The inherent danger of being a mber of the Three-Eye Tribe ant that even if Zane wanted to live in seclusion, he needed enough strength to protect himself.
From the age of twelve until his grandfather passed away—the very year he set out to sea—Zane had spent those six years not only honing his formidable skills but also bloodying his hands.
A body count of ten? A hundred? No.
The number of people Zane had killed likely exceeded a thousand.
Such a record would naturally be horrifying in his previous life.
But in the world of pirates, as the na implied, the sea was never short of heinous criminals.
Add to that the occasional slave traders, gangsters, and the like.
Finding people to test his strength against on the open sea was incredibly simple for Zane.
Back to the present.
Seeing the driver so terrified of him, Zane naturally understood why.
Kindness was often taken for weakness.
Sotis, being a bit ruthless actually saved one from a lot of trouble.
Case in point.
Under Zane's intimidation, the driver obediently led the four of them into a small restaurant and gave the secret code. The restaurant staff then guided them into an elevator booth.
*Vroom!*
Once the doors closed, the elevator booth began its descent.
"So you're saying that driver was just like the captain—an examiner for the Hunter Association?"
As they sat around the table and chairs inside the elevator booth, even Leorio, slow as he was, finally understood the situation.
"Huh? You only just realized, Leorio?" Gon looked at him in surprise.
Kurapika also shook his head with a sigh. "Leorio, you're far too slow. I thought you'd figured it out long ago."
Seeing that everyone else seed to have known, Leorio's face turned bright red as he began to stamr.
After judging Leorio for a mont, Kurapika turned to Zane. "I realized it when I noticed the taxi was intentionally going in circles. What about you, Zane?"
"Around then," Zane said with a smile.
"Then how did you know he was an examiner?" Kurapika asked, surprised.
He had assud Zane recognized the driver's identity from the start and had specifically chosen that taxi for that reason.
"Kurapika, who do you think most of the people arriving at the port today are?" Zane asked in return.
"I know! It's candidates like us," Gon interjected, raising his hand.
Zane nodded. "Exactly. Most of the people at the port today are candidates, and the Hunter Association knows this. If they were going to hold a second round of screening, it would definitely happen on the way here."
"I see. You an the Association controls all the transportation at the port, right?" Kurapika mused as realization dawned on him.
Zane smiled. "Right. If the Association wants to screen people, they have to control the transport. And if there was no screening, we would have just arrived in Zaban City normally anyway."
"Oh! I get it! So once you realized the driver was an examiner, you intentionally said those scary things to make him take us to the exam site." Leorio clapped his hands, looking like he'd finally pieced it all together.
Kurapika glanced at Leorio's late reaction, feeling quite helpless.
He then turned back to Zane with a serious expression. "In any case, thank you for getting us to the exam site so smoothly."
"Yeah, Zane! If it wasn't for you, I don't know if I'd have ever found the place," Gon added, nodding repeatedly.
"Hahaha! Only you could've done it, Zane. I'm so lucky to be taking the Hunter Exam with you." Leorio laughed boisterously, joining the praise.
"That's enough. You three should get so rest. That was just the appetizer; the main course is next. Don't go dropping the ball now." Zane waved them off.
Hearing this, the three of them sat quietly and rested.
After all, they had been tossed around during the wild ride earlier.
It would be a real sha if they ssed up the upcoming exam because of that.
The elevator booth descended slowly.
Until the floor display reached B100.
*Ding!*
A crisp chi rang out, and the elevator doors slowly slid open to reveal a massive tunnel.
"Let's go."
Zane stood up, looking composed as he led the way out of the elevator with his hands in his pockets.
Leorio, Kurapika, and Gon imdiately switched to their serious ga faces, following closely behind him.
Long strips of lights lined the walls of the massive tunnel, casting a dim glow through the otherwise pitch-black passage.
Stepping out of the elevator, Zane and the others imdiately saw a large number of candidates already gathered in the tunnel.
Similarly, the candidates who had arrived first turned to size up the newcors as they arrived.
Wary, hostile, indifferent, friendly...
Under the weight of these various, complex gazes, the three behind Zane couldn't help but feel tense.
Zane, on the other hand, remained calm, even observing the candidates with interest.
Most people he dismissed after a casual glance, but so were different.
'They're really here.'
Zane's gaze was soon drawn to two figures in the crowd.
One was Illumi, looking like a xican hoodlum with strange needles stuck all over his face.
The other was Hisoka, with a teardrop and a star painted on his face, dressed like a clown.
Seeing these two, Zane's eyes narrowed slightly.
In this Hunter Exam, the greatest threat to him wasn't the test itself, but these two fellow candidates.
Similarly, they were the only two candidates who had mastered Nen.
Neither Illumi nor Hisoka were ordinary n.
The two of them, also watching the quartet, imdiately sensed Zane's gaze fixed upon them.
Illumi remained relatively calm.
After a brief eye contact with Zane, he quickly looked away as if nothing had happened.
Hisoka, however, was a different story.
'Not bad at all... those muscles, those lines, and that enticing aura. How wonderful... I've found a delicious fruit so soon!'
During the Chairman Election arc in the original series, Hisoka had given scores to the Zodiacs based solely on observation.
Regardless of whether those scores were accurate, such confident assessnts proved that Hisoka's eye for talent was extraordinary.
At this mont, in Hisoka's eyes, although Zane didn't have any Nen aura surrounding him, the information revealed by his physique and the sharp yet silent presence he radiated was enough to judge that Zane was a rare, high-level expert.
Even the lack of a Nen shroud was a particularly striking rit in his eyes.
Because there were only two possibilities for this.
One was that Zane was a Nen novice who didn't know how to use it.
The other possibility was that Zane hadn't awakened his Nen yet.
Regardless of which one it was, it ant Zane was still in a period of rapid growth.
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