Chương 37: Chapter 37 Biscuit's Nen Training
Chapter 37 Biscuit's Nen Training
Rayleigh used Gyō to see the large shatterpoints all over their assigned opponent's body. A single hit to that big one could put him down, but doing so was easier said than done. The cannibal was filled with cracks but he was far from broken.
While Rayleigh, Gon, and Killua observed the murderer from a distance, the man himself set his hand over his wound.
Biscuit shouted, "What are you waiting for? He's measuring the recovery capacity of his wounds! And you're just gonna let him do that?"
This caused all three to take a stance. She was right. Every second they gave him was an advantage, and in a real fight, giving an advantage to your opponent wasn't any different from harming yourself.
Killua was the only experienced killer among the three, so he moved first. Without making a sound, he approached from behind to strike Binolt's neck, but the instant Killua was close, the murderous barber's scissors struck out. Killua stopped in time and stepped back. In time to avoid losing his eyes, but not fast enough to avoid a cut on his cheek.
The exertion caused Binolt's damage to worsen, causing the man to cough blood. Rayleigh and Gon approached at the same time, but a pair of scissors in both of the murderer's hands slashed out at where they would have been if they didn't stop.
Although Binolt wasn't moving, none of the three could get in range to attack him without getting slashed by his scissors. Rayleigh sensed a threat of death if he tried using Overdrive, so that was shelved. Overdrive's speed sacrificed defense, so he'd be walking right into an attack if the opponent could defend faster than Rayleigh could finish him.
Of course, that was only the case if Rayleigh didn't have his lightsaber out. But Rayleigh had no intention of using it in this situation, and the same was true for his Melee Shield. Using them in training like this would drastically reduce its efficiency.
Gon used his Kō on a nearby massive rock, crushing it into smaller boulders, and picked one up. He then charged Binolt with it, threatening to crush the man if he was unable to slice through the boulder to attack Gon.
Binolt had no choice but to jump out of the way and Gon exclaimed, "Yeah! As expected, his scissors can't cut through a huge stone!"
Rayleigh stated aloud, "That's obvious Gon. As everyone knows... Rock. Beats. Scissors!"
The tense situation petered out and everyone stared and gave a simultaneous deadpan at Rayleigh's lame statement. Rayleigh wondered where that cricket chirping in the background came from since there was nothing here for crickets to eat.
Ignoring Rayleigh's lameness, Killua picked out a boulder alongside Gon and started circling the cannibal while throwing said boulders at him from a distance and going back to pick up more.
If Binolt's body weren't a wreck, he could likely punch or kick the boulders into pebbles, but his current state made intense physical exertion damaging.
Rayleigh used Ren to enhance his muscles and speed and approached Binolt to strike. The first scissor attack was predicted and dodged by Rayleigh, and before Binolt could strike a second time, a boulder tossed at him from behind forced him to jump to the side to dodge. Rayleigh used the opening to close the distance and grab Binolt's arm for a takedown, but the man's scissors opened and he tilted his wrists to angle the open scissors toward Rayleigh's fingers to cut them off. Rayleigh released his grip before the scissors closed and cut his fingers off and pull back while Killua and Gon struck out from behind.
Binolt turned to slash the pair, but Rayleigh had been expecting this so his retreat was actually a feint. Ray struck out to hit the man's back in the same location Biscuit struck him with an open palm blow to worsen the existing damage. The murderer dodged by tilting his body and delivering a back kick, but he was not in the right stance to deliver any power, so Rayleigh dodged it and moved closer for another hit. Binolt turned again toward Rayleigh to slash his neck, but Rayleigh was already backing up while Killua and Gon came back from behind.
Binolt jumped to the side and ran toward a wall so he could keep his back to it. Getting surrounded like that wasn't doing him any favors.
Gon and Killua picked up some more boulders and Rayleigh continued with his attempts at hit-and-run tactics. He still had not struck the man yet, but it was only a matter of time. Even if he never hit him, the pressure he was putting on the man would build up and Gon and Killua constantly throwing boulders at him would keep him from staying in one location.
It only took about fifteen minutes for Binolt to slip up, allowing Rayleigh to grab both the man's arms from behind and for Killua to approach for the killing blow.
Before he could kill him, Gon shouted, "No, wait!"
Rayleigh could guess what was coming, so he tossed Binolt to the side while Killua asked, "What's wrong Gon?"
Gon answered, "Let's stop here. There's still time left. From now on, we do it one on one."
Rayleigh added, "Yeah. I'm not satisfied with three-on-one against an injured opponent. Let's keep going until we can at least take him on, one on one."
Killua gave the murderer a calculating look before nodding in agreement. There was no gain to be made from killing him at the moment.
Rayleigh sensed Binolt's desire to kill him increase, so he looked over and told the cannibal, "Sit down and rest, because you are not going to beat us in your current condition."
The man looked like he wanted to argue but then decided to remain silent. Rayleigh gave him the strangest feeling of any of the three. He never actually harmed him, even in the slightest, but his actions pressured him greater than the other two's combined. Gon and Killua rarely approached him without a boulder in hand, but Rayleigh did so without the tiniest bit of fear again and again.
