Late at night, Konoha Village · Uchiha Compound.
"You have obtained 70 Soul Shards. Would you like to perform your first Stand draw?"
A ringing in his ears mingled with distant noise, echoing through Lin Qing's mind.
Lin Qing sat dazed in a pool of blood. The gaping wound in his chest was slowly healing, and the gravel in the courtyard was digging into his backside.
He touched the blood on his chest.
It was still warm.
Lin Qing stared blankly, all his thoughts condensed into a single word:
"Huh?"
Fragments of jumbled memories flooded his mind:
Uchiha Qing, eighteen years old. Idle and uneducated, he had been expelled from the Ninja Academy and lived off his clan's welfare, earning himself the title of the Uchiha clan's disgrace.
The moon was bright tonight. His predecessor had been drinking and admiring it when he spotted someone crouched on a utility pole.
And then...
Lin Qing had taken over.
"I've transmigrated?"
"And I'm in the world of Naruto?"
Lin Qing had heard of Naruto.
That was all.
He was a small-town exam grinder who had devoted himself to his studies from childhood and rarely watched anime. He knew very little about Naruto.
He only knew a few of the series' more famous events, such as:
The Nine-Tailed Fox was sealed inside Naruto's stomach.
Sasuke's "Amaterasu."
And...
Tsunade, Ino, Sakura, and others he'd learned about from some site starting with P.
Lin Qing knew nothing about the story's details.
He'd transmigrated into an anime world without knowing the plot.
How was he supposed to manage that?
"You have obtained 70 Soul Shards. Would you like to perform your first Stand draw?"
As he thought, the ringing in his ears gradually faded. Lin Qing heard the cold, unfamiliar voice again.
He relaxed and grinned. "I've got a system."
Lin Qing opened the system interface:
JoJo Stand System.
Derived from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, it contained every Stand that had appeared in the series. Stands could be obtained through card draws and then developed.
Lin Qing hadn't watched JoJo either.
Perhaps the system knew that, because it had tucked a "Story Recap" function into the farthest corner of the interface.
Lin Qing could view the manga from Parts 1 through 8.
He could read the manga later. For now, Lin Qing opened the draw screen.
A Stand was the physical manifestation of its user's mental energy. Stands possessed all sorts of wondrous abilities and could fight, defend, and scout on their users' behalf.
Because a Stand was a manifestation of mental energy, if it was injured, its user would suffer severe injuries too.
The two were closely connected, two sides of the same whole.
The draw screen showed a host of Stand silhouettes. Beneath them were buttons for a single draw and a ten-pull, alongside an explanation:
"Standard draw pool. Possible rewards include 4–5-star Stands, Stand upgrade materials, and special items. One draw costs 10 Soul Shards."
"Four-star Stands: Stone Free, Emperor, Hermit Purple, Silver Chariot..."
"Five-star Stands: Crazy Diamond, Metallica, Star Platinum (without Time Stop), Whitesnake..."
There were all kinds, packed tightly together.
Lin Qing's gaze settled on the first line.
"This is the standard draw pool. Does that mean there are special pools too?"
The system didn't answer.
It simply prompted him again to draw, while a message appeared on the draw screen:
[First draw: a ten-pull is guaranteed to yield a five-star Stand.]
That was good news.
This pool didn't even have a pity system. Who knew how much he'd have to invest before getting anything worthwhile?
The person who had killed his predecessor might still be nearby. If Lin Qing could get a five-star Stand first, at least he'd have some means of protecting himself.
He glanced at the balance in the upper-right corner.
Soul Shards: 70.
At 10 Shards per draw, he was 30 short of a ten-pull.
There were three ways to obtain Soul Shards:
Defeat powerful enemies, change the world's course, or mortgage his own soul.
The first two were easy enough to understand: kill enemies and change the direction of the plot.
But the last one—mortgaging his soul—
"Mortgage your soul in exchange for Soul Shards. Repay the mortgaged amount within 24 hours to redeem your soul. Otherwise, the mortgaged portion of your soul will be lost forever."
Current soul mortgage value: 500 Soul Shards.
Five hundred. That was fifty pulls.
Is my soul only worth one 648-yuan top-up?
Lin Qing complained to himself.
What would happen if he lost part of his soul?
He didn't know.
And he didn't want to know.
He would never go into debt for a card draw.
Lin Qing rose from the pool of blood and made a plan for the future:
Keep his head down.
With the Uchiha Bloodline and the Stand System, he'd quietly grow stronger. Once he got the chance to draw a powerful Stand, he could enjoy a life without overtime or hardship, with a little money and a beautiful girl in his arms.
Just thinking about it made the corners of his mouth lift.
"Brother Qing, save... save me..."
A faint plea from inside the house interrupted Lin Qing's thoughts.
Someone else was here?
Lin Qing frowned slightly, pushed open the door, and went inside.
A little girl of four or five lay face-down on the tatami, her hair tied into two little pigtails. A crimson wound on her abdomen was oozing blood.
She reached out to Lin Qing.
