The Book of Seals Fragment

The problem of not being able to turn off his Sharingan plagued Shinichi for two full days.

More precisely, it plagued him for two days during the daytime. Nights were no big deal—he could not see clearly at night before anyway, and being able to see now only made it easier to move around in the dark. Daytime was the real problem. The orphanage children noticed that Brother Shinichi's eyes had turned red and crowded around him with endless questions. Little Flower was the most persistent, chasing after him to ask whether he had pinkeye and even volunteering to ask the matron for sick-person meals on his behalf. The matron came to take a look, declared it internal heat, and forced three huge cups of bitter tea down his throat. It was so bitter he nearly threw up last night's dinner.

On the third day, Shinichi finally found a solution.

He had not found it in the library's medical ninjutsu textbooks—he had flipped through every one of them, and the only mention of the Sharingan was a single line: "The Uchiha Clan's bloodline limit. For details, see the Uchiha family's secret scrolls." After the night of the clan massacre, all of the Uchiha family's secret scrolls had been sealed away by the Third Hokage. Without an order from the Hokage, no one could see them. His solution was simpler: close his eyes and use chakra sensing instead of vision. Then he discovered that the Sharingan would slowly fade while his eyes were closed, and when he opened them again, his irises had returned to their normal black. The entire process took about five seconds.

Five seconds. Not long, but not short either. Long enough to make a cup of instant coffee, but not enough to wait for a bowl of instant noodles. In future battles, if he did not want to expose his Sharingan, he would have to predict things in advance and make the switch in the enemy's blind spot. Fortunately, he now had Gale Body Flicker. Creating a five-second opening would not be too difficult.

With the eye problem solved, Shinichi could finally sit down and sort through everything he had gained from devouring Tiger Mask.

The gains came on three levels. The first was the increase in his wind-nature chakra. If Feng Jian's chakra had been a mountain stream, Tiger Mask's had been a fast-flowing river. Now that the two rivers had merged, the strength of his wind-nature chakra had reached jonin level. On the system panel, the note after "Wind-Nature Chakra" had changed from "Fused" to "Refined."

The second level was skills. Vacuum Blade and Gale Body Flicker were both genuine jonin-level ninjutsu. The core of Vacuum Blade lay in chakra shape transformation—compressing wind-nature chakra until it became extremely thin, giving its edge a sharpness comparable to a chakra blade. Gale Body Flicker used wind-nature chakra to reduce air resistance, making its short-range movement speed nearly twice as fast as ordinary Body Flicker. The technical complexity of these two techniques far surpassed basic ninja tool throwing. Muscle memory alone would not be enough; he needed to spend time breaking them down and practicing them.

The third level was intelligence. Tiger Mask had been responsible for nighttime reconnaissance in Root's southeastern sector. His mind contained the locations of every hidden sentry in the area, their shift-change times, and Root's detailed assessment plan for the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki. Shinichi spent an entire night sorting through those memory fragments one by one, drawing a detailed map of Leaf Village's nighttime defenses in his notebook. The value of that map exceeded Vacuum Blade and Gale Body Flicker combined.

But what truly surprised Shinichi was a fragment buried deep in Tiger Mask's memories.

That fragment was very vague. Tiger Mask had clearly not experienced it personally—it was more like information attached to a mission briefing that he had happened to remember. The information was brief, consisting of only one sentence and a hand seal.

"Book of Seals, Volume Two, Forbidden Techniques: Shadow Clone Technique. Seal: Ren."

That was all. No explanation of the principles, no chakra circulation route, no training method. Just a name and a hand seal.

Shinichi sat on his bed, staring at the note in his notebook for a long time without writing anything else. The Multiple Shadow Clone Technique. Every Naruto fan from his previous life knew this technique—Naruto Uzumaki's signature ninjutsu, the core cheat that let him grind experience with shadow clones, and the tactical foundation that would allow him to defeat Zabuza Momochi, Gaara, and Pain in the future. In the original story, Naruto had learned it only after stealing the Book of Seals during the Mizuki Incident. That copy of the Book of Seals should still be safely locked away in the underground archives beneath the Hokage Building.

But now he had a fragment. A Ren seal. Asking him to derive the complete chakra circulation route for the Shadow Clone Technique from scratch would be no easier than building a car with a single screw. But he had the Sharingan—one of its core abilities was seeing through chakra flow. As long as he found a ninja who had used the Shadow Clone Technique, observed the other person's chakra circulation route, and used the Ren seal for verification, he could reverse-engineer the complete hand seal sequence.

And in Leaf Village, the people who used Shadow Clones most frequently were Iruka Umino and Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi Hatake was out of reach for now, but Iruka Umino was at the Ninja Academy, and Shinichi would be enrolling in less than two weeks.

Shinichi wrote a line in his notebook: "To do: accidentally let something slip in front of Iruka Umino and make him demonstrate Shadow Clones." After writing it, he felt that "let something slip" was not quite accurate, so he changed it to "appropriately guide a teaching demonstration." It looked much more proper that way.

Two weeks later.

April 1, Year 60 of Konoha. Enrollment day at the Ninja Academy.

Shinichi got up early. He had not been awakened by the sound of the matron's spatula; he woke up on his own. Before sunlight had even reached the window, he was already sitting by his bed, dressed. His brand-new dark blue Ninja Academy uniform had been taken out of the cabinet by the matron yesterday, and she had said, "This material is much better than what the orphanage gets." She was right. The fabric was crisp, the cuffs fit perfectly, and a pale pattern was printed on the back—not the Uchiha fan crest, but the Senju Clan's diamond-shaped crest. This had been specially approved by the Third Hokage. Every clan's crest was registered on the student uniforms.

