A Genin Who Lit Up in One Minute

A Genin Who Lit Up in One Minute

His strength was outstanding, but his attack speed was not fast—at least not so fast that a jonin could not easily evade it...

Nara Yan Shui dodged skillfully as he pondered.

The sight of his subordinate launching an attack had indeed startled him at first. Such a large scale and such high-speed mobility looked truly terrifying.

Soon, he had figured out this strange "technique."

Its raw attack speed might leave ordinary people unable to react, but to a battle-hardened jonin, it was very slow. Its movement relied entirely on the recoil created by its immense strength striking the surrounding environment. It moved in straight lines, with very few variations.

Its destructive power was astonishing, and its defensive capabilities were strong as well. The dense mass of hair surrounding it could shred any kunai or shuriken thrown at it.

Truly shred them.

In a purely frontal taijutsu clash, only monsters on the level of Tailed Beasts could probably contend with this "technique," but—

A ninja's battles had never been about physical collisions alone.

Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, secret techniques, Forbidden Techniques—there were many ways to destroy this "technique." It was quite suited for war...

Nara Yan Shui formed hand seals again, firing the Shadow Sewing Jutsu and forcing the approaching hair sphere to halt briefly.

Whoosh! Rip~

A shadow spike slipped through the gaps between the strands of hair, barely grazing Lin Ke's cheek and leaving behind a bloody cut.

"Phew..." He let out a weary breath. The feeling of his stamina hitting bottom again was manageable—he had Soldier Pills to replenish it—but there was no easing the pain brought by repeatedly pushing his body to its limits.

Even more troublesome, the time on his Substitution Technique was nearly up.

It had been mentioned before that when he cast ninjutsu, he could often release it simply by supplying a certain amount of chakra. He did not need to think about how to shape it, nor did he have to worry about a failed technique due to operational mistakes. This was an enormous advantage when learning ninjutsu or fighting in a rush.

However, this also came with a flaw. Under normal circumstances, when casting a sustained ninjutsu—such as the Clone Technique or Transformation Jutsu—it was entirely under one's control. If one wanted to extend its duration, one only needed to refine more chakra and add it in. Shadow Clones, which evenly divided chakra, were an exception.

But for him, extending the duration of a ninjutsu was far more difficult. He had to cast an identical technique while maintaining the current one in order to extend its duration.

For ordinary ninja, this was almost impossible.

It was slightly more difficult than using combination ninjutsu, yet slightly easier than a Kekkei Genkai.

If someone possessed chakra control at that level, why obsess over stacking ninjutsu? Wouldn't it be better to directly cast two techniques at the same time and create a Kekkei Genkai? The difference between a Kekkei Genkai and combination ninjutsu was that a Kekkei Genkai involved releasing two ninjutsu simultaneously, while combination ninjutsu had a sequence. They were entirely different levels of difficulty.

That was why Lin Ke had to consider the amount of chakra when casting the Substitution Technique. His current solution was simply to supply each Substitution Technique with enough chakra to last one minute, then rely on swallowing Soldier Pills to cast it repeatedly.

It would probably be more complicated and troublesome in actual combat, but he had no better solution for now.

Three.

Two.

Lin Ke counted down internally. Then, he suddenly stopped pursuing Nara Yan Shui. All his hair exerted force together, launching him back toward his two teammates—the meat shields.

One.

His hair rapidly contracted. The originally glossy, silky-black hair gradually lost its color as it shrank. By the time it had returned to its original short length, it had turned grayish white and uneven, looking extremely unhealthy.

This was one of Purple Lover's traits. When the hair faced a powerful attack, it would turn into damaged, ragged white hair.

No matter how much it was reinforced, the hair was still easily severed by the extreme sharpness of the Shadow Sewing Jutsu. Once enough of it had been cut, it naturally counted as having suffered a powerful attack. Earlier, when he had gone all out, his hair had been growing wildly every moment, concealing the gray-white color beneath.

Now that the Substitute had dissipated, its ability was gone. Yet his altered hair color could not return.

If he wanted his original beautiful black hair back, he would probably have to wait for it to grow out again.

"Is... is it over?" Yuan Wei asked haltingly.

He was afraid that the boss might have already killed their instructor. The scale of that battle had been a little too outrageous.

Xia bit her lip. Any thoughts of revenge or schadenfreude had completely vanished after Lin Ke displayed that form just now.

When someone was only a little stronger than you, you could still entertain other thoughts. But when they were far too strong, no malicious thoughts could arise at all.

After catching my breath a little longer, I should still be able to cast the Substitution Technique once more...

Lin Ke did not answer Yuan Wei's question. He breathed heavily, calmly waiting for his stamina to recover. He made a tactical hand signal, telling the two meat shields to get ready to block for him.

Purple Lover was useful—extremely useful. If he could develop it further, then with hair possessing strength measured in tons and toughness comparable to steel, he could briefly fight even some rather embarrassing "Kage."

Its flaw was that everything it did consumed stamina. A Substitute with a physical body would not consume much of his stamina merely through movement and attacks after being summoned. But Purple Lover was a possession-type Substitute. It had no physical body and directly attached itself to his hair.

Every movement meant using the Substitute's ability. Activating that ability consumed stamina, and the greater the changes it made, the more severe the stamina drain. So even though it was only one Substitution Technique, and he had even swallowed a Soldier Pill at the beginning, his stamina had still bottomed out.

One minute.

Not even as good as the neighboring production's three-minute lights-out.

Tap, tap, tap. Nara Yan Shui emerged from the smoke and dust, his expression somewhat complicated. He looked at Yuan Wei and Xia, who were gripping kunai with wary faces, then shifted his gaze to Lin Ke's gray-white hair. Letting out a soft breath, he said, "The test is over. Congratulations."

They had finally become... genin.

Lin Ke did not know what the other two thought, but the moment he heard those words, immense joy welled up inside him.

Soon after, he felt a little miserable for being so happy merely because he had become a genin.

He felt even more exasperated by Konoha's completely arbitrary management and evaluation system. Last time, he had passed the graduation exam and clearly snatched a bell, yet he had been sent back to the Ninja Academy to repeat his studies. This time, he had gotten into the graduation exam through connections and had not even snatched a bell—

Yet he had successfully become a genin.

There was no standard at all. Whatever the superior thought was the answer to the assessment.

"Yeah!" Yuan Wei cheered loudly.

Xia lowered her kunai and glanced sideways at Lin Ke, who was still "calm and composed." She silently sighed.

She might have been sharp-tongued, ill-tempered, and spoiled like a princess, but her brain worked. She knew that Yuan Wei and she had become genin entirely because of their teammate.

How could she not feel defeated by that?

Nara Yan Shui put away the bells, a smile appearing on his face. "Let's go eat barbecue together."

"My treat."