Quantified Training · Explosive Talent Growth

Having confirmed the terrifying growth rate brought by the Demon Refining Pot, Uchiha Hara did not let it go to his head. Instead, he became even more composed.

He knew well that only by quantifying everything and maintaining precise control could he maximize the efficiency of this opportunity.

After a full day of deliberate testing and record-keeping, he obtained key data regarding the digestion of Soul Essence.

"Just as I thought, my soul foundation is far from ordinary." Uchiha Hara looked at the times he had recorded and understood.

Without engaging in any additional activities, a single Soul Essence took only five hours to digest.

That was far shorter than the nine-hour baseline digestion time of Blood Essence, undoubtedly confirming his guess—whether it was the innate advantage of Uchiha bloodline or the benefits of two lifetimes' souls merging, the foundation of his "spirit" was exceptionally strong.

One unit of his spirit was roughly equivalent to two units of essence.

In Ninja World terms, his spiritual energy was twice his physical energy.

And chakra was formed through a one-to-one fusion of physical energy and spiritual energy.

Clearly, the formula for his qi was not quite (essence + spirit)/2. It should equal essence instead.

At the same time, he discovered that deep meditation, swordsmanship practice, and Tai Chi could all effectively accelerate the absorption of Soul Essence.

While in a highly focused training state, the digestion time of Soul Essence could even be compressed to under three hours.

"In that case, the refinement speed of Blood Essence has become the bottleneck..." After a brief consideration, Uchiha Hara made his decision.

To make time management easier and ensure that his essence and spirit developed in synchronized balance, he decided to take Blood Essence and Soul Essence together.

An hour-by-hour schedule took shape in his mind:

8 a.m.: Wake up and take the first set of [Blood Essence + Soul Essence].

4 p.m.: Return home after school and take the second set of [Blood Essence + Soul Essence].

8 p.m.: Finish evening taijutsu and swordsmanship training, then take the third set of [Blood Essence + Soul Essence].

12 a.m.: Continue practicing boxing and swordsmanship beneath the Naka River, then take the fourth set of [Blood Essence + Soul Essence].

This way, relying on external resources each day, he could gain "essence" +0.004 and "spirit" +0.004. Adding his natural growth of 0.001, his total daily growth would reach 0.005!

From Monday to Friday, that would be 0.025 in five days.

On the two weekend days, he would not need to attend school and would be free of academic obligations. He could train to his heart's content, increasing the consumption frequency to one set every four hours, for a daily gain of 0.007 and 0.014 over two days.

Altogether, his weekly growth would reach a staggering 0.039!

Looking at the three values that had already reached balance on the panel—[Essence: 1.109] [Qi: 1.109] [Spirit: 1.109]—he felt a deep sense of control.

To make up for the slight lag in his spirit attribute caused by the cat corpses he had previously obtained from the market only providing Blood Essence, he deliberately consumed an extra Soul Essence, bringing all three values into perfect alignment.

The next day was the weekend. After Uchiha Hara escorted Kurenai Yuhi to her doorstep, she grabbed him just as he was about to leave and asked expectantly, "There's no school tomorrow. Do you want to come to my house and play?"

However, Uchiha Hara shook his head helplessly, his tone full of apology and regret. "Sorry, Kurenai. My clan arranged training tasks for me over the weekend."

Uchiha Hara could still tell which mattered more: romance or strength.

Dating at school was fine. School was a waste of time anyway. But if she wanted to take up his after-school training time, that was absolutely out of the question!

Especially on weekends, when he needed to seize every second for training. Matters of the heart could only be set aside for now.

After seeing off the slightly disappointed Kurenai, Uchiha Hara returned home and immediately began renovating his residence.

With a thought, all the unnecessary tables, chairs, and clutter were swept into the Demon Refining Pot's storage space.

Useless trash was directly refined and converted into negligible yet tangible energy.

As for the non-load-bearing walls that would have caused a great deal of noise to demolish, they too were swallowed by the Demon Refining Pot's storage power as though devoured by an invisible maw, transformed into basic particles and absorbed by the space within the pot.

In just one hour, a spacious training room of nearly one hundred square meters, connecting the master bedroom, second bedroom, and living room, had begun to take shape.

The training room was empty, sturdy, and large. Aside from several pillars in the middle, everything was perfect, enough for him to train as freely as he pleased.

Afterward, he consumed the ninth Fish Blood Essence.

As the energy of the Blood Essence merged into his body, it seemed to touch some critical threshold.

His [Enhanced Stamina] talent, originally only green-grade, suddenly burst forth with brilliant blue light after accumulating nine white fragments!

[Enhanced Stamina (Blue)]!

A fuller, tougher sensation of strength instantly filled every limb and bone.

Uchiha Hara took a deep breath, brought over a basin of water, and submerged his face in it to begin testing.

Sure enough, his underwater breath-holding time had increased dramatically from its previous limit of three minutes to seven minutes!

He then began practicing boxing and swordsmanship again.

After his stamina talent advanced, he found that the fatigue brought on by his daily high-intensity martial arts and swordsmanship training had noticeably decreased, while his recovery speed after exhaustion had become faster as well.

"If blue is already this effective, then what about advancing to red, or even higher, to gold..." Uchiha Hara felt his heart burn with anticipation.

According to the Demon Refining Pot's feedback, advancing a talent to red required twenty-seven fragments of the same type. He steadily refined thirty-two fish every month, so reaching that goal was just around the corner.

That night, he headed to the Naka River to train and catch some fish along the way, only for an unexpected incident to occur.

He unexpectedly found a cabbage snake crawling slowly along!

Uchiha Hara was startled at first, then treated it like a priceless treasure. He immediately caught the cabbage snake and sent it into the Demon Refining Pot.

