After finishing his talk with Shisui, Naruto headed toward the quarters prepared for Sasuke and the others. He'd even arranged a separate training ground for them to use.
Before he got close, he could already hear their exclamations echoing from inside.
"This thing is a divine artifact!"
"It's way better than weighted training!"
"This is a true blessing for Taijutsu practitioners!"
Naruto raised a brow, curious. When he arrived, he saw them crowding around what looked like a sealed training chamber. As he got a closer look, a smile tugged at his lips.
The group noticed his arrival. Sasuke turned around, his voice filled with rare excitement.
"Can the Umbrella already build something like this? It's incredible!"
Naruto grinned. "You mean awesome, right? Yeah… this thing really is extraordinary."
The object they were admiring was the latest creation of the Umbrella—a gravity chamber.
It worked by manipulating magnetic fields to simulate variable gravity. At present, it could reach up to five times normal gravity, limited only by available materials and current technology.
Naruto had conceived this idea back when he first developed the Martial Dao Cultivation System, and now, seeing it realized before his eyes filled him with pride.
Compared to traditional weighted training, this was on an entirely different level.
Gathered here were Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Neji, Rock Lee, Kurama Yakumo, and one reluctant pineapple-headed genius—Nara Shikamaru.
That's right. The Umbrella was desperately short on strategists, and Naruto had long decided to recruit Shikamaru into its ranks.
During the end of the Konoha Crush, Naruto had already replaced the original Shikamaru with a specially crafted Shadow Clone, ensuring his "transfer" went unnoticed.
When Shikamaru finally arrived, he had been utterly confused. He couldn't fathom why Naruto, of all people, would target him.
Whenever he asked, Naruto would simply reply with a teasing smile:
"I value your intelligence. Don't resist—dedicate yourself to the Umbrella!"
Naruto's plan was simple: Shikamaru would spend six months training and familiarizing himself with internal operations before being dispatched.
After all, as one of the Umbrella's regional overseers, he couldn't afford to be weak. His intelligence and talent were exceptional—his only flaw was his laziness.
Naruto could already sense the boy's gradual shift—from resistance to acceptance. Since he couldn't escape, he might as well adapt.
And despite being only twelve or thirteen, Shikamaru still had that spark of youthful ambition.
The Umbrella's ideals were intoxicating to a mind like his.
Compared to Konoha's "Will of Fire," their vision was far grander.
He couldn't go back, so he'd chosen to stay—and see just how far Naruto could truly go.
Among everyone present, Rock Lee was the most excited. Out of them all, only he specialized purely in Martial Dao.
Yakumo practiced it as well, but her main strength lay in her Bloodline Limit.
Sasuke trained in both paths, though that made his progress slower. But once he awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan, his strength immediately reached Kage-level.
Neji, too, had hit a temporary bottleneck, though at their age, the Kage threshold was just another stepping stone.
"Who wants to test it first?" Neji asked, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
"Me, me!" Lee immediately raised his hand. The device looked like it had been made just for him.
The others exchanged glances and smiled. "Alright, let Lee have the first go."
Under their expectant gazes, Lee entered the training chamber.
Inside, the brightly lit room hummed with energy. Lee examined the control console—sleek, high-precision, and surprisingly simple to use.
After verifying his identity and paying the required points, he selected the lowest setting: one-times gravity.
According to the manual, first-time users were required to start from the minimum level to avoid long-term strain or hidden injuries.
As the system activated, Lee immediately felt a faint heaviness pressing down on him. Though short in stature, his dense muscles and training-hardened body gave him a natural weight of over a hundred kilograms.
A hundred kilograms of added force was nothing to him—at first.
But soon, his expression shifted.
Gravity training didn't just weigh on the surface—it affected every single cell in the body.
If a cell normally endured one unit of pressure, now it faced two. The combined strain of countless cells multiplied that force dozens of times over.
The body might seem fine, but deep within, every fiber was screaming under the load.
Still, with Lee's physical foundation, he could handle it. In fact, this was exactly the kind of challenge that made his blood burn with excitement.
Lee adjusted the controls again.
Two times gravity.
Three times.
At that point, he could still handle it, though his chest began to feel a slight pressure.
Unwilling to stop, Lee pushed it further—all the way up to the current maximum of five times gravity.
The moment he did, an immense weight crushed down on him. But this time, the strain didn't come from his muscles or bones—it came from within.
The internal organs.
Their tolerance for gravity was far weaker than the outer body's.
At five times gravity, Lee was essentially shouldering over a ton of pressure. That was already greater than what his usual weighted training imposed.
However, gravity training was fundamentally different. Weighted gear affected only the body's surface. This, on the other hand, acted on every cell, every organ, every heartbeat.
A burning sensation spread through his chest and abdomen. His breath came shorter. His organs felt as though they were being wrung from the inside out.
He wasn't used to it yet—that was all.
Though five times gravity was already intense, for Lee, it still wasn't enough. Once he completed the Organ Refinement stage of his Martial Dao cultivation, such pressure would no longer faze him.
At present, he was still in the Bone Refinement stage, and tempering every bone in the body was no easy feat. Yet, judging by his progress, he was close to finishing it.
After a while, Lee powered down the gravity chamber and stepped out, drenched in sweat but glowing with satisfaction.
A group of curious faces immediately surrounded him.
"Lee! How was it?"
Lee raised his thumb with his usual energetic smile.
"Don't worry, let me explain in detail! The gravity room is truly a great invention—a blessing for Taijutsu users and Martial Dao cultivators alike!"
He began to describe the experience carefully, his excitement growing as he spoke.
"It tempers the body in every way possible. Training efficiency can increase by at least three to five times—and that's not an exaggeration!"
"Three to five times?!"
Everyone's eyes widened, the implications sinking in. They understood what that kind of improvement meant.
Thirty years of cultivation could now be achieved in under ten.
That was nothing short of revolutionary.
After all, there were few Taijutsu specialists in the shinobi world precisely because the path was long and demanding.
Most gave up before reaching mastery—decades of hard training often ended just as age began to take its toll.
Who could endure such a path?
But if the gravity room became widespread, Martial Dao cultivation would advance by leaps and bounds.
Even so, compared to the traditional shinobi system, Martial Dao still required far more time and dedication.
A ninja could develop combat strength quickly—so long as they possessed enough chakra and a few powerful ninjutsu techniques.
But for those who walked the path of the body, there were no shortcuts.
The gravity room, however, might just be the first step toward changing that.
...
TN:
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