Two hours later, night had swallowed the sky.
Uchiha Senya's first shift ended without a hitch.
He had not seen a single living soul pass by.
After calling out a greeting to Uchiha Jin and getting no reply, Senya left the Guard Tower at a calm pace.
He did not hurry home. He angled instead toward the clan training grounds.
He meant to find a secluded spot and awaken the Sage Body.
The Uchiha training grounds were vast, with mountains rising behind them.
At this hour, no one would be paying attention to what lay within.
A lithe figure dropped from the treetops and came to a halt before a towering tree.
Senya surveyed the area, circled behind the trunk, and quickly carved a hollow with a kunai.
He disguised the entrance, then settled inside.
With a thought, the quiet power coiled in his core stirred.
It burst into pale green chakra at his center and rushed along his meridians into his limbs and bones.
The Sage Body's life energy flooded every cell.
His physique began to change.
A thin mantle of green chakra glimmered over his skin.
"Hoo..."
Every cell and every pathway seemed to cheer.
The surge felt so good that Senya could not help letting out a long breath.
His very level of life felt as if it had shed its skin.
Patterns around the hollow, stained by his chakra, sprouted a few unnatural twigs.
The whole trunk seemed straighter and stronger.
"What a fearsome Sage Body."
Sensing the tree's change, Senya could not help admiring it.
Power that could stand up to the likes of Madara was nothing if not terrifying.
...
When the moon slipped behind the clouds, the green aura on his skin faded.
Only a reservoir of pure chakra remained pooled at his core, steadily feeding the transformation.
It was far slower than before.
Senya opened his eyes and checked himself again. "The remodeling from the Sage Body is maybe one tenth complete."
Even that tenth had granted him a massive boost.
His reward was the complete Sage Body, of course, but that did not mean it would perfect itself in an instant.
It needed time to settle.
The higher its completion, the longer each step would take.
Still, the energy at his core was enough to finish the job.
All he had to do was follow the path, step by step, until the Sage Body was fully cultivated.
"The changes are very real."
The old sluggishness when circulating chakra was gone.
That meant his ninjutsu aptitude had improved.
He clenched a fist and punched out.
A gust slammed into the trunk before him.
Leaves whirled and branches shook.
"My strength has risen a lot."
By taijutsu alone, he could handle most chunin now.
Even against an elite chunin, he had the courage to fight.
The speed of this growth was frightening.
"Also, this chakra seems linked to the Sharingan."
When the Sage Body first stirred, he had felt a cool, yin-tinged chakra well at his eyes, as if calling back and forth with the other flow.
Senya focused.
He gathered chakra at his eyes and used that feeling to probe for awakening.
Among the Uchiha, a genius was often measured by when they first opened their eyes.
Those who awakened the Sharingan upon graduation were hailed as prodigies, the clan's future.
Chakra surged between his eyes. A cool current spilled into his irises, pricking his optic nerves.
He closed his eyes and quietly rode the change.
...
After another stretch of silent cultivation, the system's prompt chimed.
"Oh, time to check in again?"
Senya opened his eyes. The black had been replaced by a wash of crimson.
A single tomoe turned slowly in the night.
The world sharpened.
The tremble at the tip of a high twig, the whisper of a leaf kissing the ground at his side, every detail was caught.
"No wonder the Sharingan is called the eye of insight. Even one tomoe is this absurd."
He tilted his head to the sky. Midnight had slipped past without his noticing. A new day had begun.
He thought at once, "System, start check-in."
DING! Check-in successful. Reward: Forbidden Technique - Shadow Clone Jutsu.
Shadow Clone Jutsu: creates physical duplicates identical to the caster. Chakra is divided evenly among all clones. Clones can attack and cannot be seen through by eye techniques.
A light representing the technique settled in his mind, waiting to be learned.
Reading the description, Senya felt a jolt of excitement.
He had just been thinking of finding this jutsu, and now the system had handed it to him by night.
He opened the light. The hand seal and chakra pathways for Shadow Clone dissolved straight into his knowledge.
"Only the Ram seal, but the chakra routing is more intricate. Equal portions of chakra..."