ตอน 49: Prelude X to X Training

Then allow me to formally introduce myself: I am Claire, a One star Floral Hunter!" standing in front of me with a mischievous smirk on her face as she took in my shocked appearance. Giving a slight nod, she walked past me as she went to retrieve her items from the log we ate lunch on together.

"Heh?" pulling myself together I only made a confused noise as I spun around looking at Claire's back.

'A floral hunter… Is this what they call a "Gap Moe" man, I hate weebs… me and my homies hate weebs, though me and my homies ARE weebs.' shaking my head at the oddly weird thing I was hung up on I walk up to Claire as I still had some questions.

"So this whole teaching thing… what exactly do you have planned? I already had some plans in the future so I would like to know if they conflicted." While learning nen from a professional was something I couldn't really pass up on I wanted to earn some money by going on these month-long expeditions leading up to the Yorknew auction in hopes of participating myself.

"Hmm… depends on your plans, I am pretty flexible regardless of what it is you want to do." waving her hand dismissively, Claire finishes packing her things away in a small olive green canvas bag. Turning to look at me and eying the large backpack I was wearing for a second.

"Are you just going to stand there? Go set up your tent we will be staying here for a week or two longer." shooing me off with a gesture of her hand as she moves on to break down the wood-fired camp stove.

"Ah yeah…" shrugging at the change of plans I moved over to set up my tent a few feet away from hers in the small clearing she had situated her campsite.

{Time skip}

"So you were planning on going from restricted access area to area for the coming months before the Yorknew auction. I suppose that isn't too far off from what I was originally doing… That is, going from extreme climates to searching for exotic wildflowers. Alright, I will be choosing our destinations while you follow along as my student, how does that sound?" Giving me an inquisitive look, Claire having proposed how our apprenticeship was going to work. Although, it took a lot of back and forth between us trying to strike a deal that would be the most advantageous for us.

'Unfortunately, I'm not exactly gifted in the art of the deal…' A bit down at being unable to maximize the benefits of my upcoming apprenticeship I sighed as I agreed to the deal regardless. In fact, while I did not get everything I wanted I still got quite the benefits from the deal, just not as my new teacher had.

"So… to summarize, In exchange for being my Teacher in regards of Nen and anything that may be useful in my career as a hunter I will be… your servant for the period of our travels together. Not only that, I will owe you ONE favor you can call in at any time, and I must make it to one-star hunter within a period of a year after our trip ends or the agreed-upon consequences will be enacted. In addition, there are a few other smaller conditions we each insisted on…" slightly irked at a couple of the main conditions but otherwise indifferent to most of them I ended up shaking hands with Claire, signifying the closure of the deal.

"Yep! This is quite the good deal you know?" sitting beside me on the log we ate our Lunch on earlier today she gave me an ear-to-ear smile as she bragged with the subtlety of the kool-aid man.

"It's only an okay deal… its only good for you due to all the benefits you got." easing my headache by rubbing my forehead with my hand I began to question my decision.

"Well, frankly that's your problem, had you not tried to negotiate terms in the first place you would have gotten an amazing deal! Not to mention you have to refer to me as Teacher when you address me!" Slapping my shoulder a couple of times as she chuckled to herself at my situation. Just looking at her I could tell she was having too much fun, almost a complete inverse in my situation.

'Well, apparently she is a Transmuter so that somewhat matches with Hisoka's personality test… I suppose she puts on the front of an Enhancer to fool others for whatever reason' filing away my working theory for later I just take my time to relax. I no longer need to worry about food or water, or nearly having a heart attack freaking out over what turned to be out my now Nen teacher.

"So… Teacher, What all are we going to do here for these upcoming days?" after taking a drink of water I questioned my teacher. After all, I don't think there is much to do after exploring the desert and the oasis. Hopefully, though, we could get onto some Nen training.

"Hmm… I will start you off on your training soon enough, I first need to figure out your level of skill though. After that, we will start learning practical skills so you don't get yourself killed when we go to explore some more dangerous areas." off-handedly answering my question while rummaging through a day bag of hers she pulls out a hardback book that was missing its sleeve.

"Oh, so then when will we be learning Nen? Would that not be important for later when exploring?" A bit confused about the lack of Nen training in her schedule I decided to ask about it.

"No not really, people as long as they are skilled and prepared enough have overcome many dangerous climates and locations. Sure, when you reach a certain point Nen is a requirement to succeed but the fundamentals of survival are more important now." slightly annoyed, yet answering my question in full she quickly went back to her book as she flipped to a page further into the book and began to read in silence.

'Looks like she doesn't want to be bothered while reading… well I am mostly the same. Guess we will start tomorrow with my training.'

AN: I usually put these at the start but this one pertains more to the direction of the plot so here goes:

1. I was wondering if you guys wanted to see in detail, the various explorations of Magenta and Claire his teacher. Going from strange locations to another, as he gets more skilled in various fields under Claire. All the while, he learns Nen in a more traditional manner.

2. I was also thinking of doing a shonen-style time skip where we get brief flashbacks to scenes that happened over a period of time we skipped. Though I'm not going to do some bs like doing a flashback of training en during a fight with Muruem or something lol.

3. Lastly, I was thinking of writing in a style of a travel log made by Magenta as he records interesting areas, thoughts, or occurrences that happened over that period of time.

If none of you guys have a strong opinion on the matter then I would probably do the third as it seems interesting to experiment with. I got the idea from a fic on this site called "Avoiding stupid deaths in the 41st Millenium" I just don't think too many people will like the first idea as I have seen an author do something similar in a one piece fic where the mc decided to explore every island on the blues before going to reach the grand line... fic was like 100 chapters long and never got anywhere.