“The mission’s over. Let’s head back.”
Kakashi pulled his forehead protector down again, concealing his Sharingan.
Sasuke stared at him.
“Where did you get your Sharingan?”
“My best friend gave it to me.”
With that, Kakashi took the lead and walked away, clearly unwilling to say anything more.
Seeing this, Sasuke could only suppress his curiosity and follow.
On the way back—
“Naruto-kun, what’s the Sharingan?” Sakura asked.
“It’s a rare and powerful dōjutsu unique to the Uchiha clan,” Naruto explained.
“Unique to the Uchiha clan?”
Sakura looked toward Sasuke, apparently wondering whether he had the Sharingan too.
Noticing her gaze, Naruto said, “Sasuke has the Sharingan, but his isn’t strong enough yet, so you normally don’t see him use it.”
“Is that really true?”
Sakura looked at Naruto suspiciously.
Someone as talented as Sasuke possessed a weak version of his clan’s dōjutsu?
If Naruto knew what Sakura was thinking, he would definitely tell her that Sasuke’s talent was actually pretty average.
His entire clan had been slaughtered, and all that rage had only awakened a One-Tomoe Sharingan.
Excluding Uchiha who couldn’t awaken the Sharingan at all, it was hard to find anyone with worse talent than Sasuke.
When night fell—
“We’ll rest here for tonight,” Kakashi said.
“This is also a good opportunity for me to give you some training.”
“Really?”
Sakura immediately became excited.
She had been looking forward to this training for a long time.
“I’ll pass. You guys have fun.”
Naruto casually picked a tree, walked straight up its trunk, reached a branch, and lay down to sleep.
Seeing this, Kakashi naturally understood that Naruto genuinely had no need for this particular training.
“Whoa! How is Naruto walking on the tree?” Sakura exclaimed.
“That’s exactly what the two of you will be training next—tree climbing.”
Kakashi proceeded to explain the principles and techniques involved in the tree-climbing exercise. This story is hosted at novelping.com.
Sakura and Sasuke immediately began training in earnest.
Sakura possessed exceptional talent when it came to chakra control.
She succeeded in walking up the tree on her very first attempt.
Sasuke did considerably worse.
After countless attempts, he had fallen so many times that his body was covered in scrapes and bruises.
Naruto, who had been trying to sleep in the tree, found himself unable to rest because of all the noise.
Since he was awake anyway, he decided he might as well do some training of his own.
“Kakashi-sensei, I’m going to hunt something for dinner.”
Using that as an excuse, Naruto casually left the other three behind.
What he was about to train couldn’t be allowed to come to their attention.
“Sharingan, activate!”
[Ding! Detected the host training the Sharingan. Your Sharingan has worked extremely hard and awakened its second tomoe!]
Naruto’s eyes instantly transformed into the Sharingan.
Two tomoe slowly revolved within each crimson iris.
Naruto muttered to himself,
“I haven’t even gotten used to the One-Tomoe Sharingan yet, and now I’ve already awakened the second tomoe.”
“Tsk, tsk. Sasuke, oh Sasuke… how are you supposed to compete with me?”
Thinking about how Sasuke had awakened his Sharingan at the age of eight and, four years later, was still stuck at one tomoe, Naruto couldn’t help finding it amusing.
“Let’s test its abilities.”
“The Sharingan’s abilities include copying, hypnosis, and enhanced perception.”
The so-called hypnosis was essentially genjutsu—one of the Sharingan’s innate abilities.
“Shadow Clone Jutsu!”
Naruto created a clone.
Then he immediately used the Sharingan’s hypnotic genjutsu on his own Shadow Clone!
His Sharingan spun.
The clone showed absolutely no reaction.
[Ding! Detected that the host’s genjutsu is complete garbage. Your genjutsu has decided to work hard and derived a new technique: Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death!]
“…”
Naruto felt like the System had just insulted him.
And he had evidence.
He originally wanted to test its copying ability next.
But then he realized something.
Anything his clone knew, his real body already knew too.
So what the hell was he supposed to copy?
Left with no other option, Naruto decided to test the Sharingan’s enhanced perception instead.
The Sharingan’s insight allowed its user to observe the flow and changes of chakra, while also dramatically improving the eyes’ ability to track external movement.
Naruto ordered his clone to perform a ninjutsu.
Sure enough, he could clearly see the chakra flowing through the clone’s body.
He could also make out every tiny detail of the clone’s movements!
“So that’s how the copying ability works?”
Hand seals plus chakra flow equaled the activation of a ninjutsu.
That was the principle behind copying ninjutsu with the Sharingan.
However, the limitations of this ability were equally obvious.
Extremely complex S-rank ninjutsu simply couldn’t be copied.
That was why an ordinary Uchiha with a Three-Tomoe Sharingan could usually only reach around Jōnin level.
They simply couldn’t copy S-rank techniques!
The Sharingan could copy taijutsu as well.
However, S-rank taijutsu such as the Eight Gates also exceeded the limits of its copying ability.
After finishing his experiments with the Sharingan, Naruto moved on to training his second major gain from today.
Ox—Hare—Monkey.
“Lightning Release: Chidori!”
[Ding! Through the host’s diligent training, Chidori’s mastery has reached Proficiency level!]
Judging by how the System usually operated, as long as Naruto kept using and training Chidori a few more times in the future, he would eventually learn all the techniques derived from it as well!
The road to becoming stronger really was so dull and tedious.
“Chidori really does need to be paired with the Sharingan. Without it, this is an incomplete technique that can’t properly be used.”
After using Chidori only once, Naruto had already noticed its weakness.
Of course, that weakness was only relative.
Since Naruto possessed the Sharingan, Chidori’s flaw might as well not exist.
Naruto dispelled the Chidori, and his eyes returned to normal.
“I need to find a way to hide my Sharingan.”
“Otherwise, I won’t be able to use it openly in future battles.”