After outlining the training plan to Kurapika and Neon and setting a time to check their progress, Ronin left them to do their own thing.
It was time for his own training.
With the A-Rank Jutsu permission unlocked, Ronin had found the perfect technique to assist his growth.
Earth Style: Super Weighted Boulder Jutsu.
This technique increased gravity, crushing opponents and dealing massive damage.
The description explicitly stated its effects: it could increase a target's weight by 20 to 50 times its base. The maximum effective range covered an area with a diameter of about 30 feet, and the duration directly correlated with the user's Chakra reserves.
In other words, the more Chakra he poured in, the longer the crushing gravity would last.
Ronin's idea was simple but brutal: have a Shadow Clone cast the Super Weighted Boulder Jutsu on him to create an extreme training environment.
Under this immense pressure, he would perform the same basic drills as Kurapika and the others.
The most critical step was mastering control over the jutsu—ensuring it didn't injure him while still pushing him to his limits.
Maintaining this delicate balance would also force Ronin to refine his energy control.
It was killing two birds with one stone.
First, he needed to dial down the Chakra output.
He formed the hand signs. The ground in front of him instantly cratered under the invisible weight.
He kept the hand seal held but reduced the Chakra flow. The gravitational force began to weaken.
It went smoother than expected.
Once he got the feel for it, he had his Shadow Clone cast the jutsu. After stabilizing the Chakra output, the clone slowly transferred the effect onto Ronin's main body.
The Earth-natured Chakra coated Ronin like an incredibly heavy, invisible suit of armor.
Ronin didn't activate his Sharingan. Instead, he maintained Ken.
Currently, Ronin could maintain Ken for over forty minutes.
This was partly due to his more refined control over his Nen, and partly due to his increased aura capacity.
However, after splitting his energy to create a Shadow Clone, that duration dropped to twenty minutes.
The extreme weight from the Super Weighted Boulder Jutsu made even maintaining Ken feel like a Herculean task. He struggled to lift his arm and grab the shovel. Channeling his aura into the tool, he struck the rocky ground—it sliced through the stone like tofu.
Ten minutes in, Ronin was drenched in sweat.
But he kept going. His Shadow Clone followed closely behind, maintaining the jutsu.
Twenty minutes. That was his limit. He pushed through until the very last drop of aura in his main body was exhausted, collapsing into the tunnel he had dug, gasping for air.
He was soaked, but a strange sense of satisfaction washed over him.
Ronin finally had some ideas for his Hatsu.
Enhancement was the most combat-oriented of the six Nen categories, but until now, Ronin had been treating it as a support skill for his Ninjutsu.
That felt backward.
Sure, he had access to Ninjutsu and the Sharingan, which was a huge advantage.
But discarding the natural strengths of an Enhancer just to make it a sidekick to his Sharingan felt wasteful. He wasn't satisfied with that.
This was the Hunter x Hunter world, not Naruto.
Enhancement had massive potential. If mastered to the extreme, its destructive power wouldn't lose out to high-level Ninjutsu.
Whether it was Nen or Ninjutsu, it all came from Ronin. His total internal energy pool was fixed.
What changed was the output—the amount of Chakra released for a jutsu versus the amount of aura exploded for a Nen ability. That output determined the power.
Currently, most of Ronin's Ninjutsu relied on the five basic nature transformations: Wind, Lightning, Water, Fire, and Earth.
In Nen terms, these elements fell under Transmutation.
Ronin's Sharingan state was effectively a Specialist ability. According to the rules of Nen, as a Specialist, he couldn't utilize Transmutation at 100% efficiency.
This meant that given the same amount of energy, an Enhancement attack (his natural affinity) would be at least 20% more powerful than a Transmutation attack (elemental Ninjutsu) launched while using his Specialist Sharingan.
Ronin's calculation was sound. It aligned with the intel given by Morena within the manga.
Specialists didn't face hard barriers when learning other categories.
That was why many people, unsure if they were Specialists, would max out other categories, only to regret it later when they discovered their true nature.
But Ronin knew for a fact that his Sharingan state was Specialist. And the Ninjutsu he performed in that state were essentially high-difficulty skills requiring the mastery of multiple systems simultaneously.
Just like Morena's Contagion ability was a complex interplay of five highly mastered systems.
Ronin's abilities needed to evolve, step by step.
Regardless, if he used the same amount of energy, the raw destructive power of a Ninjutsu attack would never exceed the power of a simple, enhanced punch.
The form was different, which made direct comparison tricky, but the math was solid.
If you compared a purely Enhancement-based punch from Ronin against a Chakra-enhanced punch (like Sakura's Cherry Blossom Impact), using identical energy levels, the Enhancement punch would hit harder.
The only exception was that strange "intermediate state" he sometimes entered.
In that state, his two power systems fused, creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.
But that was a topic for another time.
The takeaway was clear: Ronin's Enhancement didn't have to be relegated to support. It could be his ace in the hole.
Look at Gon. In his blackened, adult form, a charged Jajanken was enough to obliterate Neferpitou, one of the Royal Guards, in a single hit.
Uvogin's goal was to make his Big Bang Impact as powerful as a literal nuclear warhead.
Netero was slightly different; he optimized for extreme speed rather than raw power per hit.
His 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva was unimaginably fast, but its per-hit damage output was arguably lower compared to its speed advantage.
At least, that's how it looked.
Even his final move, the Zero Hand, wasn't a pure Enhancement attack—it was more of an Emission blast.
Ronin's goal aligned more with Uvogin and Gon. He wanted to push his attack power to the absolute limit.
While Manipulators, Conjurers, and Specialists were playing 4D chess, calculating rules and conditions, Ronin just wanted to grab them and end the fight with one decisive blow.
That, in Ronin's eyes, was what an Enhancer should be.
And the process of getting there—strengthening the body—naturally increased his aura capacity and physical resilience.
Enhancement training was beautifully simple.
As for the issue of aura capacity he had worried about before? After some thought, Ronin decided to leave that problem to the S-Rank Jutsu: Creation Rebirth (Strength of a Hundred Seal).