Binolt sat on one side of the area while the trio sat on the other. Gon and Killua closed their eyes to sleep while Rayleigh crossed his legs and meditated. His Lightsaber had been at his side the whole time, ready to be used, so he didn't have to take it from his Inventory to place it in his lap to start meditating. Although one of his Wills usually meditated all the time, it still was not as good as meditating with his Lightsaber in hand.
Binolt did not sleep. There were even a few times when he tried to get up and ambush them in their sleep, but the instant he moved, all three opened their eyes and stared at him, as if daring him to try it, forcing him to sit back down.
Since Biscuit wasn't a part of their group when they encountered the bandits, they didn't request anything from her, so she still had food and water stored in her Book for everyone to eat for the next few days.
Each day, everyone would fight Binolt for hours, one on one until they beat him, give him a chance to rest, then switch. After that, they let him recover and heal himself to let him become stronger for the next day.
Binolt went aggressively on the offense, but the trio was getting used to his fighting style, so even though he got faster every day, their reaction time was improving as well, allowing them to keep up.
After a week, Binolt had just about fully recovered. Rayleigh was the first to fight with him. The fight took about four hours before Rayleigh could pin him to the ground. Rayleigh never actually damaged him. He used palm strikes and nerve jabs to stun and suppress, but not damage. He was working on a fighting style to use against people he didn't intend to kill since he needed one if he was going to fight without his lightsaber.
Killua fought him the next day and beat him down in a fraction of the time since Killua didn't mind hurting people.
Binolt was allowed a night to recover and Gon fought him last. His fight was even faster than Killua's, dodging on instinct and closing in quickly to deliver blow after blow, accumulating damage until Binolt had no choice but to give up.
Binolt looked at the trio, not with hatred, but envy. He had seen them grow and knew that this was a talent far above his own. Although Binolt gave up, Gon didn't kill him, Killua wasn't inclined to kill him, and no one would waste time asking if Rayleigh was going to kill him.
Biscuit asked Gon, "Are you sure? He's a first-class serial killer and cannibal."
Gon answered, "Yeah, but he taught us a lot."
Rayleigh nodded, "Yeah, it's not like anyone asked us to hunt down criminals and I don't know any of the people he killed." For all he knew, every person Binolt killed and ate was a jerk, so it didn't matter to him. When he thought of how the meddling Jedi would think of his choice, the expressions he imagined them making brought a smirk to Ray's face.
Biscuit sighed and told Binolt to leave. The man said, "I'm leaving Greed Island. Goodbye." He obviously had a lot on his mind.
It took nine days for them to all reach the level they could defeat Binolt so they completed their task of finishing in two weeks.
Biscuit asked Rayleigh, "Why did you fight like that?"
Rayleigh answered, "I want to develop two fighting styles. Killing is easy, but I want to develop a suppression fighting style as well."
Biscuit asked, "Oh? You already have a killing fighting style? Show me."
She got into a fighting stance and Rayleigh felt an intense sense of danger from her.
He replied, "Okay, but give me a moment." He took out his lightsaber and extended the blade before slashing it through a nearby rock. The rock was cut cleanly, showing a slash mark glowing with heat.
Rayleigh explained, "Anything that comes into contact with my lightsaber at full power will instantly heat up to around twenty-five thousand degrees Celsius, pretty much-turning anything it passes through into a liquid or gas. But I can adjust it so that the arc wave energy contained within is only strong enough to stun or zap, without maiming."
Rayleigh used the force to disassemble his lightsaber in mid-air and turned down the powercell while changing the alignment of the internal parts before reassembling it.
Once it was a single piece again, he slashed it against the same rock but it bounced off since rocks don't get stunned or harmed by something with the electrical strength of a taser.
Biscuit nodded, understanding that even though the power was reduced, it would be considered her loss if it hit her since it would not be reduced in a real fight.
Rayleigh used Overdrive and Biscuit dodged to the side of the predetermined path he used and out of the lightsaber's attack range. Since predetermined paths didn't work, he just used his aura to enhance his muscle speed and went all out. Biscuit neatly dodged every move, moving the instant his muscles contracted.
Rayleigh wondered if he could fake her out. He was moving at his fastest speed, but her observation skills allowed her to guess how he would move before he actually did, giving her the time needed to dodge his attacks without difficulty.
Rayleigh had never considered doing so before, but he wondered if he could combine Force Valor and his muscles to fool her observation.
Rayleigh's Nen-enhanced speed was actually a little slower than his Force Valor-enhanced speed, and using them together would not stack. If a car that maxed out at 150 mph was being pulled at 200 mph, putting the pedal to the metal would not make it go faster than 200 mph. The only reason he used his muscles was to train them since their potential was faster than Force Valor's.
But watching Biscuit dodge his attacks from observing his muscles, he wondered if he could use Force Valor to attack in one way while using his muscles to attack in another. Instead of stacking them with parallel force vectors, use one to alter the other. He never noticed before, but an advantage of Force Valor's Puppeteer Fighting was that his muscles didn't bulge before moving because he wasn't truly using them, so his movements could not be predicted from basic observation.
