High-Level Meeting

Takigakure was flourishing. The Daimyo had delivered vast quantities of supplies, while the Black Market Exchange had brought in a substantial amount of funding. As news spread that Ruri had fought Hashirama to a draw and crippled one of Tobirama's arms, more and more people acknowledged him as the Sixth Kage beyond the Five Kage.

The benefits brought by fame were obvious. The villagers' recognition of Ruri rose another level, and after Hagane Maomori learned of Ruri's achievements, his respect for him deepened even further. In addition, quite a few wandering ninja from smaller countries came here. After Ruri assigned his subordinates to investigate them, any ninja with a clean background was permitted to settle in Takigakure.

Once every front had stabilized, Ruri convened Takigakure's second high-level meeting. All Elite Jonin and several core members attended.

Major nations relied on Kekkei Genkai, while smaller nations relied on technology. The Land of Waterfalls had only one Kekkei Genkai clan, with limited powerful fighters. They could only develop their technological tree and narrow the gap with the major nations. Today's meeting focused on implementing various policies.

One attendee worth mentioning was the head of the Momochi Clan, Momochi Tanba, an old man in a wheelchair.

His clan had originally been a ninja clan from the Land of Grass. They had planned to join Kusagakure, but due to Tanba's insistence, the entire clan had later come to Takigakure.

The Momochi Clan specialized in secret techniques—spider-type secret techniques. They could spit spider silk from their mouths, and their summoned beast was also a giant spider. Their techniques were extremely similar to Kidomaru's ninjutsu from the original work. Ruri guessed that the Momochi Clan might be Kidomaru's ancestors or something similar. In any case, they were an exceptionally powerful clan. Aside from lacking a Kage-level powerhouse, they were basically on the same level as Konoha's Ino-Shika-Cho.

Besides Hagane Maomori and Momochi Tanba, another unexpected person appeared in the meeting room: the head of the Fuma Clan, Fuma Kazama.

Kazama was a two-meter-tall giant. After the failed coup, the Fuma Clan had been utterly defeated. To ensure his clansmen's survival, he had directly led them to surrender. With the attitude of not wasting useful manpower, Ruri accepted them. However, because they had attacked the village, aside from training and sleeping, they had all been assigned to help the villagers farm.

This was also one of Ruri's experiments. So far, the results had been quite good. Ninja productivity was several times greater than that of ordinary civilians. Even without using ninjutsu, their superior physical abilities made them highly efficient at farming.

Naturally, Kazama had no say here. He was merely here to fill a seat. Otherwise, Takigakure's high-level meeting would have faced the awkward situation of having only two Elite Jonin in attendance. Konoha's Ino-Shika-Cho alone could utterly outclass them, making them seem utterly unimpressive.

Most of the remaining Jonin held important positions, such as Takenaka Masakata, the Takikage's assistant, and Katagiri Masaki, who vetted the identities of incoming ninja.

Even counting those Jonin, however, there were only ten people at the meeting. It felt rather shabby.

Ruri first proposed that every clan and Jonin publicly disclose all their ninjutsu aside from secret techniques. The proposal received unanimous approval. With precedent already set, Konoha and the other four major ninja villages were already doing the same.

Moreover, Ruri and Kakuzu possessed a terrifying number of ninjutsu between them. Making ninjutsu public brought them nothing but benefits, earned goodwill, and had no downsides. Why not?

That was the advantage of Takigakure having few large clans. No one would stand up to oppose the idea, and even if they did, their small numbers meant they had little voice. Konoha, on the other hand, was filled with clans and certainly had many elite ninja, but the Hokage's policies were correspondingly difficult to implement. It was said they had argued for days over merely making ninjutsu public, and Madara and Hashirama had nearly come to blows.

"Now that ninjutsu has been made public, let's make ninja training public as well," Ruri said. With ninjutsu as a foundation, they could begin developing education. They had to get ahead of every other village in this area. There were not many outsiders left for Takigakure to recruit, so it could only cultivate its own core fighting force.

"I agree, but how do we make it public?" Momochi Tanba asked. The Momochi Clan's members knew only secret techniques and pitifully few other ninjutsu. If the next generation could learn ninjutsu while mastering their secret techniques, it would undoubtedly greatly improve the clan's overall strength.

"A Ninja Academy. We'll establish a school to train ninja! We'll select ninja of outstanding character from the village to serve as teachers and recruit students from across the entire village." Not only had Ruri crippled Tobirama's arm, he had also copied the Ninja Academy that Tobirama had originally been meant to propose. However, unlike Tobirama's plan, Takigakure's Ninja Academy did not intend to appoint particularly powerful ninja as teachers. First, they lacked sufficient manpower and were short on high-end combat strength. Second, the Ninja Academy would only teach fundamentals. Chunin, or even experienced Genin, would be more than enough. Character education was what truly deserved attention—otherwise, it would be awkward if students became rogue ninja after graduating.

"That would be inappropriate..." Hagane Maomori slowly said. "Our clan's Kekkei Genkai is not universal, and we have our own teaching methods. I believe the Momochi Clan and Fuma Clan are the same. Secret techniques also have certain limitations."

Momochi Tanba and Fuma Kazama nodded, indicating that this was indeed the case.

"That isn't what I mean. The Ninja Academy will only provide basic education. Children will enroll at six years old and study for three to six years, depending on the circumstances. They'll learn ninjutsu theory, the Three Basic Techniques, ninja knowledge, and so on... until they graduate as Genin. Aside from that, their clan elders can still teach them separately after school."

"That works." Hagane Maomori nodded. If it was only laying foundations, there would be no major problem. Their children could also receive extra instruction at home, so it would not affect their Kekkei Genkai abilities.

"Furthermore," Ruri added, "we can recruit civilian children. The village is short on people, and this ninja village has only recently been established. We need such a policy to stabilize public sentiment."

"Civilian children?" Fuma Kazama muttered with a frown, but said nothing more. He was well aware of how little say he had.

Hagane Maomori and Momochi Tanba exchanged glances. If civilian children were allowed to enroll, their two clans would suffer the greatest impact. However, they were confident that their clans' children would certainly be more talented than civilians, so neither said anything.

"That's right, civilian children. There may be exceptionally talented people among civilians as well. I believe some of the Jonin here were born civilians, or had parents or grandparents who were civilians, weren't they?" Ruri continued. Although the Jonin attending the meeting were quite capable, most had not formed clans. They had generally become ninja only because they or their parents had happened to obtain methods for cultivating chakra and learning ninjutsu.

"I agree." Takenaka Masakata was the first to voice his support. His grandfather had been an ordinary civilian, so he held no prejudice against civilians. In fact, there had been many civilian ninja during the Warring States Period, but without clan protection, many of them had also died. To put it somewhat radically, if they had not entered a time of peace and the wars had continued for several more years, the civilian ninja present might have been wiped out entirely.

After Masakata voiced his agreement, the others followed suit and approved the establishment of the Ninja Academy. Small ninja villages had their own advantages. Aside from considering their personal circumstances, Ruri's formidable strength also influenced their decisions to some extent.

"Good. Since no one has any objections, I'll personally take charge of establishing the Ninja Academy. Masakata, prepare to report this matter to the Daimyo. We'll handle the funding ourselves." Ruri would not entrust the Ninja Academy to anyone else. He had read the original work and understood the structure of Konoha's Ninja Academy, and he also had some ideas of his own that he wanted to implement. His only disciple, Hattori Masanari, who possessed Kage-level potential, would become one of the academy's first students. He could not afford any delays.