Chapter 9: The Path of Training
"Alright."
Between the five-year-old's small palms, a ball of white light, invisible to the naked eye, began to condense.
This light flowed like water, wrapping around his slender arms, over his shoulders, down his torso and legs, and all the way up to his head.
This white light was, of course, his Aura.
Strictly speaking, the Aura had always been there, enveloping his body. But as his mind learned to perceive it, it gave the illusion of "surfacing" for the first time.
Every living being has life energy—Aura. Normal people just let it leak away, unaware.
The first step of Nen training is to stop this leak. The technique of gathering and solidifying this Aura around the body is Ten, one of the Four Major Principles.
Ten—to "envelop" the body. A simple, direct summary.
Kai estimated that it had taken him less than a minute to master Ten.
For someone who could already use a complex Hatsu, a minute was probably slow.
He glanced up. The midday sun was brutal.
His first full day in the Hunter world, and it was scorching. Considering the newspaper from the ship was dated late November, he had to be in a tropical region, or at least somewhere in the far south of the Kakin Kingdom.
Kai wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was standing in a forest clearing, training. Butch—whose fur was now a plain, non-glowing moon-white in the daylight—was lying nearby, watching him without blinking, probably with a feline curiosity that made him wonder what on earth Kai was doing.
As for the wolf, it was already off carrying out its orders.
He had ridden Butch for half the day without seeing a single person or any sign of civilization. He didn't know if this island was just that vast, or if he was hopelessly lost.
Not wanting to waste energy, Kai had decided to stop and train once the sun was at its peak.
He'd used biscuit crumbs as bait to build a few simple bird traps in the surrounding area. Then he'd given the wolf a command: "Patrol the traps. If you find one that's caught a bird, scratch your own leg."
The moment the wolf injured itself, its Star Marker would activate the healing ability. That activation would ping Kai, like a notification, letting him know food was ready.
With that system in place, Kai began his Nen training.
Having mastered Ten, Kai immediately moved on to the next: Zetsu.
Zetsu, as the name implied, was the ability to "sever" one's Aura. By closing all his Aura nodes, he could completely seal his presence, making him undetectable. The trade-off was that it left him completely defenseless. It was an extremely dangerous state.
A key part of training was learning to switch between Ten and Zetsu in an instant.
He knew that true masters could maintain Ten even in their sleep, and could snap from a state of Zetsu to combat-ready in less than a second.
The Four Major Principles: Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu.
Hatsu was his personal ability, his Song of the Earth. Kai felt he had a good handle on that, but his fundamentals and, more importantly, his total amount of Aura were severely lacking. He had to focus on the basics.
The last of the Four Principles was Ren—the act of explosively releasing one's Aura, like "powering up" in one of his old-world mangas.
Ultimately, all Four Principles boiled down to one thing: Aura control.
Kai calmed his mind and began to drill, switching back and forth between Ten and Zetsu. He knew his reserves were shallow. If he tried to train Ren, he'd be flat on his back in less than two minutes. He'd save that for the end of his session.
Being a transmigrator gave him one massive advantage: he already knew the rules. He knew the secrets of Nen that were normally passed down from master to student. Even training alone, he could create a perfect plan and avoid any major pitfalls.
And what was the biggest pitfall?
The Six Nen Categories. They formed a hexagon: Manipulation $\rightarrow$ Emission $\rightarrow$ Enhancement $\rightarrow$ Transmutation $\rightarrow$ Conjuration $\rightarrow$ Specialization.
Every Nen user had a natural category, and they could only train abilities in that category to 100% efficiency. Training in other categories yielded diminishing returns.
To be ignorant of this fundamental law and waste years trying to master an opposing category wasn't just inefficient; it was tragic. You'd spend twice the effort for a fraction of the power.
As a Manipulator, his efficiency chart was set in stone:
Manipulation: 100%
Emission: 80%
Enhancement: 60%
Conjuration: 60%
Transmutation: 40%
Specialization: 0% (This is a special case.)
In other words, if he and a natural Transmuter started training the same Transmutation ability, Kai would have to put in more than twice the effort, only to end up with an ability that was, at best, 40% as strong. A total waste.
Based on this law, Chairman Netero's Shingen-Ryu school advocated for a "mountain" training philosophy. You focus on your own category as the peak, but you also train in the two adjacent categories as "supporting" skills. Even at a reduced efficiency, it diversifies your combat style and dramatically increases your chances of victory.
This put Manipulators and Conjurers at a slight disadvantage. Both categories are adjacent to Specialization. Since you can't learn to be a Specialist (you're either born one or become one through rare circumstances), one of their two "supporting" categories was effectively useless. It was like starting with one arm tied behind your back.
All of this meant one thing: the moment your Nen type was revealed, your entire path as a fighter was set.
(End of Chapter)