About an hour later, Seimei, full and satisfied, left the bustling "Food Street."
Normally, he'd head to the hot springs for a relaxing soak.
But today, he'd spent an extra two hours training to test the combination of Sage Mode and Body of the Extreme. So, with time running short, he had no choice but to head home.
Back at his place, Seimei pulled out a reclining chair and settled into the courtyard. Gazing up at the bright moon in the night sky, his mind gradually emptied, his thoughts drifting to who-knows-where.
It felt like a moment had passed, yet also like an eternity.
By the time Seimei snapped back to reality, it was already late.
Yawning, he got up, walked straight to his bedroom, and crashed onto the bed, falling asleep instantly.
The night passed quietly.
---
The next day.
Seimei slept in until he naturally woke up. After grabbing a quick bite, he wandered around the village, casually sorting out his training plan for the days ahead.
Truth be told, there wasn't much to sort out.
He'd already laid out his plans during yesterday's evening tests.
From here on, he just needed to stick to the schedule and train.
Just like that, the day flew by.
---
Day three.
Bright and early.
Seimei left the village and headed to Moon Island to begin another round of intense training.
In just under three days, he managed to grind his Sage Mode up to Level 6.
With this level-up, he could enter Sage Mode even faster and maintain it for longer.
As a result, his efficiency in strengthening his body improved as well.
That said, this wasn't a qualitative leap, so the boost was limited, and Seimei didn't bother keeping detailed track of it.
After another three-plus days of training, on the seventh day of this intense session, his Sage Mode finally broke through to Level 7.
In the clearing at the center of Moon Island, Seimei opened his eyes.
In that moment, he felt his understanding of Sage Mode leap to a whole new level.
Now, casting the technique was a breeze—no more needing ten minutes to get into the zone.
At most, it took him five minutes to fuse his chakra into sage chakra and enter Sage Mode.
As for how long he could maintain it?
Seimei estimated that, without engaging in intense combat, he could keep Sage Mode active for 40 to 50 minutes, no problem.
In other words, he could now train in Sage Mode full-time while working on Body of the Extreme to strengthen his body.
That said, the cost…
With a thought, Seimei raised his hands, formed seals, and cast the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique.
Poof! Poof! Poof!
With bursts of chakra smoke, 560 shadow clones appeared in two batches.
As usual, Seimei split them into three groups.
Three hundred clones were tasked with absorbing natural energy, 250 focused on developing the Kekkei Moura, and the final ten practiced Sage Mode.
Once the clones dispersed to their tasks, Seimei teleported to the volcano beneath Moon Island using the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Ignoring the harsh environment, he closed his eyes, channeling his chakra and natural energy with intense focus, blending them together.
Just as he'd estimated, it took less than five minutes to fully convert his chakra into sage chakra.
And just like that, he slipped into Sage Mode effortlessly.
Following his usual routine, Seimei maintained Sage Mode while continuously practicing Body of the Extreme, channeling sage chakra to strengthen his body and the Byakugan in his forehead.
Time ticked by, second by second.
About 50 minutes later, Seimei exited Sage Mode.
With roughly five minutes left in this training session, he kept practicing Body of the Extreme to use up the time.
Then, he cast the Flying Thunder God Technique again, teleporting back to Moon Island's surface.
Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he let his body recover naturally before checking the results of his training.
The results confirmed it—training almost entirely in Sage Mode had massively boosted his body-strengthening efficiency.
At Level 5, Sage Mode had only increased his efficiency by about 10%.
But now, at Level 7, after a second qualitative leap, that boost had jumped to 30%.
No doubt about it—this was a huge improvement.
At this rate, he wouldn't even need to wait for his Sharingan's evolution to hit the (60,000/100,000) mark or spend six hours casting Mirroring Heart Technique to enhance his Body of the Extreme training efficiency.
With his current progress, his next physical transformation would happen within the year.
Seimei did some rough calculations—by early December, just over two months from now, he'd hit that transformation point.
The thought alone thrilled him.
But such a massive boost came with a steep cost.
Seimei checked his chakra and natural energy consumption over the past hour and calculated that if he trained at this intensity all day, he'd need to pour about 20% more chakra and natural energy into strengthening his body compared to before.
That meant jumping from 23 million points to 27.6 million points.
Before mastering Sage Mode, his daily chakra surplus was around 5.52 million points.
Now, burning through 4.6 million points just for body training? Even Seimei felt a pang of reluctance.
And that wasn't all—training Sage Mode itself was another huge drain. His chakra and natural energy reserves were already stretched thin.
Currently, maintaining ten shadow clones to train Sage Mode earned him about 200 proficiency points per hour.
That added up to 3,000 proficiency points in a day.
Even though leveling up Sage Mode had slightly reduced its chakra and natural energy costs, it still took 1,500 points of each to gain one proficiency point.
So, daily training in Sage Mode alone required 4.5 million points of chakra and natural energy.
4.6 million + 4.5 million = 9.1 million!
Clearly, his 5.52 million daily chakra surplus wasn't cutting it.
Before, Seimei had been pretty indifferent about capturing the Three-Tails—nice to have, but not a big deal if he didn't get it.
But now? His desire for the Three-Tails shot up several notches.
Unfortunately, over ten days had passed, and the wooden clone he'd sent to infiltrate the Hidden Mist Village still hadn't sent any updates. All he could do was wait.
Luckily, he'd racked up a decent chakra reserve from his recent missions, so he had enough to keep going for now.
No need to panic just yet.
As for natural energy, Seimei planned to increase the number of shadow clones absorbing it, bumping the count from 300 to 500.
That way, he wouldn't have to worry about running low.
He also decided to scale up the team working on the Kekkei Moura.
Based on his recent experience, maintaining 300 clones for that task seemed like the sweet spot for maximum efficiency.
So, he planned to increase the number of clones developing the Kekkei Moura from 250 to 300.