The next few days passed in a blur of training and experimenting. My training revolved around increasing my speed and forcing my strength to rise. My sword has gained enough weight to sink me into the ground when I'm not actively channeling chakra into my feet. When i'm not actively trying to become stronger than a kage on steroids, i'm struggling not to kill sasuke and naruto. Naruto has begun spamming the shadow clone jutsu and is using numbers to increase his power through sheer quantity. Sasuke is still doing his normal arrogant act. In private. I've spied on him and he was grumbling to himself about how a peasant like myself has been gaining strength faster than him, he has apparently been faking the nice act for a bit. He dropped it yesterday and now is back to his normal asshole ways. Man. Thank god that kurama told me he was an asshole. I honestly thought sasuke was being a nice guy now. Sakura is cheering on Sasuke right now as he spars with kemono.

Kemono has spent the past few days working on sealing and he has made some scary progress. Seems his knowledge of the show has mixed with his sealing knowledge to allow him to skip the learning phase and go straight to combat application. The guy is now making seals in the air with his chakra. Like I said. Scary. Most of the fanfic says that a seal master is basically a god, they aint wrong. Kemono put a seal on me, well, several seals are painted on me. One that makes it so I'm basically pushed to the limit of my strength when I'm moving. One that increases the wear on my muscles to force them to grow stronger at an even faster rate. The final one is a seal that is limiting my speed by making it so gravity is pressing down on me to the point that I could barely walk for a day. I'm just now getting back to normal and even then, my stamina takes a good hit.

I'm pulled out of my thoughts by kurama reminding me to focus on opening the gates. Right! I close my eyes and focus on my chakra. Alright. Now the fanfic only talked about the gates in the barest sense. I know to avoid my heart cause that's the suicide full power one. Where are the others? Wait. there's something blocking my chakra flow. I pour more chakra into the area and feel my chakra surge suddenly. The fuck? By focusing chakra in my lungs. I felt something click in my head. Wait. That must have been the second gate that I just opened. Alright. So the first one is in my head and the second is in my chest. Left lung. What about the right lung? More power surges through me. That's third. Now, should I go for the fourth or master the others first?

"Master the others Tora. it's a bad idea to learn more when you're not a master of your current skills.`` Kurama speaks in my mind.

Yeah. he's right. I open my eyes and stand. My skin is slightly red and I can see chakra flowing off my body. Everything is so much stronger. I look at a nearby tree. Normally I can crack one if I punch it and I have to use my full strength to break it. What about now?

I walk to the tree and punch it. The wood turns to sawdust and the tree goes flying backwards. Damm. wait. So a full power punch is twice as strong as a normal one. If a normal punch is this strong then that would make this a ten times increase. That would be about a three point three times increase per gate. That can't be right. If it's three point three per gate, then that would mean the number eight gate wouldn't give as much as it does. I focus on my chakra and close the second and third gates. Alright. Now to test this. I punch another tree and it breaks. I dodge the falling trunk as I think.

Alright so that doubled my strength. If the third gate is a factor of ten then logically the next gate would be five. That way afterwards you double the strength gained from each resulting gate. That would make sense since each gate after the second basically means you're damaging your body more and more. So by that logic. It should go: 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320.

So the third gate is a three hundred and twenty multiplier? That's impressive but seems to be not much in the grand scheme of things. Wait. maybe it's not a multiplier of your base but a multiplier of the previous strength. If that's the case then, holy shit. That is true exponential growth. I wonder. If I can focus on my durability over anything else. Does that mean I could open the gates and gain that power without any muscle damage? At face value i should say yes but i think it wouldn't work. The gates work by pushing your body past its limits and burning life as a result. Hence why the last gate kills you. It puts your body at its absolute maximum. Not the maximum of what you can push yourself to. It puts the body at the limit of its durability. Maybe that's why Lee and gai are so strong. They aren't as powerful as they look, they are just so durable that their bodies have a higher limit of output and thus have a higher limit with the gates. In the anime gai was using so much power that his flesh was burning. Maybe that's why they focus so much on taijutsu. Not because of a disability or a lack of talent in the other arts. But because it is the harshest on the body and thus rapidly increases durability as a result.

My thoughts are interrupted by Kakashi calling my name. I walk over to him and he asks what I was doing. I explain my thoughts on the gates and the resulting damage to the body. As well as my theory on the reason gai has so much power with the gates.

