Garbage Ninjutsu · Artifact Refining Templates

After taking stock of the three mountains of books, ninjutsu scrolls, and funds, Uchiha Hara turned his attention to the other supplies piled inside the Demon Refining Pot's space.

The first things that met his "eyes" were the dazzling array of weapons and armor.

After carefully tallying them, Uchiha Hara came up with the following list:

Kunai: 80,000, gleaming coldly, piled into mountains.

Shuriken: 400,000, all manner of models included, enough to wage a small-scale war.

Standard ninja swords: 6,000, uniform in design, clearly standard family equipment.

Chainmail: 30 sets, finely crafted with impressive defensive power.

Scale armor: 600 sets, light and flexible, suitable for ninja operations.

Unusual ninja swords: 4,000, slightly different in form, perhaps intended for specific tactics or personal preferences.

Among these standard weapons, one blade stood out in particular.

Uchiha Hara remembered taking this sword down from Uchiha Jiang's wall.

Its scabbard was ancient and simple. When he drew it, the blade was straight as a ruler, 1.2 meters long, single-edged, and surprisingly fashioned in the rare style of a Tang saber!

The chilling edge was covered in intricate, beautiful irregular temper patterns, showing that exceptionally advanced clay-tempering or some other complex forging process had been used.

Two elegant characters were engraved on the guard—Autumn Rain.

With a thought, Uchiha Hara tried channeling a trace of chakra into it.

The chakra flowed smoothly through the entire blade like a stream joining a river, causing the edge to emit a faint, nearly imperceptible glow!

"Chakra metal! This is a chakra blade!" Uchiha Hara was delighted.

Chakra metal could perfectly conduct and amplify chakra. It was a weapon material dreamed of by countless ninja.

Unfortunately, this metal was exceedingly rare. Even the Hokage had difficulty obtaining it. Because Asuma had so little chakra metal, he had only made two palm-sized Flying Swallows.

Yet this "Autumn Rain" was a full 1.2 meters long. The amount of chakra metal used was obvious.

A famous blade, unquestionably a famous blade!

What a pity. This blade was stolen goods, so Uchiha Hara really did not dare use it openly.

Next came the consumables:

Explosive Tags: 2 million!

The number made Uchiha Hara's eyelids twitch. These things were hard currency; whether for actual combat, setting traps, or "selling for money" in the future, there was more than enough.

Storage scrolls:

Small (capacity < 1,000 cubic centimeters): 1,200, able to hold only one ninja sword or a large number of shuriken.

Medium (capacity about 0.5 cubic meters): 420, versatile in use.

Large (capacity about 1 cubic meter): 24, practically strategic-grade storage equipment.

Then there were all kinds of metal materials, sorted into categories in staggering quantities:

Wrought iron: 124 tons

Tungsten: 49 tons

Chromium: 8 tons

Copper: 46 tons

Silver: 42 tons

Gold: 7 tons

There were also over a hundred tons of minerals Uchiha Hara did not recognize.

Moreover, what delighted Uchiha Hara most was the chakra metal—170 kilograms of it!

This was very likely the Uchiha Clan's accumulation over many years.

Outside, chakra metal was sold by the gram.

These 170 kilograms of chakra metal were immeasurably valuable, perhaps even worth more than the 2.5 billion in funds Uchiha Hara had obtained earlier!

There was also one summoning contract scroll each for ninja crows, ninja hawks, and ninja tigers, along with mountains of medicinal herbs. Combined with the prescriptions he had acquired earlier, they were enough to produce highly effective healing medicine, body-tempering ointment, and medicinal bath concoctions.

Looking at resources rich enough to rival a nation and sufficient to arm a powerful clan, Uchiha Hara felt little joy. Instead, an indescribable anger and sorrow welled up inside him.

"So many resources... If even a fraction had been used on the clansmen, training the younger generation, and compensating the wounded and fallen, the Uchiha Clan's strength could have increased tenfold with ease! Yet it was all left to gather dust in a warehouse..."

He could almost foresee that, in the future of the original story, most of this wealth would probably end up benefiting Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzo.

The scene felt somewhat familiar to Uchiha Hara. It reminded him of the Chongzhen era during the late Ming Dynasty, when the emperor asked his ministers to contribute money to fight the rebel army and received only 200,000 taels.

Yet when Li Zicheng's army entered the city and tortured officials for their wealth, they uncovered 70 million taels.

"Even if some of these supplies were used during the Third Shinobi World War, the Uchiha should never have been at the front, serving as cannon fodder! The Sarutobi Clan has so many people, yet they keep themselves hidden away. Why the hell were the Uchiha trying so hard? Using it in the war would have been a waste anyway!"

Suppressing his emotions, Uchiha Hara turned his attention to the three most precious S-Rank ninjutsu scrolls.

Water Release: Five Dragon Bullet Technique: Summoned five enormous water dragons to strike the enemy with overwhelming spectacle.

After reading the hand seals and description, Uchiha Hara gave it a brief assessment: flashy but useless!

Water Release was not known for pure destructive power to begin with, and its wind-up was long while its speed was slow.

And it summoned five dragons? Did the user have chakra burning a hole in their pocket?

It could also easily miss against speed-based ninja.

After spending that much chakra just to hit empty air, that ninja would probably have their faith in the ninja way shattered on the spot.

Garbage!

Earth-Water Composite Ninjutsu: Mud Tide Technique: Mixed Water Release chakra into the earth to create a vast swamp, trapping enemies and even binding tailed beasts.

