Daytime classes, practice at dawn and dusk, nights spent lurking in the group and occasionally replying to the admin. Five years slid by like that.
"Class is starting." Iruka pushed open the door and walked in, but the moment he noticed Naruto missing his face changed.
If Naruto vanished, it could only mean a prank.
"Self-study for now." He set them to work and hurried out to find Naruto.
"The story is finally kicking off." Sasuke propped his chin and glanced at the paint smeared across the Hokage Rock outside the window.
In these five years he had purchased only the Shadow Clone Technique and the triple tomoe Sharingan. He saved the rest of his points to unlock the six tomoe Rinnegan in one go.
Most other entries were things his future self would learn anyway, so there was no need to unlock them early. Better to hoard points for the Rinnegan.
He had two reasons for unlocking the triple tomoe. First, he could not trigger the Sharingan on his own, since his emotions never spiked enough to cross the threshold. Second, the triple tomoe could copy ninjutsu and taijutsu and wield genjutsu. Those three alone made his fingers itch, because one way to earn points was to upload the techniques you learned.
During these five years the chat's activity rank rose again and unlocked a new feature, an attribute page that showed everything about yourself.
Name: Uchiha Sasuke.
Chakra natures: Lightning, Fire, Yin.
Ninja rank: Academy student, not yet graduated.
Ninjutsu learned: Three Basic Techniques, Great Fireball, Phoenix Sage Fire, Phoenix Flower Claw Crimson, Shadow Clone, Dragon Fire, Manipulating Shuriken, Shadow Shuriken.
Genjutsu: Demonic Illusion - Shackling Stakes - Sharingan, Genjutsu Rebound - Sharingan, Hypnosis - Sharingan, Genjutsu - Sharingan.
Kekkei Genkai: Triple Tomoe Sharingan.
Trait: Indra's chakra reincarnate.
Points: 6875.
With over six thousand points on hand, he still did not buy the Mangekyo. He aimed to hit ten thousand and jump straight to the six tomoe Rinnegan.
The Mangekyo burned out too quickly. Unless he could unlock both Mangekyo and Eternal in one sweep, he would not touch it. Spending five thousand to unlock a set of eyes that would go blind in under ten uses was not worth it.
With triple tomoe, learning accelerated anyway. He could copy. Kakashi earned the title Copy Ninja by mimicking over a thousand jutsu with triple tomoe.
There was no reason Sasuke could not do the same.
Six thousand points would balloon after graduation, once he met more shinobi and saw more techniques to copy.
As for Heaven's Curse Mark without Orochimaru's chakra, he would not unlock it. Later he would gain Six Paths Sage Arts. Picking the mark first would be wasteful.
The curse mark was an imperfect sage mode. Even without Orochimaru's chakra it ravaged the body. The Chidori under the mark turned black, and the Chidori under Six Paths did too, but Six Paths was clearly stronger.
State Two could fly, true, but it was still less tempting than Six Paths.
Besides, before long he would receive the mark from Orochimaru anyway, and later his good brother Itachi would help cut it out. Why not use Orochimaru's free version first.
Since it had already been confirmed that the mark could mesh with his body, there was nothing to worry about.
Two more newcomers had joined after the attribute page appeared, but like before, they did not help him much.
Once he learned Manipulating Shuriken, he lost interest in Controlling Objects with Qi. Not because it was weak, but because it was not cost-effective. Manipulating Shuriken already let him steer thrown blades, and with the Sharingan he could predict enemy movement with ease.
Too pricey for too little gain.
Mebius hardly uploaded anything and rarely appeared. He was busy protecting the cosmos.
Different scale. He lived at the level of the universe, with more crises than anyone could count. You did not see Ultramen taking vacations. Even that goofball Zero kept leaping between worlds to guard life in each one.
As an elder, Mebius had even less time to idle in chat.
So Ultraman brought almost no practical help to the group.
Of the newest pair, one was Kaneki Ken and the other was Yi Xiaochuan.
Which was to say, two nobodies for now.
Yi Xiaochuan had nothing to speak of. Kaneki had not yet been transformed. From what Sasuke gathered through his messages, he was already in college, which meant the change would likely happen soon.
The admin seemed to know Kaneki too, but she did not warn him. She almost welcomed the rise of the One-Eyed King, since only then could that world be forced to change.