"You're old, Netero."
"The world ultimately belongs to the young."
"The Hunter Association needs fresh blood, and the Dark Continent needs brave and vigorous young people."
"We old fogeys shouldn't shrink back just because we're afraid of death, afraid of bringing disaster upon humanity. Otherwise..."
"Wouldn't we be just like those self-righteous people from the 'Middle Kingdom' back then mocked us? Saying we were just frogs in a well, laughably shallow?"
Creeak~ The wind blew the door open...
Through the crack, the boy's retreating figure was already gone.
Netero recalled his long night of conversation with Linne recently. His heart, which had withered and gone silent, began to stir again...
After a long while, he sighed softly. "Zzigg was right."
Man moves, the tree dies. Knowing the "Upper World" (Dark Continent) was full of wonders, one shouldn't hesitate out of fear.
"Bean... pack up. We're leaving."
"Yes, sir."
With Roy's departure, the cabin felt empty.
The boy left the Milsy Wetlands, retracing his steps through the long tunnel, appearing before Gotoh and Kurapika.
"Young Master, where's Goldie?" Kurapika imdiately looked at Roy's head.
With a thought from Roy—"Caw!"—the golden crow spread its wings and burst out from the crown of Roy's head, nearly having suffocated.
Gotoh glared at Kurapika. The girl's fantasy of becoming a butler was clearly unqualified. A qualified butler, especially in a great family like the Zoldycks, must always put the Young Master's safety first. Since when could a "Nen Beast" replace the Young Master's importance?
The young butler pushed up his glasses, looking Roy up and down, asking with concern, "Young Master, are you alright?"
"Fine." Apart from using [Zanka no Tachi], his aura was a bit drained. He had quickly dispelled the shockwaves from the "Ghost-Head Spiders" by using Zetsu to seal his aura.
He waved his hand. "Let's go."
They took the elevator back to the hotel. The first thing Roy did was take out his Hunter License, find a computer, and log into the "Hunter Website." As the Hunter Association's most private and comprehensive official site, it was also a hub for "intelligence trading." As long as you could pay, you could get "equivalent value" intel... Of course, the Hunter Website wasn't omnipotent; most intel ca from affiliated Hunters, so "secrets" and "omissions" were normal.
In the original story, Gon and Killua had used the Hunter Website to track Ging.
"ID: XXXXXXXXX... Logged in..."
Roy opened the site and typed "De-Conjuration" directly into the search bar. He hadn't forgotten his promise to cure his father, Tanjuro. He already had the treatnt plan for "tuberculosis"; what was missing was how to use "De-Conjuration" to bring the dicine into the "Cognitive World."
Loading... The cursor spun.
About ten seconds later, the page popped up... "No records found."
Roy felt a pang of disappointnt. Conjurers mostly used "imagination" to turn "Nen" into "objects" to help them fight or assist... It seed no one had used "reverse thinking" to consider... could an "object" be turned into "Nen" to replenish oneself, or simply to eliminate the "object" (enemy)?
Hunter x Hunter wasn't his previous life; there was no "Law of Conservation of Mass." "Nen" as a form of "Life Energy" was not equivalent to "Mass."
Has really no one thought about this?
Frowning, Roy didn't give up. He posted a thread on the forum below the main site, attaching a bounty of "One Billion Jenny."
"Heavy Reward for a Nen user skilled in 'De-Conjuration' techniques..."
He paused, then added a small line... "Or 'Magical Beast,' 'Rare Beast,' or 'Phantom Beast'."
"Note: Anyone providing reliable information, once verified, will be paid 100 million Jenny imdiately. Deadline: One year."
At best, Tanjuro only had two years left to live. If not for him, then for Roy himself... having another thod to further strengthen himself would be good.
Click. Two seconds later, the post was up.
Roy sent Gotoh to book flight tickets ho. The young butler, worried Kurapika couldn't serve the Young Master properly alone, took her with him.
Left alone, Roy took Goldie back to his room and began absorbing the "Life Energy" gained from the battle with Botobai.
