Chapter 33 : Practice Begins !
“Pa, is this the child you told me about? The one who does have to be afraid of having natural energy swallow him?” While he was gazing into the scene of Mount Myoboku around him, Ryo was interrupted by a sudden voice.
“Yes Ma. Haven’t I told you? Ryo Chan has a special state, called Ice elementization. When in that state, he becomes an Ice Man using the Wind and Water attributes of natural energy.” Fukasaku explained to Shima.
“Well, you did tell me, but I need to see it! Kid, let me see this special state.” Shima was carrying what looked like a vegetable basket, from which a few insects jumped on Ryo.
He nodded and activated the Ice mode. Like Fukasaku when he saw this for the 1st time, Shima closed her Ice and tried to perceive him.
“It’s real, with my Senjutsu perception I can only see a block of ice. This is incredible!”
“Well Ma, Ryo Chan is here for the 1st time: shouldn’t you prepare him a hearty breakfast?”
“You don’t need to bother yourself! I’ve brought many M.R.Ps along with me.” Ryo remembered the Bug Meals from the anime and rushed to refuse.
“Well, don’t be too polite! Don’t be deceived by Ma’s fierceness, her cooking is actually great!”
Fukasaku was trying to make Ryo feel at home. The latter could only try to smile.
Ryo followed the two toads back to their place. When Ryo summoned Fukasaku, they were hunting for food in the mountain’s forest.
“Ryo Chan, make yourself at home. Take a seat, breakfast will be ready really soon.” Fukasaku offered Ryo a cup of tea. Fortunately, Mount Myoboku’s tea is normal.
After a little while, Shima brought in a large plate of worms and put it on the table.
“Come on Ryo, no need to be shy. Eat up!” the tow were enthusiastically looking Ryo’s way.
Ryo closed his eyes, took the insects and stuffed them in his mouth. And then he swallowed them whole!
Fukasaku asked him: “So Ryo, what do you think about the way that they taste?”
“They taste good!” Ryo was enduring his urge to vomit as he praised the taste of those insects. This made Shima Smile.
After breakfast, Ryo and Fukasaku went to the nearby oil pool.
“Ryo Chan, to practice the Sage mode, you need 1st to be able to perceive and gather natural energy. You should let natural energy flow in and out of your body. In other words, you need to become one with nature.”
“But Fukasaku sama, I can’t feel natural energy!”
Ryo interrupted Fukasaku. According to what he was saying, Ryo, who could use natural energy, should already be able to sense it. But Ryo doesn’t.
“Ryo Chan, don’t worry about it! Let me finish. You haven’t studied the Sage mode before. Even if you can use natural energy, you aren’t necessarily able to understand it.”
“What do you mean by that Fukasaku sama? Do I just need to understand it?”
“By understanding it, you should be able to distinguish between it and between physical and spiritual energy.”
Ryo still didn’t understand Fukasaku’s words. He remembered that 1st step taken by Naruto to learn Senjutsu, was to stay motionless in order to sense natural energy. But Fukasaku is now focusing on making him understand it.
“Ryo Chan, come here!” Fukasaku jumped to the edge of the pool. Ryo new about it this pool and how it was filled with mystical toad oil.
Similarly to the manga, Fukasaku put some of the oil on Ryo’s arm. However, Ryo didn’t feel the flow of natural energy.
When Naruto was painted with the oil, he felt the inflow of energy and his arm started to morph into a frog’s limb. Ryo however, didn’t feel any inflow of energy, although his hand started morphing just like Naruto’s.
“Fukasaka Sama, why is this happening?” Ryo felt that this was strange. Natural energy is clearly flowing into him, but he was totally unaware of it.
“Your 1st step to learning Senjutsu is to understand the difference between your Chakra and natural energy!” As he finished his words, he hit him with his stick to bring out the natural energy in his arm.
“Ryo Chan, you don’t have to worry about being swallowed by natural energy, so use the oil as you want. Once Ice elementization starts, it means that practice has failed. When that happens, start over, until you can distinguish between your three sources of energy.”
Ryo fully understood what his 1st task was.
He began refining his Chakra. Because the Ice mode absorbs a lot of natural energy,
When Ryo began refining his chakra, because he also was working on his Ice affinity, he absorbed a lot of natural energy into his body.
Whatever was left in his body of that Natural energy formed within him a new “Chakra” while he was refining it early in his life. It was indeed a combination of Natural energy, Physical energy, and Spiritual energy. However, it wasn’t in a 1:1:1 Ratio. It wasn’t Senjutsu Chakra. This allowed him to have absurdly high amounts of Chakra. All of this is what was called by Fukasaku the Natural Energy Baptism.
And because his 1st encounter with natural energy was while he was refining Chakra early on in his life, Ryo cannot distinguish between the 3 types of energy.
After identifying the path he should take. He painted his body with Toad Oil and opened his Sharingan and observed the Chakra’s flow within his body.
A moment later, his body started morphing into the shape of a toad. Ryo’s chakra flow wasn’t influenced.
“Huh?” When Ryo was about to fully turn into a frog, his Chakra flow ceased, and his cells acquired the molecular structure of ice.
At the beginning of Ice Elementization, Ryo discovered that a large amount of the energy accumulated in the body began to flow into his cells at that moment.
Ryo knew that physical and spiritual energy won’t be absorbed in that process. For the 1st time, he was able to feel this energy intuitively.
After that, Ryo lifted this mode, and he continued applying Toad Oil.
Once, twice…
Ryo, who had no problem with working hard, couldn’t count how many times he repeated it before finally identifying the feel of natural energy.
Unlike physical and spiritual energy, Natural energy had a different feel to it, like it was alive.
After identifying it, he closed his eyes and felt the chakra flow in his body.
He discovered that although his Chakra does not contain natural energy, his body had some of it. Once he used Ice elementization, that energy was used to complete the transformation.
This energy had a peculiar attraction to the natural energy of the outside world. Ryo’s intuition told him that it’s the chief culprit behind his inability to enter Sage mode.