New Five-Star Substitute!

Hayato Kamihara had never met anyone like Lin Qing.

The dialogue between him and Lin Qing had evolved from the beginning:

"This one is a bit dangerous, be careful."

To:

"Don't rush, give me some time, I'll find you a few more targets."

And finally to the present:

"Brother, Brother Qing, please take a break! If you don't rest, I have to; there really isn't a single person left!"

Lin Qing pushed Hayato Kamihara aside and opened the cabinet behind him.

It was completely empty.

"All gone?"

"Really all gone."

In just half a month, a whirlwind seemed to have swept through the city they were in, and every fugitive or rogue ninja ranked B or higher had been captured and delivered to Hayato Kamihara.

"This is the last commission payment."

Hayato Kamihara handed over a briefcase: "Get some good rest. As soon as there's new business, I'll be sure to contact you first."

Lin Qing took the case, which was filled with stacks of banknotes.

He picked up a thick stack from the pile, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward Hayato Kamihara.

Hayato Kamihara asked in confusion: "The client has already paid me my cut."

Lin Qing shook his head and said: "This isn't a cut, it's overtime pay. You've been a great help during this time."

Over the past half month, the efficiency with which Lin Qing collected soul fragments had been high, and that was inseparable from Hayato Kamihara's assistance.

Hayato Kamihara stared at Lin Qing in astonishment.

He had worked with many bounty hunters.

Most in this line of work had less-than-glorious pasts, and Hayato Kamihara had managed to uncover at least some of Lin Qing's history—

A clan massacre.

Internal assassination within a ninja village.

Forced to flee.

Hayato Kamihara had expected Lin Qing to have a bitter and resentful personality, so this unexpected gentleness caught him off guard.

He stood up and earnestly extended his hand.

"It's no trouble, it's my job. Pleasure doing business with you."

Lin Qing shook his hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

"By the way, there is one more piece of intelligence... I can't call it intelligence since it hasn't been confirmed, so let's call it a reminder between friends."

Hayato Kamihara's smile faded: "Ninjas from Konoha's Root organization have arrived in this city."

Sasuke's expression changed, and he said nervously: "Ko, Konoha... what does that have to do with us..."

A hand landed on his head, and Lin Qing shook his head slightly at him.

Hayato Kamihara was a professional intelligence broker; it would have been abnormal if he hadn't figured out their true identities after knowing them for so long.

Before, they hadn't brought it up, tacitly agreeing to ignore it, but now that Hayato Kamihara had proactively mentioned it, continuing to play dumb would be disrespectful to one another.

The ninjas of Root might not be strong in direct combat, but under Danzo's pathological management, every single one of them was an expert at lurking and backstabbing.

In order to earn soul fragments, Lin Qing had been a bit arrogant lately, and the reputation of the two bounty hunters—one big, one small—had spread across several surrounding cities, so it was only logical that they would attract Danzo's men.

"I understand, thank you."

"You're welcome. Also."

Hayato Kamihara took two Konoha headbands out of his drawer.

"Are you really not planning to operate as rogue ninjas? The Root ninjas have already tracked you down anyway. Clients prefer rogue ninjas; the commissions and contracts would increase."

The status of a rogue ninja was equivalent to telling others:

"I am being hunted by a village, yet I'm still alive and kicking—look how badass I am."

It invisibly demonstrated one's strength and made it easier to gain a client's trust.

From another perspective, if a rogue ninja were killed by their village before payment was made, the client wouldn't have to pay.

Declaring oneself a rogue ninja acted as an endorsement; the more powerful the village the headband pointed to, the easier it was to land jobs.

Among them, rogue ninjas from Konoha were quite popular in the market.

Sasuke seemed somewhat tempted.

Lin Qing waved his hand and said: "No need, we are not ninjas."

Hayato Kamihara shrugged and sent the two of them off from the office.

A brief rest wouldn't be complete without a soak in the bath.

Lin Qing placed a towel on his head, leaned against the edge of the tub, and enjoyed the gentle warmth of the water flowing past him.

Sasuke, bare-bottomed, alternated between diving underwater and floating on his back like a little chick.

No matter how deep his bitterness or how heavy his grudges, he was still just a seven-year-old child.

Lin Qing smiled, wiped his face with the towel, and opened the system interface.

Through day and night of hunting, Lin Qing had captured a total of fifty-three fugitives and rogue ninjas, causing his soul fragment count to skyrocket from 152 to 614.

With an average of less than 10 soul fragments per fugitive, one could only say that the gap between individuals was truly vast.

