Seeing his state, Ryosuke couldn't help saying, "Your steps are all correct. Do you want to keep training further?"
Inabi hesitated. Training the Eight Gates turned out to be this hard—he really had to think it over.
After a long moment of thought, he finally said, "I'll train. Ryosuke, you succeeded, so I believe I can do it too."
Ryosuke was taken aback. His own success rested more on an ever-tougher body that could endure that kind of pain—and on the fact that he could recover. Inabi couldn't possibly have that kind of capability.
Ryosuke looked at Inabi and said, "Then come back for the next stage after you've mastered the First Gate."
"Next, I'm going to train. If there's nothing else, you can head out."
Inabi understood he was being dismissed.
He felt no anger; after all, the other party had already taught him the Eight Gates.
Before leaving, he couldn't help asking, "How many Gates have you opened?"
"Four."
Ryosuke didn't hide his progress.
Hearing that, Inabi's expression changed. He wasn't a novice—he knew that opening the later Restriction Gates was definitely harder than the earlier ones.
Greater difficulty in the Eight Gates meant greater pain.
At the thought, he felt a chill run through him.
More importantly, if Ryosuke opened Four Gates against him now, the moment Ryosuke got in close he'd probably be seriously injured in an instant.
Uchiha Ryosuke was, without question, the clan's taijutsu prodigy.
He had to report this to Elder Yashiro.
As for training the Eight Gates himself—he'd put it off for later. That absolutely wasn't because he feared pain.
After Inabi left, Ryosuke continued where he'd left off. He'd just finished 200 push-ups; next came 200 squats.
After completing two sets of 'Saitama-sensei's' regimen, he received his stat boosts.
Only then did he return home, rinse off the sweat, and lie back in his chair to rest.
He opened the personal status pane in the Auto-Training System.
Host: Uchiha Ryosuke
Strength: 135, training at a snail's pace
Speed: 135, training at a snail's pace
Constitution: 125, training at a snail's pace
Spirit: 69, training at a snail's pace
Chakra: 5.4 'ka', training at a snail's pace
Sharingan: Three Tomoe, training at a snail's pace
Three Body Technique: training at a snail's pace
Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique: training at a snail's pace
Eight Gates: Four Gates opened
Evaluation: Half-Kage class
His Strength, Speed, and Constitution were five or six times what they used to be.
His evaluation had risen from an ordinary chūnin to Half-Kage.
Half-Kage was probably above elite jōnin but below Kage.
He felt this rating wasn't fully accurate; if he opened the forbidden Eight Gates, he was absolutely capable of contending with Kage-class foes.
Maybe the system simply didn't factor that in.
The surge in Spirit came from when he was with Kurenai, and with it his chakra had skyrocketed.
Right now his chakra reserves were a bit over five times Kakashi's.
The number looked small, but it wasn't because he and Yūhi Kurenai weren't trying.
In truth, Kurenai couldn't handle it, so after that one time they'd settled into roughly once a week—and those were real battles.
As for his Sharingan, no one had dared mock its "low level" lately.
After all, Three Tomoe Sharingan already counted as strong in Konoha.
Only Mangekyō Sharingan had any right to look down on it.
In just over three months, he'd gone from an ordinary chūnin to Half-Kage; in practice, once the Eight Gates came out, contending with Kage wasn't that hard—there was just a time limit, which the system probably hadn't counted.
He could afford to relax a little.
Give it a few more months and he might advance from Half-Kage to true Kage-class.
By then he wouldn't fear the Uchiha Clan Downfall Night.
He wondered whether Uchiha Itachi had accepted his 'brainwashing'; they hadn't interacted much lately.
But even if Itachi remained stubborn and stayed on the Hokage's side, he, Ryosuke, wouldn't be polite about it.
That afternoon, Inabi went to the Police Force building—to Uchiha Yashiro's office.
He opened the door to find Yashiro seated and working through a thick stack of files.
He got straight to the point. "Elder Yashiro, I have an urgent report."
Without looking up, Yashiro knew from the voice it was Uchiha Inabi.
He kept reading the documents; he was feeling a bit irritable.
The clan was responsible for village security.
Handling disputes, arresting criminals, patrolling and maintaining order.
There was so much to do he could barely keep up.
At the same time, he felt pride—only the Uchiha could manage the Police Force.
If it were any other faction in the village—aside from the Hokage's ANBU or Danzō's Root—there's no way they could run the Police.
Hearing Inabi, Yashiro said, "Didn't I tell you to stay away from that man?"
"His strength may be decent, but the danger he brings is enormous."
Back then, Ryosuke had proposed wiping out the entire Konoha leadership—something even Uchiha Madara wouldn't dare imagine.
Of course, because there wasn't the strength to do it.
Even if the modern Uchiha mustered the entire clan, they still didn't have that power.
A coup to force the Third Hokage to step down—that much was possible; the Third was not an especially forceful man.
That plan at least had a real chance.
Inabi, anxious, said, "Elder Yashiro, but his strength is truly formidable."
Yashiro shot back, "How formidable can it be?"
So he beat you—Inabi. Was he stronger than Yashiro himself?
Inabi immediately recounted the morning's events. "Elder, I sparred with him again today, and he completely crushed me."
"He didn't even use the Eight Gates—I still didn't have any chance."
"And he can already open Four Gates."
Yashiro was caught off guard. He lost all interest in paperwork and finally looked up at Inabi.
If Uchiha Ryosuke really had that kind of power, he wasn't merely elite-jōnin class.
He would be a clan powerhouse on the level of Uchiha Shisui.
Unfortunately, Shisui was clearly with the moderate faction.
And Ryosuke could open Four Gates.
That didn't make sense.
If he remembered, the kid had trained the Eight Gates under Maito Gai; it hadn't even been half a year.
Puzzled, he asked, "Did you see Ryosuke open Four Gates with your own eyes?"
Inabi frowned. "Elder, I said he didn't use the Eight Gates at all—and he still crushed me."
"Ryosuke taught me the Eight Gates method. I tried it—just opening the First Gate is already very hard."
"But I don't think Ryosuke would lie about something like this."
Yashiro fell silent.
Inabi was right—Ryosuke wouldn't brag idly about training the Eight Gates.
And if he was willing to teach the Eight Gates to a clansman, he was undoubtedly standing with the clan.
"Go on back. When I have time, I'll speak with Ryosuke myself."
As long as that 'extreme' thinking could be tempered, he'd be an extremely valuable asset.
He decided to finish the paperwork now and go find Ryosuke first thing in the morning to see if he truly was as strong as Inabi claimed.
He knew Ryosuke's habits—he trained in the small grove beside the clan grounds every morning.