Rayleigh slashed down on Biscuit using his muscles but used Force Valor to twist his body.
Biscuit dodged the downward slash, but the follow-up was not predicted and her remaining twin tail got cut when she hastily dodged after bending backward.
Biscuit twisted her fingers around the burnt hairs. Even the weakened lightsaber was enough to burn through hair. She didn't wear an angry expression and said, "Oh? Let's see your defense now."
Rayleigh's danger sense told him that although she looked like she didn't care, she was definitely angry.
Rayleigh used his lightsaber to set a guarded stance but Biscuit used Kō while making a knife-hand strike to swat the sword away.
Rayleigh backed up but Biscuit kept moving forward to keep him at close range. She followed him for two seconds, keeping him from putting his guard back up while swatting his sword away at every turn with knife hand strikes strengthened by Kō. It was then that Rayleigh's danger sense went into full red alert.
Five of Rayleigh's six Wills used Force Stasis on Biscuit at the same time to hold her in place and strike, but her Ren had been up the whole fight and her Kō enhanced Knife-hand moved through the restrained space easily.
Her knife-hand changed to a palm which stopped a bit before striking Rayleigh's chest, but coming into contact with the intense pressure of the Kō was still like taking a sledgehammer blow and sending Rayleigh flying back to strike the nearby stone pillar.
Rayleigh couldn't breathe, but that was normal when the diaphragm was struck, so he didn't panic and used Force Valor and Breath Control to manually operate his lungs to get some fresh air and assess the damage. Biscuit had held back a lot but his chest still had plenty of microfractures. Since Force healing used his own lifeforce, he wouldn't bother and just let it heal naturally. He could still augment his own recovery speed and be healed by tomorrow.
Biscuit, Gon, and Killua approached and confirmed he was fine.
Biscuit assessed, "So you can only sense danger after I make the decision to harm you?"
Gon asked, "What do you mean?"
Killua answered for her, inferring, "She broke his guard but he didn't sense any danger because she wasn't going to attack him. Only after she decided to attack him did he notice the danger."
Gon asked, "But would what she did work if his Lightsaber was at full power?"
Biscuit made another knife-hand Kō and slashed it against the stone, making an even more destructive cut than Rayleigh's lightsaber.
She said, "If I actually touched it, Rayleigh said it would have shocked me. My aura prevented it from touching me. Rayleigh also said that at full power it only heated things up if it came into contact with them. So as long as his Lightsaber can't get past someone's aura, it can't burn through them."
Rayleigh said, "Let's find out." He disassembled his Lightsaber and put it back into its normal configuration before turning it on.
Biscuit used Kō on her hand and pressed against the Lightsaber without burning herself. For a moment. She then retracted her hand and said, "It does seem to burn through the aura, so if you keep it in constant contact or use an actual slicing motion to extend the duration of contact like an actual sword, you may be able to get through someone's aura."
Rayleigh nodded. He would certainly keep that in mind. Biscuit's Kō was like a jawbreaker and his Lightsaber was like a pressure washer. Constant contact could slice through it, but momentary contact was not enough to get all the way through and reach the core. Slicing motions would assist in prolonging the duration of contact.
Biscuit continued her assessment, "I don't normally approve of practicing a second fighting style before mastering a first. Why not use one over the other?"
He explained, "My Lightsaber boosts all my abilities that are not based on Nen, so I am at my strongest while using it, but a Lightsaber is overkill in most situations."
Biscuit shook her head. "Maybe the ones you've had until now. Don't think that will be the case in the future. Since it is your stronger style, remember to never neglect training with that over training in a weaker style."
Rayleigh nodded. He wasn't sure Kō could block a lightsaber, but seeing it happen confirmed he may have been subconsciously looking down on other power systems. That wasn't entirely his fault. Even if he did his best to avoid it, he was still influenced by the Jedi's belief that the Lightsaber was the greatest, end-all, beat-all weapon. Seeing it countered by a technique any Hunter could learn confirmed that the Lightsaber was just another weapon. A useful, still very badass weapon, but still just a weapon. Unless he could upgrade it. Something to think about later.
Biscuit then addressed the trio together and said, "We're running low on supplies, so we'll head to Masadora to stock up."
This got everyone excited, so Biscuit held up a finger to get their attention and said, "Well, the monsters have been pretty weak so far. As long as we follow the trade shop guy's directions, nothing should happen to you. We'll try to avoid encounters as much as we can."
Rayleigh noticed that Biscuit was keeping her finger up and used Gyō, spotting a nine floating above her finger. Rather than point it out, he raised nine fingers out of sight of Gon and Killua.
Gon still hadn't noticed and said excitedly, "We're finally gonna get some new spell cards!"
Killua said, "Yeah, but we'll need some money first."
Both turned back to Biscuit and saw she still had a finger raised, waiting for the pair to notice.
They both used Gyō and shouted, "Nine!" but Biscuit shook her head, "That took way too long. Push-ups, both of you."
Gon asked, "What about Ray?"
She answered, "He raised nine fingers so as not to give it away."
Killua glared at Ray who only returned an innocent smile. The pair got down and started doing push-ups while Killua muttered, "traitor."
