Personal Planning

Once he came back to himself, Sasuke began assessing his current situation and comparing what advantages he had over Second Pillar at the same age.

1. Information: foreknowledge.

There was no need to say much about this. It was also his greatest advantage in this world.

2. Sharingan: Three Tomoe Sharingan.

When the massacre happened to the original owner of this body, he had only awakened a single-tomoe and a two-tomoe Sharingan, and they had been dormant. It was not until four years later, during the Land of Waves mission, that the original owner awakened the Sharingan again in a life-or-death crisis.

Yet Sasuke had gone through the same event and awakened a Three Tomoe Sharingan, which he could activate and deactivate at will.

Perhaps because he had lived two lives, possessed an unusual talent in spiritual matters in his previous life, and had over twenty years of experience as an adult, he had directly awakened the Three Tomoe Sharingan after merging with Second Pillar's soul and body.

Of course, it was also possible that the stimulation from his body's memories, when he personally dug out his parents' eyes, had played a part.

3. An additional pair of Mangekyō Sharingan and a pair of Three Tomoe Sharingan.

Both pairs belonged to close blood relatives. In the future, they could at least help him evolve into the Eternal Mangekyo.

4. A talent somewhat similar to that of a sensory ninja.

This talent had been innate to him in his previous life. His body was exceptionally sensitive to being watched, and after merging with this body, it had strengthened by more than just a little.

In his previous life, he had needed to focus intently on a camera to vaguely sense whether someone was spying on him. Now, however, he could instantly detect the Third Hokage watching him through a crystal ball far more covert than any camera, without even needing to meet his gaze.

But unlike sensory ninjas, who could use chakra to perceive chakra flow, locations, and directions of movement within a radius of several kilometers, dozens of kilometers, or even hundreds of kilometers—

Sasuke only possessed simple visual perception and could not do what sensory ninjas did. Still, it was an extremely powerful supporting ability for him right now. At the very least, he no longer had to worry about being watched or ambushed.

By rough estimate, Sasuke had only these four advantages over the original owner. He had controlled this body for less than five days, and without taking the Sharingan into account, his ninjutsu and taijutsu attainments in this blank-slate body might not be any stronger than the original owner's. At least, not for now.

After summing up his current condition, Sasuke walked to the desk, picked up a pen, and prepared to make a simple plan.

How could he quickly increase his strength?

What was his current goal?

After asking himself those questions, Sasuke picked up the pen and wrote two sentences in a mixture of Chinese pinyin and English.

Merge the Mangekyō Sharingan and evolve the Eternal Mangekyo!

Without question, now that he possessed his father Uchiha Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan, his most important goal—and the fastest way to increase his strength—was to transplant his father's Mangekyō and evolve it into the Eternal Mangekyo.

To achieve that goal, Sasuke currently faced two problems.

1. Sasuke's own Sharingan had to evolve into the Mangekyō Sharingan before he could perform the transplant.

2. He needed to learn medical ninjutsu, or find someone he trusted to perform the transplant surgery for him.

Looking at the words on the paper, Sasuke narrowed his eyes and fell into thought, considering how to solve those two problems.

First was the Mangekyō Sharingan.

In the original work, the condition for advancing to the Mangekyō Sharingan was—"To understand love, and to lose love."

Once an Uchiha who understood love lost that intense love, it would be replaced by even stronger hatred. After experiencing extreme pain, special chakra would surge forth within the brain and affect the optic nerves, causing the eyes to change and evolve into Mangekyō Sharingan that reflected the heart.

Of course, there was another prerequisite—an Uchiha who understood love and lost love had to possess considerable spiritual talent to begin with.

At this point, Sasuke thought of Obito and added another sentence—the talent should probably be divided into latent and apparent forms.

As soon as he finished writing, Sasuke frowned at the advancement conditions for the Mangekyō Sharingan.

This body's talent was not poor. It could even be called outstanding. After all, he was one of the protagonists, and after their fusion, Sasuke's spiritual strength had improved tremendously.

But understand love, lose love?

Sasuke silently shook his head. His original parents had died before his eyes, yet he had not awakened the Mangekyō under that kind of stimulus. Furthermore, he could feel himself gradually gaining control of this body. Those memories had less and less influence over him. Even when he recalled that night now, he no longer felt the same heart-wrenching grief.

If this continued, then even if Uchiha Itachi died by his hand in the future just as in the original work, he might still not fulfill the condition of understanding love and losing love.

Even if he could fulfill it, Sasuke did not want to awaken the Mangekyō in the same way as the final battle in the original work, where everyone held back against him, every step was arranged for him, and he was played like a fool from start to finish.

Looking at the original owner's life, he had been manipulated and deceived by others from beginning to end—Orochimaru, Uchiha Itachi, Obito, and Uchiha Itachi, and Uchiha Itachi again...

After finally obtaining the strongest power, he discovered that he was the reincarnation of someone's chakra will, and that Six Paths Daddy had arranged everything long ago.

Now that he had become the master of this body, he could not possibly follow those people's plans, regardless of whether they were good or bad, righteous or evil.

