"Continue."
Withdrawing from his thoughts, Qingming stopped overthinking and raised his hand to resume practicing the Clone Technique.
However, as soon as he formed the seal, he realized that the chakra within his body was completely depleted—there wasn't enough to perform the technique again.
He opened the interface and took a quick glance. As expected, his chakra had nearly run out.
Recalling the memories in his mind, Qingming sat down cross-legged, focused his mind inward, and used his will to draw out the physical energy generated by his body's cells.
Then, he mixed it evenly with his mental energy. After a round of transformation, it turned into chakra and merged into the chakra pathways spread throughout his body.
As this process continued, the chakra in his body gradually became replenished.
······
An hour later.
Qingming opened his eyes.
"Interface!"
With a thought, Qingming brought up the proficiency interface.
**[Name: Uchiha Qingming
Age: 10
Constitution: 5
Spirit: 7
Chakra: 2 → 52 (125 → 126)
Bloodline: Sharingan · Not Awakened (51/100)
Skills: Chakra Refinement Technique: Lv0 (1/100)
Clone Technique: Lv0 (6/100)]**
Just like with the "Clone Technique," once he personally refined chakra for the first time, the interface showed a new skill called "Chakra Refinement Technique."
At level 0, the Chakra Refinement Technique increased his chakra capacity by one point and restored fifty points of chakra for every hour it was run.
At the same time, its proficiency also increased by one point.
It could be anticipated that as its level rose, the effects would certainly improve significantly.
Now, his growth rate might not compare to some geniuses—but that may not be the case in the future.
With that thought, Qingming stopped wasting time, refocused his mind, and once again closed his eyes to refine chakra.
······
Time ticked by, second by second.
In the blink of an eye, another hour passed.
Qingming opened his eyes and sensed the chakra within his body. It was nearly at its limit, so he stopped refining.
Of course, he couldn't continue refining anyway.
After all, chakra isn't created out of nothing—the process of refining it consumes both physical and mental energy.
Earlier, merging with the memories of his predecessor had already drained a lot of his mental strength. Then came thinking of countermeasures and exploring the functions of the interface—he was already mentally exhausted.
To keep going now wouldn't just be inefficient—it could even harm his foundation.
Given that, he might as well stop for the time being.
'Still, I can't let this chakra go to waste.'
With that thought, Qingming forced himself to stay alert. Recalling the memories in his mind, he once again began forming hand seals, trying to perform the Clone Technique.
A few minutes later, his chakra was exhausted. In total, Qingming had performed the Clone Technique five times.
As expected, all of them failed.
Thinking about it, that wasn't surprising. Even properly trained ninja school students usually take years to master the Three Basic Techniques. For someone like him—an outsider—to expect success after just a few attempts was pure fantasy.
Even with the inherited memories from his predecessor, he couldn't pull it off.
However, judging by the proficiency interface, he was already four-fifths of the way to success.
Now, the only thing holding back his progress was his chakra capacity.
But that wasn't something he could fix in a short time. He wasn't some prodigy blessed with an abundance of chakra at a young age.
At this stage, he could only develop step by step.
He looked up at the bright moon outside the window. Qingming stopped thinking further, washed up briefly, and returned to his bedroom.
Soon, the faint sound of snoring could be heard from inside the room.
Outside the window—
At some unknown time, a figure had appeared.
Crimson pupils shone especially bright in the darkness—it was clearly a member of the Uchiha clan who had awakened the Three Tomoe Sharingan.
He watched Qingming for a moment, then vanished silently.
······
The next day.
Morning.
Qingming awoke from his sleep, and the first thing he did was open the interface.
**[Name: Uchiha Qingming
Age: 10
Constitution: 5
Spirit: 7
Chakra: 37 (127)
Bloodline: Sharingan · Not Awakened (51/100)
Skills: Chakra Refinement Technique: Lv0 (2/100)
Clone Technique: Lv0 (19/100)]**
After confirming that everything wasn't just an illusion, he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Then, his gaze fell on the "Chakra" section.
He saw that, after a full night of rest, even though he hadn't intentionally refined any chakra, his body had naturally recovered over thirty points of chakra.
However, Qingming didn't immediately spend it—he still had to attend school today. If something came up and he had no chakra left, that would be quite troublesome.
In fact, he had considered taking a few days off to first convert the remnants left by his predecessor into something usable. But doing so might draw even more attention.
Given that, it was better to go to school!
That way, even if he slipped up a little, he could always explain it as a result of the sudden major changes in his life.
If he stayed cooped up at home and someone came looking for him, it would be much harder to cover up.
After weighing the pros and cons, Qingming decided to go to school as usual. As long as he kept a low profile, there shouldn't be any major problems.
Having made up his mind, Qingming stopped overthinking. He quickly got ready, ate something to fill his stomach, and headed straight to the Ninja Academy.
At this point in time, the Uchiha clan had not yet been forced to relocate to the village outskirts—they were still in the central district, not far from the academy.
So, Qingming arrived at school quickly.
Relying on his memories, he found his classroom. Along the way, a few people greeted him, to which he only nodded in return.
Fortunately, his predecessor, like many other Uchiha ninja, was naturally cold and aloof. Otherwise, pretending to be him would've been far more difficult.
Ding-ling-ling~
About ten minutes later, the class bell rang.
A ninja in his twenties entered the classroom. He was their homeroom teacher and also their subject teacher. His name was Sugi Kiitō (杉木一騰).
From his predecessor's memories, Qingming knew that, like most teachers at the academy, Kiitō didn't treat students differently based on their backgrounds.
Therefore, Qingming didn't need to worry about his Uchiha surname causing trouble.
As he was thinking this, he noticed that Sugi Kiitō glanced his way, which made Qingming's heart thump nervously.
Fortunately, the teacher didn't look for long and soon started the lesson.
Standing at the podium, whatever Sugi Kiitō was saying didn't register at all with Qingming—he was too busy wondering why the teacher had looked at him earlier.
He was certain it hadn't been a casual glance—Kiitō had definitely been observing him.
"Did he notice something?"
Qingming felt a wave of unease.
Ding-ling-ling~
Suddenly, the bell signaling the end of class rang.
Qingming snapped out of his daze—unbeknownst to him, an entire lesson had already passed.
Sugi Kiitō looked at the distracted Qingming and shook his head, saying nothing. He simply announced, "Class dismissed," and left the classroom.
As Qingming's teacher, he naturally knew about the death of his parents.
In fact, anytime a student in the class lost a close family member, he was informed. This was something the higher-ups in Konoha specifically ensured the teachers were aware of.
The reason, of course, was so teachers could provide timely emotional support to their students and prevent extreme behaviors.
Originally, he had planned to counsel Uchiha Qingming today.
But last night, a ninja from the Uchiha clan had already contacted him, telling him not to intervene. So, he didn't.
As for the Uchiha's motive—it was simple: they wanted to see if Qingming would awaken the Sharingan.
To the Uchiha elders, the loss of an average clan member was no big deal. But if that person awakened the Sharingan, then it would be a huge gain.
So, they didn't want Sugi Kiitō to interfere.
If it had been Iruka from the future, perhaps he would've insisted on supporting Qingming anyway. But Sugi Kiitō was different—his sense of responsibility wasn't that strong, so he simply went along with it.
And all of this, Qingming had no idea about. He was still feeling anxious over Kiitō's earlier glance.
However, after some thought, he more or less guessed that Kiitō probably meant him no harm.
Most likely, the teacher had simply learned about his parents' deaths and was giving him some extra attention.
"Phew—"
Once he figured that out, Qingming finally let out a breath of relief.
(End of Chapter)