[Passive skill… complete – one cycle finished]
[Passive skill… complete – one cycle finished]
[Passive skill… complete – one cycle finished]
…
By early morning, Shigure abruptly woke up.
Rain pattered gently outside the window.
Looking around at his familiar room, he realized he was still lying in bed.
"…Crap. When did I fall asleep?"
He immediately summoned the system interface with a thought.
"How's the chakra refinement going?!"
Looking at the skill bar that still lingered before him, Shigure slowly let out a breath of relief.
At first, he'd been so excited that he had wanted to stay up all night, worried that if he fell asleep, the chakra refining process would stop—or worse, the system itself might vanish.
But now? He felt at ease.
It wasn't a dream.
The system was real.
Still here.
"Right... how's the chakra refining going?"
[Passive Skill… completed once]
Suddenly, a surge of chakra burst forth from within him.
Shigure froze in place.
The torrent of chakra flowing through his body was overwhelming—more than double what he'd had before.
His chakra reserves had now easily reached the level of a Genin. No—he had already surpassed that. By now, he was likely at the mid-Genin stage.
And this wasn't just any chakra.
It was chakra refined in his optimal state, making it far superior in quality compared to anything he'd cultivated before.
"I just slept one night… and my chakra not only doubled, but its quality also skyrocketed!"
He looked at the glowing word "Passive" displayed on the skill bar.
"Passive skill… that means I don't have to do anything. It works on its own!"
"Whether I'm walking, running, or even asleep—it keeps refining chakra!"
"If that's really the case... then this system is ridiculous!"
Who needs a shop system, or a mission system, or even a reward module?
These few skill slots were more than enough.
And the best part? There were no restrictions. You could insert any skill, and it would operate automatically, ignoring everything—even rain or sleep.
With a system like this, even eating and drinking could make you stronger.
Even if he never figured out the three locked active skills, having just these passive skills was already a cheat.
It was just a shame—there weren't enough passive slots. If only he had a hundred… or a thousand!
Thinking that far, Shigure caught himself.
Heh, maybe I'm being greedy. Just having a system is already more than enough.
Suddenly, another warm current rose within his body. His chakra surged again.
"At this rate, every chakra refinement takes about five minutes... and each time it adds seven strands of chakra."
"There are 1,440 minutes in a day. With seven passive slots, that's... over two thousand chakra refinements per day!"
Two thousand!
Even someone with Naruto's monstrous chakra capacity couldn't manage that.
Compared to that, his own daily limit of three manual chakra refinements was laughable.
It would take nearly two years to manually achieve what this system could do in one day.
And even then, his own refinements weren't always perfect!
Growl~
"…Guess I should eat first."
Despite being excited, he hadn't felt hunger at all.
He rummaged through the fridge and grabbed whatever was quick to eat.
After filling his stomach, Shigure glanced at the calendar.
"Saturday, huh? No school today."
"Perfect. I'll use this weekend to see just how far my chakra can go!"
The passive skills didn't interfere with his own chakra flow at all. They just quietly increased his chakra reserves in the background.
Just like that, his chakra continued to grow—on its own.
Shigure sat for an hour, but soon felt bored.
"Well, no harm in doing my own chakra refinement too."
He wasn't doing anything anyway. And while three times a day was his limit, as the saying goes: even a mosquito is still meat.
He went back to his room, sat cross-legged on the bed, and closed his eyes.
Time to refine chakra manually.
But this time, the process felt unbelievably smooth.
He skillfully guided his physical and spiritual energies to merge, extracting chakra through the familiar method he'd practiced many times before.
There was no resistance.
A successful refinement.
He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock.
Thirty minutes.
Compared to the passive system, his own method was painfully slow.
Not even in the same league.
[Detected: Skill execution surpasses standard quality]
[Would you like to update the skill's status?]
"Huh?"
Beyond standard skill quality?
Shigure stared at the system prompt, a bit confused.
"Does this mean… I've completed a chakra refinement that's even more perfect than before?"
Thinking back, the chakra refining process just now had gone unusually well—smooth, focused, and strangely efficient.
"Update?" he muttered hesitantly.
[Skill status update completed]
The next moment, all seven passive skill slots running the Chakra Refining Technique were updated in unison.
Five minutes later—
The chakra within his body surged again.
Shigure's eyes widened in surprise.
"More than before!"
The same seven strands of chakra were produced, but this time, the amount was clearly about one-third more than the previous batch.
"So it really worked…"
Apparently, updating the skill status had boosted the quality of every passive refinement. The skills fixed in the passive bar weren't static—they functioned based on the user's best recorded refinement.
Since Shigure had just performed a chakra refinement of higher quality than before, the system had saved that version and applied it across all passive slots.
It was like completing the technique manually once… and then the system endlessly copy-pasted that refined method with perfect execution.
Every five minutes, chakra was produced in that upgraded state.
"This update function is amazing!"
As Shigure's body grew stronger and his spiritual strength improved, his chakra refining quality would naturally improve as well.
If the system were stuck on an old, outdated refinement method, it would eventually fall behind. But now—he could just manually refine once, and the system would automatically upgrade all passive chakra refining to match his new best.
"It looks like I'm not entirely useless after all," Shigure chuckled.
The system could automate the chakra refining, sure. But it was up to him to update those skill states and push his limits.
Suddenly, a thought struck him.
"…Wait."
His excitement cooled, replaced by a frown of suspicion.
"I just did that last chakra refinement myself… so why am I not tired?"
That had been his own, manual chakra refinement—done without relying on the passive system.
Logically, that should've cost him physical stamina or mental energy.
Yet he felt completely fine. In fact, he felt… energized.
"Could it be… even when I do it myself now, it doesn't drain me anymore?"
Shigure's heart began to race.
If that was true—if even manual chakra refinement no longer had any fatigue or spiritual cost—then what he was holding wasn't just a cheat.
It was a system that shattered the limits of chakra cultivation entirely.
...
TN:
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