[Notification: "Physique" 31]
[Current "Physique": 172.8 → 203.8 (Note: Average person is 1)]
Hah... The familiar pain surged. Beside the half-length mirror, Roy hid in the bathroom, undergoing another transformation. Looking at his renewed self in the mirror, he glanced at the back of his hand...
The "curse" paused at "9 years, 9 months, 8 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes, 13 seconds"... hovered for "5" seconds... and then resud its countdown...
aning, a 31-point increase in "Physique" had bought him another "5" seconds of life...
Roy didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He cald himself, turned on the shower, and began washing off the dead skin and gri.
Hunter Calendar Year 1987, Spring.
Less than three months until Gon and Killua were born.
On an unknown small island southeast of the Yorbian Continent, a ship appeared a few months ago. The anchor dropped, the gangway lowered.
A young man supporting a pregnant woman walked down first, followed by several companions, landing on this little-known island.
The mont he stepped ashore, the young man nad it "Greed Island"!
He excitedly told his pregnant wife, "I'm going to turn this whole island into a giant 'playground' for our child." (Note: This book discards the "Gon was born from a pregnancy stone" theory, leaning towards the idea that Gon's mother ca from the Dark Continent, ended up in a "Secret Realm," and t Ging there.)
The woman nodded expressionlessly, like a marionette, uninterested in anything.
When did it start? Perhaps from the mont she awoke in the ruins and learned this was just an island trapped within Lake Mobius!
"Eta, please keep Vivian company."
"Razor, Elena, Dwun, co with ..."
The young man briefly entrusted his pregnant wife to a female companion and led the others to start building Greed Island. They soon faced two practical problems.
One: How to turn the "cards" in the Book into "Nen abilities," and how to store the "Book."
Two: After Greed Island was complete, they needed a powerful "Nen user" to "hold down the fort" after he left.
For the latter, the young man already had a candidate in mind—a powerful "criminal."
As for the forr... it mainly relied on how to use "De-Conjuration" to exchange "physical cards" for "Nen." Currently, there was no concrete idea or direction.
One day, one of his companions, Elena, approached him. "Ging, I just logged into the Hunter Website and found soone else searching for 'De-Conjuration' thods..."
The young man was sitting cross-legged on a reef, fishing. He looked up, surprised. "Who?"
"They didn't leave a na, just posted a billion Jenny reward."
"I used my ability [Ga Master] to track his ID," Elena said, a transparent blue screen appearing before her. "It's the only Hunter who passed this year's exam. His na is... Roy Zoldyck!"
"That Zoldyck?"
"That Zoldyck!"
The young man smiled. With a tug, he pulled up a large yellow croaker, three ters long. Perfect for nourishing Vivian. "Interesting. Let him know if we find anything."
He didn't care about the billion Jenny reward. But... the world's number one family of assassins. Ging threw the fish onto the shore. Out of curiosity, he really wanted to et them...
"Okay." Elena made a ntal note and walked away.
It was evening. The setting sun cast brilliant rays, stretching the girl's shadow long.
Under the sa sky, the sa sunset... on Dolle Island, countless nautical miles away from Greed Island, Gotoh returned to the hotel with Kurapika, having booked the tickets. He knocked on the door and saw...
The boy, shirtless, hands behind his back, standing straight before the floor-to-ceiling window, admiring the neon lights of Zaban City coming to life.
"Young Master, 8 AM tomorrow morning. Direct flight to Padokea, no transfers. We should be ho in a day and a half."
"Ho." Unfortunately, not Kurapika's ho. The girl looked sowhat apprehensive. Although she often called herself a "Zoldyck butler," whether she could actually pass the "Zoldyck butler test" upon "returning" was uncertain.
But for the Kurta Clan, Kurapika didn't care. Everyone gets nervous when returning "ho," for different reasons.
Roy humd an acknowledgent. He told Gotoh and Kurapika to get so rest.
