An advantage

"Why this jutsu?"

Xia Yan frowned slightly at the scroll in his hand. His head felt as though it were swelling.

Flying Thunder God really was no simple jutsu.

It was powerful-powerful enough to overcome even the suppressive advantage of superior bloodlines!

Minato Namikaze was proof enough. Though he had come from an ordinary civilian background, after learning the Flying Thunder God Technique, he had displayed combat prowess that even bloodline clans could not match!

He had instantly killed fifty ninja, including powerful fighters of Jonin caliber. One could imagine just how terrifying that was.

It was his presence, combined with Iwagakure having to face Kumogakure's retaliation on a second front, that had led Iwagakure to choose a ceasefire with Konoha.

"But this really isn't something you can learn easily."

Xia Yan felt rather helpless. As a member of the Senju Clan, he had asked his elders about this jutsu when he was very young.

The answer he had received had almost made him give up on learning it altogether.

The reason was simple: the difficulty of this jutsu exceeded imagination!

Learning it required not only exceptional talent, but also astonishing reflexes and physical coordination.

Flying Thunder God's defining feature was abruptly traveling through space, then appearing beside an enemy to launch a lethal surprise attack.

As such, this jutsu placed extremely high demands on both reflexes and physical coordination.

Without sufficiently quick reflexes, you might not even be able to react after arriving.

And without sufficient physical coordination, you could not even keep your balance.

In that case, forget launching a surprise attack-you might fall straight to the ground, or even run right onto someone else's blade.

That was no surprise attack. It was suicide.

Konoha's legacy stretched back almost fifty years, spanning four Hokage.

Yet the only people who had learned Flying Thunder God so far were the long-dead Second Hokage and the Fourth Hokage, who had now been all but stripped of power.

It was not as though Minato Namikaze had never tried teaching the jutsu to others. He had even come up with the idea of splitting it apart to simplify it.

He had actually succeeded, but even that had been of no use. Genma Shiranui, Namiashi Raidō, and Tatami Iwashi could be considered to have learned it, but there was no way they could use it in combat.

Even using it for transportation proved somewhat taxing for the three of them.

"The requirements for this jutsu really are absurd."

After seeing Uesugi Gen off, Xia Yan returned inside, thinking as he slowly opened the scroll in his hand and began reading.

"Still, all those years of cultivating my basic attributes have paid off somewhat. I qualify for the first part, at least. It's just the second part..."

What made Flying Thunder God so tormenting was that it placed extraordinarily high demands not only on the body, but also on one's mastery of jutsu.

And the jutsu involved was no ordinary kind-it was Sealing Jutsu!

Flying Thunder God's Cursed Seal was, in fact, a variation of Sealing Jutsu.

Mastering it required studying Sealing Jutsu, and swiftly and proficiently placing the Cursed Seal required considerable control over Sealing Jutsu as well.

Flying Thunder God was not merely a matter of throwing kunai. It also frequently required its user to quickly leave a Cursed Seal on an enemy when a surprise attack failed.

For instance, when Minato Namikaze faced Obito in the future, he would silently leave a mark on him, then ultimately use that mark to land a surprise attack and completely sever the link between Obito and the Nine-Tails.

"All in all, Flying Thunder God really is more troublesome than I imagined."

Xia Yan quickly finished reading the scroll. After making certain that he had memorized everything, he set it alight.

Watching the scroll steadily turn to ash and give off wisps of smoke, Xia Yan let out a quiet sigh.

"It looks like I'll have to spend more time on Sealing Jutsu and drawing my own Cursed Seal from now on."

Though Flying Thunder God was troublesome, and could even be called extremely difficult to learn, Xia Yan had no intention of giving up.

He was somewhat different from other people, after all. He had a cheat to help him.

For him, the greatest difficulty was not using this jutsu proficiently, but successfully performing it in full for the first time!

The special feature of his cheat was that once he successfully performed a jutsu in full, he could essentially master it completely.

He had to admit, this feature was genuinely appealing. It was true of his Water Release, and of the Earth Release he had yet to use as well.

It was this ability to master jutsu, coupled with his years of experience carrying out Anbu missions, that had given him Jonin-level strength despite having only Chunin-level chakra.

With this feature helping him, Xia Yan felt he could definitely master Flying Thunder God-and even use it more proficiently than Tobirama Senju and Minato Namikaze!

Of course, there was one very important prerequisite before that: Sealing Jutsu.

Though Xia Yan was a member of the Senju Clan, and his clan had quite a few Sealing Jutsu scrolls lying around,

he really did not think he had much talent for it, especially since the system of Sealing Jutsu was completely different from those of other release techniques.

To him, this was an entirely new challenge. He had secretly tried it as a child, after all, but had never achieved much.

"For Flying Thunder God's sake, it looks like I'll have to give this everything I've got. Besides, Kakashi is working under me now. If it doesn't work out..."

If it did not work out, he would have to find a way to get Kakashi to help him pay a visit to the Hokage's wife.

As a member of the Uzumaki Clan-and one of its most important members at that-Kushina Uzumaki's mastery of Sealing Jutsu was undoubtedly awe-inspiring.

She had probably contributed quite a lot to Minato Namikaze's Flying Thunder God Technique, too.

With her teaching him, Xia Yan believed he could definitely learn something!

He was not asking for much. He only needed to master basic Sealing Jutsu that could create seals and form Flying Thunder God seal formulas.

With his cheat, he could use it proficiently and thus complete one of Flying Thunder God's most troublesome steps.

Once he had fully completed all of this and successfully performed it in full, then...

"Though what you figure out yourself suits you better, right now, being taught directly would be better. Especially since Kushina's ability is beyond question."

At the thought of how she had immobilized the Nine-Tails with Sealing Jutsu in the original story, and had even helped Naruto successfully seal the Nine-Tails with her lingering chakra after her death, Xia Yan's heart burned with eagerness.

That kid Kakashi really was valuable, and the help he could offer was difficult to imagine.

When Xia Yan had first spoken up to remind Kakashi, he had only been making plans for the future, while taking the opportunity to undermine the relationship between the Fourth and the Third.

He did not know whether it would work, nor did he care.

But now it seemed that move did have value. Whether its effects would be positive or negative remained unclear.

"But whether they're positive or negative, I can make adjustments behind the scenes. That's my advantage."