Ever since he had successfully figured out this whole chakra business, Shinji had been positively pumped, completely addicted to the massive live-action VR game called "ninja training." Every day felt incredibly fulfilling (and boring).
The basic training routines were always the same: sitting cross-legged in meditation until his backside went numb, laboriously practicing water walking on the river (and falling in countless times), repeatedly scrambling up vertical tree trunks to practice tree climbing (and falling until he was black and blue), running with weights until his tongue lolled out... There was only one central goal-to tame the beast inside him called "chakra"!
In plain terms, he was training his fine control over chakra. Otherwise, he might unleash a ninjutsu that did nothing to the enemy but blew him up first. Now that would be a real joke.
After mastering basic control, he moved on to something Shinji had found unbearably cringeworthy in his previous life-hand seal practice!
Just imagine it: a bunch of grown men (or little brats) insisted on standing there before a fight, frantically twisting their fingers around like they were playing the piano, while shouting their moves at the top of their lungs... The secondhand embarrassment alone could make someone curl their toes hard enough to carve out an entire apartment!
Still, since he was here, he might as well settle in. Shinji soon discovered that he could not force the common sense of his previous life onto this world's underlying logic. Hand seals really were not just random gestures. Each of the twelve basic seals corresponded to a particular basic pattern of chakra circulation, serving as a standardized "interface" or "command module."
Of course, none of this was rigid. Even when different ninjutsu used the same seal, the subtle flow of chakra and its output could vary. Practicing hand seals essentially meant repeatedly imprinting these basic chakra-control "routines" into his muscles and chakra pathways.
To Shinji, a former code monkey, a ninjutsu was practically a "chakra program model" that needed to be compiled and run. Forming hand seals meant inputting a series of preset "code modules" (seals), guiding the chakra energy inside his body through a fixed "algorithm," and ultimately compiling it into a preset "special effect" (the ninjutsu's effect). As for shouting the technique's name? Hmm... That was probably to add a sense of ceremony, or purely to look cool! (Definitely.)
As a cheater with his own built-in system, Shinji progressed at lightning speed in basic control and hand seal practice. Naturally, the system chimed away and handed him several related achievements, such as [Walking on Level Ground] (water walking proficiency), [Sarutobi Possession] (tree climbing mastery), and [Hand Seals Expert] (basic seal proficiency), along with a smattering of skill points and talent points. Even scraps were worth something.
Oh, right. He had also gone ahead and opened the random B-rank talent pack and skill pack from his last [Growth] quest. The skill pack yielded [Fire Release (1/10)], giving him an early "entry permit" for Fire Release. His luck with the talent pack was worse: it only gave him two unallocated talent points, which he saved for a rainy day.
After spending some time "quietly farming" (mostly laying his foundations), Shinji felt that both his "mana bar" and his "control" were up to standard. So he began relentlessly pestering his father, Yamakaze, wheedling and hounding him without mercy.
Finally, one sunny afternoon, Yamakaze became so fed up with him (though he had actually planned this all along) that, wearing an expression that said "what am I going to do with you," he agreed to teach him the Uchiha Clan's signature introductory ninjutsu-Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
This C-rank ninjutsu, which required only six seals, held an undisputed place as number one within the Uchiha Clan! Developed by the Uchiha ancestors and refined over a thousand years, it had long since spread throughout the shinobi world. It was practically the "Hello World" of Fire Release ninjutsu! Anyone dabbling in Fire Release had to learn it first!
Although Shinji's hazy memories of his previous life gave this technique the embarrassing record of "appears constantly, but has zero wins (possibly finally scored in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations?)," earning it the nickname "Uchiha Friendship Technique" (mostly used for greetings and setting the mood), Shinji knew perfectly well that this technique was absolutely badass!
Six seals, a simple structure, fast execution (once mastered), efficient chakra use, adjustable power, effective at both short and medium range, and damage from both physical impact and searing flames... After a thousand years of refinement, it barely had any obvious weaknesses! Countless advanced Fire Release techniques had branched off from it, from Great Dragon Fire and Phoenix Flower Fire to even Lord Madara's Majestic Destroyer Flame. Trace them back to their roots, and the Great Fireball's influence was there in all of them! Calling it one of the foundations of the Uchiha Clan's thousand-year reputation was no exaggeration!
"Snake-Ram-Monkey-Boar-Horse-Tiger! Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
With that slightly childish but powerful shout, Shinji felt the chakra inside him surge toward his throat like floodwater through an opened gate, racing along a specific route, compressing, and then erupting outward!
"Whoosh-BOOM!!"
A blazing fireball nearly a meter across shot forward with a scorching rush of air and a roar, slammed into the specially constructed target in the distance, and burst into a brilliant mass of flames. Hot wind washed over his face!
"I did it!!!"
Watching the dancing flames, Shinji was so excited that he nearly jumped straight into the air! Though its size was far smaller than the one his father produced, this was the first proper ninjutsu of his life! A fireball! The kind that flew and exploded!
