Bisky had sent her disciple Wing to Heavens Arena. She'd called it punishment, but really it was about clearing floors and earning achievements as a martial artist.
Wing's strength was enough to rank him as a mid-tier combatant. From Bisky's perspective, even reaching the 200th floor should've been effortless.
She hadn't expected "effortless" to turn into "effortless loss."
And he'd lost to a kid!
During the phone call, Bisky asked, "Are you sure this person is much younger than you? And his strength nearly doubled in just three months?"
Wing heard the emphasis in his master's tone shift from his own failure to interest in Liam. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't ask his age, but he looks no older than fourteen. Maybe even younger. As for his strength—I can confirm that just the measurable part of his power improved significantly in three months. He's already very close to a mid-tier combatant in terms of aura capacity."
"You mean besides his ability, there were other improvements?"
"That's just it—I'm talking about the ability he used." Wing recalled. "I can't shake the feeling that the ability he used in our match was probably developed specifically to counter me over the past three months."
He described the match in detail to Bisky.
Hearing that Wing's opponent had an ability with a doubling counting mechanism, Bisky immediately understood why Wing said it was most likely developed to deal with him specifically. Wing had mentioned that three months ago, they'd both released their Ren, so each had an intuitive sense of the other's aura capacity.
"The essence of that ball is to close the gap in aura between him and you," Bisky said pointedly. "Even if you dispelled it every time he threw it the first time, you'd still need to spend twice the amount of aura he used to create it. That way, he only needs to use 100 aura to drain 200 of yours repeatedly. If he's lucky, he can trade 100 for 800, 3200, or even more of your aura."
"If that's the case, the ability should have loopholes that make it difficult to form." Bisky analyzed habitually. "If I'm guessing correctly, the reason he chose close combat at the start of the match was to 'collect' your aura. What he called 'the conditions have been met.' After all, that ball's value can't increase infinitely!"
"So the upper limit of the ball's value is—" Wing said suddenly.
"Either his total aura, or your total aura," Bisky confirmed. "Or the sum of both people's totals. You're right. This really is similar to an ability developed specifically to target opponents with larger aura reserves."
She nodded to herself. The concept behind developing this ability was quite commendable.
Even disciples she'd trained herself like Wing could only increase their aura output to at most one-tenth of their total capacity. Of course, this level was extremely rare. It could be considered top-tier even among Nen users worldwide. Without controlling your aura to a certain degree, achieving this was difficult. The human body's aura nodes were the biggest natural constraint.
But even if he was among the best of the best, even if the ball's upper limit was the opponent's lower total aura value, Wing would never withstand it.
There was an order of magnitude difference between aura output and total aura.
This was why, in battles between Nen users, the priority was how to make your attacks connect with the opponent, rather than how to make your attacks hurt the opponent.
Because as long as the gap wasn't enormous, a well-prepared attack could usually break through defenses effectively, injure the opponent, or even kill them.
If it was a Manipulation-type ability, as long as it successfully hit the target, most of the time first strike won everything. Game over.
So even powerful Nen users could stumble when traveling the world.
Nen abilities were like swords. The stronger the restriction, the sharper the blade—but the easier it was to hurt yourself.
Wing's opponent had made full use of restrictions and benefits, sharpening a blade sharp enough. Once unsheathed, there was no turning back. Blood sealed the throat directly. He'd successfully used weaker fundamentals to defeat Wing, who clearly had stronger raw power.
But it wasn't this ability that really impressed Bisky.
Forget three months—she'd seen people develop stronger abilities within three days.
What really made her look at him differently was that this young man named Liam, while developing an ability specifically to defeat Wing, had also significantly increased his total aura.
According to Wing, in just three months, Liam's aura had nearly doubled—from just over 10,000 to 18,000.
His training efficiency was so high that Bisky suspected he also had an ability similar to her own "Magic Esthetician" to assist with training.
Wing explained, "I suspect he's a Manipulator, but I never saw him use Manipulation-type abilities. So I'm guessing this ball ability was newly developed in the past three months—"
You've got nerve saying that?
A vein bulged on Bisky's forehead. She yelled into the phone from the other side of the world, "You know the opponent is a Manipulator, and you still stupidly followed his rhythm? Did I teach you to be this dumb? I told you to release the ball, and you actually released it! This really pisses me off! Remember this punch. Remind me next time we meet."
"After all, it was just an arena match," Wing said without much confidence. "Liam doesn't feel like a bad person, and it wasn't like—"
"Remember ten punches!"
"Yes, Master." Wing obediently admitted his mistake and listened honestly to his master's lecture for a full ten minutes before she finally finished, feeling refreshed.
At that moment, the ward door knocked twice and opened. It was Liam and company, apparently coming to visit.
Wing's eyes signaled them to wait a moment. He hummed twice into the phone. After finally hanging up, he let out a long breath.
Master really knows how to talk when she's fired up.
"Who were you talking to? You're sweating." Liam sat down. "Are your injuries healed yet?"
"My master. I'm ashamed. I lost the match and got chewed out thoroughly." Wing looked at Liam's intact right arm and startled.
Liam also startled.
Was that Bisky on the phone just now?
Damn, too bad I couldn't chat with her!
But thinking about it, there probably wasn't much to talk about. To him, she was a cute aunt who was pretty endearing. But to her, she probably didn't even know he existed. What could they discuss?
"As I thought," Wing said suddenly. "You have the confidence to heal yourself, so you could develop the kind of ball ability that's very likely to hurt you."
"Just a small trick," Liam said modestly. "Not worth mentioning, really."
"The condition for activating the ball is that at the start of the match, you engaged me in close combat and successfully collected my aura?" Wing asked.
"You finally figured it out?" Liam smiled. "That's right. When it comes to toss and catch, naturally two people need to throw it back and forth."
In other words, it was impossible to try finding a teammate to create a bug, then use it to deal with enemies by first generating a ball worth tens of thousands.
Wing asked again, "There should be an upper limit, right? What happens when the ball's value reaches that limit?"
"When the value exceeds the total aura upper limit, the ball forcibly releases. Aura gets forcibly extracted, which most likely leads to forced Zetsu. And the higher the number when it releases, the longer the forced Zetsu lasts."
Basically consistent with what Master predicted, Wing thought, nodding inwardly.
Liam smiled. "If you had one to two million aura, you'd be in Zetsu for a month or two."
Wing laughed. "How could anyone have one to two million aura? That's too exaggerated."
Even the President of the Hunter Association, the leader of Shingen-ryu, the world's strongest for so long, martial arts master Netero—his aura couldn't possibly reach such an absurd figure. That was beyond the human category.
"One to two million is impossible, but what about one or two hundred thousand?" Liam said. "What level is one or two hundred thousand aura at? We agreed to talk after the fight. Don't tell me you forgot."
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