FIVE MONTHS LATER

These last few months were very profitable for Jonathan. For someone who had more knowledge than anyone in this world had, he didn't let a single day slip by him. If there's one thing Jonathan wasn't, it was lazy.

Jonathan had done more than just train over the last five was expanding on his foundations. Almost every day for nearly five months, Jonathan received a pension from Teuchi. His ramen shop flourished gradually due to Jonathan's business strategy. Minor changes like adding diet ramen to the menu. This caused more female customers to buy from the shop. Though Jonathan was careful not to attract too much attention to the shop. No one throughout those five months suspected Teuchi or his daughter, Ayame was under a genjutsu. They acted normally every day under Jonathan's watchful eye. There were times the genjutsu weakened but Jonathan simply had to reactivate it.

In total, Jonathan profited thirty thousand ryō from the ramen shop. Minus business expenses and taxes, Jonathan was left with twenty-one thousand ryō. This was equivalent to approximately eleven thousand American dollars. What made this truly rewarding was that Jonathan hadn't needed to even step foot in the ramen shop. He only needed to command the owner. Despite the gain, Jonathan didn't value this profit much. Even though it was equivalent to a seventy-two thousand dollar salary, it still wasn't enough to satisfy Jonathan's needs.

When Jonathan wasn't calculating his finances, he spent the day not only training but also observing. The graduation ceremony for this year's students was to commence soon. The main person to graduate from that class is meant to be Itachi Uchiha. Because Izumi Uchiha had distanced herself from her peers and focused on growing due to her parents' death, Jonathan watched to see if she, too, would graduate that year. From what he observed, she wouldn't be. She was talented, yes, but just like in the series, she lacked the necessary chakra to maintain her sharingan for long. This caused a hindrance in her training.

Nonetheless, Jonathan could tell by the staggering increase in her development that she would end up graduating the year following.

No one had any idea of Jonathan's whereabouts or that he was consistently watching others from afar. His time spent training was also spent wisely. He knew of a lot of people's training schedules in the training field. Notable characters like Asuma Sarutobi and Kurenai Yuki were hardly seen. And when they were, they didn't have anything to gain from it. Might Guy was the only one Jonathan paid the most attention to.

Because of him, Jonathan was able to train his mind, body and fighting style to immense levels. Chakra is comrpised of two different forms of energy: physical and spiritual. In order for Jonathan to train his chakra, he needed to undergo physical exercises (to push his body's limits) and spiritual exercises like meditating. The more physical and spiritual work someone did, the more their chakra reserves would increase. But a whole five months was not enough for Jonathan. Due to the amount of physical training he was doing, he could hardly focus on the spiritual side.

Sasuke Uchiha was able to perfectly match Rock Lee's taijutsu and speed in about a month's time. This was because of his sharingan as well as being trained by Kakashi Hatake. Jonathan's body, which was still developing, managed to reach some levels in three months. Had it not been for his healing jutsu, it would have taken even longer.

But this wasn't the only thing Jonathan was practicing. Might Guy would become the world's best taijutsu specialist. He learned not only his fighting style but also his techniques, such as dynamic entry, leaf whirlwind, leaf hurricane and the more advanced technique, primary lotus. Jonathan, in five months' time, had learned to open the first gate of the eight inner gates.

When Jonathan wasn't practicing his taijutsu from Might Guy, he was learning other techniques he had played with back on earth. Thanks to Hazuki Uchiha's DNA, it made practicing fire techniques effortless. The two techniques he perfected were dragon flame and phoenix flower. Both of which took him less than a week to perform correctly due to his advanced chakra control.

As much as Jonathan felt like learning the chidori, he knew the hand signs but he didn't find it a necessity to learn them just yet. Chidori was a useful technique when paired with the sharingan, but it served no purpose to take the time to learn if Jonathan couldn't first perfect its variations. To do that would require shape transformation, a basis of chakra control to modify one's techniques. Moreover, he was too busy practicing trying to open the first gate.

The genetics of an Uchiha bore fruit in these five months. Mixed with Jonathan's knowledge, training hardly required much effort. Itachi Uchiha was less than seven years old when he began defeating shinobi that were twice his size. One could argue that the Uchiha were definitely this world's second strongest race. First being the Ōtsutsuki clan. There were only a few drawbacks to being an Uchiha, but all of them were known to Jonathan. As well as how to avoid them.

Performing jutsu wasn't the only thing the sharingan was useful for. Because it could visually perceive moving targets, it could also be used for weapons. Jonathan had used some of the profits from the ramen shop to purchase a plethora of ninja tools. When Jonathan felt his body straining from the extensive workouts, he practiced his shuriken techniques. Back on earth, Jonathan was proficient at throwing objects such as darts and knives. Here in the world of ninjas, it became child's play. And the sharingan played a huge role.

With each day, he began to understand why people like Itachi Uchiha and Sasuke Uchiha were so efficient with their shuriken. It didn't just require speed, shuriken techniques required precision. The slightest muscle movement could alter the course of where a kunai or shuriken would land, bounce off of, or even have its trajectory altered based on its thrown angle. All this was taken into account as Jonathan grew to become proficient in shuriken jutsu.

There had been moments when Jonathan would spot a notable character wandering around the Leaf Village in the mornings. That person was Kakashi Hatake. At this age, Kakashi was still in the Anbu Black Ops. He had long been given the sharingan by Obito Uchiha. What intrigued Jonathan was Kakashi's behaviour. This was the time that Kakashi suffered from post-traumatic stress from having killed one of his friends, Rin Nohara.

On certain days throughout those last months, Jonathan saw Kakashi aimlessly walking as if he had no purpose in this world. Using Kakashi's behaviour, Jonathna could accurately pinpoint the time he would meet his partner, Yamato.

But it wasn't Yamato that Jonathan was interested in. Yamato carried the cells of the first Hokage. Even if Jonathan desired to capture Yamato, it wouldn't be beneficial. The first Hokage, Hashirama Senju, already had his cells harvested to conduct such experiments. The chances of success were severely low. Out of the sixty people Orochimaru tried implanting the cells into, only one survived. Jonathan wasn't looking to be like one of those failed experiments. Unlike Hazuki Uchiha, whose blood transplant was conducted only moments after her death, Jonathan wasn't willing to the first Hokage's dead cells. Nor was he interested in the downgraded version of Yamato's fabricated cells.

There was an important filler episode Jonathan recalled during this era. If it wasn't for Yamato's background, he wouldn't have taken an interest in it. But there was a certain someone Jonathan found worthwhile. That person was just one of the reasons Jonathan had to train himself extensively. He needed to be strong enough in order to prepare for any and all situations when meeting that individual.

If Jonathan were to evaluate his strength without combatting anyone, he would say he was at least better than the average Chūnin. He knew he had grown when he could keep up with Might Guy's training without exhausting himself. On top of that, his sharingan allowed him to see the movements of other Chūnin, like Asuma Sarutobi, clearly. The difference in skill level, despite his age, had become so apparent that Jonathan began critiquing their fighting style. He could see the flaws in their movements. The only shinobi he did not see much of any flaws in was Might Guy. Trying to outmatch him in a fight would still prove to be difficult for Jonathan at this stage.

At least in taijutsu.