Ronin wasn't moving fast—if anything, he was making his way toward Yanshui City in a stop-and-go rhythm.
On one hand, he was getting used to his Nen. On the other, he was exploring what his two-tomoe Sharingan could do.
The chakra boost brought by fusion meant he could use more ninjutsu now.
Techniques he'd tried before—Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu and Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu—could now be cast the moment he finished the hand seals.
And the more chakra he poured into them, the stronger the jutsu became.
He'd gone from spitting out a small fireball at the start… to now being able to belch out a fireball the size of a house. The progress was downright terrifying.
Of course, that ultra-large fireball also consumed a huge amount of Nen. In real combat, he felt it probably wasn't as practical as Phoenix Sage Fire.
While practicing ninjutsu, Ronin also discovered something: if he spent the same amount of chakra, a jutsu cast with simplified seals was clearly weaker than one cast with the full sequence.
The reduction was about fifty percent.
Also, the seals didn't have to be perfectly correct—what mattered was the number.
Forty-four seals seemed to represent the "maximum." Once he completed forty-four seals—regardless of what seals they actually were—he could push the power of his jutsu to its peak.
If he simplified to seven seals, he could unleash about seventy percent of the jutsu's power.
Given that comparison, the choice was obvious. Most of the time, Ronin would pick the "single seal" version at fifty percent power. When he needed more power, he'd use seven seals.
He could also deliberately use seven seals to mislead an opponent, then—when it mattered—fire off a jutsu with a single seal to catch them off guard.
As for forty-four seals… whoever loved that could go ahead and use it.
Even for someone like him, who'd practiced hand seals—and now had superhuman strength and speed—completing forty-four seals still took six to seven seconds.
Maybe he could reduce that time with repeated training.
But by the time he finished all those seals, the enemy's attack might have already turned his hands into minced meat.
Ronin roughly judged that with a two-tomoe Sharingan, the highest level of jutsu he could cast was around C-rank.
It felt like some kind of restriction was limiting him, preventing him from using higher-tier techniques.
It seemed that every evolution of his eyes corresponded to unsealing one tier of ninjutsu.
If he wanted to use B-rank techniques, he'd need to evolve from two tomoe to three.
And if he followed that logic further… to use S-rank ninjutsu, he'd need to evolve all the way to the Eternal Mangekyō.
As for what exactly counted as C-rank jutsu, Ronin honestly couldn't remember clearly. He'd have to explore and test things slowly.
Another thing that mattered to Ronin was his own Nen category.
The Sharingan state was special. As a Kurta, when his eyes weren't "open," he probably wasn't a Specialist user.
As for which category he actually belonged to, he'd need to test it with the Water Divination method.
Water Divination was a common way in the Shingen-ryu lineage to test Nen type. All you needed was a cup filled with water; the tester infused Nen into it, and the change in the water would reveal the Nen category.
Ronin wanted the same thing Kurapika wanted: Enhancement.
Because with ninjutsu—and the Sharingan—he didn't need to develop some fancy, bespoke ability. He just needed to accumulate more aura and strengthen his body. Then, when he switched into Sharingan state, he'd have more chakra and could cast more—and stronger—ninjutsu.
So when Ronin saw the water in the bamboo cup gradually increase as he infused Nen, excitement surged through him.
An increase in water volume was the sign of an Enhancer.
But remembering Hisoka's "review" of Enhancers, Ronin suddenly felt less steady.
He didn't think he was simple-minded. And he definitely didn't think he was "pure."
Looks like Hisoka wasn't that accurate at reading people after all.
As for developing his Enhancement, Ronin already had a rough plan: increase his aura capacity and strengthen his physique.
His first small goal was to surpass Uvogin.
To reach the point where he could tank a rocket launcher with nothing but his body and Nen—and take zero damage.
But how?
Ronin's mind was full of images of Biscuit training Gon and Killua. If he trained step by step, he should be able to raise his strength quickly.
Unfortunately, he had no way of finding Biscuit and getting her to teach him.
If he could, with her skill, she'd probably save him a lot of training time.
In this stop-and-go journey, on the fifth day after escaping Uvogin's pursuit, Ronin finally arrived in Yanshui City.
He went into a shop and exchanged the wrinkled cash he'd dried out for a new set of clothes, then ate a hearty meal at a restaurant before heading to the airship terminal.
To avoid trouble dragging on, he planned to leave Yanshui City as soon as possible.
But when he passed a newsstand, he still saw the newspaper reporting the Kurta massacre.
The news really spread fast.
In just a few days, it was already causing a huge uproar.
The article was basically the same as what he remembered from reading the manga: a woman who got lost in the forest discovered the slaughtered Kurta village.
And in the village, only one clue pointing to the killers had been left behind:
"We reject nothing… but don't think you can take anything from us."
Ronin didn't know how Kurapika had connected that line to the Phantom Troupe—maybe there had been even clearer clues left behind in the village.
Ronin stuffed the newspaper into a nearby trash bin and then quickly walked into the airship terminal.
He didn't buy a ticket.
Instead, after confirming the flight, he used the Sharingan's genjutsu on the ticket inspector at the gate and boarded the airship.
Against someone like Uvogin, with Nen protecting him, genjutsu's effect was limited. Against ordinary people, though, it was a complete mismatch—an absolute stomp.
Ronin had only one goal:
Even if Shalnark investigated the flight records, he wouldn't be able to find Ronin in the passenger manifest.
As long as Ronin could leave Yanshui City, it would be far harder for the Phantom Troupe to track him down.
The airship slowly lifted off. Ronin stood in the corridor, looking through the glass as the airport shrank below…
Then, behind him, a voice sounded—one he least wanted to hear.
"Trying to run? Maybe if you jump down right now, you'll still live."
The moment the voice reached him, Ronin spun around, his body instinctively snapping into a fighting stance.
His eyes shifted into Sharingan state without hesitation.
But confusion flashed through his mind.
Why was Uvogin on the airship?
Had he been under Uvogin's surveillance from the moment he entered Yanshui City?
Otherwise, how could Uvogin have shown up here so fast?!