After they finished a few hundred push-ups, Biscuit pointed in a direction and said, "Masadora is thirty kilometers that way, we should be able to get there in three hours."
Gon asked, "How do you know?"
Rayleigh answered, "Because, at certain times when everyone was asleep, she would head off on her own."
Killua asked, "How'd you notice?"
Biscuit commented, "I wondered if you were actually meditating. Can you fully replace meditation with sleep?"
Ray nodded, "Yeah. My non-aura abilities are based on the mind."
Biscuit asked, "Do you mind telling me about them?"
"Sure." The trio didn't run through the rocky area as doing so would get the attention of monsters. They only picked up the pace when they were completely out of the mountains and had reached the lake.
Rayleigh explained the basics of the Force and his abilities. This of course opened a lengthy session of Q and A about what else he could do.
At one point Biscuit added, "When you have the time, practice that Tutaminis thing as much as you can. If you can use it to move aura, then you can use it to remove your opponent's aura from your body. A lot of Emission and Manipulation Hatsus rely on implanting your own aura into the body of an opponent to achieve a certain effect. The ability to offset energy damage is very useful as well."
Rayleigh nodded. He was fully aware that Tutaminis was a very overpowered skill after a certain level of mastery. It allowed a Jedi to use the Force within their body to direct and control energy. Rayleigh could use it to control the temperature of his body, so no matter how hot or cold it was outside, he would not freeze or burn. It made the Silent Desert and the frozen mountain that the Temple of Martial Arts were situated on livable.
The only reason he did not specialize in it was that it was used primarily for defense and energy attack-based offense, neither of which were a part of Rayleigh's combat style. Once his style had a strong enough foundation though, he'd be including everything into it.
Masadora was a somewhat cartoonish city built within a massive wall that surrounded the whole thing. All over the city were floating, colorful structures, and just about everything within was round.
Although Gon and Killua wanted to find a shop that sold magic cards, Biscuit had them look for a department store first.
Just like in Antokiba, every item was sold in card form. Because it would revert into an item sixty seconds after being picked up, all card-form items were encased in plastic within the store. The plastic was removed after the card was purchased.
Rayleigh sold the monsters that he successfully defeated and bought cooking wear and foodstuff. Although the rations Biscuit gave them weren't bad, he still liked cooking the food himself, since Force Cooking was another way of meditating on the mysteries of the Force.
Gon and Killua asked around and confirmed the location of the store that sold spell cards.
Once their purchases at the department store were complete, Biscuit said, "Alright, let's go back to the stony region we were at before!"
Gon and Killua looked shocked. They had also sold the monster cards in their possession, but they wanted to use the money they got to buy spell cards.
Gon complained, "What about spell cards?"
Biscuit countered, "Everyone has a Return card in case of an emergency, and none of us have any high-value cards worth stealing. So what is the use of spell cards right now?"
Killua regretfully admitted, "That's true."
Biscuit said, "Alright, let's run all the way back. This time we'll get there in two and a half hours."
After returning to their starting area, Biscuit opened her book and took out some cards. "Gain." With a poof of smoke, they turned into a single wheelbarrow, three shovels, three flashlights, and a few lengths of rope.
After the trio examined the gear, Biscuit stated, "Now, let's go back to Masadora."
The trio gave her a somewhat incredulous expression since they had just come from that direction.
Expecting this, she pointed at the rock in front of them and said, "But, this time we'll take a straight route. And I mean that literally."
Rayleigh asked, "So... Dig through the mountains?"
Biscuit smiled, "That's right."
Rayleigh thought about it and asked, "Can we use Shū?"
Biscuit asked, "Oh? You know about Shū?"
Rayleigh nodded, "I asked Wing about it. I haven't practiced any of them yet, but he did tell me the basics of En, Shū, Kō, Ken, and Ryū when I told him I heard about them from another Hunter."
Biscuit nodded and asked for clarification, "And you said you didn't practice any of them yet?"
"Nope."
"That's fine then. And yes. You can use Shū. You were supposed to figure it out on your own. I didn't expect you to know of it already."
Gon and Killua asked, "What's Shū?"
Rayleigh explained, "It's what Netero used on that rubber ball when he blocked my Lightsaber. You extend your Ten to not only cover and protect yourself, but an item you are holding as well, strengthening the item and increasing its defense. But unlike a normal Ten which you can theoretically maintain indefinitely, the use of Shū will cause aura to leak."
Gon asked, "Do you think Shū can be used to block a Lightsaber?"
Biscuit answered, "Netero's Ten is probably as strong as my Kō, so his Shū blocking Rayleigh's lightsaber doesn't surprise me at all."
Rayleigh turned to Biscuit and said, "Since I use a weapon, I wanted to practice Shū for a while, I just wasn't sure if my foundation was good enough yet."
Biscuit confirmed, "That's fine. And after what you've gained from fighting Binolt, you're ready."
It only took a few moments for the trio to get the hang of Shū. The usage of Ten was little more than instinct and visualization, so altering Ten just required more visualization. Rayleigh visualized that he was armoring the shovel. As someone who played more than a few video games in his past life, the concept of upgrading a seemingly innocuous item into a battle-ready weapon was an easy-to-grasp concept.
