crossed his arms, a confident smirk returning to his lips. "But I can easily fix that structural inadequacy for you."
Naruto stared up at him, tears of profound gratitude threatening to spill from his eyes.
"When we return back into Konoha, I want you to come to the Nakamura Mansion, after reporting to hokage." Shi Yan commanded smoothly. "I will personally perform restriction ritual over your seal, after which I will properly heal the structural damage caused by the fox's malice. Once that process is concluded, you will be able to safely siphon a small, controlled amount of that malevolent demonic chakra to act as fuel to continuously jumpstart the cultivation technique I just seared into your brain."
Shi Yan turned back toward the main path, his long black hair swaying in the wind as he began to walk back toward the resting Team 7. He called out over his shoulder, his voice full of absolute majesty:
"Train hard, Naruto. The world will soon learn to tremble before the absolute might of your new technique: The Asura Overlord Demon Body Art."