Effect Testing, Keeping a Low Profile

Carrying several still-flapping carp strung together with grass rope, Uchiha Hara returned to his quiet little home.

Perhaps because it was so late, he did not encounter a single person on the way.

That discovery eased Uchiha Hara's tightly wound nerves somewhat.

He had treated the Hidden Leaf Village like a secret agent training camp, so he had always been trembling with fear, treading on thin ice.

Now, it seemed the Hidden Leaf Village was far less complicated than he had imagined. He had truly been scaring himself.

Of course, he still needed to remain vigilant. He just did not need to be as excessively tense as before.

After all, people needed to relax mentally. Staying tense all the time would not do.

Dinner was simple: carp rice bowl with cabbage and tofu.

Uchiha Hara had never killed a fish before. He had only seen it on television or in videos, so this was his first time.

There was naturally nothing graceful about killing fish, but all he had to do was remove the guts. That was not difficult for a transmigrator with a mature mind.

Still, he had some trouble preparing the carp. Though he had cooked in his previous life, he had rarely handled seafood or aquatic products.

In the end, he could only go by feel, slice off the fish meat, and stir-fry it haphazardly with cabbage and tofu.

His culinary philosophy was that anything could be stir-fried.

After taking a bite, the taste was actually... not bad?

At least there was no strange fishy odor, and he had added just the right amount of salt. It was barely edible.

For someone who currently only sought fullness and nutrition, that was enough.

Looking at the pile of fish scales, innards, and other scraps left behind after killing the fish, along with the dishwater and garbage from his meal, Uchiha Hara frowned.

As he wondered how to dispose of the trash, a thought struck him, and he tried communicating with the Demon Refining Pot.

"Refine!"

The fish scraps on the ground instantly vanished, turning into a nearly negligible wisp of energy within the Demon Refining Pot.

"Oh?" Uchiha Hara's eyes lit up. "It can even dispose of trash. This is practically the ultimate stay-at-home artifact!"

The Demon Refining Pot refused nothing and could refine and absorb anything. Taking out the trash was such a hassle, yet with this thing, he did not even need to throw out garbage anymore.

Although these things contained negligible energy, they were convenient and environmentally friendly!

If I started a waste recycling company with this in my previous life, wouldn't I have made a fortune? Zero cost, zero pollution, and high efficiency... he could not help grumbling inwardly.

Unfortunately, this was the Ninja World.

However, this function of the Demon Refining Pot was also extremely useful in the Ninja World—for instance, in disposing of corpses.

As the saying went, killing was easy, disposing of the body was hard. With the Demon Refining Pot, the greatest difficulty of murder was solved.

So long as Uchiha Hara could avoid being discovered when killing someone, he would not have to worry about what came afterward.

After dinner, Uchiha Hara did not rush to rest. Instead, he began an important test.

Since the data could be quantified, he naturally had to test how much improvement a single Blood Essence could bring him.

He first took a [Fish Blood Essence] from the Demon Refining Pot and swallowed it.

A familiar warm current spread through his body, primarily strengthening his endurance and recovery. He immediately turned his consciousness toward the data panel:

[Uchiha Hara]

Essence: 1.001 (+0.001)

Qi: 1

Spirit: 1

Sure enough, [Blood Essence] mainly increased "Essence," meaning bodily energy.

Next, he took out a [Fish Soul Essence] and absorbed it. A cool breath merged into his mind, and his spirits lifted.

The panel changed once again:

Essence: 1.001

Qi: 1.001 (+0.001)

Spirit: 1.001 (+0.001)

"Both Qi and Spirit increased by 0.001..." Uchiha Hara pondered.

"Looks like my guess was correct. Chakra's 'Qi,' as the fusion product of bodily energy and spiritual energy, was most likely calculated as (Essence + Spirit) / 2. So when 'Spirit' increased, 'Qi' rose in tandem."

It was worth noting that this Qi referred to his chakra limit, not the amount of chakra he currently possessed.

Chakra was different from internal energy. It could not be stored; it was an ability drawn upon as needed. The 1.001 Qi on the panel meant that Uchiha Hara could extract that much chakra in total—it was his chakra limit, not the amount of chakra currently inside his body.

Though an increase of 0.001 each time seemed tiny, Uchiha Hara was already very satisfied.

