[Option 1: Custom Dojutsu Mangekyo Sharingan]
[Option 2: Adaptive Sharingan]
Straight to the point!
Judging from the options the first time, the System probably wouldn’t give multiple-choice questions where the answer was immediately obvious—Wood Release and Sage Body each had their pros and cons.
If Hanyu Bai had transmigrated to Konoha during the reigns of the First or Second Hokage, or even early Third Hokage, he would have chosen Wood Release as his first cheat without hesitation!
Looking at it this way, the two options provided by the System this time were likely evenly matched, with no huge gap in power between them.
Mangekyo Sharingan: Bai understood that selecting it would instantly turn him into a formidable Kage-level shinobi!
Plus, with the custom dojutsu condition, Bai could easily choose Kamui in both eyes as his Mangekyo abilities.
With his Sage Body’s physical condition and recovery speed, while it might not match the Eternal Mangekyo, he wouldn’t go blind at every turn.
Stacking the Sage Body with a dual-Kamui Mangekyo Sharingan, Bai could even rival a slightly weaker Beyond-Kage level powerhouse!
But this “Adaptive Sharingan”—Bai truly didn’t quite understand…
As if sensing Bai’s confusion, the System thoughtfully provided an explanation.
The so-called Adaptive Sharingan was essentially a pair of Sharingan that grew alongside Bai himself: if Bai possessed Genin-level strength, he would unlock one tomoe; at Chunin-level, the Sharingan would automatically evolve into two tomoe; Jonin-level meant three tomoe, and so forth.
Kage-level meant Mangekyo, Beyond-Kage meant Eternal Mangekyo, and Six Paths level meant Rinnegan!
This upgrade was passive, meaning Bai couldn’t trigger emotional fluctuations to raise the Sharingan’s level like true Uchiha clan members could.
At the same time, the Sharingan would only evolve once Bai’s base strength reached the required threshold.
External power boosts like opening the Eight Gates or activating Sage Mode could not stimulate the Sharingan’s evolution.
Furthermore, the Adaptive Sharingan definitely wouldn’t allow custom dojutsu selection.
In short, Option 1 was strong in the present, while Option 2 was strong for the future!
After weighing the pros and cons of both options, Bai fell into deep thought.
In reality, even if he chose the custom-dojutsu Mangekyo Sharingan, there might still be opportunities to evolve it to the Eternal Mangekyo or even the Rinnegan in the future, but it would be troublesome—extremely troublesome, with low odds.
To put it simply, Bai was not an Uchiha.
Leave aside siblings, he didn’t even have a single blood relative!
What’s more, in Konoha Year 58, the Uchiha clan would be wiped out!
On the surface, the annihilation of the Uchiha clan was carried out by Itachi Uchiha; in reality, it was an inside job coordinated between Konoha’s F4 and Obito Uchiha.
Even if Bai possessed the Kamui Mangekyo, he couldn’t stop this tragedy.
If Bai could change the minds of even one of Shisui Uchiha or Itachi Uchiha, with his advantage of foresight, there might still be room to maneuver.
Unfortunately, this year was Konoha Year 57, and Shisui Uchiha had just died last year…
Even if Bai could quietly save one or two Uchiha clan members, he couldn’t guarantee they’d awaken the Mangekyo.
Those were just the basic conditions; subsequent steps involved bloodline and gene experiments, which might require dealing with Orochimaru—one chain linking to another, not only troublesome, but highly dangerous!
And Bai hated trouble most of all!
Either way, before graduating, Bai didn’t have anything special he urgently wanted to do, so he might as well solve the problem once and for all!
“I choose Option 2: Adaptive Sharingan!”
As his voice fell, a refreshing, cool sensation flooded his eyes, followed immediately by a sharp, piercing pain!
The sudden agony caused Bai to cry out.
His teeth gritted together with a creak, and cold sweat poured down, soaking his collar within a few breaths!
For a full quarter of an hour, the sensation slowly receded.
The piercing pain in his eyes was replaced by cool clarity.
Bai could feel the active Yin nature chakra in his eyes.
When he opened them again, the entire world seemed completely transformed—both dynamic vision and static vision were enhanced to unprecedented heights!
Bai walked over to the mirror and saw that his original black pupils had been replaced by a pair of Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
The two pairs of tomoe spun slowly in his sockets, exuding an eerie, wicked allure…
“Two tomoe?” Bai touched the corner of his eye, murmuring to himself.
According to Bai’s understanding, with the Sharingan unlocked, he definitely possessed Special Jonin-level strength now, yet the Sharingan remained at only two tomoe.
It seemed the System didn’t acknowledge Special Jonin as true Jonin!
Or perhaps the System didn’t count the Sharingan’s combat boost into his base power rating.
Next, Bai tried deactivating the Sharingan.
Fortunately, the Sharingan provided by the System didn’t suffer from glaring flaws; like an instinct, Bai deactivated the Sharingan with ease.
Looking at his pitch-black pupils restored in the mirror, Bai let out a sigh of relief.
Although he had confidence in the System, Bai wasn’t an Uchiha after all.
If he couldn’t turn it off like Kakashi, he’d be forced to wear an eyepatch or sunglasses like Kakashi or Shino Aburame.
What made Bai happiest, however, was the primary ability the Sharingan granted him: copying!
The One-Tomoe Sharingan was known as the Eye of Insight, the Two-Tomoe as the Eye of Copying, and the Three-Tomoe as the Eye of Genjutsu or Hypnosis.
Among these three abilities, the copying capability was what Bai craved most!
After unlocking two tomoe, Sasuke copied Lee’s Primary Lotus starter move on the spot and used it as a foundation to create the Lion Combo.
Kakashi even built his legendary reputation as the “Copy Ninja” using the Sharingan’s copying power, directly duplicating over a thousand jutsu!
What Bai lacked most right now was ninjutsu!
All counted, Bai only possessed two B-rank ninjutsu and one B-rank Genjutsu.
The Rasengan he hadn’t started learning yet counted as an A-rank jutsu, but that was it.
The rest were C-rank and D-rank jutsu of limited power.
Kurenai Yuhi and Anko Mitarashi were willing to teach him, but for his safety, neither would teach him overly powerful jutsu; teaching C-rank jutsu was their limit.
Kurenai still felt guilty whenever she recalled teaching Bai Tree Bind Death!
It wasn’t wartime anymore.
Both Kurenai and Anko wished for Bai to enjoy a wonderful childhood rather than blindly pursuing power.
Bai couldn’t explain his situation—he couldn’t very well confess that inside his six-year-old kid body lived the soul of an adult man!
Now that he had the Two-Tomoe Sharingan, this problem was solved effortlessly.
Moving forward, Bai only needed to find excuses to watch Chunin and Jonin like Kurenai train or spar to copy plenty of practical jutsu!