"Again."
Shaking off his thoughts, Seimei pushed everything else aside and raised his hands to continue practicing the Clone Technique.
But as soon as he formed the hand seal, he realized his chakra was completely drained—there wasn't nearly enough left to try again.
He opened his system panel for a quick gnce. Sure enough, his chakra reserves were empty.
Recalling what he knew, Seimei sat cross-legged and focused his mind inward, using sheer willpower to draw out the physical energy produced by his cells.
Then, he combined that energy evenly with his mental strength. After a brief internal transformation, the mix turned into chakra, flowing through the intricate network of chakra pathways spread throughout his body.
As the process continued, his chakra reserves gradually began to refill.
...
An hour ter.
Seimei opened his eyes.
"Panel."
With a thought, the familiar status screen popped up before him.
【Name: Uchiha SeimeiAge: 10Body: 5Mind: 7Chakra: 2 → 52 (125 → 126)Bloodline: Sharingan – Unawakened (51/100)Skills:Chakra Refinement Technique: Lv0 (1/100)Clone Technique: Lv0 (6/100)】
Just like with the Clone Technique, once he’d personally refined chakra for the first time, a new skill—Chakra Refinement Technique—had appeared on the panel.
At Level 0, each hour spent refining chakra increased his max chakra by one point and restored fifty chakra.
At the same time, his proficiency in the skill also grew by one point.
Judging by the growth rate, it was clear that the skill's effectiveness would skyrocket as its level increased.
Right now, his progress couldn’t compare to those born prodigies—but that might not be the case forever.
With that thought, Seimei wasted no more time. He closed his eyes again and resumed his chakra refinement.
...
Time slipped by, minute after minute.
Before he knew it, another hour had passed.
Seimei opened his eyes again. After a quick check, he found his chakra reserves were nearly full, so he stopped refining.
Of course, he had to stop.
Chakra didn’t come out of thin air—it was made by burning physical and mental energy. Just merging with his predecessor’s memories had already drained a significant chunk of his mind. On top of that, thinking through his next moves and exploring the system interface had left his spirit utterly fatigued.
If he kept going, even if he didn’t hurt himself, it’d be a waste of effort.
That being the case, better to rest for now.
‘Still, I can’t let this chakra go to waste.’
Forcing himself to stay alert, Seimei dug into the memories in his mind again, formed hand seals, and resumed practicing the Clone Technique.
A few minutes ter, his chakra was once again depleted. In total, he'd managed to attempt the jutsu five more times.
As expected—every single one failed.
Honestly, it wasn’t surprising. Even proper students at the Academy needed years to fully master the basic three ninjutsu. For an outsider like him to succeed just by mimicking a few times? That would’ve been pure fantasy.
Even with the bonus of inherited memories, it still wasn’t enough.
That said, according to the proficiency panel, he was now four-fifths of the way there.
At this point, his only bottleneck was the sheer ck of chakra.
And unfortunately, that wasn’t something he could fix quickly. He wasn’t some genius kid with ridiculous chakra reserves from birth.
For now, he had to develop himself step by step.
Gncing out the window at the bright moon, Seimei didn’t dwell on it. After a quick wash, he returned to his bedroom.
Soon, quiet snores began to fill the room.
Outside the window—
At some point, a shadow had appeared.
In the darkness, a pair of scarlet eyes glowed coldly—it was a Uchiha shinobi who had awakened the fully matured Three Tomoe Sharingan.
He watched Seimei for a while.
Then, without a sound, vanished into the night.
...
The next day.
Morning.
Seimei woke from his sleep, and the first thing he did was open the panel.
【Name: Uchiha SeimeiAge: 10Body: 5Mind: 7Chakra: 37 (127)Bloodline: Sharingan – Unawakened (51/100)Skills:Chakra Refinement Technique: Lv0 (2/100)Clone Technique: Lv0 (19/100)】
After confirming everything was still real, Seimei finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Then he turned his focus to the Chakra stat.
Even though he hadn’t actively refined chakra overnight, just resting had allowed him to recover over thirty points.
Still, Seimei didn’t burn through it right away. He had school today, and if something unexpected came up, it’d be a pain to be running on empty.
He had considered skipping a few days—selling off the assets left behind by his predecessor to get started—but that would probably draw even more attention.
Better to just go to school.
That way, if he slipped up, he could chalk it up to trauma from a sudden tragedy.
But if he stayed cooped up at home and someone came knocking, that’d be even harder to expin away.
After weighing his options, Seimei ultimately decided to stick with going to css. As long as he kept a low profile, things should be fine.
With his mind made up, he stopped overthinking, quickly freshened up, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed for the Ninja Academy.
The Uchiha cn hadn’t yet been pushed to the vilge outskirts—they still lived in a central district, not far from the school.
So it didn’t take long before Seimei arrived.
Following the memories in his head, he located his css. A few students greeted him along the way, and he simply nodded in response.
Thankfully, his predecessor had been just as aloof as most Uchiha, making it easier for Seimei to keep up the act.
Riiing~
About ten minutes ter, the bell rang.
A ninja in his twenties walked into the cssroom. This was their homeroom teacher and primary instructor, Sugiki Ittō.
From his predecessor’s memories, Seimei knew Sugiki was like most Academy instructors—he didn’t treat students too differently based on their background.
So there was no need to worry about the Uchiha name causing trouble.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, Seimei noticed Sugiki gnce in his direction.
His heart instantly skipped a beat.
Fortunately, the teacher didn’t linger. He began the lesson without saying a word.
But Seimei couldn’t focus on a single thing Sugiki was saying. His mind was stuck on that one look.
He was certain—it hadn’t been some casual sweep. The man had deliberately looked at him.
‘Did he notice something?’
A wave of unease surged in Seimei’s chest.
Riiing~
Suddenly, the bell rang again—css was over.
Seimei snapped back to reality. A whole period had passed without him even realizing it.
Sugiki gave the absent-minded Seimei a gnce, shook his head, and said nothing. After calling out “Css dismissed,” he walked out of the room.
As Seimei’s teacher, he was naturally aware of the boy’s situation—his parents had died in action.
In fact, whenever a student lost a family member, Konoha’s leadership made sure the teachers were informed.
The idea was to help them guide their students through grief and prevent any emotional breakdowns or extreme behavior.
Originally, Sugiki had pnned to speak to Uchiha Seimei today.
But a shinobi from the Uchiha cn had already contacted him st night, telling him not to intervene.
So, he didn’t.
The Uchiha’s reason was simple: they wanted to see whether Seimei would awaken the Sharingan.
To the cn’s higher-ups, losing an average cnsman was no big deal. But if that grief triggered the awakening of a Sharingan, then it would be well worth it.
That was why they didn’t want Sugiki to interfere.
If it were Iruka from the future, maybe he would’ve stood firm and helped Seimei anyway. But Sugiki wasn’t that kind of teacher—he cked that kind of responsibility. So, he simply went along with it.
Seimei, of course, knew nothing of this. He was still agonizing over that one intense look from Sugiki.
After a while, though, he managed to calm down.
Most likely, Sugiki was just aware of his predecessor’s parents’ deaths and had taken a moment to check on him.
“Phew—”
With that thought, Seimei finally let out a long breath.
