Training progressed well in the tower
Naruto decided to train in the safe zone, but when he was eating rat meat for 3 days in a row, he couldn't resist any longer and went to a deeper zone with more dogs and killed them. After he thought it was enough, he returned and didn't leave the safe zone.
Feeling comfortable, he continued.
Once he got his stats to Yellow, he felt like it was easier to make progress controlling his own power. When his stat was normal, he felt like he was using something that was bigger than him and he couldn't control it no matter what he did.
Especially when he wanted to increase the amount. His chakra continued being tangled with the fox's will, but now he could control about 3/10 of it without losing control
He never had a problem with lack of chakra, so it was great. He could train all he wanted as long as he had time and with it, he made great progress.
Now he could use a bigger amount to enhance his fists without breaking his hands.
The only problem was that he had no idea how to use it efficiently. Iruka told him in class that a Chunin with a good chakra control could destroy giant rocks easily.
He tried to hit the wall and even with all his strength he couldn't break it and only make a small crack.
So, instead of trying to control something that he couldn't manage, he returned to the basics and tried to control his body without any use of chakra.
His chakra was hard to use, but controlling his body was a task even harder.
After every fight, he damages his body from an excessive use of force or a wrong use of chakra, it didn't matter normally because he had the fountain and the red chakra to heal it, but he didn't want to continue like that.
At least now he wanted to use it a bit better, he thought that was what his master was doing all the time, the other path was using his chakra as a single chakra conduit but that was impossible for him, at least for now.
He had difficulties controlling his own chakra, now to do it as a single one would be impossible. But it was something he wanted to try later.
He never saw Gai-sensei using chakra in his training, he was always training only with his pure body. When he was in the village, he thought that it was because he didn't have enough chakra to use, but that changed the moment Ego told him that his master is one of the strongest in the world.
He should have a reason to do that.
That gave him the idea to try it. Only the use of his strength was difficult, he tried to land a hit with the force he wanted but it was too difficult. As he tried to do it, his body hurt the same as the first time.
It was supposed that he had practiced the exercises Iruka told him to avoid hurting himself, but it didn't work. The good news was that he had his red chakra and the fountain to heal his injuries, and he could progress much faster than ever.
He didn't make much progress in it, but the injuries he caused himself were slowly decreasing and that satisfied him, as long as progress existed, it was fine.
That aspect only needed practice, and one day, he could do the same as his master. It would be faster if someone taught him but for now that was impossible.
Things didn't stop there; he was living in this room for a long time and at least he wanted to make it comfier, so he made some purchases in these months.
Naruto bought some dummies, stakes and the piece of armor he couldn't buy last time.
[Leather britches] [+2 defense] [Useful for a novice fighter]
Now the only piece left was the greaves, but he hadn't enough gold to buy it.
He searched in the catalog, and he found spices and other things to make the food more edible.
The Dwarf really had anything that you needed, even a bed was possible and he could save it in the inventory. No more days sleeping on rat leather. He spent his last gold coins buying a pillow.
It was his best purchase since he arrived here, the other things could wait but not a good environment to sleep.
Something that bothered him was that he couldn't buy clothes, the Dwarf told him that he could only sell armour. He needed to reach the 5th floor to meet another seller, and he could buy other things.
He had been wearing the same clothes all these months, and that bothered him. In a few more months, they wouldn't fit him.
Sulking, he could only continue using the fountain to clean his clothes. At least it looked the same as the first day.
Once I clear this floor, I will ask her if I can get some clothes in my private room. How long will it take to reach the 5th floor, ugh...
Like that, Naruto continued for almost two months.
He didn't have any hurry, he only needed to get stronger, and the next floors would be easy.
It was impossible to get anything useful in this, so, it was better to relax a bit before continuing.
The dogs didn't stand a chance against him, the only problem was finding the secret of this floor. At least this floor seemed to be smaller than the first one.
Stopping his meditation, he stretched and opened his status window.
Looking at his stats, he felt better.
[Vitality: 82%(yellow)]
[Strength: 19% (yellow)]
[Dexterity: 31% (yellow)]
[Agility: 18% (yellow)]
[Mind: 100(yellow)]
[Red chakra: 25.1(yellow+)]
His strength and agility didn't grow as fast as the dexterity, but increasing it just from eating was something not to complain about. The others remained almost the same and the red chakra changed in the last week, it felt heavier and healed faster but nothing more, at least for now.
It was a good change indeed.
Another thing he noticed was that increasing the proficiency in the sense's skill was surprisingly easy.
[Augmented senses: 42%]
It just increased as he meditated, and the effect was much better. Now he could notice some things far away when before he got the skill, he needed to use it actively.
