(NSS)Chapter 9: Significance and Training (Patreon)

It wasn't a matter of trust really so much as I finally understood just how bad it would be for someone to figure it out before I reached a certain level of power after searching for information on sages. Sage hood was a top tier sort of power in this world according to what I found and one that very few shinobi have every had the ability to reach but that countless wish for. If the world learned I was a natural born sage my life would basically be over as wars might be started just to get rid of or to possess me.-

Not to mention I very much doubted that the village wouldn't try it's hardest to figure out how i am a sage as well even if it meant my own death. I wasn't stupid, all this "will of fire" talks and speeches that regularly get drilled into the heads of everyone in the academy was basically brainwashing. It was subtle of course but the fact remained that it was designed to turn people into the willing soldiers of the village willing to do whatever it took to help their comrades.-

To top it off I was fairly certain that everyone past a certain age knew about it and merely saw it as normal and not concerning at all. Look I could understand why it was done since ninjas were basically weapons of mass destruction at Jonin and beyond levels from the records I saw and thus needed to be controlled. My whole issue was that this same brainwashing was a massive threat to my life if my secret ever got out past myself before I was too powerful for it to matter. The funny part is I didn't have any doubts that if given enough time I would reach that level of power.-

Every part of my body at a genetic level was getting refined and perfected every second I was in sage mode in a VERY slow but continual march forward. As I matured physically it became clear to me that comparing me to anyone around me was pointless. My skin, muscles, bones and organs were all much denser and more powerful than anyone I had ever seen giving me durability like I was made of stone and strength like a bear on steroids.-

My brain and chakra network were also highly efficient and worked faster than anyone I could find. The closest I could find as far as brain functioning was Shikamaru and nobody in terms of chakra network. All of this was also improving the older I got which was why it was so easy for me to improve my chakra control and to learn and remember new information. With advantages like this it would be a joke if I didn't become powerful given enough time. Despite these advantages however I was not a flawless existence that just naturally was more skilled then everyone else without any effort. -

Quite the contrary in fact as while I did indeed require less effort than others to improve I did need to put in some effort as well. A good example would be my current issue of hitting a bottleneck on my chakra control training. The standard practices of holding a leaf on my head, walking up a tree and on water had stopped giving any results despite adding handicaps and rules to the training as well. For the leaf training I attached a leaf to each of my limbs including my head and then went to practice with my cat form that should have shaken them off for any other ninja without strict control of their chakra.-

Despite moving about and creating a vast amount of winds from wind resistance as I went all out using the form I stopped having issues keeping the leaves in place after a few dozen failures. Then I moved on to tree walking where I taught myself how to climb using only the tips of my toes and fingers and even how to do so silently while moving at full speed. I could go from the ground completely still to the top of a tree without a sound using only my finger and toe tips in an instant after failing to pull it off about thirty seven times.-

The trick there was precise application of a large amount of chakra from those points that I dispersed and reapplied in the split second before my fingers and toes would touch the tree. Finally was my water walking training that was basically just my tree walking training but on a surface that moved under me and wasn't solid. It only took me twelve tries to get it down though and I started practicing underwater movement instead.-

It was a bit different then one would imagine as the water didn't like someone with air in them being under it as a matter of buoyancy. The trick was that you had to "grab" the water under your feet and turn it solid with your chakra before pushing off of it. I found that creating a layer of chakra on top of your skin also greatly reduced the drag from moving thus allowing rapid movements underwater. I used the pond nearby my house for this particular training much to my parents irritation since I caused a lot of water displacement until I got it down.-

At the end of all this training was me who now had a frankly freakish level of control over my own chakra according to my parents and Mito but was unhappy because it still wasn't perfect. I still wasted minute amounts of chakra each time I used it simply due to how damned hard it was to only use a small amount of my massive reserve. Neji and Hinata weren't shy about using their Byakugan and as a result the fact my chakra reserve was second only to Naruto was public knowledge and in addition to my being the undisputed strongest in my class led to a new type of problem, women.-

After Sasuke turned into an asshole that was single mindedly chasing power for revenge a great deal of the girls my age and even slightly older started trying to get my attention. Amongst them was Ino who unlike Sakura figured out that she didn't have a shot with mr. grumpy and chose to pursue another and arguably better option, I was not pleased. I may have been the same age as her technically but mentally I was much more mature and thus refused to even think of entertaining romance until a girl was at least sixteen.

In other words I made it bluntly clear that I wouldn't be even vaguely interested for another ten years at minimum. The irritating part was that she didn't care at all and still tried to get my attention whenever she could. I ended up using my snake to keep her at a distance which caused Iruka sensei and I to have a disagreement. He found threatening my classmates unacceptable and I found his disagreement of it unacceptable, the principal ended up getting involved and a compromise was met. I couldn't threaten anyone but Iruka had to stop Ino from bothering me as well.