Their aura successfully surrounded their shovels and the Shū enveloped tool passed through the hard stone as if it was made of sand. The trio quickly made a huge hole and tunnel, moving the dirt and rocks out of the way and as the tunnel grew deeper, they started using the wheelbarrow.
They made fast progress, but petered out after half an hour, panting with exhaustion.
Killua said, "Dammit, this is really tiring. Let's just use Shū when we come across a really hard rock."
Gon didn't even have the energy to answer, he just nodded back.
Rayleigh on the other hand shook his head. "You guys can. I really need to master Shū."
Killua didn't reply but waved him off as a crazy person.
They rested until they recovered their energy and returned to digging. Rayleigh used Shū until he was barely out of aura and then took charge of moving the dirt and rocks with the wheelbarrow until his aura recovered.
They continued this until nightfall. The terrain wasn't an actual mountain they had to pass through. It was just a forest of multiple giant stone pillars, so they broke through one after another, making it a few hundred meters before the sun went down and Rayleigh made dinner.
Before they could rest, Biscuit set up a rope and pulley attached to a rock and made them hold one end while the other was above their head. If they released the rope, the rock would fall and hit their head.
Biscuit explained, "You'll sleep like this from now on. Releasing the rope is not allowed. Plus, I'll cut the rope with this knife. This is to keep you alert at all times."
Killua seemed okay with this and Rayleigh could meditate while gripping a rope without a problem. Gon on the other hand dropped the rock multiple times that night, granting him several bumps in the morning.
Rayleigh made the meals and this routine continued for a few weeks. Each night the stone above their head was replaced with a bigger one. The first time Biscuit cut the stone above Rayleigh's head, it didn't fall. It just stayed there, hovering above his head. Biscuit seemed a little peeved at that, and he responded by giving her a cheeky smirk before lowering it down and tying it up with more rope, and placing it back up with the Force.
As a consequence of being cheeky, his rock was replaced with a boulder that weighed twice as much as he did the following night. The only reason it did not weigh more was that its weight would pull him up if he held the rope.
Rayleigh responded to this challenge by having one of his Wills use Telekinesis to keep the rock up the entire night, without bothering to hold the rope.
The next night, Biscuit countered by replacing it with an even larger boulder. Rayleigh didn't mind. He had never actually thought of using prolonged telekinesis as an exercise while meditating.
At the end of the week, Rayleigh didn't even have a rope, he just meditated using one of his Wills and used four other Wills to hold four boulders, while the sixth Will, as always, was splitting itself. By the time they reached Masadora, he had seven Wills and was working on an eighth.
Upon reaching Masadora, Biscuit said, "Good job. Now go back to the starting point again."
Gon, Rayleigh, and Killua shouted, "Again?!"
Biscuit continued, "This time, you'll get monster cards along the way from all the monsters of this region that you've met so far. None of them are beyond your basic strength, so if you cannot defeat one, observe and analyze the enemy. Think about ways to attack him while fighting. It's all about the strength of your martial insight. I won't give any hints, so figure out how to beat the monsters on your own."
Rayleigh said, "Let's make it a competition. Whoever gets all the monsters in the region first, gets one favor from whoever comes in last place."
Biscuit said, "You'll only harm yourself if you replace your battle instincts with those abilities of yours, so use them as little as possible."
Rayleigh nodded. He could use Shatterpoint and Telekinesis to make short work of almost every monster here, but that would ruin the point of the training.
Killua said, "I'm in. If Ray won't use his psychic stuff, I can beat him."
After making base camp, the trio split up and went in search of monsters. Rayleigh found that big salamander first. He was able to use Gyō without using Shatterpoint. Without relying on Shatterpoint, Rayleigh fought it while using his basic observation skills to find the area the big gecko tried to protect. It was subtle, but the massive monster always tried to face Rayleigh with its right side. Rayleigh used his Ren-enhanced strength and speed to smash a rock wall above the monster causing a bunch of rocks to fall over it.
The salamander moved around the falling rocks to ensure a certain spot didn't get hit, revealing its weak point. Once he was certain, Ray jumped onto the monster's left side and stuck one of its spots, causing the monster to pop into a card.
Rayleigh then turned to look over to where Biscuit was observing him in the distance and waved the card at her with a smile.
She nodded back at him and left to keep watch over the other two since Rayleigh obviously didn't need a babysitter.
Rayleigh smiled. Even though he would not use the Force to help him beat the monsters, that didn't mean he would not use it to find them. He used Clairvoyance and found a few in the distance. He intended to fill up all his free slots with monster cards. He could then use Overdrive to head to Masadora and sell them for money and come back for more. His instincts told him that now was not the time to buy spell cards, but to accumulate as much money as possible.
Each monster had a specific attack pattern, defense pattern, and weakness.
The Fanged Worm was an ambush attacker that always kept a part of its body in the ground. Lure it out with a feint, dodge the ambush, and pull it out to get the card.
The Box Jellysquid stunned with its floating tentacles, but one of those tentacles did not attack, and pulling on it turned the monster into a card.
