“Gai-san.” Ren looked the green-clad jonin directly in the eyes to convey his seriousness. “I want to start this by saying I think you are one of the best Jonin Instructors in this village. I respect that you care about your students and that you want to guide them the best you can.”

Hearing this, Gai’s big grin became a bit smaller, but way more sincere. He spoke, his tone a level quieter, but nevertheless, showing his appreciation for the genuine praise. “You flatter m-“

“That said, you are an idiot.” Ren interrupted the man with a deadpan look, causing his smile to freeze on his face as he became speechless at the sudden rebuke, and Tenten’s jaw dropped to the floor in astonishment.

Not minding Gai and Tenten’s bewilderment one bit, Ren nonchalantly continued. “You genuinely believe that with enough hard work, anything is possible to accomplish. You did it, so why can’t others, right?” Ren snorted and exasperatedly shook his head. “You put and are still putting an incredible amount of effort into being a good ninja with only taijutsu, and you have become one of the village’s strongest jonin.”

Ren honestly admired Gai and his dedication. He made sure his tone conveyed it, too.

It was a bit unfortunate that Gai had reached his limit. He can exercise as much as he wants, right now, the man is improving at such a glacial pace that in ten years, he will still lose a bit of his strength due to natural aging, despite his effort. He is in the height of his prime, and sadly, it is going to get only worse from here for him.

All his unending exercises and training will do is slow down the deterioration of his prowess. Without training like a possessed madman, he would probably lose five percent of his overall capability, and with it, maybe he’d get only three percent weaker? Or two? Who knows?

Ren was pulling these numbers out of his ass but he didn’t think he was that off the mark with his assessment.

Gai reached the stage where he would need to lift mountain-sized boulders to push his chakra and body enough to keep improving. But that was not only inconvenient, it was also not viable at all. The man lacked the necessary equipment to push his body enough.

He can walk around the village backwards on his arms the whole day, at his level of physical fitness, it barely does anything for him other than keeping his current level up to snuff.

It was admirable that despite his inevitable stagnation, the man kept his mood and determination up. He never gave in, and he never gave up. Ren couldn’t help but respect that.

He still would not share his gravity seals with him, though.

Hearing the sincerity in Ren’s tone, Gai frowned. He wasn’t stupid. He would have never become a jonin if he was as big of a moron as he tried to portray himself as. While Ren’s praise was genuine, Gai knew this was just the good part that was supposed to soften the blow.

“But?” He asked, mirthfully raising one of his thick eyebrows at Ren, curious about what the man would say next. He didn’t mind the critique. He knew he had flaws. That was only natural.

After all, training was all about removing or lessening them, no?

If Ren thought he knew some of his shortcomings, then Gai would be happy to listen! Maybe he would even learn something about himself he hadn’t realized yet. Youth was about self-improvement! One step of the way at a time.

Ren’s lips twitched up at Gai’s question. Despite his confident tone, deep down, he was a tad bit nervous. Telling somebody who could throw hands with Madara that he sucks at something was quite nerve-wracking.

But in his humble opinion, Gai needed to hear this because while his intentions were good, his training methods were garbage outside pure taijutsu.

“Your own circumstances made you blind to the fact that others are not capable of keeping up with your insane training. It blinds you to the other avenues.”

There was a reason why Neji and Tenten did not know about the Eight Gates just yet. It was not that Gai didn’t want to teach them. He wasn’t such a scheming individual. If it was up to him? Ren reckoned that all his students would be able to open the seventh gate.

But as much as people like to believe that Gai and Lee were some sort of untalented underdogs, that wasn’t true. These people were delusional.

Both Gai and Lee were extremely talented and driven to the point of madness. Nothing short of that could allow them to open the gates. It was the training to the point of self-torment that made their bodies prepared for such a monumental strain.

Neji and Tenten simply didn’t have what it took to even begin the first stage of the Eight Gates training, so Gai never even mentioned it to them, not wanting them to think he was favoring Lee.

And Gai himself was quite privileged. His father ensured he had a legacy when he invented a way to forcefully open the gates.

There were loads of ninjas who tried to specialize in taijutsu and were very good at it, and yet, they could never get past the chunin rank. They did not have eight gates, and pure taijutsu simply wasn’t cutting it.

Gai undoubtedly deserved his rank. There was no question about it. But at the same time, a part of the reason why he received it was nepotism.

Might Duy, the eternal genin, who was practically a joke in the village, managed to create a way to utilize the eight inner gates, and with it, he fought off all seven Kiri’s Swordsmen, killing over half of them in the process.