After reading the ninjutsu, Uchiha Hara continued his assessment: obsolete ninjutsu.

This technique had too many requirements—both Earth and Water natures—and consumed enormous amounts of chakra! Yet its effects were nearly identical to Underworld Swamp.

But Underworld Swamp could achieve similar results with a single nature.

Therefore, it was a ninjutsu rendered obsolete by Underworld Swamp. That was why it was outdated.

He had no idea what era this technique had been passed down from.

Genjutsu: Izanami: A genjutsu that set cause and effect, intended to make the target recognize themself and return from a misguided path. The price was the caster permanently losing sight in one Sharingan.

Uchiha Hara knew this technique. Uchiha Itachi had used it on Kabuto. His assessment was simple: a saintly ninjutsu. It had been created to protect the clan, so it had no killing power, yet it required sacrificing one of the user's own eyes. The price was far too great.

Uchiha Chiri had been so powerful, so talented, yet she had gone blind because she used this technique.

Uchiha Hara had always believed that mercy toward enemies was cruelty toward oneself. He would never give his enemies a chance to reform. He would only send them into the Demon Refining Pot's cycle of reincarnation.

So this technique did not suit him.

In summary, these three techniques were all pretty mediocre!

"The secret techniques hidden by the Uchiha Third Elder amounted to this?" Uchiha Hara frowned. He did not know whether the Uchiha had stored all their good ninjutsu with the clan head, or whether Madara had taken them all when he defected from the village.

But he quickly thought of something else: the S, A, B, C, and D rankings for ninjutsu were mainly based on learning difficulty, not combat effectiveness or cost-performance.

This meant that while the power of most ninjutsu was tied to learning difficulty, there were indeed many high-level ninjutsu that were difficult to learn yet not particularly useful.

He believed a more practical evaluation system was needed. "Beyond learning difficulty, ninjutsu should be evaluated across dimensions such as chakra consumption, technique power, activation speed, and applicable situations, then divided into four grades: excellent, good, ordinary, and garbage."

"Techniques like Five Dragon Bullet and Mud Tide Technique are clearly garbage-grade. Rasengan, Chidori, and Earth-Style Wall are easy to learn and practical, so they are excellent. Flying Thunder God is difficult to learn, but its strategic value is unmatched, making it excellent as well."

"Still, I can put aside the matter of ninjutsu rankings for now. Ninjutsu is not the core of my current cultivation." Uchiha Hara put away the scrolls.

His gaze fell once more upon the ready-made kunai, shuriken, swords, and Explosive Tags. As he looked at them, inspiration suddenly struck.

"When refining artifacts, I always have to experiment with material compositions and ratios. Since I have so many successful 'samples,' why not use them directly as 'templates'?"

He had no plans to sell weapons externally, so naturally, he would choose the best possible template.

His gaze settled on—Autumn Rain.

Of course, all man-made objects had flaws, and Autumn Rain was no exception.

With a thought, Uchiha Hara controlled the Demon Refining Pot's power and enveloped Autumn Rain completely, conducting a thorough "refinement" to remove its minute impurities, even out its molecular structure, and optimize its chakra channels.

A moment later, the reappearing Autumn Rain gleamed with even colder light. A layer of spiritual radiance faintly flowed over its blade, and its quality had clearly risen to another level!

With the optimized Autumn Rain as his material template, Uchiha Hara began making bold attempts.

He took out the corresponding metal materials, especially the precious chakra metal, and began refining according to the template's structure and material ratios.

Very soon:

A longsword sharing the same origin as Autumn Rain but more slender and fierce in shape took form. He named it—Winter's Endurance.

A straight, powerful spear with a spearhead flashing deadly cold light was born. He named it—White Dragon.

A steel recurve bow with a more rational structure and fine flow-guiding runes spread across its body—imitating Autumn Rain's chakra channels—was completed. He named it—Starlight.

Finally, he added new materials to the composite bow he had refined earlier and reforged it for optimization. Its body became smoother and tougher, and he named it—Setting Sun.

This bow had a higher technical content, so he decided to use it only on missions where he could ensure there would be no survivors.

As for the Starlight bow, it was a recurve bow. Though its appearance was gorgeous, its technology was relatively ordinary, so he could publicly use it after graduation.

After finishing all this, Uchiha Hara discovered another change in the Demon Refining Pot.

After continuously refining river water over the past several days—something he did on the side while cultivating and meditating at night—the space inside the pot had expanded to 240 cubic meters!

If the miscellaneous items he had stored inside were excluded, its space was nearly as large as his remodeled training ground.

Moreover, some live fish he had placed inside remained fresh and alive within the pot's space, despite being in time stasis.

"Since it can store living things... can I go inside?" A bold thought surfaced.

His training ground was large, but it was fine only for sword and fist practice. Practicing archery or spearmanship there would make too much noise.

If he could cultivate inside the pot's space, especially practicing activities that required room such as archery and spearmanship, it would undoubtedly be far more convenient.

But he did not dare try it for now.

"What if time stops for me after I enter, or I go in and can't get back out?"

He suppressed the tempting thought, but his heart was filled with anticipation.

The Demon Refining Pot was still being repaired. As its restoration level increased in the future, perhaps the interior could evolve into a space with a normal flow of time, or even... a small world?

After all, a Supreme-Grade Innate Spirit Treasure containing its own universe was perfectly reasonable.

Forget a small space—even if a vast world were hidden inside, Uchiha Hara felt it would be entirely possible!