Thus, that night's planned "Fish Blood Essence" became "Snake Blood Essence."

"Fish Soul Essence" also became "Snake Soul Essence."

After refinement, light flashed, and a brand-new talent appeared on the panel:

[Infrared Vision (Green)]!

This talent even had a switch, allowing him to decide whether to activate or deactivate it.

It was nighttime, so Uchiha Hara naturally chose to activate it.

The instant he activated the talent, the world before his eyes changed completely.

It was no longer pure darkness, but a blurry red-and-green thermal radiation image.

Though the details were unclear, the outlines and movements of living creatures were plainly visible.

Combined with his normal vision, he could clearly distinguish the surrounding environment and living things even in the dead of night.

Through this strange vision, he was surprised to discover that this riverside grove, which usually appeared so quiet, was actually so "lively."

Squirrels emitting faint heat crouched on branches. Field mice and moles lurked in the grass, and even pheasants fluttered past.

The cold bodies of snakes had nowhere to hide under Infrared Vision, let alone the crows, magpies, and owls hopping on branches, sleeping in nests, or gliding through the night sky.

Uchiha Hara's heart stirred. He stopped swimming and began hunting in the woods instead.

With his newly acquired Infrared Vision and Cat's Coordination, he silently captured eight mice, along with one crow, one magpie, and one owl.

His reason for catching mice was clear: to raise [Enhanced Perception] to blue.

As for the intelligent creatures like crows, magpies, and owls, he was curious what surprises they might bring him.

The two days flew by amid focused training and digestion.

On Monday morning, Uchiha Hara summoned the panel:

[Individual Status Panel]

Essence: 1.121 (+0.012)

Qi: 1.121 (+0.012)

Spirit: 1.121 (+0.012)

[Talents]

Enhanced Perception (Blue) (Advanced from green, fused with a large number of rodent perception fragments)

Enhanced Stamina (Blue)

Cat's Coordination (Green)

Steel Bones and Iron Muscles (Blue)

Skin Color Change (Green)

Infrared Vision (Green)

Spirit Illusion (Green) (New - from crow)

Memory Enhancement (Green) (New - from magpie)

Low-Light Vision (Green) (New - from owl)

Three-Dimensional Balance (Green) (New - from squirrel)

[Chakra Attributes]

Fire, Earth

[Skills]

Tai Chi

Uchiha Style Swordsmanship

Leaf Style Taijutsu

Kunai Throwing

Shuriken Throwing

[Ninjutsu]

Fireball Jutsu

The instant Enhanced Perception advanced to blue, Uchiha Hara felt the world become clearer than ever before.

His vision improved greatly, making the veins of distant leaves seem almost within reach. His hearing became sharper as well, allowing him to easily distinguish the chirps of insects and calls of birds carried on the wind.

What delighted him most was that even without activating the Sharingan, his normal dynamic vision had received a massive enhancement. Within his sight, high-speed objects seemed to slow slightly in their trajectories, already rivaling the dynamic tracking ability of the One-Tomoe Sharingan!

The newly acquired talents brought him one surprise after another:

Spirit Illusion (Green): This talent came from the crow.

Perhaps because crows were so intelligent, and because crows in the Ninja World had been contracted by two powerful genjutsu-type ninjas, this crow had actually given him a talent related to thought and genjutsu.

This power lingered in his mind, making his thoughts more agile while also granting him an innate insight into the fine control of spiritual energy within chakra. Learning genjutsu in the future would surely yield twice the results with half the effort.

Memory Enhancement (Green): This talent came from the magpie.

Magpies were also quite intelligent, and their memories were astonishing. They could remember thousands of locations where they stored food.

After Uchiha Hara gained this talent, the effects were immediate. He tried recalling the ninjutsu scrolls he had read, the books and novels he had seen before transmigrating, and the music he had heard. Details that had once been blurry were now crystal clear, almost as if he possessed photographic memory.

With this talent, he felt like he could even become a plagiarist.

Low-Light Vision (Green): This talent came from the owl.

Owls possessed extremely powerful night vision. Combined with the moisture-retaining nictitating membrane, their night vision was five times that of cats. Their overlapping forward-facing fields of vision provided stereoscopic distance judgment, allowing them to accurately lock onto prey.

Uchiha Hara discovered that this talent actually complemented [Infrared Vision], allowing him to see the contours and details of objects even in extremely faint light. It also brought his judgment of depth and distance to an incredibly precise level.

In future nighttime battles, he would hold an absolute advantage.

He also considered that perhaps all his future hunting could be done at night.

Three-Dimensional Balance (Green): This talent came from the squirrel. Squirrels had extremely strong balance, and after Uchiha Hara gained this talent, combined with his existing [Cat's Coordination], he felt that his sense of balance had reached an inconceivable realm.

Whether sprinting across narrow railings, leaping between tree branches, or stepping on the smooth walls of a water vat, his body moved as though on level ground, his center of gravity as steady as a rock.

For a ninja who needed to fly through the sky, burrow through the earth, run across water, and climb cliffs, the importance of balance went without saying.

Having gained several talents, Uchiha Hara's strength naturally underwent another surge.

With a weapon in hand, murderous intent arose.

Unfortunately, he had no one to test his moves on, leaving him unable to gauge exactly what level his strength had reached.

If he found someone to spar with, though, he feared exposing himself.

"I really want to find someone who won't reveal my information, then have a fight!" Uchiha Hara sighed.

On Monday, just after returning home from school and setting down his bag, Uchiha Hara heard a faint sound from the windowsill.

Uchiha Hara looked up and saw Kuromai elegantly leap inside, a trace of task-completed laziness and pride on his feline face.

"Meow~ Little Hara, this great one has already investigated the matter you assigned."