Creak~
The door closed again.
The sadness on Haruki's face vanished instantly. Although he had inherited memories from his previous life, he didn't feel much connection to the 'parents' he never met.
Still, for the sake of the compensation money, Haruki decided to visit their graves and offer flowers every year from now on.
Of course, that depended on whether he could survive.
If not, no words would matter.
Opening the envelope, he counted the money inside—1,010,000 ryo in total.
"Not bad. No one embezzled a single penny!"
Haruki's previous life parents had both been chunin, and the death compensation was 500,000 ryo each.
Add to that the monthly 10,000 ryo living allowance from the clan, and it made exactly 1,010,000 ryo—not a cent more or less.
Thinking about it, if someone embezzled even this much, the clan wouldn't have much cohesion.
Besides, a million ryo seemed like a lot but wasn't really.
In Konoha, D-rank missions paid 5,000 to 50,000 ryo; C-rank missions 30,000 to 100,000; B-rank missions 80,000 to 200,000; A-rank missions 150,000 to 1,000,000; and S-rank missions paid above 1,000,000.
Chunin could take C and B-rank missions; jonin could take B and A-rank missions.
Even with village taxes and teammates' shares, earning a million ryo wasn't that difficult.
As for the 10,000 ryo monthly living allowance…
A bowl of ramen cost 60 ryo, and eating ramen three meals a day meant 5,400 ryo a month.
And that was just for food.
For ninja, training expenses were the real cost.
So 10,000 ryo barely kept Haruki from starving, but investing in training with it was just wishful thinking.
For the past week, that's how he trained under these conditions.
Now, things were different.
With this one million ryo, he could afford secret medicines to aid his training.
With this in mind, Haruki left his room and headed straight to the Nara family's pharmacy.
In Konoha, the Nara clan had the highest achievements in medicine, and their products were the gold standard.
After browsing around, Haruki found that the most useful thing for him was actually ration pills.
Yes, those ration pills—one pill could substitute for a full meal.
They provided all the essential nutrients a body needed and were the standard rations for ninja on missions.
Some special ration pills could even temporarily boost chakra.
But Haruki didn't need those.
He only needed the kind that could replace a meal.
That way, he could extend his chakra refinement training time and use the extra chakra to practice the Clone Technique, forming a synergy effect to improve multiple skills' proficiency simultaneously.
Without hesitation, Haruki took out his money and, despite the clerk's strange look, bought a large stock of ration pills all at once.
If it had been any other supplies, it might have attracted village attention.
But just ration pills? That was fine.
Still, to be safe, Haruki decided not to eat out for a while.
That way, people would just assume he was training hard and substituting meals with ration pills.
Back home.
Haruki opened his system panel.
A familiar pale blue screen appeared:
**[Name: Uchiha HarukiAge: 10Body: 5Mind: 7Chakra: 17 (131→159)Bloodline: Sharingan · Unawakened (51/100)Skills:Chakra Refinement: Lv0 (8/100) → Lv0 (53/100)Clone Technique: Lv0 (46/100) → Lv1 (2/200)Transformation Technique: Lv0 (77/100)Substitution Technique: Lv0 (71/100)Basic Taijutsu: Lv0 (35/100) → Lv1 (16/200)Ninja Tool Throwing: Lv1 (29/200) → Lv2 (10/500)]
In the past week, he had trained four hours every night on Chakra Refinement.
Most days he gained six proficiency points, but occasionally more.
So after seven days, he had earned 45 points total.
This brought his Chakra Refinement from Lv0 (8/100) to Lv0 (53/100)—more than halfway to mastery.
During this time, his chakra capacity increased by 28 points, from 131 to 159.
Still not much, but at least there was hope.
Haruki believed that if he kept this up, he would eventually become capable of mastering the "chakra ton" and "chakra kilo" levels.
Also, all the 200 chakra points he restored daily through refinement were spent practicing ninjutsu.
In the first two days, he focused on the Clone Technique, pushing it to Lv1 and smoothly mastering it—allowing him to produce an illusory shadow clone.
After that, he went through the weekly test with ease.
However, after reaching Lv1, Clone Technique presented the same problem as Ninja Tool Throwing—he only gained one proficiency point per practice.
Haruki understood this was the previous owner's limit; from here on, it was up to him.
So he turned to train Transformation and Substitution Techniques.
Thanks to inherited memories and experience, their progress was just as fast as the Clone Technique had been before mastery.
Almost every practice session gained two to three proficiency points.
In five days, he pushed Transformation and Substitution to Lv0 (77/100) and Lv0 (71/100), respectively.
At this rate, it wouldn't take two or three days for both skills to be mastered.
By then, the previous owner's legacy would be nearly used up.
Looking at Basic Taijutsu:
In the past week, instructor Sugiki Ichito organized three sparring sessions.
Using those opportunities, Haruki smoothly mastered Basic Taijutsu and even reached Lv1 (16/200)—but only barely.
From there, he needed solid, steady practice.
Finally, Ninja Tool Throwing remained the fastest progressing skill, now at Lv2 (10/500)!
At this stage, on fixed targets within ten meters, he could consistently hit the bullseye.
This level rivaled some genin who had graduated two or three years ago.
However, Ninja Tool Throwing had its limits.
Haruki estimated that without awakening the Sharingan, he could only push it to Lv3.
After all, Lv3 required hitting a 15-meter target bullseye repeatedly, which was challenging.
And Lv2 to Lv3 needed a full 500 proficiency points.
One could imagine that maxing it out would make him comparable to many mid-to-high ranked jonin.
Unless he mastered the Sharingan and used it to innovate his ninja tool techniques, killing with tools alone—except in ambushes, overwhelming enemies, or against much weaker opponents—was unlikely.
But the Sharingan…
Haruki glanced at the panel showing progress (51/100) and was silent.
In the past week, he hadn't stopped trying to advance the Sharingan awakening but had tried multiple methods with no success.
The progress seemed stuck, frozen.
Still, he hadn't given up.
Since the panel displayed progress, it meant it was possible to push it forward—he just hadn't found the right method yet.