"I bet before you though you were one of the strongest ninja in this world and almost as strong as the Kage, right ?" I dropped my head a little shameful as it was right. He continued"You are as strong as me, barely making you an S class ninja. If you add that weird squeletal you can make, then you should be a fully fledged S rank. Just know that there is a reason if sensei is the Hokage. Just to take down the second Hokage, more than twenty S rank were needed."
I looked at him in confusion and asked"But if there are so much strong ninjas, why didn't I encounter any on all the battles I fought in ?" He looked at me seriously"That is because the first battleground against Kumo is not really what it seems to be. There are ninjas from all the hidden villages in war there. And it is more like the First Shinobi world war. You have to understand that this war is very special as it has been prepared to take place in Ame. Thus there is the open battlefields where you fought. In the last war there wasn't any battles like those."
I asked another question"How different it is in the first battleground ?" He replied"There is no large scale battles, only small teams fighting, with the biggest groups being of a thousand people. It is way more dangerous as the all the ninjas that are S or A rank are there. There still are genin and chunnin there like the other battlefields, but don't expect to be able to kill them so easily. There will very often be strong ninjas protecting them like I protect Minato. The good side of the coin is that you will encounter less ninjas there."
I understood what he said as it was logic, but I was confused about one thing"If what you say is true, why aren't we on that battlefield with Sakumo ?" He said a bit uncertain" Well for Sakumo he will either have to come soon or become a commander, and you are a very special case. You should have been sent to the first battlefield sooner, but because the three villages broke the rules by making a coalition, we could repel your coming to the battlefield. But you must prepare as you will have to come the next month."
I nodded and before departing he said"Try not to make any large scale slaughter in this month as they would not be happy and maybe break the rules again." I did not respond to him and went off. I still was arrogant after what happened, thinking I would be able to take on two sannin at the same time… All those victories and veneration from the average ninja really went up my head.
This "tie" against Jiraya really changed my perspective of this world strenght. I realised I was still not strong enough to be arrogant. So for this last month I became way more humble and less full of myself. I also spared countless times against Jiraya. He explained to me that special ability that made him have a huge power up.This ability is called sage mode. It makes the user use natural energy to become stronger. I do not really understand what the natural energy is or what you must do to attain that stage, but he told me that if I really wanted to learn it I should first learn the summoning jutsu.
I was even more amazed when he told me he was not even close to master the technique but it was already so powerful. But it was not the time to learn this for me. I was not even sure that it was suitable for me, and I had to complete my own technique. Fortunetly I attained the stage 2 of the earth coating. This did not really made me obtain a huge power up. Like the other coatings, this one made the first ability, the one that enhance my defanse, more powerful. I could also now coat myself with earth and gain more defense.
The second additional ability, that was quite good as it was a repair ability, it would repair my weapon, and enhance slightly my regeneration if I coat my body with it. There is a reason if I took so much time to advance in this coating. That was that at the beginning, I felt that my second ability would be to repel the attacks, but seeing Jiraya power of regeneration with his sage mode, made me want to obtain it.
I stopped working toward the damage repel and arrived at this result. This made me understand that the second stage of my Elemental coating was like the Mangekyou sharingan. Each abilities were unique and would come as you need them. For exemple, my water coat. It came when I needed to break Rasa defenses. The down side is that it was not natural and not really though about so to coat my body with water is useless for now.
You would have to follow one of the aspects of the element. I now understood something about the third stage, but I wanted to first have my water coat to stage 2. I had a feeling that if at the final stage I had all the 5 elements, something awesome would happen.
But now was still not the time. So now I had to choose a path for water but I don't know which one. Well, I have time anyway. I then departed for the first battlefield. I talked with my father as I would now be in a team composed of my father, my brother and the three genin he had under him as he had became a jonin sensei. It was funny to see him teaching his three genin. The leader of the team was my father as even if I am the strongest, he still is A rank like my brother, and he has great commanding abilities.
By the way, he was one of the strongest pretendants for the seat of the new anbu commander. The last one has been killed on the battlefield. It was a huge loss for Konoha as he was S rank and we only had ten S rank, including me and the 3 sannin. You also could eliminate Tsunade because of her mental breakdown, that 3 others are protecting Konoha with the Hokage and it narrows our S rank on the battlefield to only 5. So that is why my father could attempt for the sit of anbu commander.
But we were still not weaker than the other villages as they also have to protect their villages. I made also an intesresting encounter, Orochimaru. The first time I saw him, it gave me chiills. He was as strong as Jiraya so I knew he could not defeat me, but he had a strange thing about his gaze, like he wanted to dissect you. But that is strangely not an evil one, as if he would dissect you for the well being of Konoha. Very strange guy.