The Shadow took the trash bag and walked to the door to change shoes. He walked down the stairs and threw the garbage inside the trash can downstairs
Throughout this process, the Anbu's gaze remained firmly locked onto the Shadow Clone from start to finish.
After throwing away the trash, the Shadow Clone sauntered back upstairs, turned off the light, climbed under the covers, and within two minutes, was breathing evenly.
If the Anbu had approached the window to listen, they would have heard the rhythmic, slightly nasal breathing characteristic of a sleeping person.
This was precisely simulated by Naruto's Shadow Clone using Absolute Control. Every interval between breaths and the arc of the chest's rise and fall were exactly the same as the original body.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the bin, Naruto laid amidst a pile of garbage, holding his breath and suppressing his Chakra fluctuations to a state of near-zero.
After waiting about thirty seconds and confirming there were no unusual movements, he climbed out of the trash can and left the area.
He ultimately chose the large waterfall at the end of the river. Although no one approached the trap training ground, the very visibility of the words "No Entry" made it more likely to attract curious kids or adventurous Genin who would sneak in to explore.
Furthermore, the number of traps in that area was outrageous, and it would take some time to clear them all. With the Chunin Exams just around the corner, he didn't have the time to clear them.
The waterfall area, however, met all his needs perfectly.
First, it was far enough from the center of the village, with no residential houses or farmland nearby.
Second, the sound of the waterfall was deafening. Even standing by the pool, one had to shout to be heard. This noise could perfectly mask any sounds that might be produced during training.
Third, the area around the waterfall was dense with trees. The canopy was thick, making it nearly impossible to see the ground from above, so conventional aerial reconnaissance would struggle to discover anyone hiding beneath the waterfall.
Passing through the streets of Konoha in the night, Naruto tried his best to avoid the main roads with streetlights, following the path along the river upstream.
The closer he got to the waterfall, the louder the sound of the water became.
When he finally reached the end of the river and stood on the edge of the cliff looking down, Naruto took a deep breath and leaped.
Naruto looked around and saw a circular clearing. The ground consisted of smooth rocks and fine pebbles, with the dense trees surrounding the clearing.
This place was simply a perfect training ground.
Under a rock wall near the right side of the pool, Naruto found a naturally formed, semi-open stone cave. It was just big enough for one person to sit cross-legged with room to spare, and the entrance was shrouded in mist from the waterfall, making it impossible to see what was inside from the outside.
He stood at the cave entrance and formed hand seals.
Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!
Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof!
Four Shadow Clones appeared before him and dashed out in four directions, stopping at the east, south, west, and north positions, approximately fifty meters away from the cave. Then, they simultaneously began to form hand seals.
The hand seals for the Sensory Suppression Barrier were not particularly complex—much simpler than a Fuinjutsu like the Four Symbols Seal, which required over a dozen hand seals—but the subtlety lay in the need for precise synchronization of the Chakra frequencies among the casters. For the clones, achieving precise synchronization was effortless.
As the final hand seals locked into place at the exact same moment, four translucent Chakra barriers rose simultaneously from the spots where the four Shadow Clones stood, extending toward the center and closing overhead, eventually forming a hemispherical barrier with a diameter of about fifty meters.
The barrier's wall was very thin and almost completely transparent.
Naruto's original body stood at the entrance of the cave in the center of the barrier.
He nodded.
This barrier could isolate all Chakra fluctuations and sensory detection from within, the outside world could not sense any movement inside.
However, its physical defense was very weak. Not to mention Ninjutsu, even a Genin could break it by pushing hard enough. This was not a barrier for combat, but one specifically designed to hide one's presence. And this was exactly what he needed most right now.
Without delay, while there was still time, Naruto immediately began the core mission of his planned training: the Flying Thunder God Technique.
He pressed his palms together.
Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!
This time, the scale and density of the smoke were several times larger than before.
After the smoke cleared, over thirty Narutos stood in the clearing by the pool.
"Everyone, time is tight."
Naruto's original body looked at the thirty-plus faces identical to his own. "Let's begin."
"Yeah." X30
Thirty Shadow Clones responded in unison, then quickly dispersed, each finding a spot in the clearing to sit cross-legged.
The moment they closed their eyes, the diagrams for the Flying Thunder God Technique, the spatial coordinate calculation formulas, the essentials of spatial perception, and all the insights described by Minato were simultaneously retrieved in their minds, and they began to deconstruct and analyze them word by word.
With over thirty people training the same technique simultaneously, each Shadow Clone approached the realization from a slightly different angle: some started from the level of the technique's structure, others reverse-engineered the path of Chakra flow, some simulated the mapping of spatial coordinates in their minds, and others repeatedly pondered the extremely abstract oral descriptions regarding spatial perception.
These insights would all be gathered into the main body's mind when the Shadow Clones were dispelled, equivalent to one person tackling the same difficult problem from more than thirty different angles simultaneously.