"Continue."
Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Haruki shook off the distractions and raised his hand to continue practicing the Clone Technique.
However, the moment he began forming the seals, he realized his chakra was completely drained—there wasn't enough left to perform even a single technique.
He opened the panel and glanced at it—just as expected, his chakra was nearly depleted.
Recalling the method from memory, Haruki sat down cross-legged, focused his mind inward, and began drawing out the physical energy from his body cells. Then, he combined it with his mental energy in equal proportion. After a careful transformation process, the mixture became chakra and began circulating through the chakra pathways spread across his body.
As this process continued, his chakra slowly began to refill.
One hour later.
Haruki opened his eyes.
"Panel."
With a thought, he brought up his proficiency system panel.
[Name: Uchiha HarukiAge: 10Body: 5Mind: 7Chakra: 2 → 52 (125 → 126)Bloodline: Sharingan · Unawakened (51/100)Skills: Chakra Refinement: Lv0 (1/100)Clone Technique: Lv0 (6/100)]
Just like the Clone Technique, once Haruki had manually refined chakra, the panel automatically updated and revealed a new skill—Chakra Refinement.
At Lv0, Chakra Refinement would increase his maximum chakra by 1 point per hour and restore 50 points of chakra. At the same time, the skill's proficiency would also increase by 1 each hour.
It was clear—this ability would grow more powerful with time.
Right now, Haruki's growth might not match a genius's pace, but that wouldn't necessarily be true in the future.
With that thought, he wasted no more time. He once again focused his mind and resumed refining chakra.
Time passed slowly, minute by minute.
In the blink of an eye, another hour had gone by.
Haruki opened his eyes and sensed his chakra levels—it was almost full. He stopped refining for now.
Of course, he couldn't keep going endlessly.
Chakra didn't just appear out of thin air—it was formed by consuming both physical and mental energy.
He had already spent a significant amount of mental focus absorbing the original Haruki's memories, then spent more energy thinking up strategies and exploring the system. His spirit was worn out.
If he continued like this, he wouldn't just be inefficient—it could harm his foundation.
Given that, he decided to rest for now.
'But I shouldn't let this newly refined chakra go to waste.'
Determined not to waste the effort, Haruki pushed through the fatigue and began forming hand seals again, relying on the memories in his mind to cast the Clone Technique.
A few minutes later, all his chakra was used up—he had attempted the jutsu five times in total.
As expected, all attempts failed.
That wasn't surprising. Even real students in the ninja academy required years to properly learn the Three Basic Jutsu. For an outsider like Haruki to expect success after mimicking it a few times was pure fantasy.
Even with inherited memories, he couldn't do it yet.
Still, judging by the proficiency panel, he was now four-fifths of the way to mastering the technique.
The only thing holding him back now was his chakra capacity.
But that wasn't something that could be fixed quickly. He wasn't a genius. No ten-year-old could have massive chakra reserves.
Right now, the only thing he could do was grow step by step.
Glancing out at the moonlit night, Haruki stopped thinking, freshened up a bit, and returned to bed.
Soon, soft snores echoed through the room.
Outside the house...
A shadowy figure stood silently, his eyes glowing bright crimson in the night.
It was an Uchiha ninja—with the three-tomoe Sharingan activated.
He stared at Haruki for a moment, then silently vanished into the night.
The next morning.
Haruki woke from his dreams, and the first thing he did was open the system panel.
[Name: Uchiha HarukiAge: 10Body: 5Mind: 7Chakra: 37 (127)Bloodline: Sharingan · Unawakened (51/100)Skills: Chakra Refinement: Lv0 (2/100)Clone Technique: Lv0 (19/100)]
Confirming that none of this was an illusion, Haruki let out a long breath of relief.
His gaze moved to the chakra section.
Over the course of one night's sleep, even without consciously refining chakra, his body had naturally recovered more than 30 points.
Still, he didn't immediately use it. He had to go to school today—and who knew what might happen there? He needed to be ready, just in case.
In fact, he had considered skipping school for a few days to quietly bring the original Haruki's latent potential up to speed.
But doing so might attract unwanted attention.
So in the end, it was better to go to school. That way, if he showed any strange behavior, he could explain it away as shock from recent trauma.
If he stayed home and someone came to investigate him—it would be much harder to cover things up.
After weighing the options, Haruki decided to continue attending school. As long as he kept a low profile, things should be fine.
With his plan made, Haruki got dressed, ate a quick meal to fill his stomach, and headed off to the ninja academy.
At this point in time, the Uchiha clan still lived in the central area of the village, not yet relocated to the outskirts. The school wasn't far.
Soon, Haruki arrived at the academy.
Relying on the original Haruki's memories, he found his classroom. On the way, a few people greeted him, to which he simply nodded in return.
Thankfully, the original Haruki—like many Uchiha—had always been somewhat aloof. That made it easier for him to maintain the act.
Ding ding ding—
After about ten minutes, the school bell rang.
A ninja in his twenties walked into the classroom—this was their homeroom teacher, who also taught their main courses. His name was Itou Sugi.
According to the original Haruki's memories, like most teachers in the academy, Itou Sugi didn't treat students too differently based on background.
So Haruki wasn't too worried about his Uchiha surname causing issues.
Just as he was thinking this, Haruki noticed Itou Sugi glance in his direction, which made his heart skip a beat.
Fortunately, the teacher didn't linger—he soon began the lesson.
From the lectern, Itou Sugi started speaking, but Haruki didn't hear a word of it—he was too busy wondering why the teacher had looked at him.
He was certain—it hadn't been a casual glance. Itou Sugi had definitely been observing him.
'Did he notice something?'Haruki felt a jolt of anxiety.
Ding ding ding—
Suddenly, the bell rang again.
Haruki snapped back to reality—an entire class had passed without him realizing it.
Itou Sugi looked at the dazed Haruki, shook his head, and said nothing. He simply called out "Class dismissed" and left the room.
As Haruki's teacher, he was already aware of the death of Haruki's parents.
In fact, teachers were always informed when a student lost a family member—this was standard protocol passed down from Konoha's higher-ups.
The purpose?
To allow the instructors to properly guide students through their grief and prevent extreme behaviors from emerging.
Originally, Itou Sugi had planned to speak with Uchiha Haruki today.
But the Uchiha clan had contacted him in advance, asking him not to intervene.
Their reason was simple—they wanted to see if the trauma would trigger Haruki's Sharingan awakening.
To the Uchiha elders, the loss of a mediocre clan member wasn't a big deal. But if it meant awakening a Sharingan, then it was a huge win.
So they didn't want the teacher interfering.
Had this been a future teacher like Iruka, he might have gone against orders to guide the student.
But Itou Sugi was different. He lacked that kind of responsibility—so he simply went along with it.
Haruki, of course, knew none of this. He was still worried about why his teacher seemed to single him out.
However, after some thought, he realized that Itou Sugi probably didn't have bad intentions.
It was likely just that he had learned about the death of Haruki's parents and was concerned.
"Phew—"
With that thought in mind, Haruki finally let out a sigh of relief.