Liam wanted to dig up more information about this Tetsuro character, but Wing explained he'd only reached the 200th floor a few days ago himself. He didn't have access to much intel.
"I've only fought once," Wing said with a smile. "I'm still preparing for my next battle."
Liam asked, "Win or lose?"
Wing said modestly, "A narrow victory."
Looked like an easy win. Shizuku turned her fingers on the side of her head and glanced at Liam.
"A master who's won 8 consecutive matches. No idea what his ability is. He looks pretty fierce. Enhancement-type?" Liam said to Wing. "You're a newcomer. We're newcomers too. Want to chat over tea?"
"I'd be delighted," Wing agreed happily.
So Liam and Shizuku led him to the room corresponding to the key the staff had just given them.
The rooms assigned to Liam and Shizuku were on the same floor—the 200th through 229th floors were all the same player tier, with each floor above belonging to individual Floor Masters—and weren't far apart.
Pushing open Liam's room revealed a hotel-style residence with two bedrooms, one living room, and one bathroom. Probably because the residents were all masters with Nen training needs, the living room was particularly spacious with minimal furniture. Simply moving out the sofas and coffee tables would meet the basic needs for practicing Ken.
Liam found drinks and snacks in the refrigerator and pulled some out.
Wing felt a little uncomfortable under Shizuku's curious stare. He took the initiative to say, "Let me introduce myself formally. My name is Wing. I'm a disciple of Shingen-ryu and a professional Hunter."
Shizuku accepted the drink from Liam. "My name is Shizuku. I should be considered a non-licensed Hunter."
"John Smith." Liam laid out the refreshments and sat back on the sofa. "Shingen-ryu, that's impressive. I remember the founder is President Netero of the Hunter Association, right? I should get a Hunter License in the future too."
Wing smiled. "Then we'll be colleagues. With your current strength, passing the Hunter Exam shouldn't be difficult at all."
"No, no. If it's all written tests, I'll probably fail." Liam wasn't being modest. It was true.
The specific test content of each phase of the Hunter Exam depended on the examiner's discretion. For example, if some Ancient Document Hunter came to serve as examiner and asked you to translate a bunch of ancient texts, then if Liam didn't want to fail, he'd probably have to use a Star Mark to possess the examiner.
With "Hunter" as common ground, the relationship seemed to grow closer instantly.
Wing smiled elegantly. "My master wants me to obtain a Floor Master position. Otherwise, I can't go back to see her. It's really difficult."
Stricter than an aunt? Liam said, "Speaking of Floor Masters, do you know Garo?"
"Garo..." Wing held his chin and muttered, taking a sip of his drink.
Shizuku looked at Liam with a puzzled expression.
Liam pressed a finger on her elastic cheek and pushed it back. Needless to say, Shizuku had completely forgotten about the poacher named Garo.
"I remember now. Garo, yes." Wing said with a rueful smile. "Actually, if you'd mentioned the name of another Floor Master, I would've thought of Garo faster."
"Oh? Another Master?" Liam was confused. Shizuku was also curious.
"Alpha Edward." Wing smiled. "You should've heard that four years ago, Alpha Edward committed suicide by jumping from the top of Heavens Arena after leaving a video about King Wangu Hui Guo Rou's treasure that upset many people. That incident..."
"What does this have to do with Garo?" Liam said. Then he made a sound and looked at Shizuku. It seemed they'd both guessed together.
After contestants on the 200th floor won 10 matches, they could challenge a Floor Master.
Win and you'd take over, becoming the new Floor Master.
But what if the Floor Master being challenged died publicly?
Wing said, "Yes. Garo was the lucky one at that time. As soon as Alpha's died, he won exactly 10 matches, filling the vacancy Alpha left. But he was also very unlucky. Someone else won their 10th victory the same day and immediately announced a challenge to him. Garo had no choice but to accept. He was defeated the next day and lost his Floor Master position."
Liam was speechless.
This sounded outrageous. But thinking about it carefully, it was indeed outrageous.
Garo might be the shortest-reigning Floor Master in history. Liam thought secretly that with his current comprehensive strength, if he returned to the Ghoat Island woods three months ago and met Garo and his poaching gang again, he could even pick up a few rocks from the ground and throw them to kill them one by one. It might take a little effort for Garo, but even fighting him up close, he could beat him to death. This was under the premise that he was a Manipulator.
After chatting for a while and exchanging phone numbers, Liam, Shizuku, and Wing left the room.
Wing was surprised. Liam smiled. "We don't live here. We have a place outside."
"Remember to go to the front desk and have match notifications transferred to mobile text messages," Wing reminded. Generally, game arrangement notifications appeared on monitors in the personal rooms assigned to players.
After saying goodbye, Liam and Shizuku handled the paperwork and took the elevator directly to the first floor.
"Aren't you going to compete?"
In the elevator, Liam grabbed Shizuku's hand and played with it idly while asking casually. Maybe because of Blinky, Shizuku's body was particularly clean. Her well-manicured nails were spotless, crystal clear. Her fingers were slender. The skin of her palms was white and rosy, exuding youthfulness.
Shizuku said, "Yeah. I'm not good at that kind of ring fighting. And I don't want to show Blinky in front of so many people."
