Academy

Six months after starting at the academy.

Itachi’s fame spread throughout the school. He excelled to such an extent
that some teachers and students said his level of talent had never before been
seen at the school.

Given the fact that the first-year classes had nothing to teach Itachi, his teachers gave him special homework and tests.

But Itachi easily mastered it all, and his teachers threw up their hands in defeat.

He was more than advanced enough for the genin level, and so, just over
four months after he started school, his teachers unanimously agreed on his
graduation after his first year.

The village of Konohagakure, exhausted from the Great War and the attack
by the Nine-Tails, urgently needed ninja. Because of this, a select number of
students judged by their teachers to be particularly gifted could take the
graduation exam without waiting for their full term to be up.

If they passed the exam, they would then attend the graduation ceremony with the older
students, and be assigned duties as a genin.

Naturally, Itachi passed the graduation exam. It was on clone techniques,
something he had mastered with the instruction he got from Shisui before
starting at the academy.

Itachi Shinded: Book of Bright Light Chapter 1 Part 3