The following month passed in the most ordinary—and monotonous—way imaginable.
Uchiha Mai frequently trained under Might Duy, studying kicking techniques and pondering Jean-Claude Van Damme's leg skills. When he had free time, he would beat up Guy—politely referring to it as sparring.
The situation in the ninja world was deteriorating by the day.
The Third Great Ninja War was inevitable.
Even if one managed to survive the Third War, there would still be the Uchiha Clan Massacre Night afterward… and then the Fourth Great Ninja War.
These eyes of the Uchiha granted Mai nearly limitless potential—but at the same time, they dragged him straight into the whirlpool of right and wrong.
When the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken.
There was no way he could simply watch as Konoha slowly pushed the Uchiha toward extinction.
Should he place all his hopes on these eyes?
The Sharingan was indeed powerful—but what made it truly terrifying was the Mangekyō, and beyond that the Eternal Mangekyō and the Rinnegan.
Mai could not guarantee that he would definitely awaken the Mangekyō.
Besides, doing nothing every day while waiting for an eye upgrade—wasn't that just pathetic?
At the very least, he needed to learn something.
Strive to become a ninja developed in morality, intelligence, physical ability, aesthetics, and labor.
Only effort and sweat never betray you.
The loneliness endured during training would all be repaid one day—during moments of showing off.
After all, masters are lonely by nature.
Strength is forged from endless solitude.
Those who cannot endure loneliness can never become strong.
After a month of harsh training, Uchiha Mai finally mastered Might Duy's kicking techniques, fully comprehended Van Damme's leg arts, and integrated them into his own system.
The bootleg Eight Gods-style martial art he had created—Mai Style: Ancient Martial Arts—also developed several new techniques and became far more complete.
During this time, after growing familiar with the Might father and son, Mai shamelessly requested to learn the Eight Gates Technique.
He wanted to see whether he could, like countless transmigrators before him, pull off something like:
No-damage Eight Gates.
Permanent Eight Gates.
Reverse Eight Gates.
After all, it was the technique that kicked Six Paths Madara half to death—how could it not be tempting?
Might Duy didn't hoard the knowledge.
After thinking for a few minutes, he taught the Eight Gates Technique to Mai without hesitation.
After all—there was no such thing as "your family secret" or "my family secret."
Everything belonged to Konoha.
This was where Mai's collapse began.
After carefully reviewing the technique once, his head nearly exploded.
This wasn't what he had imagined at all.
The difficulty of training the Eight Gates far exceeded anything he had anticipated.
Only after extensive exploration did Mai finally understand why, in the original story, only the Might father and son had ever mastered the Eight Gates to completion.
There was a reason.
No one knew who originally created this ultimate forbidden technique—though it was almost certainly not Senju Tobirama.
Before Might Duy obtained it, the Eight Gates were even more useless—virtually impossible to cultivate.
It was like the Stellar Transformation Art in certain novels: incredibly powerful in theory, but practically suicidal in execution.
It was only because Might Duy spent over twenty years annotating it, repairing flaws, and filling gaps that this technique—once nothing but theory—finally gained even a sliver of practical viability.
Even so, it was still only a half-finished product.
Techniques such as Front Lotus, Reverse Lotus, and Morning Peacock did not yet exist at this time.
For the Eight Gates to truly mature, it would require Guy to inherit Duy's will and continue developing it himself.
Moreover, even when Guy perfected the Eight Gates to its Fourth War level, it still might not be suitable for others.
Morning Peacock, Daytime Tiger, Evening Elephant, Night Guy—
all of them were techniques created by Guy based on his own body and temperament.
They were not universally applicable.
Rock Lee, who could open up to the Fifth Gate during the Chūnin Exams, eventually faded into mediocrity—likely because he lacked Guy's unique aptitude and could not develop his own Eight Gates techniques.
Useless.
Utterly useless.
Why was it that everything Uchiha Mai learned ended up being these flashy-but-impractical abilities?
After weighing everything carefully, he abandoned the idea of focusing on the Eight Gates.
Like Kakashi in the original story, he chose to merely learn it casually.
If someday he could open up to the Second Gate, that would be more than enough.
Mai could endure hardship and loneliness—but Guy's style of training was simply terrifying.
Training the Eight Gates meant abandoning everything else and pouring 300% of one's energy into cultivation.
And even then, there was no guarantee of success.
Even if you succeeded, you might only be able to use it a handful of times.
This was not a rational choice.
He had the Sharingan.
He had a cheat system.
Whether in short-term gains or long-term growth, both surpassed the Eight Gates.
There was no need to gamble his life on it.
After deciding to treat it as a secondary skill, Mai encountered another problem.
Logically speaking, his physical condition and chakra reserves were no worse than Guy's.
Yet no matter how many times he attempted to force open the Gate of Opening, it remained completely unmoved.
Might Duy explained the reason.
The Eight Gates Technique required not only physical capability—but absolute resolve.
A willingness to die without regret.
It demanded not just the body, but the will.
This was a technique best suited for stubborn fools—those with one-track minds.
"You fight too intelligently," Duy told him.
"People like you aren't suited for this technique."
That made it even more useless.
After fully understanding the Eight Gates, Uchiha Mai completely lost interest in it.
Trash technique.
Dogs wouldn't train it.
Strong, yes—but with zero universality.
Shenxiu once said:
The body is the Bodhi tree,
The mind a mirror bright.
Clean it diligently at all times,
And let no dust alight.
Huineng replied:
Bodhi has no tree,
The mirror no stand.
Originally there is nothing—
Where could dust land?
The Fifth Patriarch believed Huineng possessed greater enlightenment and passed him the robe and bowl.
Mai liked this story—but he didn't believe Huineng was necessarily superior to Shenxiu.
In fact, Shenxiu's path was far more suitable for the masses.
The Eight Gates were the same.
Training them was like taking your entire fortune to Las Vegas.
All-in every time.
Bet big or small—thirty-two times in a row.
Lose once, and you die on the spot.
You could quit midway—but you couldn't take your money with you.
To walk away safely, you had to win all thirty-two rounds consecutively.
You couldn't look only at the absurdly high final payout and ignore the near-zero probability of success.
A true gambler knows when to fold a hand that looks good—but has terrible odds.
Uchiha Mai understood this.
And because he understood it, he would never walk that path.
Not long after abandoning the Eight Gates, graduation day arrived.
The Ninja Academy at this time had no flashy graduation exams.
After the ceremony, graduates were directly assigned to squads.
They would first take adaptation missions.
Those who adjusted would become shinobi.
Those who couldn't would be reassigned as civilians.
If one truly insisted on becoming a ninja, they could enter the reserve forces and slowly accumulate seniority.
After all—genin didn't require talent.
Just endure long enough.
The day itself was lively and celebratory.
Clan Head Fugaku attended as Mai's elder.
In addition, figures whose names were usually heard only in rumors—Sarutobi Hiruzen, Yūhi Shinku, and others—were also present.
After the ceremony, parents chatted and laughed as they left the field and classrooms—some heading home, others going to the offices to socialize.
Leaving behind a classroom full of little brats—
waiting to be picked—
like cabbages at a marketplace.
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