Thinking

Thinking

Ninja Academy, rooftop.

If I can't improve my physical abilities, then for now, the most suitable way for me to deal with powerful opponents is to make the Substitution Technique my core...

Lin Ke sat alone in a corner. Ever since his battle with Hatake Kakashi, he had become famous throughout the Ninja Academy.

There were not many students to begin with, and when a classmate suspected of wielding Ice Release appeared, everyone in his class soon knew about him.

He had no interest in interacting with people his own age, and he cared even less for the so-called classmates who came because of his Ice Release. Besides, he had too many secrets he could not tell anyone. No one could enter his heart, much less become something like a friend.

As a result, he became increasingly isolated in class. It was not that others had ostracized him; he had ostracized them.

Because of the Ninja Academy's education, he had always structured his combat system according to a ninja's logic. After suffering such a crushing defeat, though, he had figured something out.

Before acquiring other, more powerful ninjutsu, he had to make the best use of his strongest technique.

He had to rule out taijutsu exchanges before gaining any ninjutsu that enhanced his physical abilities. Physical ability was a huge pitfall, and it would only become more apparent later on. More importantly, the Substitution Technique could summon far too many types of substitutes, making it nearly impossible to settle on a relatively fixed approach.

Yet among the techniques he currently possessed, the Substitution Technique had the highest ceiling. It seemed he had no other choice.

Compared to other ninjas casting ninjutsu, he had one enormous advantage—

Every ninjutsu was limited by chakra control. In other words, with the same technique, using too much chakra without being able to control it perfectly would cause the technique to fail, while using too little chakra to form the technique would likewise cause it to fail. Many ninjas who were poor at ninjutsu basically had problems in this area.

The reason some people could cast the same ninjutsu more powerfully than others was also that their chakra control was strong enough to make more chakra complete the same technique.

However, Lin Ke did not need to control the amount of chakra when casting his mutated ninjutsu. He only needed to extract chakra, roughly direct it toward the technique, and the chakra would automatically disappear, completing the cast through some unknown method.

So he held a tremendous advantage when it came to casting ninjutsu. Without needing to consider how to control it, he only had to think about chakra allocation.

A Clone Technique plus Transformation Jutsu maintained for around one minute consumed roughly 10% of his chakra.

Maintaining the Substitution Technique for one minute directly consumed 30% of his chakra, and that was without even accounting for the expenditure after the substitute appeared. This alone showed just how costly the technique was.

Strictly speaking, his Substitution Technique, like the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, counted as a Forbidden Technique because it required too much chakra to cast.

Carelessly consuming chakra to the point of passing out was extremely dangerous.

Returning to combat strategies, because of his shortcomings in taijutsu, he had to use the Clone Technique to absorb damage in order to ensure that enemies could not simply bypass his substitute and attack his real body. Otherwise, no matter how powerful the substitute was, it would be unable to exert its strength because of the fragility of its user.

In truth, consuming 10% of one's chakra for a single technique was already very high. No one entered battle with 100% of their stamina; their movements before battle often required them to extract some chakra to maintain mobility.

Therefore, techniques suited for a ninja were best kept between 5% and 8% chakra consumption. If a technique consumed too much, it had to be a finishing move rather than something used at the start of a fight.

Just like Hatake Kakashi's Lightning Blade.

But if he built his tactics entirely around the Substitution Technique, the whole course of battle would become extremely strange.

In theory, he should summon a substitute before every battle began, then determine his fighting style and role in that battle based on the substitute's type and abilities.

It sounded fun, but it was completely unreliable.

What if he was fighting alone and summoned a substitute that healed teammates? What if he needed powerful offense and summoned Hermit Purple? There were simply too many problems. He had never seen any ninja fight based on probability.

Even in the film and television works from his previous life, aside from Yu-Gi-Oh!, he had hardly ever seen battles where people drew cards before fighting—where drawing a powerful card meant victory, while drawing trash meant defeat.

Anyone who had played roguelike games surely knew how great it felt to draw good skills, and how awful the experience became after drawing trash skills...

Even if Lin Ke shortened the time his substitutes remained active to increase his margin for error as much as possible, he could also spend money on Soldier Pills to replenish the stamina consumed in battle.

But if the substitute he drew the first time was unsuitable for combat, could he really hold on until a second draw amid exchanges that were decided in the blink of an eye?

Of course, substitutes were not without their advantages. They inherited the traits from the original JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga: only those with substitutes could see them. Neither the Ninja Academy's students and teachers nor even Hatake Kakashi had been able to see them.

Summoning a combat-type substitute could greatly boost his frontal combat ability, while support-type substitutes had exceptionally strange effects. Some rule-based substitutes could even kill an opponent in one blow as long as their conditions were met.

Well, what he could make use of was basically the substitutes' abilities, rather than things like their strength or speed.

After all, in the substitute rankings, Power C meant ordinary human level, Power B meant better than ordinary humans, and Power A meant exceptionally good. Yet the actual portrayals were a complete mess and utterly inconsistent. Some Power A substitutes could shatter diamonds, while others could not even bend open iron bars. Some Power C substitutes could even destroy parking lots. The differences were unimaginable.

However, purely in terms of displayed strength and speed, the vast majority of substitutes found it difficult to contend with ninjas.

With chakra enhancement, taijutsu ninjas were incredibly tough and possessed absurd strength. As for speed, which was valued most highly, with the aid of the Body Flicker Technique, they could completely surpass human vision.

Therefore, aside from the few substitutes capable of brawling, Lin Ke valued the special abilities of substitutes more.

Even Hermit Purple, which people mocked as, "Old man, your substitute is the most useless," was actually extremely useful for gathering intelligence.

But its instability remained a problem.

Considering that he could repeatedly use the Substitution Technique, it would be better to find a way to increase his margin for error. If the substitute summoned the first time was not useful, then he would summon one twice. If twice did not work, then three times. Eventually, he would summon a combat substitute suitable for use.

To achieve that prerequisite—

"So I need a teammate—a meat shield. Preferably a partner as tough as Uzumaki Naruto, someone who can absorb damage for me and hold out until I summon a useful substitute."

Lin Ke pondered this thoughtfully.