He stood before the mirror and looked himself over. Black hair, black eyes, regular features. In these new clothes, he finally no longer looked like he had escaped from an orphanage. The Sharingan was hidden, and his Wood Release chakra was restrained deep within his dantian. He had only one goal today: perform well in the entrance test, but not outrageously well, then find an opportunity to get close to Iruka Umino.

The entrance to the Ninja Academy was packed. Parents had brought their children—members of the Hyuga Clan, Nara Clan, Akimichi Clan, Yamanaka Clan. The new generation from every clan wore brand-new uniforms as they sized one another up, while the parents exchanged polite pleasantries nearby. Only three children from the orphanage were enrolling alongside Shinichi. The other two were Little Fatty, who lived next door to him, and a girl named A Zhu. The matron had brought them over, and as soon as they reached the gate, several parents recognized her.

"Those are children from the orphanage, right? Their uniforms fit pretty well," a woman in a short jacket said to the matron.

"The school issued them. Making clothes from the fabric costs less than buying them," the matron replied flatly.

Shinichi paid no attention to the conversation. His gaze passed over the crowd as he searched for that golden head.

He did not find it.

Naruto Uzumaki had not arrived yet? Maybe he was still figuring out how to put on his uniform. A few days ago, he had excitedly said that he had new clothes too, blue ones, with no clan crest on the back because he had no clan. His tone had been casual when he said it, but Shinichi could hear the faint disappointment beneath those words. He thought about it. When he saw Naruto Uzumaki later, he could suggest drawing a whirlpool crest on the back himself—the Uzumaki Clan's crest was a whirlpool to begin with, so it did not need special approval from the Hokage.

"New students, assemble!" Iruka Umino's voice rang out from the entrance to the school building. Iruka Umino had just turned twenty this year. He was the Ninja Academy's youngest full-time teacher, with little teaching experience but a booming voice that could keep a crowd under control.

Shinichi entered the classroom with the crowd. He chose a seat by the window. The second seat to his left was empty—that was the one he had saved for Naruto Uzumaki. Less than ten seconds after he sat down, hurried footsteps thundered down the hallway, accompanied by frantic cries of "I'm late, I'm late!" The door was thrown open, and Naruto Uzumaki stood there with a mess of bedhead, his forehead protector crooked across his brow and two buttons on his uniform fastened wrong. The classroom went quiet for a beat, then several children began whispering.

"That's—" "The demon fox." "Don't sit next to me."

Naruto Uzumaki did not hear them, or perhaps he had long learned to pretend not to. He scanned the room for an empty seat, spotted the one beside Shinichi, and immediately ran over and dropped into it. Panting heavily, he said, "I couldn't sleep last night! I was too excited! Then I didn't hear my alarm this morning—lend me your alarm clock!"

"I don't have one," Shinichi said. "I have the matron bang on my door with a spatula every morning. You can join me if you want."

"I'll pass." Naruto Uzumaki scratched his head.

Iruka Umino knocked on the blackboard and began his welcoming speech from the podium. He said many things—about the Will of Fire, ninja rules, and how classmates should help one another. Shinichi listened carefully, but he kept observing Iruka Umino's chakra flow from the corner of his eye. Iruka Umino's total chakra reserves were not particularly high, but his control was very stable. He was the typical teaching-type ninja. When he demonstrated the basic three body techniques, the chakra circulation routes were as clear in Shinichi's Sharingan vision as a fully labeled map.

The opportunity had come. When Iruka Umino began talking about the Clone Technique, he formed hand seals and created two Shadow Clones on the spot so the students could understand more intuitively. Ren—Monkey—Goat—Dragon—Ox—Tiger. Six hand seals. Chakra began in the dantian, split through the heart channels into the left and right halves of the body, then converged at the nape before finally forming a physical duplicate identical to the original.

Shinichi's eyes grew slightly warm. He saw it. The complete chakra circulation route, the flow distribution at every node, and the meridian conversion corresponding to every hand seal. The Ren seal in Tiger Mask's memory fragment had been the final hand seal. There had been five more before it. Now he had all six.

Iruka Umino dismissed the Shadow Clones and began having the students take turns trying it onstage. Shinichi did not raise his hand. His chakra reserves were now several times those of children his age. If he succeeded in creating several Shadow Clones on his first try, it would be difficult to explain. He wanted to learn it, not put on a show.

By the time the class bell rang, Naruto Uzumaki was already asleep with his head on the desk. The kid had probably really stayed awake all night, and after forcing himself through one class, his energy was completely gone. Shinichi did not wake him. He simply took out a pen and wrote a note on a blank page in his textbook. "Shadow Clone Technique: Ren—Monkey—Goat—Dragon—Ox—Tiger. Chakra distribution ratio: evenly divided among all clones. Note: those whose chakra reserves are below a certain threshold should use with caution; it may lead to chakra exhaustion."

After writing it, he glanced at the back of Naruto Uzumaki's head. This kid would eventually be able to create thousands of clones with this technique, yet right now he could not even pass the basic three body techniques. No rush. Once Shinichi had mastered these six seals, he would teach Naruto Uzumaki. When the time came, he would say he had found it in a damaged scroll at the library. After all, it began with the Ren seal and ended with the Tiger seal, so it would have a plausible origin.

Outside the window, the statues of the three Hokage atop Hokage Rock silently watched over the village in the afternoon sunlight. The first day at the Ninja Academy was almost too peaceful. But Shinichi knew that every person sitting in this classroom would someday become an important figure who shaped the course of the world. And in his notebook, line after line of plans waited to be slowly realized in the future. The Shadow Clone Technique was the core of cores—with this technique, training efficiency would no longer grow linearly, but double exponentially.

He closed his textbook and looked out the window, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. Not bad for the first day of school.