Dix rushed out of the camp to find a good tree to destroy. He jogged for around 5 minutes to find the same kind of clearings he used to try his new powers out before. This was required because if something goes wrong and he lets something like an Antimaterasu loose, it will be way easier for him to contain it while its not surrounded by lush vegetation.
He scanned his eyes, and understood he retained his previous abilities, but also got a third one. It was quite peculiar, as it didn't seem to be an active ability, more like a passive buff. Trying to understand what it does he released his chakra in great quantities to test his idea he got from his first feel of the ability.
It turned out he could easily move his chakra outside his body, at least way easier than before. Instead of helping him to form chakra better, the ability lets him stretch his chakra into thin lines and move very far, and it also makes these lines very sensitive.
"Holy shit! The guy who had this sharingan must've been a sensor type! It seems like his main ability was connected to sensing, and my body was able to fuse it! Incredible, this will be extremely useful!"
Dix's 'sensor lines' are there to get accurate information of his targets, but even without those he was able to feel presences from kilometers away if he properly focused. It helped a lot if the presence had a good amount of chakra in their body, for example a ninja. That would let him sense them from far away, while simple animals and humans have to be within 1 kilometer of range to be noticed.
This was a great addition to his skill-set, because before this he had good potential to kill his enemies, but apart from the sharingan, he had no other ways to actually find them. That is quite important when you have to track or find someone, and no amount of destructive power will help with that.
Next he tried out his Antimaterasu that remained from the previous eyes. The tree caught fire right away, but instead of the whitish-bluish flames it was completely blue this time. It seemed to suck away chakra more efficiently and was able to store them better, meaning it will blow up with even more energy than before. He quickly extinguished it so he doesn't risk his next the same way he did last time when the Antimaterasu blew up.
Dix also noticed he is able to control the flames to some extent. He was able to make them spread in a specific direction and coat himself in the flames, which was possible because the flames didn't hurt him personally.
Next he tried the Lightning Sealing Chains, but that performed the same way as before, without any change. Dix had an inkling that there is more to this then what first meets the eyes, so he tried a few things to test if there is anything more. Nothing seemed to work, until he tried marking more targets at once, and was surprised to see when the golden lightning split at one point to catch the different targets at once. This was once again, a great addition, but nothing too fancy this time.
Dix also noticed his eyes didn't hurt or draw blood anymore when he used the Mangekyo abilities. After a lengthy tryout session it would hurt and he would have to limit the number of abilities he use, but apart from that there were no drawbacks present.
After the long training and even longer surgery it was getting late, so he decided to spend some time with the kids, then went to sleep.
The next day upon starting his usual training he had an idea. The new sharingans let him sense chakra way better. If he were to try and look of the FTGT's dimensional void with those, he was bound to be successful sooner or later.
Thus, once again he put everything on halt and summoned 99 clones with EMS. That was a good amount, because these special clones required so much more chakra compared to the normal ones. Also they had to have enough chakra to properly use the technique many times for it to be a successful training. Together with him altogether 100 Dixes started training the technique.
It was way easier to sense things, but the mystical dimensional void was too elusive for him to find right away. He spent a lot more time on this technique, but now he was sensible and never pushed his body to try and get the FTGT faster. He regularly stopped for a break and to refresh his mind and body.
Even though he got 100 times the normal amount of experience, he wasn't able to progress from the second stage for many more months. During that school started again, a winter passed and it was already spring by the time that one specific day came.
Every clone and also Dix were focusing to the best of their abilities in the forest camp, defiantly resisting the chilling weather left by the previous winter. It was the afternoon training session, when Dix suddenly felt a flow of chakra and experience entering his body. First he was quite confused. He never really gave up the training, but he was almost apathetic towards any results it may bring.
The next thing, when he understood what happened, was that he jumped up screaming about his success. All the clones got scared at the sudden outburst that disturbed their concentration. Dix didn't mind them whatsoever, just cancelled them and summoned new ones so everyone have the same experience as the original.
What happened was that one of the clones managed to sense a sliver of the dimensional void they were looking for, and grabbed the chance to use the technique right away. He was able to record the sensation of this dimension due to his shared sensing type ability. With this Dix was able to find the way to enter the dimensional void at last.
When the clone arrived to its destination he cancelled himself right away to make sure the original gets the information as fast as possible.
Because of this Dix didn't actually know whats it like on the other side, so he didn't hesitate to send his clones in his stead. The clones with the new experience in their minds were able to find their destination considerably faster. Before this it took a hundred years of collective experience to find it, but now the clones managed to enter in a few minutes.
Soon the reports started rolling in. The clones arrived to the dimensional void, and tried to look around, but it was completely empty. There wasn't even any solid ground or gravitational force, they were drifting in nothingness in an actual 'void'. There also was no air either, so if a real human were to go there they would have a limited amount of time to find their way back, or they would suffocate.
Also, because there is no air or anything there, just empty space, Dix will have to make sure his organs don't rupture due to the pressure differences between his body and the empty space. The clones have no problems like these, as they are mostly made out of pure chakra. They also theorized that the void most likely isn't actually totally empty, as it was quite cold there, just like he thinks interstellar space would be, but not absolute zero degrees. This means the seemingly empty space is getting a good chunk of energy from somewhere.
The clones also tried to look around for chakra signatures with their sensing abilities, and found a lot of them in fact. None of these were actually in that space, but these were different dimensions themselves. The first thing they found was the beacon that was placed in the original world, their ticket home. Next to that they found many signatures, some of them were familiar in a sense, but some of them were so alien that the clones had no idea what to think of them. Maybe in those dimensions there is something else besides or instead of chakra, who knows? They certainly don't want to see for themselves.
It seemed like this dimensional void was some sort of hub, a dimension that connects many others together, and serves as an intermediate. This was all well and good, but Dix wanted to focus on perfecting the technique first, and maybe explore after that.
The clones felt the many homing beacons signal come from the home world, and was able to discern at least mostly where they entered and where the others would lead to.
This was great as well, but when they tried to use the same technique that get them there, while homing on the formula, nothing actually happened. After a few tries they gave up and cancelled themselves.
Dix was a bit worried about this, but his enthusiasm didn't wither as the 2nd stage was officially finished. He rushed to check the scroll that was hidden in his camp at a safe location. He read through the 3rd step once again, and noticed that he really was supposed to use a modified version of the same technique to get back from the void.
He cancelled every clone that was in the void or was trying to get there and resummoned them with the new knowledge. Actually it wasn't really new knowledge, because he read the whole scroll many times before, but its been such a long time ago. Dix tried to complete the second stage for over a century, he was bound to forget some details.
He pulled a few modified kunai out of one of his seals on his fingers and threw them at nearby trees, then waited for the clones to home in on it. Soon the clones started disappearing one by one from around him. It took a few minutes, but soon the clones began appearing at different kunais, showing that they successfully completed the technique.
Dix just had a huge grin on his face seeing the fruit of his long-long work. It was an incredibly fulfilling feeling. He had flashbacks to the first time he finished Dark Souls 3. It was similarly hard... Haha.
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