Chapter 37: Biscuit's Nen Training

Chapter 37: Biscuit's Nen Training

Chapter 37 Biscuit's Nen Training

Rayleigh used Gy 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 K 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. Follow current novels at novelhall.com)

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 K 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 K. 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 K 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 K 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 K 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 K 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 K 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 K 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 Gy, 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."

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 K 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 K to block?"

Biscuit replied, "You are somewhat correct. Rayleigh, since you already know from Wing, please explain Ken and Ry."

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 Gy, 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, "Ry 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 Gy at all times. So if you don't have enough aura to use Gy 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 Gy for the moment. Technically, you don't have to maintain Gy 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 Ry 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 K 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 Sh 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 Sh 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 Ry. We'll start with the fifty-fifty Ken Stance. Outside of using Gy, 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 Gy 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 Ry. Rayleigh was matching their pace, not using his own.

Rayleigh sparred with Biscuit using Ry and Ken, slowly increasing his speed. Ry 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 Ry 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 Ry 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 Ry 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 Sh training and placed them together. She explained, "Level one consists of using Sh 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 Sh 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 K 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.

K Vs Lightsabers

It is canon that the Bomber uses K to defend his hands while making explosions. If K 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.