Tetsuro led the charge. The other martial artists followed like a swarm. One by one, they leaped onto the first stone step, climbing with enthusiasm and competitive energy.
"Brother Wing, let's go!" Hart grabbed Wing's sleeve and pulled. "We can't lose to the others! Especially not the Iron Water Dojo! Or the Flame Body School! Or the Volcano Flow! Or the Dragon-Tiger—"
How many damn schools are there?
Liam followed at a relaxed pace, watching the martial artists who'd already climbed ten or twenty meters up the staircase. "Wing, did you have to climb the mountain last time you came?"
It seemed ridiculous. They'd flown here in an airship. Why get off at the base and slowly climb to the top like medieval pilgrims?
Wing jumped lightly onto the first half-meter step. He glanced back. "Now that you mention it, yes. I did."
The zipper on Liam's backpack suddenly opened. A gray shadow burst out.
Jaku screeched and flapped wildly, startling Hart.
Shizuku reached up and caught the bird mid-flight. Her expression didn't change.
The rock sparrow's feathers were ruffled. Clearly annoyed at being stuck in the bag. Liam waved his hand. "Go on. Fly if you want. Don't go too fast."
Jaku chirped happily. It circled Shizuku twice, then shot upward along the mountain wall, disappearing into the mist above.
Shizuku didn't react. She and Liam climbed onto the first step together. Then the second, which was a meter and a half tall. Shizuku grabbed the edge and pulled herself up as easily as stepping over a curb.
"By the way," Liam said. He matched Shizuku's pace, moving smoothly from step to step. "What do you mean, 'now that you mention it'?"
Wing kept pace with them. His movements were precise. Efficient. "What I'm sure of is that the last time I came with my master, the Sky Master definitely didn't wait for us at the base of the mountain."
Liam used his momentum to vault up a two-meter step. He landed lightly. If Bisky were here in her true form instead of that little girl disguise, would she even fit on these steps?
He shook his head. Better not to think about it. He was planning to ask Bisky for training advice at some point. Insulting her behind her back seemed unwise.
"Wing, you're too slow." Liam grinned. "Shizuku, want to go faster?"
"Yes."
Shizuku pressed down with her feet. The stone beneath her cracked slightly. Fine lines spread across the surface like spiderwebs.
Both of them jumped simultaneously. They shot upward ten meters in a single leap, clearing several steps at once. After only a few bounds, they caught up with the group that had gotten ahead and landed just behind them.
Then they kept going. They passed the stunned martial artists without slowing down, climbing as smoothly as if they were running down a hill instead of up a mountain.
Hart nearly lost his grip. His hands slipped on the mossy stone.
Wing grabbed his junior brother and hauled him up. "Don't get distracted. Pay attention to your surroundings. Control your breathing. Condense your aura. Coordinate your Nen with the rhythm of your muscles and bones."
Hart did as instructed. The climb immediately became easier. More natural.
He realized Wing was only moving this slowly to accommodate him. Hart felt a surge of gratitude.
But he couldn't help glancing up at the two figures disappearing into the mist. "Brother Wing, those two didn't adjust their breathing at all. They didn't even look where they were stepping. They climbed so casually."
Like they're taking a stroll through the countryside instead of scaling a death trap of a staircase.
Wing's voice was patient. "They're strong enough to make it look casual. And the reason they're that strong is because they've put in the work. Don't let them distract you, Hart."
"Yes, Brother Wing."
"Also, their names are John Smith and Shizuku. Not 'those two.'" Wing said introducing Shizuku, but decided to not tell him Liam name, instead his Arena name.
The human body in the Hunter world wasn't the same as the human body from Liam's previous life on Earth.
Even people who hadn't awakened Nen through opening their aura nodes still had some aura flowing through them naturally. That baseline power meant that anyone with enough discipline and physical training could surpass professional athletes from Liam's old world.
In the manga's Hunter Exam, most candidates were ordinary people without Nen. But plenty of them ran marathons spanning dozens of kilometers without breaking a sweat.
The martial artists climbing Sensui Mountain now were even more capable. Even Hart, the youngest among them, had mastered basic Nen. Their athletic ability and endurance were on a completely different level from civilians.
If the Long Steps to Immortality had once served as a trial to awaken aura, there was no reason these already-awakened martial artists couldn't ascend it.
"It's so cold! The fog is getting thicker. I can barely see the path."
"How high are we now?"
"I heard it's the same height as Heavens Arena."
"So how high is that?"
"Over nine hundred meters! Ah, slippery—whew, that was close..."
"We're halfway up. Hoo... hoo... this four-hundred-meter climb is more exhausting than running forty kilometers!"
"Technically, the staircase isn't straight up. It zigzags. We've probably covered over two kilometers already."
"No wonder I'm dying! Can we rest...?"
Halfway up the mountain, martial artists dotted the stone steps, climbing at different speeds. Some had already sat down, staring at the sea of clouds below and the cliffs dropping hundreds of meters into nothing.
Wing and Hart jumped up and grabbed the next ledge. Wing looked at the seated fighters in confusion. "What happened? Why did you stop?"
"Be careful!" Someone grabbed Hart's wrist and pulled him up. "The humidity's worse here. There's moss everywhere. The steps are slippery. Everyone's slowing down."
"Thanks." Hart wiped sweat from his forehead.