The Hornet Swarm was led by a specific hornet that looked almost identical to the others and hid within the swarm. Attacking that one specifically turned it into a card and defeated the swarm.
The Flan Slimes were immune to attack, but only the outer layer. You could actually dig through the outer layer of slime to reach the inner layer and attack that to defeat it, but it was almost impossible to even notice that the slimes had two layers.
The Hyper Puffball was easily caught as long as you noticed the pattern it bounced and predicted where it would be.
The only monster Rayleigh had trouble with was the Bubble Horse. It shot out red and white bubbles. The white ones could be touched without popping if he was using Ten, but the red ones always popped when they touched him, but did not pop when they touched anything else. A simple test confirmed he could in fact touch the red ones if he used Zetsu, so that confirmed that the red ones popped on someone's aura while the white ones popped on everything else.
The problem was that instantly shifting between Ten and Zetsu dozens of times in a few seconds to avoid popping any of the bubbles was not simple. If he popped a single one, the Bubble Horse somehow became much faster, as if it scaled its speed to his to always outrun him. The only way to catch it was to approach it without allowing a single bubble to pop off him.
Without succeeding in catching the bubble horse, Rayleigh returned to base camp and made food. He discreetly showed his Book to Biscuit and told her he'd stop by Masadora to sell them and see which was worth the most.
She agreed and asked him to inform her when he found out so she would also know which monster was the most valuable.
After selling the cards, he confirmed the Hyper Puffball gave the best reward, so while training with the Bubble Horse, he always kept a look out for Hyper Puffballs to collect for money.
After a week and a half, Rayleigh captured the Bubble Horse and Biscuit confirmed that he had obtained one of each monster, but they agreed not to tell the other two.
The next day, Killua captured the Bubble Horse and said, "I won! Haha!"
Biscuit kindly burst his bubble, stating, "Sorry, Rayleigh got the Bubble Horse yesterday."
Killua fell down to the ground and cried out, "Noooooo!"
Rayleigh comforted him and said, "At least you didn't get last place."
Killua sighed, "That's true."
Gon got the Bubble Horse three days later.
Once everyone had gotten one of every monster, confirming they had the basics down, Biscuit said, "Next we'll practice defensive skills."
She made a fist and used Kō before asking, "How would you defend against this?"
Rayleigh knew the answer, so he remained silent to see what Killua and Gon would say.
Gon answered, "We could use Kō to block?"
Biscuit replied, "You are somewhat correct. Rayleigh, since you already know from Wing, please explain Ken and Ryū."
Rayleigh nodded and turned to the pair before explaining, "Ken is basically a complex Ren. Ren is where 100% of your excited aura covers 100% of your body. Ken changes that. You create individual Tens within your Ren, partitioning out different amounts of aura to different parts of your body. Like when we first learned Gyō, we needed all of our aura to use it. But now we have more aura and only need to focus some of it into our eyes, not all of it. Ken is the same principle, it is the use of Ren while distributing different amounts of aura to the body."
Rayleigh used Ren and concentrated his aura into his legs. "My Hatsu is basically Ken, with the aura focused into my legs to increase my speed."
He dispersed his Ren and continued, "Ryū is the act of changing how the aura is distributed while keeping Ken active. Like changing it from having my aura mostly in my legs to mostly in my arms. One of the biggest differences between Ken and Ren is that you must be using Gyō at all times. So if you don't have enough aura to use Gyō and have some left over, you can't even use Ken."
Biscuit nodded, "Correct. Ren is just the fundamental principle, while Ken is an advanced practice. However, I don't want you using any form of distributing other than maintaining Gyō for the moment. Technically, you don't have to maintain Gyō as it uses Aura and lowers your defense, but it's not a bad idea to start practicing it now since that leads nicely into practicing Ryū later. Rayleigh, you're up first. Use Ren and guard against my punch."
Rayleigh took a stance and did so. Biscuit didn't move, just maintaining the Kō as a threat. Rayleigh kept up his Ren for 15 minutes before petering out. That was five minutes better than his best after training his Hatsu for a month on Whale Island.
Killua and Gon were able to hold their Rens for about 9 minutes apiece. Rayleigh was somewhat ahead because his Hatsu practice was based on distance and speed, so he kept his Ren up and practice Ren more than they did. Keeping up and using Shū for as long as possible also helped. Now that Rayleigh had a trainer, he didn't feel the need to keep at Gon and Killua's pace anymore. Especially if there were other Players on the island.
From that day on, holding Ren for as long as possible was added three times a day while using Shū to dig through the mountains was maintained for the rest of their time. Biscuit would occasionally leave them to hunt some high-value monsters or gain some information in Masadora.
After two weeks, Gon and Killua could both maintain Ren for 30 minutes.
"From today on, we will be training for real fights and practicing Ryū. We'll start with the fifty-fifty Ken Stance. Outside of using Gyō, half your aura will be maintained around the rest of your body while the other half will be focused into your fist."
Rayleigh, Gon, and Killua copied her stance and used Ren and Gyō while partitioning half their aura into their fist.