Sure, he died because he opened the eighth gate. But he, as a genin, still single-handedly kicked the collective asses of seven of the strongest ninjas from Kiri.

Obviously, the village higher-ups wanted that technique. Ren could imagine them practically salivating at the idea of getting their hands on it. Just imagine Konoha where every ninja could open at least the first and second gate! Their army would be unstoppable!

Alas, sucks. With Duy dead, the only living person who had knowledge of the technique was his son, Gai, who was a twelve-year-old kid at the time.

Go and ask a twelve-year-old how to do an S-rank forbidden technique and see how that will go for you.

Ren heard that Gai was not averse to sharing it. He was a dumb kid back then. Very easy to manipulate by the old coots in the council. But that didn’t help them much.

Danzo most likely has a scroll on everything available about the technique. And yet, not one of his ROOT ANBU ever showed even a lick of ability with it. Not even the opening of the first gate.

The only ANBU or Jonin in Konoha who could open the first few gates was, or rather will be, Kakashi once he pulled his ass out of his head. That is how utterly and ridiculously demanding the Eight Gates technique was.

Unless a ninja dedicates his life to it, he simply isn’t going to get anywhere with it. It required simple-minded, unceasing but monumental physical effort on an insanely regular basis before opening the gates even became available. So much of it that even trained ninjas balked at it.

But effort was not the answer for Tenten’s troubles. No, the girl required guidance. Not just to be told, ‘Work hard, girl! You will get there!’ when she had no idea what she should even work hard at in the first place.

Nodding toward the girl, Ren continued speaking. “I heard that Tenten wants to be an S-class kunoichi one day. That’s your dream, right? To be as good as Tsunade?” He asked, and the girl quickly nodded. Ren then looked back at Gai with a wry smile. “And if I had to guess, your response to that was to tell her that she can be if she puts in the effort, no?”

Gai opened his mouth, flames of youth burning in his eyes, but something made him think better of it as his frown deepened before he gained a thoughtful look as he subduedly nodded. “… Yes.”

With that out of the way, Ren turned toward Tenten and asked. “How much do you train every day?”

“Ugh…” The girl’s eyebrows furrowed, not expecting the question. She had to think a bit about it, but a moment later, she replied. “Three to four hours?” She looked unsurely at her teacher. “Sometimes up to six hours, but I can’t keep up with that kind of schedule.” She spoke, abashedly ducking her head as if she had just confessed to adultery or something.

Ren found it as hilarious as it was ridiculous and sad. Both Neji and Lee were training maniacs. They just manifested it in different ways. And the team was led by yet another training-obsessed nutcase.

It was obvious that Tenten was lagging behind, and she was ashamed of it.

Like it or not, chakra or not, on average, women were inherently weaker than men. This was not debatable. It was not misogyny. It was not a philosophical question.

It was a simple, irrefutable fact.

No matter how many delusional feminist females find it distasteful and start screeching about how it is unfair, this will not change. Anybody who looks at the list of S-rank shinobi will notice that the vast, overwhelming majority of them are male.

For a female to reach S-rank status, they needed to either have a bloodline or be very, very clever about it. Brute force was simply not going to cut it for them.

It was why he guided Hinata and Ino to find their own ways to become extremely deadly by playing to their advantages rather than trying to match their opponents in sheer physical prowess. Ren took immense pride in the fact that his female disciples would one day reach S-rank prowess and would be cut above the rest within that category.

And if Tenten wanted to ever get to S-rank, she would need to figure out her own bag of deadly tricks before refining them to the level where they can be a genuine threat to the lives of other S-rank shinobi.

“And I reckon you also train with your team on top of that?” Ren asked the girl, trying to get a better picture of her circumstances.

“Well, yeah.” Tenten nodded, “But the team training is mostly physical exercise to keep us fit.”

“And what exactly do you train in during these three to four hours?” And that was the most important question he had asked her so far. Unfortunately, he had a good idea about her reply before he even asked.

This was the important part, and Gai noticed the subtle shift in Ren’s body, causing the spandex-loving ninja to tense as he realized Ren was leading Tenten toward something with his questions.

“Er… throwing and wielding weapons?” Tenten asked more than stated, and noticing Ren’s deadpan look, she quickly added. “I usually pick a weapon and try to master it before moving onto a different one.”

‘Well… at least the girl understands it is important to give herself smaller goals to accomplish in her training. No doubt, that’s Gai’s influence.’ Ren thought, subtly taking a deep breath because while this might not be as big of a clusterfuck, it was still one.

“And do you think you can become an S-rank kunoichi with that?” He plainly asked, staring at Tenten.

