A Hasty Half Month

"Qian, what are you doing?"

Just as Qian was wondering whether he could grind "Chakra Control" to entry level before turning in today's mission, Ryosuke's voice suddenly came from beside him.

He was staring at Qian's feet, his face full of shock as he said, "Why can you stand in the water?"

Qian looked down when he heard that. It turned out the water here was fairly clear, so his feet could be seen hovering in the water.

Qian did not hide it and told them he was practicing his chakra control.

"What's the use of that?"

After hearing Qian's explanation, Ryosuke asked in confusion.

Before Qian could explain, Furukawa spoke up. "Of course it's useful. Very useful, in fact."

As he spoke, he had already walked over from a distance.

"Teacher!" ×3

When Qian and the other two saw him, they greeted him in unison.

"Mm."

Furukawa nodded, glanced at the soles of Qian's feet, then continued, "Training this skill well will let you save chakra when learning and casting ninjutsu, and it will also let you maintain greater stamina in battle."

"Then can we learn it too?"

Ryosuke asked hopefully.

Hearing this, Furukawa thought for a moment before saying, "Originally, I didn't plan to teach you this so early, but since Qian has already begun practicing, you two can follow along as well."

In truth, he had noticed Qian's little movements long ago. The reason he had not said anything was simply that he wanted to see how far Qian could go without anyone guiding him.

The facts proved that even if Qian was not a top-tier genius, he still surpassed the vast majority of people.

Being able to raise his chakra control to this level in just a few short hours was not something an ordinary person could accomplish.

Moreover, he had not even trained in the optimal way—that was, Tree Climbing first, then Water Walking.

If Furukawa had guided him from the very beginning, his progress would surely have been even faster.

But that was only Furukawa's own view.

As far as Qian was concerned, there was no need to practice step by step.

With the Proficiency Panel, he only needed to follow the standard procedure, gather chakra at the soles of his feet, and maintain it for a period of time to gain one point of proficiency.

And as his proficiency accumulated, his control over chakra would also increase rapidly.

In that case, there was naturally no need to start with Tree Climbing, because that would not significantly increase the speed at which he accumulated proficiency.

"Teacher, then are we going to start Water Walking training too?"

Ryosuke shouted excitedly from the side.

"No."

Furukawa rejected it outright.

"Why?"

Ryosuke asked in confusion. "Isn't that how Qian is practicing?"

"Because he's a genius."

Furukawa very much wanted to say that, but he could not, because it would dampen his students' enthusiasm.

So he said tactfully, "Everyone's circumstances are different. Qian can start with Water Walking, but you two can't."

"Then how should we train?"

Ryosuke asked.

"Tree climbing."

Furukawa replied.

"Tree climbing?" ×2

Ryosuke and Mizutani Shizuko spoke at the same time.

"That's right."

Furukawa nodded, then said to Qian, "You practice here on your own for now."

"Mm."

Qian answered, indicating that he understood.

"You two come with me."

Furukawa called Ryosuke and Mizutani Shizuko over, then the three of them walked toward the woods not far away.

After that came the "familiar" routine—gather chakra, sprint, climb up the tree, fall down, then sprint again, climb again, and fall again.

Perhaps because they had Qian as an example in front of them, Ryosuke and Mizutani Shizuko both trained with exceptional effort.

Ryosuke might have seemed carefree and sloppy most of the time, as if he did not care about anything, but in truth, he was extremely competitive.

Though he said nothing on the surface about Furukawa's differential treatment, deep down he very much wanted to prove himself, so he practiced especially seriously.

And it was not just him. Mizutani Shizuko was also the type who looked gentle on the outside but was strong within.

Although she was often silent and seemed not to have much of an opinion, once she settled on something, she would spare no effort to complete it.

It could be said that neither of Qian's two companions was mediocre.

Then again, that made sense. If they had not had some strengths, how could they have been assigned to the same team as him and placed under the guidance of a true jonin?

And yet, Qian had never even heard of these two people in his previous life. Most likely, they had died in the Third Great Ninja War or in the missions that followed.

From this, one could also see just how cruel the ninja wars were, and how dangerous the path of a ninja was.

Every time he thought of this, Qian did not dare slack off in the slightest. He could only seize every bit of time to improve himself, so he could plan for the future.

Time flew like a white steed flashing past a crack.

In the blink of an eye, another half a month had passed.