The problem was that he was unable to identify them, and it was harder to orient himself because he needed to deal with all his enhanced senses, but at least now he could do it without using his own skill.
Once he was sure that he was in his best condition, he tried to combine the skill with his own and his head hurt a bit when he used it for more than 10 minutes.
He needed more proficiency if he wanted to use it without difficulties.
[Rage of the weak] and [Resilience] weren't used actively in this time, but the second one was a great buff to him. He could heal faster and train more. Naruto wanted to upgrade it, but it needed feats and he was rank 0 for now. Sadly, he didn't even know how to use it.
Today was his last training day.
He ended it because he ran out of food, and he thought that he had spent enough time here.
The system only told him to kill the pack leader and as far as he knew, there was only one leader and nothing more in the dogs.
Getting up, he stretched.
It was time to kill some dogs and kill the big dog.
As he was moving and thinking about what path to take, the Dwarf saw him.
"Will you finally leave this place? Be quick, I can't stand the barking of those stupid dogs." He said annoyed. Every time he wanted to sleep, the stupid dogs started barking for a while.
"Haha-sorry, sorry. I will be fast as long as I find the secret." Naruto felt ashamed, he couldn't hear the barks as he stood in the safe zone, but the Dwarf sounded really annoyed.
"Go fast, just use that thing and it will be easy."
"Mm, I improved here all I can in a short time, I will try to climb faster."
"Fine, keep doing it-your training. The tower could help you, but if you don't work hard with the things she gives, you won't last long here."
As he said that, he covered his face with a blanket again and waved his hand as he fell asleep again.
Naruto just left the room without saying anything. The passages welcomed him again.
His pace was slow because he wanted to find the secret. Maybe in the surroundings he could find it or at least a clue to it.
The wet smell came out of the dirt as if it had just recently rained, but only a few bushes had grown in it.
It's a hostile place, but the living beings that lived here were real and that comforted Naruto. Like him, the beast was also fighting for their lives.
"When will I see another climber here? They said that she brings a few here all the time, mm..." That concerned Naruto, would it be a place where they can meet or something like that? At least he couldn't climb with another person.
Those questions continued in his mind, but he didn't stop walking. It didn't take much to find that nothing changed in the surroundings, so he began to look in other places.
As he rounded the zone, Naruto saw the same scene in every direction he went. There were only small differences, but there was a thing that caught his attention.
A statue.
A dog's stone head was in a wall near the safe zone, just there. He approached and tried to do something with it, but nothing changed. The system also remained in silence, as if it were something normal.
"Mm, this is so suspicious, just take it in mind if nothing more appears."
With that only discovery, he left the surroundings and went deeper into the passages, maybe it was better to search in one direction and change to another when he reached the border.
At first was cautious, as he didn't want to miss something-- but after continuing like that for 20 minutes, he got bored and just ran. This place had nothing more than rats.
Naruto didn't bother hiding his steps and started to search for suspicious places to find the secret.
There were numerous places that fit that description or at least he thought that. Like small rooms when a person could barely move, some stairs leading up that stopped at the roof and furniture like the previous floor.
Things continued to appear, but he didn't find anything like a dog head as before. In some places the dirt didn't cover the whole floor, and he could see the bricks under it.
He tried to find something new in those places, but it was the same. Well, the dogs weren't the same size in every room. In some of them there were some with another fur color and size.
The small one just reached his knee and the biggest one a bit above his navel. It wasn't that different from the first ones he found, except that they had a lot more HP.
[Savage dog-guard: 120hp]
This dog was guarding the entrance to the room, as he was protecting his friends from invaders.
Naruto didn't understand it. It wasn't supposed that they were friends?
Naruto kept looking at them without attacking, he wanted to know what they wanted to do.
They were in a pack of 12 dogs at the beginning, but as they continued hunting rats, some of them separated and took the corpses to another place.
The only one who never moved was the big one. Naruto thought that he looked cool covering his friend's backs.
They continued like that for a while until every dog had its own rat. They gathered in a room and started to eat, but only the small ones. They left the two big rats they hunted, as if it was for someone.
The big one only started to eat once everyone else ate their own. He took one of the big rats and left the other.
As a good person, Naruto waited until all of them ate. It's rude to leave someone without food before killing them.
Once they ended it, he entered and killed them when they fell asleep.
They dropped the same as always, but the big one dropped something different.
[Broken statue fang: gathered 3 to create the item]
"Eh? I knew it! That statue was the key!" Naruto was so happy, this time it was so easy.
With a new clue in hand, he started to run through the floor searching for other packs.
The place wasn't that big, but it had so many passages to move on and it was a bit hard to find them.
He spent almost all day before he could gather the three pieces.
Opening his inventory, he pressed the option to fuse it.