[Blood Essence] and [Soul Essence] were highly concentrated forms of life and soul. Moreover, most of their energy had been absorbed by the Demon Refining Pot itself during refinement to repair itself. The fact that it could give him this much in return was already precious.

"More importantly, this efficiency is not low!"

After thinking for a moment, he said, "One fish can be refined into one Blood Essence and one Soul Essence, providing an increase of 0.001 to 'Essence,' 'Qi,' and 'Spirit.' A thousand fish can double my base attributes! This afternoon, I casually caught more than one hundred and ten fish with a single pull. Gathering a thousand would only take around ten days!"

In the entire Hidden Leaf Village, who could double their physical fitness in ten days?

Moreover, in the Ninja World, the body could be strengthened through training, but there was no way to strengthen the soul. It could only naturally grow stronger with age.

Being able to strengthen the soul was already shocking enough, yet the speed was this fast.

This rate was downright terrifying!

That was also thanks to the fact that fish were not a staple food for the villagers of the Hidden Leaf Village. Combined with the low pollution of this era, the fish resources in the Naka River were incredibly abundant. It was practically his natural fish farm and leveling ground.

He stood up in high spirits and happened to pass the mirror he had looked into earlier. Uchiha Hara instinctively turned his head for a glance.

The boy in the mirror was no longer deathly pale. A healthy flush had begun to return to his face, and even those "rat-eyed" eyes looked a little more lively.

"This..." Uchiha Hara froze for a moment, then frowned.

The hidden injuries left behind by the original owner's excessive training and his long-term malnutrition seemed serious, but in truth, they only required proper rest and decent meals to recover.

After all, children naturally had strong recovery abilities.

And now he had Blood Essence to replenish and strengthen his life source. Still, was its effect not a little too obvious?

He had only eaten two of them. Why did he already feel as if he had nearly fully recovered?

Rapid physical recovery was a good thing.

But... was it not a little too fast?

Someone who had been sickly yesterday, as if he could drop dead at any moment, becoming rosy-cheeked and full of energy a few days later would draw far too much attention.

Moreover, a sickly person and someone brimming with vitality gave completely different first impressions. Would his "frail" protective coloring not become useless?

He did not know any advanced disguise techniques, nor did he understand makeup.

Did he have to deliberately make himself look more disheveled?

After thinking it over, Uchiha Hara felt that deliberate disguise would be inferior instead. It would be easy to reveal flaws.

"Perhaps it would be better to let nature take its course?" he mused.

"If every student in a class is healthy while I alone am critically ill, that is conspicuous in itself. If I recover a little and look like a 'normal' child with merely weak health, it fits the image of someone 'gradually recuperating' better and attracts less attention."

As for recovering too quickly, that was not really a problem. He was not some ordinary civilian; he was born an Uchiha.

When faced with something they could not explain, those above would naturally associate it with the Uchiha.

Even if Sarutobi Hiruzen insisted on getting to the bottom of it and demanded answers from the Uchiha clan head, it would be useless. There were plenty within the clan who opposed the clan head. If someone had casually reached out to support an orphan, who could say who it was?

Such a question was destined to remain unsolvable.

As for hiding his strength, it was still too early to think about that.

There were no practical combat classes in the first year of the Ninja Academy. Basic combat drills only began in the second year, which meant practicing preset moves.

True sparring matches would not become frequent until the fifth year.

Uchiha Hara recalled the curriculum.

"Before the fifth year, as long as I keep a low profile and do not take the initiative to provoke anyone, theoretically, I will have no chance of exposing my strength."

What about ninja battles in the fifth year?

There would be no fifth year at all. Because of the tense situation in the Ninja World, his class would not even reach the fifth year. They would graduate after finishing the fourth year.

Of course, the higher-ups might move basic combat training up to the fourth year.

But that was not much of a problem.

"With the Demon Refining Pot in hand, who knows how much I will have grown by then? Maybe by that time, exposing part of my strength will not matter. Or perhaps I will have found a more perfect way to conceal it."

Thinking of that, the small worry in his heart gradually faded away.

Future matters could wait until the future. Excessive anxiety was meaningless.

"So be it. I'll take things one step at a time."

He yawned, feeling the faint fatigue that came after his body absorbed the Blood Essence and Soul Essence. It was a sign that the Life Imprint and Soul Imprint were being slowly absorbed.

"As for now, I should sleep first. I still have school tomorrow!"