Beyond had played Ronin.
Muherr had been involved too.
So Ronin no longer planned to stay at the ruins. But at the same time, Kakin no longer seemed to give him any reason to return.
Isaac Netero, the chairman of the Hunter Association, however, was someone very much worth meeting.
Just as Ronin had thought before, following Kakin's great ship was not the only way to reach the Dark Continent.
Especially since he had no desire to get involved in Kakin's royal succession war or Beyond's schemes.
That said, he knew some things might still come looking for him. What he was curious about now was how Beyond intended to bind him back to Kakin's Black Whale.
It should be that massive ship.
Ronin thought of the intelligence Kurapika had collected before, which included the fact that Kakin was secretly building a ship.
And that ship should be the Black Whale, meant to sail toward the "New Continent."
That was also where Kakin's succession war and part of Beyond's plot would begin to ferment.
Ronin was also considering whether he should tell Chairman Netero that Chimera Ants might appear in the NGL Autonomous Region of the Mitene Union.
Or perhaps he could simply hide his tracks and head to NGL in advance. If Chimera Ants really were released into NGL, he could discover and eliminate them immediately.
If that happened, he would really like to see what kind of plan Beyond could come up with to get rid of his father.
After all, as long as that old man Chairman Netero existed, Beyond would have no choice but to remain hidden within Lake Mobius.
That should count as a counterattack against Beyond too.
After this contact with Beyond, Ronin could basically confirm that Beyond was absolutely the mastermind behind the Chimera Ant incident.
The Scarlet Eyes taken from Peketaro's backpack totaled thirteen pairs.
After setting aside Pairo's pair, Ronin directly fused the remaining twelve pairs of Scarlet Eyes into his own eyes.
This still didn't evolve his eyes to the level of the Eternal Mangekyō, but it did repair all the damage caused by the excessive strain from his battles against Chrollo and Beyond.
In addition, he could clearly feel that his ocular power had increased substantially.
Ronin felt that the final step of evolution might not require quantity, but quality.
And when it came to quality, he couldn't help thinking of Pairo's eyes.
Those eyes had sold for an astronomical price at auction and had even been praised as the king of all Scarlet Eyes.
But for the time being, Ronin probably couldn't absorb that pair, because Pairo's head was still with Kurapika.
That was Kurapika's best friend, after all.
Ronin wasn't in a hurry. In any case, continuously fusing with Scarlet Eyes had not only improved his ocular power, but also increased his aura capacity.
The aura increase brought by the Scarlet Eyes was almost stable. Each pair could raise his aura by around five thousand.
Before fusing with these twelve pairs, Ronin's aura had already risen to over sixty thousand through training and obtaining new Scarlet Eyes. Now, with the aura provided by these twelve pairs, his latent aura had shot up to over one hundred twenty thousand.
An aura pool of one hundred twenty thousand made Ronin truly feel powerful.
That power was especially obvious when he used ninjutsu.
Ronin felt that if he used Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation now, it might still not reach Uchiha Madara's level, but it should at least have a few traces of that scale.
However, fully digesting the impact brought by such a massive increase in aura would require a considerable period of focused training.
So after Ronin and the others left the ruins, they simply returned to Battera's place and entered the game again.
To Ronin, Greed Island was more like a hidden method of transportation.
Because after using a Pass to board the ship, that ship could take them to more than two hundred ports within the Lake Mobius region according to their request.
In addition, some of the A-rank and B-rank high-difficulty monsters in the game were excellent tools for training Nen ability.
There was one more thing: Ronin had already made up his mind.
He wanted to challenge Razor.
If he could use his shadow clones together with his real body to win the dodgeball match against Razor, then Ronin felt his strength would have truly completed its adjustment phase.
This time, however, Kurapika did not come with him.
He stayed outside the game and returned to the Kurta Clan's homeland together with Edo Tensei Pairo.
Ronin didn't know how long the Edo Tensei version of Pairo could continue to exist. In any case, he had left Kurapika several sealing scrolls. If necessary, Kurapika could tear them open and summon Ronin's shadow clones.
The only troublesome point might be the materials for Edo Tensei.
After all, every use of Edo Tensei required a fresh living person as a medium.
Shizuku and the others, however, entered the game with him. Among them, the one most curious about Greed Island was Abachi.
After Ronin declared they were free to act, Abachi went straight to the harbor and entered a fishing tournament.
Neon went to the City of Love, saying she wanted to observe what sweet romance was like.
Shizuku had no interest in any of that. Instead, she was very fond of the bounty city Andoniba, where she accepted a large number of bounty missions.
Only Ronin went into the mountains and forests alone, looking for all kinds of high-difficulty boss-level monsters to challenge.
That said, Ronin rather enjoyed this kind of wilderness life.
The existence of the card binder pushed the quality of outdoor living to the maximum, making the experience even better than Owl's Big Cloak.
His powerful strength also allowed Ronin, through battles with various monsters, to gradually raise his active aura output.
The destructive power of Enhancement began erupting through his hands. His fists really seemed to be moving toward the missile-like power Uvogin had dreamed of.
Ronin knew perfectly well that if he wanted to, he could easily replicate Gon's ability.
He just wasn't very interested in doing so.
What he preferred was comprehensive enhancement. After all, explosive firepower could be left to ninjutsu.
Even Gon's Jajanken required a period of buildup if he wanted to fully unleash his aura.
But ninjutsu didn't need to be that troublesome. As long as Ronin wanted to, one Giant Rasengan could carry more than ninety percent of his aura.
So when it came to Enhancement training, Ronin leaned more toward strengthening his own self-healing ability.
Even though he already had the Strength of a Hundred Seal combined with the Hundred Healings Technique, he still felt that the stronger his self-healing became, the safer he would be.
Or perhaps it could be said that Ronin, having died once before, cherished life even more.
Time slowly passed.
In mid-December of 1997, Ronin finally left the mountains and appeared in Soufrabi.
Appearing there with him were thirteen other people.
Aside from Shizuku and the other two, the rest were players Ronin had hired with money.
The purpose was to trigger the dungeon quest here and meet the final gatekeeper boss: Razor.