“…” The girl opened her mouth, only to close it a second later, looking a bit lost as she was unsure how to answer that question.

She simply did not know. What was she even supposed to say to that?

Getting no answer in ten seconds, Ren hummed and changed his approach. “Name one S-rank weapon master.”

“…” Yet more silence ensued as the flabbergasted girl had no answer.

Snorting, Ren turned toward her teacher and politely asked. “Gai-san? Can you name one S-rank weapon specialist?”

To give Gai credit, he did try. “Sasor-“

But Ren quickly interrupted him. “He doesn’t count. He is a puppeteer. A very different thing.” He flatly said, and Gai hid a small wince.

By now, the man caught what Ren was trying to convey and… he had to admit he might have screwed up? A little bit? He honestly never thought about it from this angle, and he would have loved to refute Ren’s words, but he simply couldn’t find a good argument for it.

That… stung.

“… I don’t think I can think of one.” Gai eventually admitted with a heavy heart, catching how Tenten’s face fell at that admission.

“Exactly.” Ren chuckled. It was always fun seeing people’s faces when they realized the freaking obvious thing they were overlooking up to that point.

He didn’t even care that Tente’s hands balled into fists as she bit her lower lip in frustration when she realized he was practically indirectly telling her that her current efforts were pretty much worthless.

“But Tenten is dedicated! She can be the first-” Gai boisterously tried, but even to his own ears, it sounded kind of weak.

Ren only rolled his eyes at him and interrupted him once again. Because interrupting the boisterous jonin was honestly kind of fun. He idly wondered if that made him an asshole.

“Most S-rank ninjas are masters of one, maybe two weapons, and that is for a good reason.” That was just a readily available fact. Sure, these ninjas could handle a wide variety of weapons. But they only ever properly mastered and focused on one, at most two of them. “Anything more than that is not only redundant. It is simply self-sabotage. You have only so much time in a day for training, and if you want to reach your desired heights, you need to be efficient with your time, and you need a goal. You need to train in things that will be useful to you, that will make you deadlier, that will stack together and give you an unquestionable edge. The goal is not to learn three skills with different uses. The goal is to learn three skills that can be used in tandem to exponentially increase your threat level.”

That was pretty much what Gai did. He was physically strong. More than other ninjas. Most of his training revolved around getting and maintaining that strength.

He was also a master of what passed for martial arts in this world. Master of taijutsu. That made him that much deadlier in close combat as he knew so many combat styles, he had an answer to pretty much any move his opponent could do.

And he had his Eight Gates technique, which just took these two previous points, cranked them way past eleven, all the way to like seventeen or something, depending on which gate he opens, and he could go punch for punch with the strongest people in the world.

Three things, all stacked together, and it allowed, or will allow, him to punch Juubi-jinchuuriki Madara nearly to an early grave.

The only way Gai could make it all even better would be by mastering a blunt weapon. But for some reason, he decided against doing that. Stupidly so. But alright. Finding a weapon that could withstand his prowess without breaking once he opened his gates was probably not viable. Using his fists was more practical for him.

“Instead,” Ren told Tenten, “you are mastering weapons you are most likely never even going to use in combat because of their very niche nature. If you want to be a very skilled chunin? Go ahead. But if you want to reach S-rank? You are wasting your time, girl. You just aren’t going to reach it. Not like this.”

The girl looked kinda floored after hearing this, but there were still hints of disbelief in her expression, so Ren decided to use his secret weapon.

He turned toward her teacher, who looked a bit ashamed that he missed something so obvious, causing his guidance for her to be subpar. “Am I wrong, Gai-san?”

“… No.” Gai deflated with a defeated sigh, admitting that Ren’s words were reasonable.

Being a weapon mistress sounded grand. It was a good dream to have. But… it wasn’t something that would allow Tenten to ever reach the S-rank status she desired.

Deep down, Gai wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Tenten that she should not let others dictate her dream for her. That she can be the very first S-rank weapon mistress.

But then he remembered what kind of monsters S-rank ninjas are and… he regretted coming here.

On one hand, Ren pushed Sasuke Uchiha his way and teaching the hip and cool boy the ways of youth was marvelous fun! The boy even managed to spread them to his youthful admirer, Sakura!

On the other hand, he felt a bit butthurt having all these things pointed out to him.

… Was he truly neglecting Tenten and Neji’s training this much? He needed a few moments alone to properly think about it. He refused to do anything but his best when it came to guiding the youth!

“Then what should I do?” Tenten asked Ren with an unhappy frown.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep