My biggest issue was that I lacked combat experience against enemies that could genuinely threaten me. I had some of course but not nearly as much as any normal shinobi would by the time they climbed up to my level. In a way you could say I was suffering from success as my power was simply growing far faster than my skill was. It was almost funny to be honest as I trained hard to try and keep my skill roughly equal to my power but it was difficult.-
I was also starting to have an issue that I hadn’t anticipated but made sense to a degree. People were starting to fear me. Not because I was doing anything violent or evil or something like that but because I was getting too powerful too fast. The clans were starting to either butter me up or keep their distance from me. There were even vague rumors of Madara and Hashirama being compared to me. I couldn’t even say that these comparisons were unfounded either as in terms of growth and talent I was historically speak comparable to those two legendary figures.-
At my age they were both extremely powerful as well and it only got worse the older they got until they died. Despite all the good having such a figure in the village achieved everyone was also right to fear another showing up. Having a powerful shinobi was good but the problem came in when that same shinobi was so powerful that they couldn’t be stopped if they went on a rampage. Madara Uchiha had shown this when he decided that Konoha deserved to be destroyed and was only able to be stopped because the first Hokage was just as powerful.-
No one was under the delusion that should the first Hokage not have been around that the village wouldn’t have ceased to exist then and there. Unlike then however there was no one in the village that was as powerful as those two so if I indeed became that powerful I had no counter. Knowing that created and heavy shadow for the clans that remembered the first Hokage and Madara. The clans were in a bind at the moment as on one hand they were happy to see someone so talented in the village again but on the other they were terrified about potential disaster from allowing me to grow fully.-
I wasn’t worried however as even if some of the clans caved in and tried to kill me off it was far too late now to succeed. I might not be able to win against a whole squad of elite jonin and jonin by myself but I was confident about surviving. I was VERY fast and durable and even had a beast that could literally teleport untraceably. If I chose to escape nothing short of the Hokage or someone on that level had any hope of stopping me.-
Even if I ended up chased from the village like that however I had no intentions of trying to get revenge or something stupid like that. Sure I can hold a grudge something fierce but what would destroying the village prove besides that they were justified in their fear of me? No I’d rather just wander the world like my sensei does collecting beasts and eventually claiming a place for myself to settle down and live comfortably. I was a sage so the requirements for such a location were rather easy to fulfil. I just needed food, water and an abundance of natural energy to be fairly comfortable.-
It would be easy to just make or import anything else I might want since it was stuff that existed literally all over the place. Hypothetical situation aside I was pretty sure that I was going to be left alone like usual so long as I didn’t suddenly change my personality. I was pretty much a recluse and everyone knew it. I didn’t bother anyone really or have any political ambitions to be seen anywhere. I might as well not exist for all the impact I actually had on the village.-
Hell my beasts had more of a presence in the village than I did what with my cat, hawk and Shiro all more or less being there all day. Amongst those three only my cat and Shiro were even noticeable as my hawk just sort of existed in the airspace above the village. As a developed area the thermals for gliding above the place effectively allowed it to just like perpetually glide overhead with no effort on it’s part. Shiro stood out a lot but was practically a mascot to the villagers that was very well treated. My cat on the otherhand was a damn menace to society as it LOVED stealing food from ninjas.-
It didn’t attack anyone really but I can’t even begin to count the amount of complaints against the little thief I have received over the years. Still it’s antics were taken with a grain of humor by the village since it wasn’t actually harming anyone but more just pranking them. Even the Hokage got in on it by posting a C rank mission to reward anyone who managed to capture the thing, no one had succeeded yet. Anyway I should get back to talking about the month long break till the tournament.-
Like expected I completely mastered the water release jutsu a couple days after my prediction and got to work on my chakra projection with shadow clones. An interesting discovery I found out was that I could actually make more shadow clones the more mitosis clones I had active. Reason being that each body I had via the technique had it’s own chakra reserve and ability to use jutsu so the chakra division of the shadow clone jutsu worked on the clones supply rather than my own. Effectively meaning I could summon my max number of shadow clones with a mitosis clone with spending a drop of my own chakra.-
The downside to this discovery was just as big however as if I summoned so many shadow clones I got all of their memories when they were dispelled. That was to say HUNDREDS of memories in an instant. How the hell Naruto could handle that was beyond me as when I tried it I was pretty sure I had a minor aneurism. Still I could handle a couple dozen shadow clones at once if I timed the dispelling just right. So that was what I did to train my chakra projection, I had about twenty of my shadow clones working on it.-
I never kept them active longer than six hours at a time though to keep the strain to a minimum. The best part was that the moment one clone dispelled them self all the clones and I got whatever knowledge they got from the training they did. This led to over time a cumulative snowballing effect of many small breakthrough creating the effect of a large one. By the time the date for the tournament was arriving I had managed to create an entire sleeve of chakra armor that even extended to my shoulder blade and pectoral region.