Ninja World Business Godfather?

On the streets of Konoha!

"Ninja Tool Packs, twenty thousand ryo each! Fully stocked with all kinds of ninja tools, plus a complimentary intelligence booklet containing information on examinees from every major ninja village!"

"Genuine goods, guaranteed quality!"

"Are you still troubled by not having enough ninja tools? Worried because information about your opponents is unclear?"

"Buy just one Ninja Tool Pack, and none of that will be a problem!"

The booming sales pitch drew plenty of attention.

Among the passing crowds were a large number of examinees, many from small ninja villages. They truly needed ninja tools, and were even more lacking in intelligence.

"Give me one!"

After discussing it, one team bought a Ninja Tool Pack.

It contained ninja tools such as Kunai, Shuriken, Senbon, and more.

As for the quality?

Sorry, that depended on where you bought them.

High-quality ninja tools started at prices above ten thousand ryo. Thinking you could buy that kind of quality for this amount of money was just wishful thinking.

Having them at all was already good enough. What more did you want?

"Here!"

Of the three boys behind the stall wearing Konoha Headbands, the fattest one collected the money with movements astonishingly nimble for his build, then handed over the Ninja Tool Pack and booklet.

The Genin from the small ninja village left satisfied after purchasing the pack.

He needed ninja tools, and with intelligence like this included, he had made an absolute killing.

After watching him leave,

the handsome, refined-looking boy behind the stall, dressed in a fitted black shirt and cropped pants, finally spoke.

"Fatty, how did you come up with such a profitable method—setting up a stall to sell ninja tools and throwing in intelligence as a bonus?"

Hearing that, the chubby boy stared at the black-haired youth in confusion, as though he did not understand why he would ask that.

"Didn't you say this before, Tang Ping?"

The other boy, lean and quiet, spoke up.

That was right. The ones behind the stall were Tang Ping, Yamaa Koji, and Honda Taka.

They had come out to hang out today, but unexpectedly, the fat guy had pulled this stunt.

"When did I ever say—"

Tang Ping was about to refute him when he suddenly remembered that he really had mentioned a tactic like this before.

Damn it!

The clown was me all along.

If the fat guy made this business big, perhaps Tang Ping could even end up with the title of Ninja World Business Godfather someday.

"But where did you get all this intelligence?"

Tang Ping pointed at the booklet.

The importance of intelligence to ninja went without saying. If its source was questionable, they would definitely be punished.

"I collected all of it from the examinees themselves, so don't worry!"

Honda Taka explained smugly.

If not to make the intelligence more convincing, he would not have called his two friends over to lend credibility to the stall.

Three Konoha Genin were the key reason these examinees were willing to trust them.

If ordinary people had been selling it, would anyone have believed them?

"That's good..."

Only then did Tang Ping set aside his worries. As long as the intelligence had not come from somewhere dangerous, it was fine.

Rustle!

Yamaa Koji flipped through the booklet, his expression growing increasingly grave.

"What is it?"

Curious, Tang Ping picked up a copy and began flipping through it as well.

He quickly found the reason.

There were too many strong opponents!

And judging by some of their builds, were they really Genin?

Calling them uncles would not have been strange.

Keep in mind that the Joint Chunin Exams only restricted participants to Genin. There was barely any age limit.

Fifteen years old!

As long as they were under that age, they qualified.

It was completely impossible for everyone to have only just graduated, like in the anime.

Do not think becoming a Chunin was easy.

Not only did one need to accumulate sufficient mission experience, one also needed strength. More than half of all ninja would never advance to Chunin before retirement.

So Genin under fifteen could be found everywhere, and all of them qualified to take the exam.

The evaluations in the booklet also followed the system Tang Ping had mentioned before.

Ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, intelligence, strength, speed, stamina, hand seals.

It directly categorized every aspect of a ninja's abilities.

Although the ninja world already had some evaluation systems, they were far too rough and simplistic, nowhere near as intuitive as the one Tang Ping had proposed.

However, Tang Ping's evaluation system had new standards for its numerical ratings.

One point for graduates, two for Genin, three for Chunin, four for Special Jonin, five for Jonin, six for Elite Jonin, seven for Quasi-Kage, eight for Kage level, nine for peak Kage level, and ten for beyond Kage level.

Yes, this scale was far more intuitive and accurate than the original.

Perhaps it was precisely because the ratings were so simple and clear that Yamaa Koji looked so grave.

He had heard Tang Ping explain this system before, but he had not paid much attention to it then.

He had not expected it to feel so immediately clear when written in an intelligence report.

Based on this booklet, they could also form a rough assessment of the examinees in this exam.

It even contained an evaluation of him.

Yamaa Koji: Ninjutsu 3, taijutsu 2, genjutsu 1, intelligence 3, strength 2, speed 2, stamina 2, hand seals 2.

See? Those were his stats.

After comparing them inwardly, Yamaa Koji also felt that the ratings were not random.

Ninjutsu-focused!

That really was his path, and his combat intelligence was not bad either.

At the same time, this intelligence only used publicly available data. It did not reveal what ninjutsu he knew or what trump cards he possessed. It was definitely considerate of them.

Tang Ping, meanwhile, flipped to the final pages and froze when he saw the name at the top of the examinees' top-ten ranking.

"Kakashi isn't even first?"

The name at the top was not Kakashi, the super genius he had expected.

Right!

Tang Ping suddenly realized why.

Kakashi was not even seven years old yet, just a little runt.

No matter how quickly people matured in the ninja world, he was still far too young.

He was the youngest of all the ninja.

Yet he had still placed among the top three, making him a genius among geniuses.

If it had been the teenage Kakashi, he would unquestionably have taken first place.

After all, the record of becoming a Jonin at twelve was something he would set in the future.

Unfortunately, no matter how talented one was, it could not beat having cheats.

The later Byakugan Wolf and Great Filial Son would directly reach Kage level in their teens. Their cheats were utterly outrageous.

All one could say was,

the Sharingan truly was an overpowered cheat. No wonder Danzo could never let it go.

The first-place contender was a boy named Gang Tu.

He was fourteen, making him an "older" examinee.

The problem was that his record was terrifying.

The booklet only listed data for Konoha examinees, without achievements or introductions. But for examinees from other villages, the descriptions were as detailed as possible.

His record stated that he was Stone Village's "strongest genius" and had even confronted a Jonin head-on.

This was practically cheating!

He definitely was not a Genin.

Yet Ōnoki had forcibly kept him classified as one.

He had no shame at all.

After reading it, Tang Ping spent a long while mentally cursing Ōnoki, the Third Tsuchikage.

That old man really was the type who cared about substance but not appearances. In every respect, he was far more formidable than Konoha's own "Strongest Hokage."

However, Gang Tu had not exceeded the age limit, and Stone Village had never acknowledged him as a Chunin, so he did indeed meet the participation requirements.

All one could say was that the Three Great Ninja Villages all knew how to play dirty.

They wanted to gain fame, but they also wanted to eliminate the geniuses of other villages.

Grab both ends, and make both ends strong.

Ninja were not samurai. They did not care about honor or fairness; as long as they completed the mission, that was enough.

"Please give me a Ninja Tool Pack!"

Just as Tang Ping was continuously complaining about how the major ninja villages had no martial ethics, a simple, honest voice made him look up instinctively—and freeze.