Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Three days later — Northwestern outskirts of Konoha.

In a quiet forest, Uchiha Haruki and his teammates arrived.

"This the place?" Ryosuke glanced around and asked.

"Yeah," Furukawa nodded. "From here on, follow the mission instructions and gather the herbs carefully. And remember—don't pick the wrong ones!"

That's right—they were back on missions again today.

Just as Haruki had hoped, Furukawa hadn't gone mad and kept choosing C-rank missions. Instead, he picked something much more manageable—a D-rank herb-gathering task.

No doubt it was a request from the Nara Clan.

After all, this entire forest was under their management.

Inside were not only a variety of rare medicinal herbs that couldn't be grown artificially, but also a large herd of deer—whose antlers were precious ingredients for medicine.

Altogether, this forest was extremely valuable.

Because of that, even other Konoha shinobi weren't allowed inside without Nara Clan approval.

If not for having accepted this official mission, they would've been turned away at the forest entrance.

"Got it," Ryosuke said, brushing Furukawa off while muttering, "Seriously, such a simple job... Even normal civilians could do this. Why'd we have to come?"

"Ryosuke, don't complain," Shizuko Mizutani said gently. Then she explained seriously, "This forest may be relatively safe, but wild beasts occasionally stray in. For an average person, that could be dangerous. That's why genin like us are assigned this kind of work."

Ryosuke waved his hand. "Yeah, yeah, I get it already, Shizuko. You don't have to lecture me!"

Watching the two banter, Haruki silently felt relieved.

Clearly, the past three days had been enough for them to get their heads straight again.

That said, the mission from three days ago had still left a mark on them. They may have seemed normal on the surface, but both of them had visibly lost the naivety of before.

And perhaps… that had been Furukawa's, or even the village's, true intention.

Haruki shook his head and stopped thinking too much.

With a thought, he gathered a small amount of chakra under his feet and followed his teammates deeper into the forest.

Over the past three and a half days of training, his "Chakra Control" had improved from Lv2 (350/500) to Lv3 (3/1000). His chakra control had clearly taken a step forward.

Now, when using the same jutsu, he could conserve 15% more chakra without sacrificing power.

This was already close to the upper limit for most ordinary shinobi.

Even with his unique skill proficiency panel, which allowed him to grow steadily, it would still be difficult to achieve another breakthrough in a short time.

The reason? Once a skill reached Level 3, gaining further proficiency became painfully slow.

Previously, he could earn 40 to 50 points a day, but now? Five points max.

The returns just weren't worth the effort anymore.

The only reason he was still practicing chakra control was that it didn't consume too much chakra or time. Otherwise, he would've stopped long ago.

Until he found a more efficient training method, he had no plans to invest more energy into it.

From now on, he'd likely only practice it during downtime—just like now, during herb collection.

"Haruki, hurry up!"

Ryosuke's voice came from ahead, snapping Haruki out of his thoughts.

"Coming," Haruki replied as he quickly caught up.

Time passed slowly.

The three of them continued to carry out basic D-rank missions, just like when they had freshly graduated.

In the blink of an eye, a week had gone by.

That night—at home.

Haruki opened his eyes, letting the special chakra stirred up by the "Shadow of the Heart Technique" fade from his body, then calmly opened his system panel.

Name: Uchiha Haruki

Age: 10

Constitution: 6

Spirit: 7

Chakra: 14 (1546 → 2011)

Bloodline: Sharingan · Not Awakened (81/100)

Skills:

Chakra Refining: Lv2 (240/500 → 360/500)

Clone Jutsu: Lv2 (140/500 → 270/500)

Transformation Jutsu: Lv2 (130/500 → 260/500)

Substitution Jutsu: Lv2 (110/500 → 250/500)

Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu: Lv1 (16/200 → 30/200)

Shadow of the Heart Technique: Lv2 (110/500)

Basic Taijutsu: Lv2 (150/500 → 280/500)

Ninja Tool Throwing: Lv2 (260/500 → 380/500)

Chakra Control: Lv3 (25/1000)

Haruki skipped over the basic attributes and locked his eyes directly on the Sharingan awakening progress.

"Still stuck at 81, huh…"

He muttered as he stared at the unchanged (81/100) number.

He had felt it earlier—like the "Shadow of the Heart Technique" wasn't pushing him forward anymore.

And sure enough, it wasn't.

Based on previous patterns, now that the technique had reached Lv2 (110/500), it should've bumped his Sharingan progress to 82/100.

But no—it stayed frozen at 81.

So the thing I feared really did happen...

Haruki had known from the start that awakening the Sharingan wasn't going to be easy. The technique's effectiveness would definitely decline as progress increased.

And it had.

Now, even 10 points of proficiency weren't enough to push the progress by a single point.

If he were just a normal Uchiha, this is where he'd be stuck—like so many before him.

At that point, one would either have to wait for a traumatic event to trigger the eye's awakening the traditional way, or just keep slowly grinding the technique—with no clear end in sight.

The first path might succeed, but it would weaken the effectiveness of the technique overall.

The second path? It offered almost no hope.

Because this was just the beginning.

If 10 points didn't work now, in the future, even 20 or 30 points might not be enough for a single progress unit.

It was a never-ending uphill climb.

But Haruki was different.

With his skill proficiency panel, he could steadily raise the "Shadow of the Heart Technique" level, no matter how long it took.

He could see the end—even if the road was long.

Still, he forcibly suppressed the urge to keep grinding the technique for now and looked at the other parts of the panel.

The Three Basic Jutsu, Basic Taijutsu, and Ninja Tool Throwing—all of those had steadily grown by over 100 proficiency points in the past 10 days. No surprises there.

However, his chakra limit had increased less than expected.

Based on a 120-point boost in Chakra Refining proficiency, his chakra pool should've increased by 480 points.

1546 + 480 = 2026.

But now it was only 2011—15 points short of the theoretical value.

The reason was simple:

His chakra "bucket" was nearing its natural limit.

The "Chakra Refining Technique" accelerated his progress toward full potential—but it couldn't raise that natural limit.

For now, the loss was just 15 points, but soon it would be dozens.

And once his full potential was tapped out, the only benefit from the technique would be chakra recovery.

"I need to awaken the Sharingan soon… Only then can I massively improve my potential."

Haruki closed the panel with a quiet murmur.

Then he began his next round of training.