"Good. From there, right hand 70%. Body 30%. Good. Feel it out, you don't need to hit the exact values. Left foot 80. Body 20. Head 60. Body 40."
After half an hour, they ended the training and Biscuit said, "We'll do this three times a day. After you rest, we'll do today's second set and try some sparring. Gon and Killua will spar while Rayleigh will fight with me."
After they recovered, Biscuit said, "We'll go over there so as not to disturb you two," and led Rayleigh out of their line of sight before saying, "Don't hold back for their sake. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses."
Rayleigh shrugged, not surprised to see that she figured out that Rayleigh was subconsciously trying to match the pace of the other two. Gon and Killua took more than ten seconds to change the distribution while using Ryū. Rayleigh was matching their pace, not using his own.
Rayleigh sparred with Biscuit using Ryū and Ken, slowly increasing his speed. Ryū was all about the visualization of flowing movements. For someone who meditated and practiced Force Calligraphy, visualization of flowing movements wasn't difficult.
It only took half a week to reach top speed and a full week to reach above what Biscuit considered the novice level.
Rayleigh spent the remaining time until Gon and Killua caught up practicing the act of stacking Force Valor and his muscles against each other. He'd felt like an idiot for not seeing this earlier. It was true that using his muscles and Force Valor to do the exact same thing did not stack as he'd only achieve the faster speed, but if he didn't stack them, but used one against the other, it opened an entirely new fighting style. The best way to stack them was to use them perpendicularly. Devote his muscles to using his strength in one direction while applying the Force to move his strength in a perpendicular direction to have a net movement that combined both forces. This reduced the loss from parallel usage to zero to enhance the force vectors by the highest degree. Of course, this had the added benefit of screwing with anyone predicting his movement using their eyes to gauge his muscles. He could even use Force Valor to slow himself down to really mess with people trying to guess his speed. HK-47 always did say that Rayleigh needed more tricks while fighting.
Moreover, Rayleigh wanted to use Ryū to strengthen his individual legs and alternate with each step. His goal really was to become a lightspeed swordsman and he had to start somewhere. Since he was an enhancer, using Ken to partition individual muscle groups, bones and tendons further increased the limit of how fast he could move using Force Program without breaking into pieces.
For now, he was incorporating his Deception Force Aura , Ken and Ryū into a new Alchaka and Lightsaber routine. It would serve as a temporary base for his fighting style and be useful as an all-around exercise until he found something better.
Killua and Gon were able to use Ryū at their full speed in two weeks and reach the novice level, meaning they could move into the next stage of training.
"This will be the last level, specific type training. Gon and Rayleigh are Enhancers and Killua is a Transmuter. It's fine to just study your own type, but then you'll become inflexible and the training is not very efficient either. The ideal form is that of a bell. You focus mainly in your own category while also training in the two neighboring categories. Training and understanding your neighboring categories will help you learn your own category faster as well. First, we'll start with Enhancer training, Level 1. Stone Breaking."
Biscuit had gathered piles of fist-sized stones from the mounds of dirt they dug out during Shū training and placed them together. She explained, "Level one consists of using Shū over the rock and using it to break other rocks. You clear this level when you can break 1000 stones in a day."
Everyone got a rock and began their training. Gon's broke after 150 rocks, Killua's at 190, and Rayleigh's at 230.
Gon asked, "Why is even Killua better than me?"
Killua smiled, but Biscuit actually gave a thoughtful look before answering, "I suspect Killua is a Dual-Type, Transmuter and Enhancer."
Killua asked, "What does that mean?"
She explained, "Some Enhancers are better at Emission than Transmutation, and some are better at Transmutation than Emission. But there are also Enhancers that are just as good at Transmutation as they are Enhancement, but are quite bad at Emission."
She wrote up the familiar Hexagram of Nen affinities with percent next to each. 100 above Enhancer, 80 above Transmuter and Emitter, and 60 over Manipulator and Conjurer. She explained, "This is only a general explanation, but most don't fall exactly on the top of any category. Some lean toward one side or another."
She put a dot between Emitter and Enhancer, very close to Enhancer, and rewrote the numbers. Enhancer still had a 100 above it, but Emitter had 85, and Transmuter had a 75.
Biscuit explained, "Outside your main attribute, everyone can have something of a bias toward one of their neighboring attributes over the other. As for Killua."
She erased the dot and the numbers and put a dot dead center between Enhancer and Transmuter. Transmuter still had a 100 above it, but instead of a 90, Enhancer also had a 100 above it, while Emitter had a 55 and Conjurer had 75.
"Dual-Types are exactly between two categories and can use the second category as well as their first. So Killua can use Enhancer Hatsus as easily as Transmuter Hatsus."
Killua exclaimed, "Alright!," before he excitedly asked, "So can we do the Transmuter training now?"
Biscuit shook her head firmly, "No. A basic rule of specific type training is to only train one type per day. Also, when training a different type the following day, only train the type adjacent to it. For example, Killua could train one a day in the order, Enhancer, Transmuter, Conjurer, Transmuter, Enhancer, Transmuter, or just go back and forth between Enhancer and Transmuter. But you cannot do Enhancer Training after Conjurer Training or vice versa. The same is true for Rayleigh and Gon when changing from Emitter Training to Transmuter Training. You can only go from either of those to a day of Enhancer training. Understood?"
