A week had passed since Shiranui Hayate accepted the fealty of the various underworld factions at the Continental Hotel.
During this time, Hayate had accumulated a steady stream of resources through his daily system sign-ins: 30,000 Copper Coins, one Ninja Recruitment Scroll, two sets of 300 Reputation points, 50 bowls of Delicious Ramen, one Ninjutsu Secret Scroll, and 200 Rebirth Stones.
More importantly, he had successfully linked the New York Continental's bounty center to his own Task Assembly Hall. In just seven days, Iruka's squad had completed ten missions. Since no high-difficulty threats had emerged, all ten were ranked as C-level—a volume of work he hadn't seen in an entire month previously.
Each C-level mission yielded 500 Reputation, 50,000 Copper Coins, and one Common Chest.
Altogether, this haul brought Hayate 5,000 Reputation, 500,000 Copper Coins, and ten Common Chests.
Surveying the week's gains, Hayate couldn't help but marvel.
"The greatest benefit of becoming an Elder isn't the subordinates, the status, or even the territory. It's this—a never-ending supply of missions for my ninjas to grind!"
He opened the system interface to review his current status:
Shiranui Hayate
- Age: 21
- Class: Ninja
- VIP Level: 1
- Attributes: Fire, Lightning
- Secret Scrolls: * Ninjutsu: Protection (Lv.2) (Reduces damage by 90% for 4s; cannot mitigate lethal damage).
- Ninjutsu: Rage (Lv.1) (Increases attack power by 6% for 10s).
- Recruited Ninjas: Uchiha Sasuke (Two-Tomoe Sharingan), Umino Iruka, Rock Lee.
- Skills: Fire Style: Great Fireball, Lion Barrage, Chidori, Teaching Shuriken, Barrier Formation, Roar of Love, Infinite Dance, Leaf Whirlwind, Front Lotus.
- Reputation: 13,896
- Copper Coins: 3.51M
- Gold Coins: 1,108
- Ninja Recruitment Scrolls: 3
- Secret Scroll Items: 3
- Ninja Jades: 1,500
- Rebirth Stones: 22,000
- Summons: Ninken Army (Max), Blue Snake (Lv.0)
Hayate nodded in satisfaction. He was now just one Recruitment Scroll—or 68 Gold Coins—away from his second ten-pull ninja recruitment.
He had already performed 40 recruitments in total. Twenty more, and he would unlock the guaranteed S-Class Ninja Fragment option. While the "Guaranteed Ninja" pull sometimes yielded decent results, the odds were notoriously low—mostly C-Rank, maybe a B-Rank if lucky, and an A-Rank only for the truly blessed.
As for pulling a full S-Rank ninja directly from a ten-pull? Hayate knew from his past life: Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
But with guaranteed S-Rank fragments, as long as he could find enough resources to substitute for currency or recharge a massive amount of gold, he could eventually build a powerhouse S-Rank ninja through sheer accumulation. That would ensure his strength scaled fast enough to keep up with the world as the major Marvel events began to unfold.
As for the "Artifacts" section, Hayate was still in the dark. Since the system activated, he hadn't seen an "Adventure" icon or any Elite Dungeons. Without the dungeons, he had no way to activate Artifacts, leaving his Rebirth Stones and Ninja Jades to sit in a growing pile.
Today, however, was about the ten Common Chests. These could drop Copper, Reputation, Gold, C/B-Rank Ninja fragments, or Recruitment Scrolls.
Hayate clasped his hands together, muttering a silent prayer.
"Metaphysics changes fate, and whaling saves lives. Goddess of Luck, hear me... at least give me one Recruitment Scroll."
"Common Chests... Ten-pull... OPEN!"
The chests erupted in a dazzling flash of light. As the glow faded, the results lined up before his eyes:
- Ding! 10 Gold Coins!
- Ding! 200 Reputation!
- Ding! 5,000 Copper Coins!
- Ding! C-Rank Fragment: Yamanaka Ino x1!
- Ding! C-Rank Fragment: Hyuga Hinata x1!
- Ding! C-Rank Fragment: Tenten x1!
- Ding! 10 Gold Coins!
- Ding! C-Rank Fragment: [Sharingan] Uchiha Sasuke x1!
- Ding! 10 Gold Coins!
- Ding! 10 Gold Coins!
Hayate scanned the list. His eyes immediately searched for the word "Scroll."
Nothing. Not a single one.
"Pah!" Hayate spat. "Useless Goddess of Luck. I'm done with her. Next time I'll find a deity that actually works. I refused to believe that after reincarnating with a cheat, my luck could be this bad."
He shifted his focus to the fragments. Four C-Rank shards wasn't terrible. Adding these to his previous totals, he now had three Tenten fragments and two Hinata fragments. He was slowly crawling toward the ten needed for recruitment. As for Ino and the Sharingan Sasuke fragment, the road ahead remained long.
Checking his gold, he saw he had gained 40 coins, leaving him just 28 gold short of being able to buy the remaining seven Recruitment Scrolls he needed.
"Sigh..."
"Stay calm. Good things come to those who wait. This pull was just building the 'pity' for the next one. The big break is coming."
He stepped out of his resting room into the main hall of the agency. He had been living at the office for the past week, skipping his luxury apartment at the Chrysler Building to focus on work.
Kingpin hadn't returned with a mission yet, likely still trying to handle his problems internally. However, the Bowery King—the King of Soup—had reached out to John Wick, begging for an audience to pledge his fealty to Hayate so he could reclaim his throne.
John Wick, remembering the man's help and the pistol he'd provided during his darkest hour, had asked for Hayate's opinion. After all, the Bowery King had only been dethroned because he helped John.
Hayate accepted the Bowery King's fealty but gave him a specific task: track every movement of The Hand in Hell's Kitchen and dig up the blueprints for every building in the district—including the unfinished ones.
He needed to find it. Somewhere beneath the grime of Hell's Kitchen, the dragon bones were waiting.