Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

The next morning.

At dawn, Uchiha Haruki jolted awake from his sleep.

Still groggy, he suddenly sprang to his feet and rushed toward the deepest part of the cavern.

When he confirmed that all seven captured Sand ninja were still there, he finally let out a long breath of relief.

To be honest, even though they had all lost the ability to form hand seals, Haruki was still a bit uneasy about keeping them imprisoned in this space.

But he didn't have much of a choice. If he wanted to control these prisoners, the best method would be through genjutsu. The next best would be some kind of sealing technique or curse marks.

Unfortunately…

His skill in genjutsu wasn't strong enough, and his two-tomoe Sharingan couldn't support such complex illusions.

As for seals and curse marks, he didn't have access to them either.

More importantly, both methods were essentially designed to disrupt a target's chakra flow, limiting their mobility.

But Haruki needed these prisoners to refine chakra for him. If he disrupted their flow, that would defeat the whole purpose.

So in the end, he could only settle for close surveillance, making sure they didn't try any funny business.

Thankfully, he had the Sharingan—most minor tricks couldn't escape his eyes.

Still, when he remembered how deeply he had slept last night, he couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

If something had gone wrong, he would've regretted it deeply.

Sigh… I really can't keep pushing myself this hard.

Muttering to himself, Haruki moved toward one of the Sand ninja and began testing the results of his Level 4 Chakra Absorption Technique.

A few moments later, he withdrew his hand and revealed an expression that basically said, "Just as I thought."

As expected, now that Chakra Absorption had reached Level 4, its conversion rate had increased once again—by another 10%.

In other words, whenever he absorbed chakra from someone now, he could convert 80% of it into his own usable chakra.

Undeniably, this was a significant improvement.

Even better, the absorption speed had also increased—going from 300 points per second to 500 points per second.

That was already remarkably fast.

As long as he could initiate the technique, he could drain an average chūnin's chakra completely in just five to six seconds.

Shaking his head to clear the thought, Haruki didn't dwell on it.

He summoned a shadow clone to stand guard over the prisoners, then quickly left the cavern.

Upon quietly returning to camp, Haruki received a memory transfer from one of his shadow clones—covering everything that had happened during his absence.

Then, he immediately resumed his assigned patrol duties as planned.

At the same time, his mind was already busy calculating how to allocate the chakra he had newly acquired.

Based on yesterday's results, the seven Sand ninja in the cavern could provide him with around 33,000 chakra points daily.

With the 80% conversion rate, that meant he would gain about 26,400 usable chakra points per day.

Clearly, that was too much chakra to dump into a single skill.

After careful consideration, Haruki decided to follow the same distribution strategy he used when managing Chiya's chakra in the past.

He would split the chakra in a 2:1 ratio between training:

"Mirror Heart Technique" (映心之术)

"Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique" (火遁·凤仙火之术)

That meant:

17,600 points would go to Mirror Heart Technique

8,800 points would go to Phoenix Fire Technique

With his current 18% chakra efficiency reduction from Chakra Control, it cost 164 points per use of Mirror Heart to gain skill proficiency.

At this rate, 17,600 chakra points could grant him 107 proficiency points per day.

If he added in the 30 extra points he could still generate from his personal chakra reserves, that brought the total to 137 proficiency points per day for Mirror Heart Technique.

Each 3 points of Mirror Heart proficiency would boost his Sharingan's evolution by 1 point.

That meant:

137 proficiency points → 45 Sharingan evolution points

Plus 3 more from daily Sharingan activation time

= 48 evolution points per day

Right now, his Sharingan evolution meter stood at 800/5000.

So, with this setup, he estimated that it would take just under 3 months to evolve to the three-tomoe Sharingan.

And realistically, his Mirror Heart Technique would likely hit Level 6 before that, which would further accelerate his Sharingan's evolution.

So really, the actual time required could be much shorter than three months.

Realizing all this, Haruki felt deeply grateful for the decision he made back then.

Without Chakra Absorption, who knew how long it would've taken for his Sharingan to evolve?

As for Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique...

Its proficiency cost per cast was half of Mirror Heart's, and he was allocating half as much chakra to it—so the numbers lined up evenly.

8,800 chakra points → 107 proficiency points

Plus 16 extra from his own chakra

= 123 proficiency points per day

At that rate, it would take no more than two weeks to master the technique and reach its pinnacle form.

And once he mastered it, he'd have fully grasped both the form and nature transformation of fire chakra.

Once that milestone was confirmed, Haruki could begin exploring a second chakra nature while also improving the levels of:

Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu

Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu

Thanks to his mastery of Phoenix Fire, progress on those techniques shouldn't be slow either.

Just like that, another day passed.

After finishing his patrol and handing over shift duties to the night squad, Haruki began his evening training regimen.

He cast Phoenix Fire Technique repeatedly, draining his chakra reserves at high speed.

An hour later.

Night fell.

By now, Haruki's chakra was nearly depleted.

So, he found a quiet, empty spot and cast Shadow Clone Jutsu, creating one clone.

Facing it, he instructed, "You stay here."

"Got it," the shadow clone responded softly before returning to the camp.

Haruki, now alone, avoided all nearby gazes and headed toward the entrance to the cavern.

After confirming that no one was around, he carefully parted the grass covering the entrance and slipped inside.

Compared to yesterday, the place remained unchanged.

After retrieving recent memory updates from his clone, Haruki confirmed that everything was fine and went straight to the deepest chamber of the cavern.

There, he drained chakra from several of the captured Sand ninja until his reserves were full again.

Then he returned to the room carved out by his clone and immediately began training in Mirror Heart Technique.

This became Haruki's daily routine:

By day: Completing missions and training chakra-heavy, flashy jutsu like Phoenix Fire

By night: Quietly returning to the cavern to use the captured Sand ninja's chakra for training low-activity skills like Mirror Heart

Although his days were packed and exhausting, when he looked at the skyrocketing proficiency meters on his ability panel, he felt every bit of effort was worth it.

This kind of clear and immediate feedback gave him a level of satisfaction that was hard to describe.

And so, even if he could only sleep four or five hours a night, Haruki was more than willing to keep at it.