"Good habit." Liam praised. After the elevator door opened, they left Heavens Arena hand in hand. "By the way, Shizuku, have you ever thought about training your ability in the Transmutation direction? Although the training method you're using is more suitable for the upper three types—Emission, Enhancement, and Transmutation—we can still apply it."
Shizuku walked with him on the street. After hearing this, she pondered for a while. Finally said cutely, "I can't think of a Transmutation direction."
Liam said, "It's nothing more than changes in shape and properties of aura. Or both simultaneously."
Among the Transmuters who appeared in the manga, Liam remembered Hisoka, Bisky, Machi from the Phantom Troupe, and Killua's grandfather, Zeno.
Hisoka could turn aura into a texture like chewing gum. But there was no doubt his Bungee Gum also included changes in aura shape. It could even be considered ever-changing, not limited to form.
There wasn't much mention of Bisky's Transmutation ability except for a Nen beast that could massage to dispel fatigue.
Machi could turn her aura into threads, similar to Zeno's Dragon Head. It seemed to be a type of shape change focusing more on aura.
"Blinky has the characteristics of 'swallowing' and 'expelling.' Shizuku, you might be able to develop Universal Pull and Almighty Push in Transmutation." Liam joked.
Shizuku didn't understand the references.
"Gravity and repulsion."
"Oh. But in that case, I'd also be disturbed by the aura turning into gravitational and repulsive force on my body, right?"
"When you put it that way, it does seem..."
________________________________________
The two of them spent the entire afternoon shopping, eating, drinking, visiting scenic spots, browsing stores. They'd just made almost 1 billion Jenny! It was a good time to do whatever they wanted.
They wandered around until evening before returning to the rented apartment. Thanks to Blinky's convenience, they both came back empty-handed, with all their bags and purchases stuffed into the vacuum cleaner.
It was then that the phone in Liam's pocket vibrated.
He pulled it out and saw an official text message from Heavens Arena: "Battle date decided! Ring on the 215th floor will begin at 2 PM on February 15th!"
"It's tomorrow," Shizuku came over and looked.
"This is my first battle. I'm so nervous." Liam looked at his phone without any nervousness and casually forwarded the message to Kurapika. "Come watch my match tomorrow afternoon! —Your boss."
Tossing the phone aside, Liam smiled. "Can't waste time. Let's practice Ken before bed!"
"Okay." Shizuku went to get the timer skillfully.
________________________________________
On the other side, Kurapika received the text message. "Come watch my match tomorrow afternoon! —Your boss." When he saw the signature, he couldn't help but stare blankly.
A battle between Nen users. I really want to watch it live!
Kurapika thought so, replied "Okay," and continued browsing the bookstore.
To smoothly realize the Nen ability in his conception, he wanted to buy a set of books as a template to assist Conjuration development.
"One, two... six. If I have six books, won't I struggle to hold them all in battle?" Kurapika thought to himself, running his fingertips along the spines of books on the bookshelf one by one. Finally, his fingertips stopped on the bookshelf itself. "A bookshelf? That's it. I can use a Conjured bookshelf to unify all the books I need. I'll custom-order a bookshelf to assist development."
While Kurapika busied himself with his Conjuration ability development, Liam and Shizuku in the apartment practiced quietly.
Time passed. Soon it was night.
After training into the evening, Liam and Shizuku both showered and sat on the sofa to compare notes.
Liam said, "My aura capacity is now over 10,000. About 10,800. But I feel the efficiency of improvement is slower than before."
"Really?" Shizuku pressed her bare feet crossed beneath her. "I seem to be at 9,420 aura. The speed of improvement does seem to have slowed a bit."
What's the reason?
The two stared at each other and arrived at an obvious answer simultaneously: "Time."
One hour was 60 minutes. A total of 3,600 seconds. One hour of Ken was 3,600 aura consumed. It now took them over two and a half hours to complete one full Ken session, approaching three hours.
When they hadn't thought much about the long-term prospect, three hours had been enough to cycle through Ken ten or twenty times. Now they could barely finish one cycle.
"Don't be impatient. If you're impatient, your aura will become chaotic," Liam said. "Continue practicing step by step like this. We definitely won't go wrong."
In the manga, Bisky had guided Killua to increase his aura to 20,000 using the Ken method.
At least it was certain this training method remained effective before reaching 20,000 aura.
________________________________________
The next day, Liam and Shizuku almost ran to Heavens Arena again out of habit. As soon as they left the house, they remembered they no longer needed to clock in every morning for two consecutive wins.
So they turned back to the apartment and continued daily training.
Noisy entertainment news played on the TV. Shizuku and Liam dressed in light clothing, walking back and forth on the floor barefoot, exchanging blows with Ryu.
Once Liam activated the battle mode of Flowing Star Strike, Shizuku had almost no power to fight back. Soon she was overwhelmed by Liam's attacks one after another. Her Ryu flow and distribution were gradually suppressed by Liam.
At 1 PM, the two went out and headed straight for the ring on the 215th floor of Heavens Arena.
Only when they arrived at the scene did they learn that their opponent in this match was none other than Tetsuro, who had won 8 consecutive games.
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