After returning from Captain Owl's place, Yichen was deep in thought. Owl's advice had been for Yichen to learn a relatively advanced B-rank Sword Technique. This greatly surprised Yichen.
Owl explained, "Since Yichen is already a Quasi-Jonin, a rapid increase in strength is inevitable."
One consequence of growing stronger was that the opponents he encountered would certainly become stronger as well. After all, the village would fully consider an Anbu member's strength when assigning missions.
And against stronger opponents, what Yichen urgently needed to improve was not his Ninjutsu attack power. At the Jonin level, battles mainly relied on C-rank Ninjutsu supported by B-rank Ninjutsu.
Yichen already had several C-rank Ninjutsu. Though he did not have many B-rank techniques, he had Water Style: Raging Frost Stream—a close-combat Ninjutsu that Yichen had always felt did not suit his tactical style, so he had never practiced it properly—as well as Water Style: Water Pressure Line Jutsu and the Genjutsu—Body Bind Technique, both of which were far more powerful than ordinary C-rank Ninjutsu.
So Owl felt that Yichen had no need to learn more Ninjutsu in the short term.
Rather than spend that time learning B-rank Ninjutsu, he would be better off deeply developing Water Style: Water Pressure Line Jutsu and raising its power to a true B-rank level.
Since Yichen did not urgently need to learn Ninjutsu, his focus should be on taijutsu.
As a Quasi-Jonin, Yichen would sooner or later have to lead a team on his own.
When that time came, he could not leave such a massive weakness exposed, waiting for enemies to exploit it.
Take Purple Lightning, for example. She was a Taijutsu Ninja and had previously learned only a handful of C-rank Ninjutsu.
Ranged combat was her weakness, so she had used the reward from their last