As night fell, he turned on the bedside lamp. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he opened Zzigg's notebook to the page on En and began to read carefully.
Advanced Nen applications... Gyo, In, En, Shu, Ko, Ryu. He had already mastered Gyo, Shu, and Ken. The rest...
In is an advanced application of Zetsu... Ko combines Ten, Zetsu, Ren, Hatsu, and Gyo, relatively complex to learn, significantly harder than Shu and Ken... As for Ryu, it's the "culmination" of all advanced Nen applications, even harder than Ko.
Roy wouldn't bite off more than he could chew. He planned to take advantage of the montum from learning Ken to learn En, which also combined Ten and Ren.
En: Defined as a technique to extend one's aura in a radius of at least 2 ters around oneself, maintaining it for more than 1 minute. The range varies depending on individual skill.
Notably, En itself doesn't represent a person's Nen ability level. Subtle differences often arise from each person's understanding and need for En.
For example, Nobunaga's En has a radius of only four ters, incomparable to Zeno's En which can cover three hundred ters. But Nobunaga's En has a unique quality that Zeno, Neferpitou, and Shaiapouf lack—he can maintain En while in a combat state. So... his En is only four ters because that's the total length of his arm plus his sword. Within four ters, "nothing survives" is his characteristic!
[Release Ren, and inject Ten into the diffusing aura...]
[If you just want to expand your [Monitoring] range, increase aura quantity...]
[If you want to add "traits" to En, you must sacrifice so "range," using a "Visualization Object" as a base to construct your own unique "characteristic"...]
Which to choose? "Range" or "Characteristic" at the cost of range?
Roy thought of Neferpitou's En, which could last for months and even control puppets to fight Morel... and Shaiapouf, who could scatter scales via En to hypnotize opponents, or use En to read an opponent's "emotional state" and analyze their abilities... An idea gradually ford.
He wanted "Range," and he wanted "Characteristic"!
"Aura Quantity" determines "Range." Aside from the boost "Life Energy" gave his physique, the daily point from 'Sun Breathing'... whether Roy wanted it or not, would push him to beco stronger. So "Aura Quantity" wasn't an issue.
That left only—"Characteristic."
How to "extract the characteristic of En based on the 'Visualization Object'?" Roy flipped through the notebook. Zzigg didn't say explicitly. Clearly... because everyone's understanding of "Nen" and their "Visualization Object" differed, he had to figure it out himself.
The boy closed the notebook and looked out the window. The night view of Zaban City was beautiful. Traffic flowed, neon lights flashed... Every fifty ters stood a streetlamp, emitting a spherical halo of light, like a sun, casting gentle rays "silently and softly"...
"Silently and softly... silently and softly..." Roy paused, repeating the phrase. Twin suns fwoosh ignited in his dark pupils!
Silently and softly... moistening things in silence... Spring rain moistens all things silently. Sunlight is finer than rain; it should penetrate deeper and more thoroughly...
"Deep" to what extent?
"Deep enough to reach the heart!"
Voom...
Smiling, Roy spread his arms, letting his "Nen" expand silently in a "sphere"... In the blink of an eye, it enveloped the entire hotel.
And then... he "heard" many "different" voices...
The receptionist, smiling apologetically at a difficult custor, was secretly calling him an idiot in her heart.
A couple on the first floor was in the heat of passion; the man was willing but weak, wondering if he should take a pill.
Next door, Gotoh was packing, debating whether to call ho.
Further away, the girl was studying Nen under a lamp, hesitating whether to call her brother Kurapika (wait, sister?) before boarding...
Voice after "heartfelt voice" flowed into Roy's ears... At one point, the boy's gaze sharpened...
In the heart of a vacant-eyed little brother, he saw "himself."
"Who?!" Illumi, combing his hair in the mirror, disguised as Roy again to admire himself, suddenly jolted! He grabbed a "Nen Pin," scanning the room... But... that prying sensation ca and went quickly...
Like spring rain, falling silently to the ground and lting away...
☆☆☆
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