"It's nothing." The martial artist gestured upward. "It's just... seeing someone that powerful can be discouraging. If I'd known people from Heavens Arena were coming, and that they'd be this strong, I wouldn't have bothered. Now look."
He pointed up.
Hart shielded his eyes and squinted into the mist. On the winding staircase above, twenty or thirty martial artists from different schools were racing each other, showing off their techniques as they climbed. But one figure was far ahead of the rest. He moved like a mountain ape, leaping upward with perfect precision.
"Hey, Brother Wing, that's not John Smith and Shizuku," Hart said, surprised. "That's the other guy who lost to you..."
The other resting martial artists fell silent.
Tetsuro, leading the pack, was also silent.
What the hell am I even doing?
He'd thought he was climbing smoothly. Efficiently. But no matter how fast he moved, he still had to check his handholds. Test the stone surfaces. Losing his grip or footing would be fatal.
John Smith and Shizuku, though? They didn't stop. They flew. They leaped upward with zero hesitation, catching up from behind and overtaking him ten minutes ago. By now, they were probably hundreds of meters ahead. The fog was too thick to see them.
Frustration and determination warred in Tetsuro's chest.
They climb like they've done this route a thousand times. Like they've memorized every stone.
Actually, that wasn't far from the truth.
The reason Liam and Shizuku could fly upward without worry was because Liam had another pair of eyes scouting ahead.
A small gray bird clung to the mountain wall, flying along the Long Steps to Immortality above them.
The Star Mark on Jaku was active.
Liam used first-person possession. Through the bird's eyes, he could see every twist and turn of the mountain path ahead. Climbing became trivial. Easy.
Shizuku had enough synchronization with him to match his rhythm. They moved as one.
"The fog's getting thicker."
As Liam spoke, aura spread from his body like a gentle breeze. It passed over Shizuku, and she looked at him in surprise. She grabbed the edge of the next stone step with one hand and hung there, turning to stare.
En?
Liam hung from the same ledge with one hand. He could feel everything. The texture of the stone beneath his fingers. The faint cracks forming under the pressure. The distribution of moss on the surface. The speed of the airflow as mist rolled past.
It all came together in his mind like a 3D map.
En.
Liam blinked. "Huh. So this Long Steps to Immortality, with all this fog, is actually good for practicing observation. Even for developing En."
He smiled. "Come on. Let's reach the top first. Once we're there, I'll figure this out properly. Then I'll teach you how En works."
Shizuku nodded. She swung herself up to the next level. Then she paused and looked back.
Liam hadn't followed.
She glanced down. Liam still hung from the ledge below, surrounded by rolling mist. From this angle, it looked like the sea of clouds might swallow him at any moment and drag him into the abyss.
But Shizuku's expression didn't change. She simply watched him, curious.
Liam frowned. He swayed slightly in the wind. Then his head snapped to the side.
"What's wrong?" Shizuku conjured Blinky and sat down on its body like a bench.
Liam muttered to himself. "It's Jaku. The bird just flew through someone's En."
He flipped up easily and landed beside Shizuku. He looked around, then sat down on Blinky's head.
Shizuku followed his gaze, staring into the sea of clouds. "I thought we were the fastest climbers so far."
"We are the fastest," Liam said. His gaze went distant. Unfocused. "The range of this En is way beyond what any of the people below us could produce."
On the other side of the mountain, the little gray rock sparrow flapped its wings. Liam, possessing the bird, felt the shape and contours of the En washing over him.
The technique was called En for a reason. Most people, when they developed it, naturally distributed their aura evenly around their body in a roughly spherical range. For the same amount of aura, a sphere had the longest perimeter and the largest coverage area. It was intuitive. Efficient. Almost everyone converged on the same basic shape without even discussing it.
But judging from the shape of this En, the center point wasn't on the mountain path.
It was inside the mountain.
The little gray bird flapped closer to the mountain wall. Its claws hooked into a crack in the rock like iron talons.
The En was leaking out through this crevice.
The bird followed the crack, searching along the surface. It found a larger gap. The sparrow twisted its body and squeezed through.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
The little gray bird emerged on the other side, covered in dust. Liam made the bird shake itself off. It had entered some kind of cave. Not much light. Very dim.
The bird ruffled its feathers, sending up a small cloud of dust.
Fortunately, Jaku had decent night vision. Liam could vaguely make out the terrain inside the cave.
Then a voice spoke. Crisp. Sweet. Annoyed.
"Don't get dust everywhere."
The little gray bird turned around.
A circle of light shone in the darkness, illuminating a young woman's face.
Despite the dim lighting, she was looking directly at the bird.
The En I felt. It's coming from her.
Liam realized it immediately.
He also realized what the "circle" of light was. The woman was holding a laptop. The screen faced away from him, casting a glow onto her face.
The backlighting made her features look strange. Off. Her face was pure and sweet, but under these shadows, she looked like a rabbit demon waiting to devour any small bird foolish enough to wander into her lair.
Why a rabbit demon, specifically?
Because Liam gathered what little aura the bird had into one eye. He turned his head to get a better look.
The woman wore a headband. With rabbit ears attached.
Why does that look familiar?
While Liam puzzled over this, the bunny girl suddenly turned on her phone's flashlight.
The beam hit the little gray bird directly. Bright. Blinding. Liam flinched and looked away.
He was about to play dumb. Act like a confused bird that had gotten lost.
But before he could do anything, the bunny girl threw her phone at him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~