Hokage, no one knows better than me how to cultivate talent.

"I feel that the water-treading and tree-climbing training can no longer improve me much," Sasuke added. "There's not much point in continuing to train like this. I want to learn something new."

These two basic training exercises have indeed reached a bottleneck for Sasuke, and their training content during this period has mostly consisted of climbing trees and wading in water, which is relatively boring. It's time to change things up.

"Alright, then I'll teach you a powerful Fire Release ninjutsu." Shusui stood up from the rock and readily agreed.

"I'll demonstrate it for you first, watch carefully." Qiu Shui walked to an open space by the water, raised his hands, and began to form hand seals.

Although his Fire Release Chakra Nature Transformation and Form Transformation are at an advanced level of proficiency, they can only enhance the power and shaping effect of ninjutsu to a certain extent. In addition, his proficiency in the Great Fire Dragon ninjutsu is not yet at the maximum level, so he still needs to form two hand seals to release it. He can't just clap his hands and shout something like some people and it will come to pass.

Shusui gathered a large amount of chakra in his throat, feeling the burning power condensing and compressing in his chest.

"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique".

He suddenly opened his mouth, and three enormous fire dragons roared out. Each one was fifteen or sixteen meters long, its entire body formed from rolling flames, with distinct scales, whiskers, and claws, as if real fire dragons had descended to earth. Under his mental control, the fire dragons quickly soared into the sky, drawing two dazzling arcs in the air, spreading out in the four directions of east, west, south, and north, and then suddenly turned back at the highest point, colliding fiercely with each other.

"boom!"

The violent collision triggered a deafening explosion, and scorching blasts of air swept in all directions, even causing a slight distortion in the space at the center of the explosion.

Uchiha Sasuke stood not far away, his pupils slightly contracted.

"Great Dragon Fire Technique," he murmured the name of the ninjutsu.

He used to see elite ninjas of the Uchiha clan perform this ninjutsu at the clan's training grounds, but most of them could only conjure one or two fire dragons, and only a few could conjure three, but their scale and momentum were far inferior to this one in front of him.

What shocked him even more was the sheer number of hand seals.

He remembered clearly that even Itachi Uchiha needed to form four hand seals when he used this technique, while Shusui only used two.

Sasuke's gaze fell on Shusui.

When he saw Shusui use the Great Fireball Technique before, he could explain it away by the fact that the other party was just a Chunin who specialized in Fire Release and happened to be good at this technique. But the Great Fire Dragon Technique of this scale and power was definitely not something an ordinary Chunin could use.

Who exactly is he?

Sasuke didn't think much of it, because the stronger Shusui's strength was, the happier he was. It meant he could learn more from Shusui, become stronger faster, and avenge himself against Uchiha Itachi sooner.

"Watch closely, I'll explain it to you again in slow motion."

Seeing the subtle changes in Sasuke's expression, Shusui knew that he was very satisfied.

For someone like Sasuke, you have to conquer him with absolute strength, make him feel that he can quickly become stronger under your guidance, only then will you be qualified to be his teacher.

Moreover, simply conquering him isn't enough; you also need to strike the right balance. You must let him see his strength growing from time to time and taste the sweetness of progress, but you can't teach him everything at once. Otherwise, once he's mastered all the skills, he'll feel that his improvement speed has slowed down with you, and he'll feel that following you isn't very interesting, just like with Kakashi. He'll turn around and look for a faster way to become stronger, like Orochimaru.

Although this situation wouldn't happen if Qiu Shui had a cheat code, he still felt it was better to be cautious, since he didn't want to be stabbed in the back by his students.

"The difficulty of this ninjutsu lies in instantly shaping the chakra into the form of a fire dragon." Shusui slowed down the hand seals, breaking down each movement so that Sasuke could see it clearly. "This is a good opportunity to learn the training method of chakra shape transformation while learning this ninjutsu. The two are interconnected. Once you grasp the principle of shape transformation, learning other ninjutsu in the future will be much easier."

As he spoke, he used chakra to condense a small fire dragon prototype in his palm, showing the shaping process step by step from nothing to something, from blurry to clear. He explained every detail very carefully, even repeating it two or three times. After all, Uchiha Sasuke was not a genius like Uchiha Itachi, who could learn by himself after just one glance. When it was necessary to teach him step by step, he had to teach him step by step.

"How is it? Do you understand now?" Shusui withdrew her chakra and turned to look at Sasuke.

"I understand." Sasuke Uchiha nodded, his face full of confidence.

He felt he had grasped the essentials. The theory didn't sound complicated, and he had memorized the sequence of hand seals. All that was left was to condense the chakra, compress it, and then shape it.

It doesn't seem too difficult.

Sasuke took a deep breath, walked to the water's edge, and slowly raised his hands to form hand seals. Since it was his first time, his speed wasn't fast, but every movement was precise and accurate.

He gathered his chakra in his throat, feeling the warm power surging in his chest, and then focused his mind, compressing and shaping it according to the method Qiushui had just explained.

"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique".

Sasuke suddenly opened his mouth.

A thick plume of black smoke billowed from his mouth, mixed with a few scattered sparks, which tumbled in the air a few times before disappearing without a trace.

Sasuke stood frozen in place, his face turning slightly pale.

"Don't worry," Qiu Shui comforted her gently. "It's normal to not be able to release it successfully the first time. This technique is inherently difficult, and even many fire-style ninjas need to practice for a long time to master it. Just keep practicing."

Sasuke Uchiha nodded, but his expression was still somewhat unpleasant.

He realized he had oversimplified the matter.

Naruto on the river kept secretly glancing towards the shore.

He felt a pang of jealousy.

Naruto also wanted to learn more powerful ninjutsu, but he hadn't even fully mastered water walking yet, so he was too embarrassed to ask Shusui-sensei to teach him anything else. And to be honest, when Sasuke was forming hand seals, he both hoped that Sasuke would succeed and that he would fail. Although he knew that this kind of thinking was wrong, he still secretly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Sasuke failed on his first attempt.

"Here, take this." Qiu Shui took out a small booklet from her body and handed it to Sasuke.

"These are some training techniques and methods I compiled before regarding the Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique and Fire Attribute Form Transformation," Qiu Shui explained. "You can read these first to gain a more systematic understanding of the whole process, and then practice them in conjunction with what I just explained. Feel free to ask me anytime if you encounter anything you don't understand."