Since learning water walking and tree climbing, he had already tried plenty of tricks that had been impossible in his previous life. But compared with "spitting out a great big fireball with a PIA," their excitement was on an entirely different scale! The feeling of unleashing supernatural power with his own hands was simply addictive!
And so, Shinji Uchiha, the genuine King of Destruction, officially came online!
He became obsessed with "setting mountains on fire" (scratch that)... with using the Great Fireball Technique for all sorts of "artistic creations." His family's secret training room became his primary "crime scene." With the absurd chakra recovery provided by [Human Tailed Beast] and [Dharma Body], he could practice more than ten times as much as an ordinary child anyway! He was practically a walking artillery platform!
Watching his son's terrifying enthusiasm for training and enormous chakra reserves, Yamakaze felt both pleased and plagued by headaches. His son's talent pleased him; the skyrocketing repair bills for their training room gave him headaches. Eventually, after secretly reporting to clan leader Kagami Uchiha (primarily about Shinji's abnormal chakra reserves and recovery rate), he secured a more remote, sturdier private training ground for Shinji and let him wreak havoc to his heart's content.
Of course, Shinji could not spend all day holed up in the training ground playing "arsonist." A competent ninja needed all-round development. His taijutsu training could not stop, he had to study genjutsu theory, kenjutsu practice (thanks to [Clear Sword Heart]) was mandatory every day, and he also needed proficiency in the Three Basic Body Techniques (Transformation, Clone, and Substitution) as well as shuriken and kunai throwing.
As he continued learning, whenever he gained an initial grasp of a skill category, the system would give a timely "ding," unlocking achievements such as [First Steps: Taijutsu], [A Little Knowledge: Genjutsu], and [Effortless Execution: Throwing], rewarding him with a few skill points or attribute points.
There were never enough skill points. After weighing his options, Shinji adopted a "spread the love" strategy. He discovered that most skills cost very few skill points before reaching level 4 (usually one point bought one level). So he used his limited skill points to raise his main skills-Fire Release, Lightning Release, genjutsu, taijutsu, Throwing Technique, and the Three Basic Body Techniques-to level 4 first, ensuring a solid foundation across the board.
Swordsmanship (kenjutsu) was the sole exception. With the terrifying boost from his S-rank talent [Clear Sword Heart], he barely had to exert himself. Daily practice and a tiny investment of skill points easily pushed his swordsmanship to level 6! According to his father Yamakaze, in swordsmanship alone, Shinji was already no worse than the clan's chunin who specialized in kenjutsu! This often left Yamakaze watching his son practice with his sword and muttering to himself, "This little brat... Could he really be a sword prodigy? But we're Uchiha..."
As for ninjutsu, besides his primary focus on the Great Fireball and various C-rank and D-rank Fire Release variations (such as controlling the flames' shape and extending the duration of the blast), Shinji also picked up a simple C-rank Lightning Release technique-Lightning Strike. It lacked the Great Fireball's power, but its quick activation and hard-to-predict descending lightning made it useful as an unexpected supplementary attack.
Genjutsu was rather awkward. Having yet to awaken his Sharingan, Shinji could not even learn the Uchiha's most basic and most essential technique, Genjutsu: Sharingan. He had to settle for a few general C-rank and D-rank genjutsu, such as [Hell Viewing Technique], which showed people visions of what they feared, or [Mist Servant Technique], which created simple visual interference. Yamakaze's assessment of his genjutsu was: "Your execution of the techniques is quite decent, and your chakra control is fine. But your timing, your approach, and the precision of the illusions you construct fall far short of the instinctive flair you show with ninjutsu."
As for the Three Basic Body Techniques:
- Transformation Technique: Turning into inanimate objects like trees and rocks was effortless. But transforming into a particular person and mimicking their expressions, tone, and little mannerisms required tremendous skill and extensive observation and practice. Shinji did not have the energy to study that in depth for now.
- Clone Technique & Substitution Technique: These two techniques placed greater emphasis on activation speed and timing. For Shinji, whose reaction attribute was as high as 10 and who possessed the passive [Intuition], activating them quickly had practically become muscle memory. The challenge was using them at exactly the right moment during intense combat to confuse an enemy or evade a fatal attack.
For taijutsu, kenjutsu, and Throwing Technique, he studied the Uchiha Clan's inherited systems, honed through countless trials. They came with a whole heap of move names, such as "Uchiha Style Taijutsu: Roaring Fist," "Uchiha Style Swordsmanship: Gale," and "Uchiha Style Shurikenjutsu: Eight Directions." They sounded intimidating, but Shinji felt that, at their core, they were still about power generation, attack angles, and the supporting use of chakra.
All things considered, at only six years old, Shinji Uchiha's actual combat strength had already firmly surpassed that of most fresh-faced genin newly graduated from the Ninja Academy. His chakra reserves rivaled a chunin's, he was proficient in his core ninjutsu (the Great Fireball), his swordsmanship was astonishing, his foundations in taijutsu, throwing, and the like were solid, and he had a whole stack of powerful talents as trump cards...
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