He clasped her hand. It was cold, trembling, and tiny. Memories of the girl surfaced in his mind:
Her father had died in the war, and her mother had drowned her grief in drink, beating the girl whenever she got drunk.
His predecessor might have been useless, but he'd been kind to the village children. He often used the welfare money he received to buy them candy.
The little girl didn't dare go home, so she clung to Lin Qing all day, playing games at his house and mooching snacks.
"When I grow up, I'm going to marry you, Brother Qing."
She said that all the time.
Her mother had gotten drunk again that night, so she'd run to Lin Qing's house.
"Brother Qing... I don't want to die..."
The joy Lin Qing had felt at getting the system quietly faded.
Without a word, he scooped up the girl and ran outside.
A doctor!
He had to find a doctor!
Lin Qing ran out of the courtyard with her in his arms, then realized he still had the system.
He remembered that a few Stands had healing abilities. If he could draw one, he might be able to save the girl's life.
"Just hold on. We'll be there in—"
Lin Qing couldn't finish the sentence.
The girl's eyes had turned ashen, and she was no longer breathing.
She was dead.
Lin Qing didn't know her, and his predecessor's memories had come in broken fragments.
But as a modern person, there was no way he could witness a living, tender little child die before his eyes and feel nothing.
His predecessor had been an adult, useless for years and wasting the Uchiha clan's resources. Someone had taken offense and killed him.
Lin Qing couldn't agree with it, but he could understand that twisted logic.
But what could a five-year-old child possibly have done wrong?
"Caw—caw—"
The cawing of crows caught Lin Qing's attention.
Crows circled overhead, and the night sky was utterly black.
Lin Qing twitched his nose.
The stench of blood had grown even stronger after he left the courtyard.
A gentle evening breeze parted the clouds, and moonlight spilled down again. Lin Qing saw what lay around him.
Corpses.
Corpses everywhere.
Old people, young people, children.
Not a single survivor.
Lin Qing's scalp prickled. "What the hell is going on? Did an enemy attack the village?"
He stood in the street.
Behind him, Hokage Village blazed with lights. Ahead, the Uchiha Compound was steeped in blood. The night wind brushed his skin, and his heart turned cold.
First came fear. But once the fear passed, anger took its place.
Not because of any feelings for the dead preserved in his predecessor's fragmented memories.
It was simply the fury of an ordinary person, raised in the modern world and taught the value of life, confronted with a merciless massacre.
There was no shortage of fighting and killing in the Naruto World. It was a hot-blooded shonen manga, after all. People died; that was normal. But...
Killing old people who could barely walk?
Killing children who could barely speak?
What kind of human being could do something like that?!
Monsters.
Only monsters could do such a thing.
"Ahhh!!!"
A scream came from nearby. It sounded like a child.
A survivor.
Lin Qing instinctively took a step, then stopped abruptly.
The murderer had slaughtered the entire Uchiha clan. They had to be incredibly powerful.
Konoha Village still hadn't come to help, which meant the killer probably had someone backing them, clearing the way.
The killer had power, influence, and a plan.
Was it worth risking his life to save a stranger?
The moment the question crossed his mind, Lin Qing took a second step.
What did "worth it" even matter?
He'd already gained a life by transmigrating, and he had the system to back him up.
Keep his head down?
If a grown man didn't even have that much courage, then he really would be a dog.
Lin Qing strode forward, the wind whipping his hair, but his gaze remained unwavering.
Deep within his pupils, the Golden Spirit ignited.
In the night, it burned like a blazing sun.
Itachi Uchiha looked down at Sasuke, who sat collapsed on the ground. His eyes were cold, but beneath the chill lay madness.
Obito, wearing a mask, stood nearby with his arms folded, looking like he was enjoying the show.
Just then, they both heard footsteps approaching from afar.
The pace... no, there was no rhythm to it at all.
His breathing was ragged. He could hardly be called a ninja.
He was just an ordinary person.
Lin Qing came charging around the street corner.
He saw a tiny Sasuke, crying nonstop, and Itachi Uchiha and Obito standing opposite him.
"A straggler?"
Obito glanced at the bloodstain on Lin Qing's chest. "Itachi, are you too tired? You can't even kill someone properly. Want me to do it for you?"
"No need."
Itachi Uchiha drew his sword and said coldly, "I didn't think I'd have to kill you a second time."
He knew Lin Qing.
The disgrace of the Uchiha Clan, a professional freeloader.
During the Third Shinobi World War, most of the Uchiha Clan had gone to fight.
Lin Qing, though in his prime, was the only one who stayed home, because he was weaker than a child, couldn't use a single jutsu, and wasn't even qualified to serve as support. He spent the Third Shinobi World War lying around at home.
He was such a hopeless failure that he'd become famous for it.
When Sasuke saw that it was Lin Qing, the hope that had just appeared in his eyes faded away.
"Ptooey!"
Lin Qing spat on the ground. "You're an animal. Don't act like we're close."
He caught his breath, walked over, and gently patted Sasuke's little head.
"Go on. Squat over there."
Lin Qing turned back to Itachi Uchiha and Obito and issued a command to the system:
"Put my soul up as collateral, then..."
"Ten-pull!"
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