Naruto: The Strongest Sage.

The original story does not show how strong Minato Namikaze is. Most of the time, he is just a Flying Thunder God and a ball rolling to conquer the world.

But Kamikawa Aoba never underestimated Minato Namikaze. In fact, among the four dead Hokage, Aoba believed that Minato Namikaze's strength was second, second only to Hashirama Senju, and stronger than Tobirama Senju and Hiruzen Sarutobi.

This guy is not only good at Flying Thunder God, but also at various other ninjutsu. The reason why he gives people the impression of having only one trick is because this trick is more efficient.

He even knows the Eight Trigrams Seal and the Demonic Seal, so other ninjutsu are no problem at all

When Team 7 arrived, Minato was standing alone at the sixth training ground, facing the setting sun in the distance with his back to everyone.

Seeing this, Team 7 quickly discussed tactics, and then Naruto rushed forward.

Minato heard the movement behind him, turned around and looked at Naruto rushing towards him, a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

On the other side, after Aoba and Sakura came out of the laboratory, they saw a dispute happening outside.

Bai Yun, the captain of the institute's security department, was stopping a familiar figure in the morning.

Aoba took a look and saw that the man was none other than the resurrected Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen.

At this time, the third generation was somewhat embarrassed to be stopped by Bai Yunzao. Although he had real registration information, the research institute belonged to the most confidential department of Konoha.

Bai Yun noticed in the morning that he had never seen this face before, so he stopped him directly.

"Okay morning, he's one of our own. He's a ninja who just returned to the village after being on a secret mission outside the Anbu."

"Yes, Master Qingye." Bai Yun inherited Qingye's swordsmanship in the morning, and was considered half of Qingye's disciple. He was also the head of the security department of the institute and a direct subordinate of Qingye. He respected Qingye very much.

Seeing Qingye coming forward, he immediately let the third generation leave.

After seeing Baiyun leave in the morning, Aoba asked Sakura to go back by herself.

"Would you like to come in and take a look?" Qingye asked casually.

"No need for that. My current identity is not suitable for knowing those highly confidential things."

The Sandaime was a former Hokage and knew the confidentiality clause. He was just curious and looked at it, not thinking of going in. As a result, he was caught by Zaoma.

Aoba nodded, and then the two left together.

"During the day, I went to the advanced ninja school you founded. I'm curious, how did you convince the ninja clan?"

This was the point that the Third Generation could not understand the most. Opening up ninjutsu and improving the strength of civilian ninjas seemed simple, but in his understanding it was simply impossible.

Because restricting the strength of civilian ninjas was never just an order from the Hokage, but the result of a compromise between the Hokage and the major ninja clans.

This is just like the aristocratic families in ancient China who controlled knowledge. In order to ensure their own status, the ninja clan would not allow civilian ninjas to grow without limit.

Those who can grow up from civilian ninjas basically have a unique set of skills that cannot be copied. Kai is one of the representatives. Baiyun Zaojian is also one, but without Qingye, his upper limit is limited.

Civilians are always civilians, and ninjas are always ninjas. This is the foundation of the philosophy during the reign of the Third Generation. It is also the root cause of Konoha's decline.

However, the Third Generation discovered that the current Konoha openly taught various advanced ninjutsu, but there seemed to be no opposition from within Konoha.

At least from observations during the day, there was no apparent problem.

"This issue is complex and may take more than a day and a night to discuss. To put it simply, it can be summed up in one sentence: it is the general trend of the times."

"Is this the general trend?"

"Yes, it is the general trend. As long as the ninja tribe realizes one thing, that is, if they don't make changes, they will be eliminated. Then they will learn to accept everything in front of them."

"Eliminate? But you didn't eliminate any ninja clan. Even the Sarutobi clan..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen felt a little ashamed when he said this. He had actually prepared for the Sarutobi clan to be purged. But during the day, he went back to take a look.

He was surprised to find that only some radical members of the Sarutobi clan were purged. Most of the clan members survived, and even Asuma became the clan leader.

You know, before, he wanted Asuma to come back and inherit the position, but the other party ignored him.

"Haha, having power but not using it and not having power are two different things. I don't need to really do anything. I just need to make them believe that I will do it. After all, they are all Konoha's power, and there is nothing wrong with protecting the interests of the clan. There is no need to kill them all."

Sarutobi Hiruzen was hit again. But he also roughly understood the core of Aoba's approach, which was fairness.

Fairness is the most luxurious thing in this world. Or rather, it has never really existed.

Even in Konoha today, there is actually no fairness. Children of common people go to school at the same time as children of ninja clans. Same teachers, same learning environment. Is it fair?

If the major ninja clans had not started teaching methods of extracting chakra in advance, started physical training in advance, and started practicing family secret techniques in advance, then everything would be fair.

But the result is that fairness does not exist.

Even the so-called advanced ninja schools are only relatively fair to civilian ninjas, because most of the ninjutsu exchanged there are already in reserve in the ninja families.

Civilian ninjas need to spend points to redeem, or use their own unique ninjutsu to redeem. But the descendants of the ninja clan can learn it from birth. Is this fair?

However, even so, this policy is still supported by countless civilian ninjas, because even if there is no absolute fairness, they have already been given a chance to advance.

This is also Qingye's ultimate goal.

There are a huge number of civilian ninjas. Although this opportunity is small, someone will always stand out. Then a virtuous circle will be formed, gradually narrowing the gap between civilians and ninjas.

At the same time, in order to avoid being eliminated, the Ninja Clan needs to work hard to innovate and develop new things. Only in this way can healthy competition be formed.

All of this needs to be built on a stable and strong system. Aoba promoted various political and livelihood reforms in Konoha to create an environment for such competition. At present, it has achieved initial results. However, it is still far from what Aoba expected.

Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't really understand everything. But he knew at least one thing: the young man in front of him was much better than himself in many things.

In just two years, Konoha has taken off in an all-round way. Sarutobi Hiruzen remembered that when he was in power, the Baiyun Zao who had stopped him just now was just a special jonin.

But during the confrontation just now, Sarutobi Hiruzen could even sense a hint of danger.

Even though his current body has not yet fully adapted, this is a young body at its peak. The power he can exert is only stronger than before his death.

Judging from the limited space, Konoha is indeed completely different now than it used to be.