All three nodded.
Biscuit put her finger up a few times during the lecture, but Rayleigh usually called it first while Gon and Killua tied for second place, so neither had to do push-ups since no one technically came in last. After tying for the third time in a row, Gon wanted to beat Killua and they just did Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Gon won and Biscuit gave a lecture on the martial uses of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Rayleigh used the time to open his Menu and check his Easy Masteries for something interesting.
[Enhancer Proficiency. Speeds up the advancement of the Enhancer Training regimen.
Level 1: Stone Breaking: Use Shū over a rock and reinforce the hardness of the rock to break 1000 other rocks in a single day.
Level 2: Requires mastering Level 1 to Unlock.
Level 3~10 Locked]
After his training with Biscuit, the prerequisites for Enhancer Proficiency had finally unlocked. What did this mean? It meant that his mastery in the application and advancement of the Enhancer Attribute would now advance eight times faster than normal. There wasn't much of a difference on the first day, but after this, he'd be advancing much faster. Since the Easy Mastery even explained the levels, he could advance all the way to level 10 without needing someone to explain how it worked. Of course, he doubted level 10 would be as easy as Level 1.
After hearing about the martial applications of Rock-Paper-Scissors, Gon got the idea for his Hatsu. His Kō would act as Rock. He would transform his Aura into a blade and use that for Scissors. And he would shoot a nen projectile to use for Paper.
Rayleigh wanted to make an aura blade that could slice through the aura defense of others. He wanted to enhance the sharpness of the blade and maybe send flying slashes.
While discussing various possibilities with Biscuit about Hatsus and their training methods, Biscuit brought up the day's date and the fact that it was close to New Year. This also made them realize that Killua needed to get out of the game to take the upcoming Hunter's Exam. Thankfully, this year it was held a few days after the New Year.
To figure out how to leave the game, they headed back to Masadora and learned of a port that could let them leave. The guy at the port claimed he might help if they bribed him, so Killua punched his face in, turning the man into a card that acted as the pass to leave Greed Island.
Killua gave his cards to Gon and Rayleigh before departing.
After Killua left, Biscuit showed Gon and Rayleigh the level 1 Transmuter Exercise, changing the form of your aura into the shape of numbers. Level 1 was complete when you could make your aura change from zero to nine within five seconds.
To make it a challenge, she insisted they do so while running.
They intended to return to the rocky area after returning to Masadora, but on the way there, the trio heard the sound of something flying at them from the sky.
Rayleigh called out, "Book," before the new arrival even landed, but mostly as a bluff. If the man tried to use any spells on him, he'd just be donating his cards to him in the end.
The man who arrived however was somewhat familiar. It was one of the people who joined the game at the same time he did, one of the members who joined that group of players who said they would beat the game in three months. Huh. It had been about three months since then, hadn't it?
He looked at the trio and asked, "Wasn't there someone else with you?"
The man had what appeared to be a bomb on his shoulder and it was counting down.
Rayleigh said, "Let me guess, Glasses guy was the Bomb Devil?"
The man actually looked quite shocked at Rayleigh's guess and asked, "How did you know that?"
Rayleigh gave his best Sherlock impersonation and answered, "Elementary my dear fellow. The only reason to blow up a new arrival is to scare the other new arrivals. Blowing someone up and scaring others to join a large group would not benefit the bomber unless he was a part of the group."
"But how did you know it was Genthru?"
Rayleigh figured that was the glasses guy's name and answered, "That was a guess, I'm just naturally suspicious of charismatic guys in glasses."
The man shook his head, unable to believe that this kid noticed something so easily that he had missed it.
Gon said, "Wait, you mean one of those guys who tried to recruit us was that bomber guy?"
The new arrival explained, "Yes. Let me tell you what happened." He gestured to his shoulder and said, "I don't have much time."
*Author's Note*
Who to save and who not to save?
I considered saving Battera's wife so that he would not ask for the reward for completing the game, but that won't work. Battera wants two cards. He wants Angel's Breath to heal whatever problem is with his lover, and he wants Witch's Rejuvenation Potion to make himself younger. It was his plan to give up everything and start over, a new life with her. I might be able to justify healing the woman with Dark Transfer, but I cannot justify making a man younger using the Force since there is no good way of doing so.
Since Battera can't be happy, then I won't put any effort into making him happy. This arc has been the same up to now, but things change later. Hisoka is hunting the Spiders, so none of them are in the island. No Hisoka changes a lot of things, all of which have a lot of consequences. Look forward to them.
Kō Vs Lightsabers
It is canon that the Bomber uses Kō to defend his hands while making explosions. If Kō can protect against an explosion, it should be able to defend against a baton. There are exceptions, but in general, Lightsabers are not hot. They heat up what they come into contact with. So if you don't come into physical contact with a Lightsaber, it would burn you. Though there is still a limit. Even aura burns. Blocking a baton with aura is easier than blocking a sharp sword due to weight, pressure, and surface area, so he'll be changing his lightsaber's shape later.
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