1) It's both, you buy the technique, and then you role play yourself learning it.(Do you think I should also have an auto-learning feature if you pay double the amount it costs?)
2.) You can post all of your custom techniques in the suggestions section, if it's cannon, it will be added at a later date anyway(most likely)
3.) Ninja ranks? They have been removed as this is no longer a Naruto-based site...if it's still titled that I will change it.
4.) I am going to make an advertisement section soon, but this site isn't "technically" open to the public yet, but I'll be glad to make a make-shift section for now.