Soul Fragments: 614.

That meant 61 draws.

Considering he had burned 55 draws before pulling the Ripple Breathing Method last time, his intuition told Lin Qing that there was a high probability of pulling a five-star Stand this time.

Lin Qing didn't like doing single pulls; he had been saving his draws for half a month, all for the sake of a satisfying spree today.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, paused for half a second, and exhaled slowly—

Begin draw!

Ten pulls, nothing.

Twenty pulls, nothing.

Thirty pulls, nothing.

Lin Qing's mindset was much steadier than last time.

Forty pulls, nothing.

Fifty pulls, nothing.

The final ten pulls.

His intuition told Lin Qing:

It's time!

Ten stars fell from the firmament, and a brilliant light flashed—

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Five consecutive sounds.

Five-star!

Lin Qing clenched his fists; his hard work over this period hadn't been in vain. He stared at the dissipating radiance, and what appeared before him was...

A vintage-style propeller fighter plane with a distinct World War II aesthetic.

The fighter was only the size of a laptop, equipped with two machine guns on its wings and a bomb hanging beneath its fuselage, with a thumb-sized pilot sitting in the cockpit.

As he locked eyes with the pilot, the figure brought his index and middle fingers together and tapped his forehead lightly, a gesture of greeting toward Lin Qing.

Stand Name: Aero Smith

Five-star.

Owner: Narancia Ghirga

Ability: A long-range remote-controlled Stand equipped with two machine guns, a bomb, and a carbon dioxide detection radar. It can lock onto the source of carbon dioxide, though its precision is low and requires the Stand user to make their own judgments.

Current Level: Level 1

Note: Smith is the name of the pilot.

"To think it would be this Stand..."

After leaving Konoha, Lin Qing had taken every opportunity to read the JoJo series. Over the past two months, he had read it through many times, long since memorizing the various Stand abilities.

The power of Aero Smith wasn't overwhelming and couldn't compare to Star Platinum, but it could at least compensate for Lin Qing's shortcomings at medium-to-long range, serving as a tool for suppression and kiting to prevent him from being toyed with by opponents.

Beyond raw combat power, the true strength of Aero Smith—the reason it qualified as a five-star Stand—lay in its area reconnaissance capabilities.

By flying through the air, it could sense the location of enemies via its carbon dioxide detector.

Narancia in the original work was very sharp, with the advantage of seizing flashes of inspiration, but his flaw was a short temper and relatively weak control, preventing him from fully unleashing the terrifying potential of its reconnaissance.

Lin Qing, who possessed the power of the Ripple, far surpassed Narancia in both control and focus. More importantly, there was the characteristic that ordinary people could not see Stands.

After the battle between Kakashi and Lin Qing, Konoha already knew that one had to channel a large amount of chakra into their eyes to see a Stand.

That was fine during a direct, head-on clash.

But once caught in a war of attrition, urban combat, or guerrilla warfare, few ninjas could afford to waste chakra on that for long.

At such times, an invisible "eye" capable of scouting the battlefield from the sky represented an absolutely terrifying intelligence advantage.

"Should I... give it a try?"

Lin Qing raised his right hand, tilting it upward at a 45-degree angle to serve as an aircraft runway.

Whoosh—

Aero Smith took to the air, flying out of the window and soaring into the sky.

"Activate, reconnaissance mode."

In an instant, Lin Qing saw red dots appearing within a radius of several hundred meters.

Every red dot represented a person.

Positional reconnaissance that ignored most limitations was, for the technologically underdeveloped Ninja World, nothing short of a dimensional strike.

But this was not the limit.

As he circulated his breathing technique, Lin Qing's focus reached a state of hyper-concentration.

The detection range narrowed, and the resulting reconnaissance image became crystal clear.

Carbon dioxide exhaled from people's noses and mouths settled onto nearby objects; influenced by space, matter, and wind, the gas shifted and morphed, outlining the surrounding scene.

Within a thirty-meter radius, every breathing creature had nowhere to hide, and Lin Qing could clearly see their every move.

It's practically a Byakugan with long-range bombardment capabilities.

Lin Qing was extremely satisfied with Aero Smith's abilities; it not only compensated for his weakness in mid-to-long-range combat but also covered his shortcomings in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.

"Return."

Aero Smith circled once in the sky and prepared to head back.

Suddenly, Aero Smith detected someone lying on the roof of the bathhouse, peeking at Lin Qing through a gap.

Lin Qing looked up, locking eyes with a pair of pitch-black eyes.