Do you really think you can control everything?

My life can only be decided by me. If I do something, it is because I want to do it, not because you arranged for me to do it.

Heh...

At that thought, Sasuke's gaze turned profound. His mind raced, and in the span of a few breaths, countless pieces of information he had obtained from the original work in his previous life flashed through his head as he searched for a solution to his Mangekyō advancement problem.

The Sage of Six Paths, founder of the Ninjutsu Sect, was born with Rinnegan in both eyes in the manga, and had something similar to the Eye of the Moon at the center of his forehead. The Rinnegan was an advancement of the Mangekyo. In the anime, the Sage of Six Paths had indeed undergone stimulation, awakening the Three Tomoe Sharingan in an instant before immediately awakening the Rinnegan. But in the manga, he had been born with the Rinnegan and had not experienced any stimulation.

If the manga was used as a reference...

The reason the Sage of Six Paths had been born with the Rinnegan was nothing more than his pure bloodline and naturally powerful spiritual energy.

The Uchiha method might only be one way to advance to the Mangekyo. Intense emotional stimulation greatly increased spiritual energy, causing a qualitative transformation in ocular power and allowing one to ascend in a single leap.

If he could not achieve the Mangekyo through such a one-step method, perhaps he could increase his spiritual energy bit by bit, gathering small streams into rivers and seas. Through quantitative accumulation, he could gradually produce a qualitative change.

Even if things did not go as he hoped, increasing his spiritual energy would only benefit him.

With that thought, Sasuke wrote the words "increase spiritual energy" on the paper and added several lines beneath them.

Temper willpower.

Accumulate experience.

Meditation training.

Those were the three methods of spiritual cultivation that he could think of from his experience. Of course, aside from those three, he would also try looking among the Uchiha clan for methods of cultivating and increasing spiritual energy.

With an idea for the first problem, Sasuke turned his attention to the second—medical ninjutsu!

Sasuke's current body was not a Sage Body like Uchiha Madara's. He could not casually plug in and use Sharingan or Rinnegan as Madara had, so he had to solve the issue of medical ninjutsu.

Through the body's memories, he learned that the ninja academy did not teach medical ninjutsu. It only offered courses in pharmacology and nursing knowledge.

After all, the requirements for mastering medical ninjutsu were extremely high.

First, one had to thoroughly understand the structure of the human body.

Second, one needed extremely precise chakra control.

Third, one had to master Yang Release chakra!

The founder of medical ninjutsu was Senju Hashirama. Through special techniques, Senju Hashirama infused the vitality of Yang Release into patients, stimulating their cells to heal wounds. Through shape transformation, it could also achieve detoxification and offensive effects.

Yang Release chakra sounded advanced, but it was not actually so extraordinary. The Akimichi clan's Multi-Size Technique was a Yang Release ninjutsu, and medical ninjutsu was also a branch of Yang Release ninjutsu.

What was truly advanced was Six Paths Yang Power, not Yang Release.

The Uchiha clan had inherited the Sage of Six Paths' Yin Power, but that did not mean Sasuke had no possibility of developing a Yang Release nature. Yang Release chakra was equivalent to vitality and, to a certain degree, included the physical energy that made up chakra.

But physical energy was not the same as Yang Release chakra. Since it was chakra, it had to be refined through the fusion of physical energy and spiritual energy. Yang Release chakra simply leaned more heavily toward physical energy.

The Uchiha clan's physical energy only seemed weak in comparison to the Senju and Uzumaki. Compared to everyone else, however, it was truly far stronger.

I just don't know whether my Yin Release chakra will suppress Yang Release and prevent me from mastering the Yang Release nature.

Sasuke pondered silently. It seemed that even by the final battle, Sasuke's attributes in the databook still did not include a Yang nature.

One had to know that by then, although his body was inferior to Naruto's Six Paths body, it was still far stronger than an ordinary Sage Body. He had even awakened the Rinnegan, symbolizing the unity of Creation of All Things. Why would the official databook still specifically note that the original owner lacked a Yang nature? Had they retconned the setting? Or was it intentional, meant to emphasize the difference between Naruto and Sasuke?

He would set the third point aside for now and first master the first two. Even if he ultimately failed to learn medical ninjutsu, he would have acquired considerable medical skill by then. Performing an eye transplant on himself should not be difficult.

After writing that down, Sasuke summarized it into two points.

Increase spiritual energy.

Master medical ninjutsu, enough at least to perform an eye transplant on himself.

After running through the details of his plans in his mind once more, Sasuke directly burned the paper.

"Who the hell keeps a diary?"

Sasuke mocked himself. Even though the writing on it was a mixture of pinyin and English, there was still a chance it could be exposed and deciphered. Ever cautious, he burned it anyway.

After finishing all that, Sasuke took off his clothes and climbed into bed to rest.

I missed the school exams while I was unconscious. For these two months, I can stay in the clan without going to school. That saves me some trouble.

After I wake up tomorrow, I'll look around the Uchiha clan and see whether I can find any cultivation manuals.