Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Time passed like a fleeting horse through a gap.

In the blink of an eye, ten days had gone by.

During those ten days, Uchiha Haruki's squad, which was responsible for Sector E11, experienced a period of relative peace. In fact, the entire western defense zone was unusually quiet.

The reason was simple—everyone's attention was elsewhere.

At present, whether it was Sunagakure, Konohagakure, or the secret agents of other forces stationed nearby, all eyes were fixed on the two front-line strongholds.

The battles there were intense. Those two points had changed hands multiple times, and both Sunagakure and Konohagakure were continuously pouring reinforcements into the fight.

As far as Haruki knew, Konoha had already sent three waves of support.

And now, this was the fourth wave.

That's right—just moments ago, Haruki had escorted the fourth group of Konoha reinforcements out of the defense zone.

Watching their silhouettes disappear into the distance, Haruki silently thought,

"I wonder how many of them will survive?"

It was clear that those two strongholds had become a symbol. Whether or not they could be reclaimed would determine Konoha's strategy for dealing with future Sunagakure offensives.

If they could retake them, it would signal that Konoha still had the strength to fight.

In the future, they would likely continue responding to such conflicts head-on.

But if they failed to reclaim them, it would mean that Konoha could no longer maintain its current battle lines.

In that case, the village would gradually abandon outlying posts and shrink its defensive perimeter.

And during that process, resistance would naturally weaken.

That was precisely why the fighting there had become so fierce.

After a moment of thought, Haruki withdrew his gaze and shook his head, no longer dwelling on matters beyond his concern.

What he needed to focus on was whether he might be transferred there—and if so, how he could survive in such chaos.

Those were the matters that truly concerned his life.

Fortunately, Haruki hadn't received any transfer orders yet.

Two more days passed in a flash.

It was now early October.

That afternoon.

After completing his patrol, Haruki resumed his routine training of the Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Jutsu—once, twice, three times…

Finally, after the 27th attempt, Haruki suddenly stopped.

He closed his eyes and stood there motionless.

Time ticked by.

A full fifteen minutes later, Haruki finally opened his eyes, a look of sudden clarity flashing within them.

With a swift motion, he drew his short sword from his waist.

Without any flashy moves, the blade gradually shifted from its usual bright white to a deep crimson.

Clearly, he had infused the weapon with Fire Release chakra. But unlike before, the blade no longer shimmered with stray tongues of flame.

This wasn't a sign of weakened fire chakra.

On the contrary—it meant his fire chakra had become stronger.

Previously, the scattered flames were a symptom of his lack of control.

But now, that problem no longer existed.

The reason was simple—Haruki had completely mastered both the shape transformation and nature transformation of Fire Release chakra. Naturally, there was no more leakage or wasted power.

How did he achieve this?

The answer was also simple: his Fire Style: Phoenix Fire Jutsu had leveled up from Lv4 to Lv5—achieving perfection.

Through this breakthrough, he had attained full mastery over fire chakra's structure and properties. His understanding and control of Fire Release had advanced to a whole new level.

At that moment, Haruki had a strong premonition—his future practice of other Fire Release techniques would become much more efficient.

With that thought, he raised his hands and quickly formed six hand seals: Snake–Ram–Monkey–Boar–Horse–Tiger. Then he opened his mouth and released a fireball roughly one meter in diameter.

The fireball flew straight ahead and struck a nearby tree, instantly engulfing it in flames.

But Haruki didn't even glance at the destruction.

Instead, he focused his mind and brought up his system panel, specifically checking the proficiency of Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu.

As expected, just one use had increased its proficiency by five points.

Haruki was thrilled and silently praised his decision to focus on upgrading a single jutsu first.

He continued practicing a few more times. Though the increase varied slightly, the proficiency gains remained between four and five points—an impressive rate of progress.

He also tested the Fire Style: Dragon Fire Jutsu, and the results were similar—the proficiency soared quickly.

Based on this, Haruki made a quick decision.

The 1,300 chakra points he had originally allocated for further training of Phoenix Fire Jutsu would now be evenly split between Great Fireball Jutsu and Dragon Fire Jutsu.

With this setup, he could raise each technique's proficiency by about 40 points per day.

That meant it would only take around ten days for both jutsus to rise from Lv2 to Lv3, significantly improving their practical value.

The only thing that disappointed him was that even after Phoenix Fire Jutsu reached Lv5 (0/0), he still couldn't perform it one-handed, or without hand seals altogether.

Haruki speculated that to achieve that, he'd likely need to raise his Chakra Control to the next level.

After all, hand seals were essentially a tool to help a ninja manipulate their internal chakra. If a ninja could accomplish that level of control independently, seals would become unnecessary.

With that in mind, Haruki opened his system panel again and checked his Chakra Control skill.

After days of steady practice, the proficiency had now risen to Lv3 (810/1000)!

However, it was clear that the benefits from his two-tomoe Sharingan had mostly run their course. Unless he found a new method, further improvement would require tedious grinding.

"New methods…"

Haruki murmured softly, thinking of the two puppet masters imprisoned deep inside the cave.

One of his original motives for capturing Chiya had been to obtain their puppet mastery techniques, which he believed could accelerate his Chakra Control training.

But until now, the puppet masters had stubbornly refused to cooperate.

"I wonder if they've changed their minds by now?"

With that thought, Haruki turned and walked into a secluded corner.

He formed the hand seals for Shadow Clone Jutsu, and a clone appeared next to him.

After nodding to the clone, Haruki quietly left and made his way toward the cave entrance.

Even if Chiya was still unwilling to talk, Haruki was now confident he could force the puppet technique out of them.

Why?

Because after days of careful observation, he was certain that Chiya was the emotional weakness of the puppet master under Shafu.

That could be the breakthrough he needed.

Besides, he didn't want the entire technique—just the part that involved creating, splitting, and controlling chakra threads.

He wasn't particularly interested in puppet crafting or battle manipulation.

That made it easier to negotiate—or coerce.

With these thoughts in mind, Haruki reached the entrance of the underground cave.

After checking both sides and confirming no one was around, he slipped inside.