"You could be right. I can open a few of them. Only up to the third at my utmost limit. Gai can output more power with the first than I can with the third. If you're right. Then his extreme durability would offset the damage of the gate and allow more power to go through him. Wouldn't that mean you can do the same? You heal very fast and are quite tough." Kakashi answers after a minute.

"No. my strength is through constantly surpassing my limits then allowing my body to heal. Gai pushes himself to the limit and then holds it till his body can do that easily. His is slower but safer. His durability is much higher than mine as a result. My body is just constantly strengthening itself to meet my demands. Gai has been pushing his body to get used to having extreme pressure put on it. That means his flesh is way more durable than mine." I informed him.

"Could you slow your training and let your durability rise that way?" Kakashi has put away his book. Eye focused on me.

"No. my healing is a bad thing in that regard. My muscles are thick and dense. Thus providing protection to my body. The thing is. Any damage is quickly healed and strengthened. That means that if i used the gates for any period of time longer than a few minutes. The resulting damage to my body would force it to rapidly repair and strengthen. Thus making my limit higher and meaning i can use the first gate and just wait. That wouldn't be smart because my body would burn calories so fast I'd likely starve to death in an hour. Gai has been making new limits through patience. Ive been using force and basically not letting my body learn its limits of when to shut down. Gai would pass out after overusing the gates. I'd likely die from lack of nutrition.'' I will explain.

Kakashi nods and I have a thought as he walks away. Wait. in the anime naruto has a god level metabolism and eats way more than he would need. That would mean he isn't packing in calories and getting fat. He is storing them. It's likely his body can have denser than normal fat stores. Allowing him to have more to draw on when his body heals or goes without food. That's a mutation though. Normally your body does not compress the fat like that, it builds up in a soft layer to provide cushioning for your flesh and muscle. Could it be that I'm doing the same? I am part uzumaki. Maybe I got that as well? Most of the fanfics say that uzumaki genes are very strong and thus are dominant when it comes to expressed traits. If that's the case then I can use the gates as a training method and rapidly bolster my strength. I'd need lots of calories though. Wait! Akimichi! Those fat fucks are masters of packing on the pounds in a short amount of time! If i can get back to the village and get some akimichi food then i can pack in the calories before using them as fuel for my body to rapidly strengthen.

I smirk at the idea and pull out my notebook to write down a reminder to talk to the clan head or another akimichi. I walk back to the house with my mind flooded with thoughts of how to get that calorie dense food. It couldn't be a slow metabolism because then they would be much fleshier and not gain as much strength as they do. Wait!

I stop in my tracks as thoughts whirl and form an idea. The akimichi aren't using calories to create chakra. They have a mutation that stores chakra as calories. Thus allowing them to have a larger reserve to draw from as well as meaning that when they use their techniques. That's just a way of allowing their body to expand because all that chakra would have to condense the fat and make it much thicker than it appears. This means that the akimichi clan is a clan that shares the same mutation as naruto. If that's the case then I need to figure out how to do that. If I can convert chakra to calories then I can use that as a way to build up nutrition and have a store to draw on for the gates. Alright. So the way they do their techniques. Shit. I actually don't know. The anime didn't go into very good detail and the fanfics never focused on them. I don't know how they do that in the slightest. Fuck.

I sigh and resume my walking. Now. if they can store chakra as calories then they would need to have a way to access that chakra. Wait. could i just focus my chakra on my fat and pour the stuff in? I focus and push chakra into the thin layer of fat above my muscles. Alright. I feel my stores start to dip and stop after a moment. I look at my body and see that I have gained a plush looking body. My loose clothing is now snug. Holy shit. That's actually not that hard. Wait. Now if this actually works then i have a way to use the gates with my healing and avoid starving. I pull the chakra out of my fat and return to my bulky muscled form. Hold on.

I stop walking. If focusing chakra in fat stores converts chakra to fat and increases the amount on your body. Could you focus it in your tits and get a bigger rack? I ponder this for a moment. That would be a good trick. Turn busty to seduce people then slam them with a slim figure packed with chakra. Huh. might check if it works on my dick. As far as i know the dick is a bunch of veins and fat. Very tempted to try now. Very tempted.

I shake my head and walk into the house with a sigh. Now that I've figured out what to do. I just need some time to fix the process and then I'm gonna turn super strong. I smirk at the thought. I'm gonna have out muscle tsunade soon!