It was now early November.

The Uchiha Clan Grounds.

Qian's home.

Late at night, after completing his final round of training, Qian dragged his exhausted mind along and opened the Status Panel.

[Name: Uchiha Qian

Age: 10

Physical Constitution: 6

Spirit: 7

Chakra: 16 (910→1546)

Bloodline: Sharingan · Unawakened (58/100)→(71/100)

Skills: Chakra Refining Technique: lv2 (81/500)→lv2 (240/500)

Clone Technique: lv2 (1/500)→lv2 (140/500)

Transformation Technique: lv2 (1/500)→lv2 (130/500)

Substitution Technique: lv2 (1/500)→lv2 (110/500)

Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique: lv1 (1/200)→lv1 (16/200)

Mind Reflection Technique: lv1 (77/200)→lv2 (1/500)

Basic Body Technique: lv2 (1/500)→lv2 (150/500)

Ninja Tool Throwing: lv2 (120/500)→lv2 (260/500)

Chakra Control: lv0 (61/100)→lv2 (350/500)]

Over the past half month, everything had proceeded in an orderly fashion.

During the day, he followed the team in carrying out missions that required no technical skill whatsoever, while at night he trained alone, making full use of every moment.

At first, the missions had indeed affected his training.

But as his Chakra Control continued to level up, the impact grew smaller and smaller.

Going from lv0 to lv1 reduced the chakra required for him to cast ninjutsu by 5%.

Going from lv1 to lv2 turned that into 10%.

Now, with his Proficiency raised to lv2 (350/500), the chakra saved had already reached 13.5%.

In other words, when casting the same ninjutsu now, he used nearly fifteen percent less chakra than he had at the very beginning.

Clearly, this was no small amount.

With that, plus the extra training he occasionally did when there were no missions to carry out, in the end, he had only been one or two days later than planned in raising Mind Reflection Technique to lv2.

And the awakening progress of his Sharingan had also increased by 13 Points as expected, going from (58/100) to (71/100).

The only thing that was rather regrettable was that after Mind Reflection Technique rose to lv2, the minimum chakra consumption when using it did not decrease. Only the speed of forming hand seals became much faster.

However, that was of no use to him.

Fortunately, as Mind Reflection Technique leveled up, the awakening progress of his Sharingan, which had previously shown faint signs of slowing, returned to its original speed.

For the short term, he could still maintain the rate of ten points of Proficiency in Mind Reflection Technique driving one point of Sharingan awakening progress.

Now it depended on how long this speed could be maintained.

As for clearing it all in one go?

That was something Qian had never considered.

If it really were that simple, someone in the Uchiha clan would have awakened the Sharingan with this technique long ago.

Qian estimated that he would have to grind the Mind Reflection Technique to at least Lv3 before there was any chance of success.

But to him, that was not exactly difficult.

In addition, besides the Mind Reflection Technique and his Sharingan awakening progress, several of his other skills had also improved over the past half month.

This was mainly thanks to Furukawa's training.

Unfortunately, limited by how much chakra he could invest, his growth speed was only average.

Skills that did not consume much chakra, like the Three Body Technique, Basic Body Technique, and Ninja Tool Throwing, had all gained more than a hundred points of Proficiency.

Chakra Control, in particular, had shot up two levels directly because he could practice it anytime and anywhere, going from not even beginner level to Lv2 (350/500).

It was already the highest-level skill among all his skills.

As for Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique, because each use consumed at least one hundred points of chakra, Qian barely practiced it, so its Proficiency had only increased by a little over ten points.

In addition, there was one biggest change: his Chakra Limit had risen from 910 points to 1,546 points.

That was already about the middle level among civilian Chunin.

All he could say was, the gap between people was sometimes even greater than the gap between a person and a dog.

Everyone said Kakashi had a small mana pool, but even with the Sharingan constantly draining his mana, Kakashi could still use Lightning Blade and Kamui several times.

And those were all Rank S Ninjutsu and Dojutsu.

That was not even counting the Rank B Ninjutsu he cast during battle, such as Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall and Lightning Release: Shadow Clone.

If all of that were included, according to the Status Panel's calculation method, his Chakra Amount was probably over ten thousand points.

So being short on mana was only relative.

The chakra of many Jonin probably still could not reach Kakashi's level.

So Qian still had a great deal of room for improvement.