The silence of the clearing was different from the silence of the village. There were no hurried footsteps, no distant voices, no constant reminder that he was being watched. Only the soft sound of water flowing somewhere nearby, the wind passing through the treetops, and the steady rhythm of his own breathing.
That was why he had chosen this place.
Far enough from common paths to remain unused, yet still within the village's borders, it offered something he needed more than any technique: privacy. Not to hide power — there was none yet — but to fail as many times as necessary without curious eyes, without judgment, without expectations.
He stood still for a few moments before sitting down on the ground, crossing his legs carefully. His body still carried the remnants of earlier physical training: poorly executed push-ups, short sprints cut off by lack of breath, stretches that revealed flexibility that was merely acceptable.
Nothing impressive.
Beside him, a fresh leaf rested on the grass. He picked it up and placed it against his forehead, closing his eyes afterward. The exercise was simple in theory: make the chakra adhere to the surface of the skin with enough precision to keep the leaf in place.
In practice, it was a nightmare of micro-adjustments.
The chakra came too fast, pushing the leaf away. When he tried to reduce it, it vanished entirely. There was no stability. No natural flow. After several failed attempts, he finally managed to keep the leaf in place for a few seconds before it fell again.
Not a victory, but a sign.
He exhaled and set the leaf aside. Forcing more at that moment would only create unnecessary tension. Instead, he pulled an old scroll from his bag, one of the few things left behind by his parents. The paper was worn, its edges uneven, but the contents were clear.
The Academy Clone Jutsu.
The most basic technique in existence. A simple illusion without physical substance, incapable of dealing damage or interacting with the environment. Something every student was expected to learn early.
And yet, the more he read, the more he realized how deceptive that simplicity was.
The jutsu did not demand strength. It did not demand large amounts of chakra. It demanded absolute control over shape, not quantity. The illusion had to be stable, coherent, and sustained by the user's mind. Any mental fluctuation, any minimal excess or lack of chakra, caused the projection to collapse.
He closed his eyes.
— *I understand this…*
And he truly did.
His mind came from a different world, one with more advanced theoretical foundations, accustomed to breaking down complex systems, working with abstract models, identifying invisible variables, and predicting failures before they occurred. Chakra, to him, was not mystical — it was an energy flow subject to interference, noise, and instability.
In theory, everything made sense.
In practice… his body simply did not comply.
He attempted the jutsu. He carefully channeled chakra, visualized his own image in front of him, and maintained the minimum necessary amount. For a brief moment, something appeared — a blurred, distorted, unstable silhouette — and then it dispersed like smoke.
It was not a lack of understanding.
It was execution.
The chakra responded with delay, as if the body were not a natural medium for it. Small variations escaped control, creating inconsistencies the mind could not correct in time. It was like trying to write with a hand that did not yet feel like his own.
— *My mind is ahead… but this body still doesn't fully belong to this world.*
The realization was bitter, but honest.
The body he possessed now was not special. It was not weak, but it was not talented either. It sat precisely at the threshold: slightly better than a common person, slightly worse than someone truly promising. Chakra present, but limited. Acceptable coordination. Average endurance. No obvious affinity.
Compared to a civilian, it was superior.
Compared to a prodigy… irrelevant.
That made everything harder.
His eyes returned to the scroll, now focusing on the hand seals. Until then, he had treated them as automatic triggers, almost symbolic movements. That, too, was a mistake.
The seals were not empty gestures.
Each one carried functional and symbolic meaning, aligning mind, body, and chakra into the same pattern. The Tiger seal represented focus and stabilization of intent. The Monkey introduced flexibility and adaptation, essential for illusions. The Snake refined internal flow, reducing waste. The Ram calmed the mind and strengthened sustained visualization.
They did not shape chakra alone.
They shaped the user.
And then a name surfaced in his mind, clearer than ever before.
Indra.
According to the oldest records, it was Indra Ōtsutsuki who systematized ninjutsu. Not because he needed it — he, his brother Asura, and his father Hagoromo molded chakra naturally. Thought and execution were one and the same. They were more evolved beings, beyond common human limitations.
But Indra saw something the others did not need to see.
The future.
A world where chakra would be in the hands of ordinary people. Imperfect bodies. Unstable minds. People incapable of molding chakra through intent alone. The seals were created for them. An artificial system to compensate for lack of natural affinity. A bridge between the human and the extraordinary.
— *So I'm not a mistake…*
He stared at his own hands.
— *I'm exactly the kind of person this system was created for.*
That realization reorganized everything within him. He did not need to fight the rules of this world. He needed to use them. The seals, repetition, physical conditioning — all of it existed to turn average people into functional ninja.
And he had something many did not.
Understanding.
His talent was not in his body, but in analysis. In the ability to understand systems from the inside, dismantle them, see their mechanisms, and exploit them efficiently. If practice was his weakness, then the path was simple, even if cruel: repeat until the body learned what the mind already knew.
He closed the scroll carefully.
— *Maybe I don't have talent now… but that doesn't mean I never will.*
The body could be average today. The chakra unstable today. Execution flawed today.
But the system existed.
And systems could be mastered.
With time, method, and repetition, what demanded conscious effort today would become natural tomorrow. What was a crutch today would become an extension of the body in the future.
He stood up slowly, feeling the weight of physical exhaustion, but with a lighter mind than at any moment since reincarnating.
The path would be long.
But now he knew he was not trying
to walk a road made for monsters or geniuses.
It was a road made for humans.
And because of that, it was possible.