Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Three days later.

Morning.

Northwest side of the base camp.

Inside the training ground.

Uchiha Haruki stood with a short sword in hand, practicing his swordsmanship over and over again. His movements were swift and precise, his expression focused. From time to time, he would pause to reflect, clearly putting in serious effort.

That's right—he had decided to devote this period of downtime to practicing the "Mind Reflection Technique".

However, the amount of chakra he could recover daily was limited. At most, it would take about two hours before it was completely depleted.

Aside from refining more chakra, Haruki still had plenty of spare time during the day.

So, he allocated a small portion of chakra to practice swordsmanship—a skill that didn't consume much chakra but required a great deal of time to master.

At the same time, he also wanted to reflect deeply on the future development of his swordsmanship, now that he had this rare moment of peace.

Long ago, when he first began learning Konoha-Style Swordsmanship, he wondered whether he could create a technique similar to the famed "Dance of the Crescent Moon."

Unfortunately, he had never had the time to pursue it.

Now, with nearly ten days of rest and recovery ahead of him, it was the perfect opportunity to sit down and plan things out carefully.

First off, he decided to abandon any flashy and extravagant techniques.

With his current level of swordsmanship, combined with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, even basic strikes posed a serious threat to his enemies.

Thus, any overly technical or complex moves were unnecessary.

Secondly, there was no need to pursue techniques that simply increased attack power.

Most ninjas in the Shinobi World were fragile. As long as he landed a hit, it would do enough damage. There was no need to boost the power of his sword strikes.

As for the few who weren't fragile—even if he did increase the sword's power, it might not be enough to break through their defenses.

In those situations, he could just use other abilities, like one already on his development list: the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.

This was, after all, the signature ultimate move of Naruto Uzumaki—a jutsu written in the Scroll of Seals and classified as forbidden due to its sheer power. It could absolutely serve as a defense-breaking tool.

So, there was no point in wasting energy trying to boost his swordsmanship's offensive strength.

Instead, considering his combat habits, Haruki felt he should develop sword techniques that were functional—supporting and enhancing his offense in practical ways.

At present, he had three primary ideas.

First: Shadow Blade Technique (影剑术)

Following the concept behind "Dance of the Crescent Moon," Haruki wanted to create a sword technique that blended real and illusory attacks, allowing him to launch multiple strikes in an instant, making it difficult for the enemy to block or evade.

Of course, unlike "Dance of the Crescent Moon," he didn't want to use Shadow Clones to launch simultaneous attacks.

Given how massive his chakra pool would be in the future, that kind of attack would consume way too much chakra, and wouldn't be worth the cost.

Instead, he intended to draw inspiration from the Third Hokage's technique—"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu."

That way, the chakra cost would be much more acceptable.

As for how to borrow this concept?

Simple—either use his Sharingan to copy the technique once he saw it performed, or develop it himself.

The former depended on opportunity. Expecting Hiruzen Sarutobi to perform it was unrealistic.

But Orochimaru, who inherited Hiruzen's legacy, also knew this jutsu. There was a chance he might encounter Orochimaru on the battlefield and could secretly copy it then.

The second option wasn't far-fetched either.

After all, Hiruzen developed the jutsu by modifying the Shadow Clone Technique—a jutsu Haruki already knew well.

So with a solid understanding of its principles, he was confident he could develop the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu himself.

Thanks to his proficiency panel system, once he leveled up the Shadow Clone Technique high enough and fully grasped its mechanics, it would just be a matter of working from the concept to complete the new jutsu.

Once that technique was mastered, it would be relatively easy to craft the multi-strike sword skill he envisioned.

For now, he tentatively named it Shadow Blade Technique.

The ultimate effect he envisioned was being able to switch between single and multi-hit strikes at will.

With the Sharingan assisting his movement, he could launch attacks from enemy blind spots, making them incredibly hard to defend against.

Second: Flash Blade Technique (瞬剑术)

This idea was loosely connected to the Body Flicker Technique.

But to be clear, Haruki wasn't trying to merge the two techniques directly.

He had already tested that—it didn't work. The Body Flicker and swordsmanship followed two completely different systems.

Instead, his new plan was to integrate Wind Release chakra into his swordsmanship, using it as a medium to bind man and blade into one seamless entity.

The goal: reach a transcendent level where "the body follows the sword, and the sword follows the will."

Haruki called this technique Flash Blade Technique.

To make this technique a reality, three conditions had to be met.

Mastery over wind-nature chakra manipulation—both shape transformation and nature transformation.

Only then could Wind Release chakra serve as the perfect medium to connect man and blade.

Thankfully, this wasn't too difficult. As long as he pushed "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough" to Master Level, it would nearly fulfill this requirement.

His swordsmanship level must reach LV6.

Right now, it was still LV5—not enough. But he was already working on this.

At his current training pace, it wouldn't take long.

He would need a new, superior sword.

The short sword Haruki was currently using had been looted from a special jonin of Iwagakure. It was decent—it contained chakra-conducting metals and wasn't low quality by any means.

But "decent" wasn't good enough.

To properly perform the Flash Blade Technique, he would need a top-tier sword, one that excelled in chakra conduction.

Otherwise, he'd never be able to smoothly fuse Wind Release with his blade.

Haruki thought about it for a while and felt that the Kusanagi Sword would be an excellent choice.

Unfortunately, weapons like that—even if not unique—were extremely rare in the Shinobi World. Acquiring one wouldn't be easy.

He sighed and moved on to consider his third plan.

Third: Illusion Blade Technique (幻剑术)

Compared to the Shadow and Flash Blade techniques, this was the one Haruki valued the most—and it was also the easiest to implement.

He named it Illusion Blade Technique.

The concept was to combine genjutsu with swordsmanship, allowing each sword strike to carry the effect of a mental illusion, making it nearly impossible for enemies to guard against.

Why was this the easiest to implement?

Because once his "Genjutsu: Sharingan" reached Max Level, he could cast genjutsu with even the slightest movement.

And "movement" naturally included sword techniques.

So once he replaced typical genjutsu gestures with sword slashes, the illusion would trigger seamlessly.

Currently, his Genjutsu: Sharingan proficiency was at LV6 (2310/10000)—just under 8,000 points from reaching LV7: Max Level.

In chakra terms, that meant he needed around 600,000 chakra points.

Even without considering his Chakra Battery reserves, he could accumulate that much chakra in about a month.

So for him, this was well within reach.

And besides, once he returned to the frontlines, capturing prisoners for use as "Chakra Batteries" would be unavoidable.

When that time came, gathering that much chakra wouldn't even be a concern.

Still, just thinking about the sheer amount of work ahead made Haruki's scalp tingle.

But with a proper plan in place, it was just a matter of tackling it step by step.

Clearing his thoughts, Haruki returned to his sword practice, resuming his relentless pursuit of perfection.