[Statue fang: The missing piece of a statue]
"Then I just need to return!" He ran back to the place he saw the statue.
Once he arrived, he took out the fang from his inventory.
Once he had the item on his hand, he saw a faint white light on the statue. Approaching his hand, he tried to put it in and a message appeared.
[One statue active]
A fang that the statue was missing appeared and the changes started.
The dog began to shine, and something began to move. A loud noise sounded, and he pulled his hand away, scared.
"What happened?" Naruto frowned as he watched the statue trying to find something new.
The statue seemed intact. It was only a head stone so not much could be seen.
As he was thinking about it, an image of another dog statue appeared in front of him.
The statue was similar to the first one. Except its eyes. One of the eyes was missing.
"Ugh, now I need to take the dog's eyes? How disgusting this place is." His work wasn't in vain, but he felt annoyed that he needed to seek for more dogs and all day, he didn't get a single eye drop.
The day almost ended, and it was time to rest. Returning to the safe zone, Naruto went to sleep. The Dwarf was in the same position as the moment he left in the morning.
The next day.
Cooking his breakfast, Naruto ate it fast and left the room to continue.
He already explored one direction and this day he went in another direction.
Running straight to the deepest part, he stopped when he started to notice dog packs.
These were similar to the ones he found yesterday, some of them were normal size and others were smaller.
Doing the same, he watched them as they hunted rats. They were faster but the prey were only small rats.
They didn't have anything out of the normal ones.
He was looking for a special dog like yesterday, but nothing happened.
Two hunts passed and it was the same. Continuing following them, Naruto noticed that when they were about to enter another room, some of them looked aside.
"Is there another? But I don't see him." As they started another hunt, Naruto focused his senses and started to feel the surroundings.
The amount of information was always a pain, but he was getting used to it.
Using it, he noticed that a small dog was far away from the pack but continued looking everywhere.
Naruto's eyes shone. This little bastard is the eye.
[Savage dog-vigilant: 50HP]
Without losing time, he ran straight to it and kicked its torso. He didn't attack the head because he thought that it could affect the drop.
[Savage dog-vigilant takes 78 dmg]
The poor dog didn't notice how he died, and Naruto took the loot and left the scene. It wasn't necessary to kill the other dogs. They didn't even give xp.
[Broken statue eye: gather 3 to create the item.]
"Nice! Just kill two more and that's all, hehe." The dogs' barks could be heard behind them, they tried to catch him, but they were too slow.
With a new clue, Naruto went on a rampage and started to search for the last two dogs.
It took more time than he thought, without using his skill it was too difficult finding them. He spent almost 5 days until he found the last one. It was good that the previous floor taught him how to be patient in those situations.
Letting out a sigh, he created the item.
[Statue eye: The missing piece of a statue]
The description was the same. Now, the only problem was finding the statue. He was looking for it these days, but he didn't find anything.
It must be hiding, like that stupid dog.
Naruto started to wander in the passages, at least he was sure that the statue couldn't be near the first one.
Looking in all directions wasn't enough, he started to dig the dirt trying to find it, but nothing happened, the only thing he found was dog shit and that's all.
While he was on that, Naruto tried to discover why the guardian dog always left a big rat and didn't eat it too. That had an explanation, but he didn't discover it yet.
Leaving the zone, he went in another direction.
The rooms had different sizes, one of them was only 1.5m and his head almost touched the roof. He never thought that he would feel tall on a site like that.
"Mm the size... the first one was the tallest, right? If it isn't in it, I don't know where it would be."
Naruto remembered the first room where he killed some dogs. Compared to the others, it was almost 50cm taller.
Running to it, he arrived in a few minutes. After killing the dogs in it, he started to look everywhere for something suspicious.
The dirt in this place was more, but the ground didn't have a statue.
"He needed to observe, so, a high place might be?"
Approaching the walls, Naruto started testing it trying to find something new. A few bricks were out and he could use them to get higher.
Using it, he tried until he found a place where there would not be a brick. The spot was weaker and when he touched it with a little force, he could feel that it could be moved easily.
Once he pulled out all the bricks, a small hole was revealed, it was dark, but he could see the dog head buried in it.
Taking out the eye of his inventory, he fit it into the statue. The next second, the statue began to shine and a new message appeared.
[The second statue has been active. The door has been opened.]
Reading it, a smile appeared on Naruto's face.
The floor secret is in the bag.
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I was thinking about how to make the other POVs look good, and I think I have an idea. They will appear soon.
And I'll post chapters from Monday to Friday every week. I haven't reopened the Patreon again as I don't think It's good enough to other people pay for, but anyway.
Leave a comment and tell me what you think, it's always fun to read your opinions.
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Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day.