Two hours later.
"Whoa, what happened to you?"
Ging looked surprised at the sorry state I was in, staring at the pile of bruises stacked on top of bruises all over my head.
"Pff, don't tell me Saiyu and Kanzai didn't hold back at all today?"
Piyon covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing, though that didn't stop her from taking a whole bunch of photos of me.
"Unfortunately, no.
Cheadle and Gel were unhappy with my loss of concentration and how shaky my Ren output was..."
I finished that while already lying sprawled across the cold desk, enjoying how it cooled down my overheated head.
"Wow, making you maintain Ren while teaching that kind of mind-numbing stuff?
I'd have run away during the first lesson.
Did they at least teach you first aid?" (Piyon)
"Funny enough, not yet.
Today we did biochemistry.
The only good thing is that tomorrow they promised to include pharmacology.
Finally, something actually useful..."
"Hahaha, don't worry about it.
Just keep 'training' your Zetsu.
We'll take it easier on you today." (Ging)
By now, I didn't even react anymore when they shamelessly looked through my notes without asking.
I'd already gotten used to it.
"I see.
Usually you were holding up well, but looks like Pariston started overdoing it, and on top of that completely wrecked the rhythm of today's training." (Ging)
After finishing reading, Ging smiled.
I see.
Pariston showed his interest long ago, making the boy's education more and more difficult each time.
But Cheadle being this invested? Now I'm curious how exactly he managed to attract the attention of a woman who only thinks about medicine, research, and world peace.
Well, I'm sure that'll reveal itself in time.
I'm already tired of staying in one place. If the Chairman doesn't come back, I'll slip away in a month or two.
Ging decided to give me fifty minutes of sleep, which I took advantage of immediately.Piyon was clearly all for it too, burying herself in her laptop.
Zetsu, especially when my Nen reserves were full, let me recover many times faster.While I dozed peacefully with the pillow Ging had handed me, both of my mentors watched me with interest.
"How interesting..."
They watched as my body left its Zetsu state on its own and became wrapped in a milky green aura.
"Well, now I understand Cheadle's interest." (Ging)
Ging grew visibly excited.
His talent is simply mind-boggling. Two hundred million... five hundred million?... no, possibly even more than one billion.
His talent is at least one in a billion.
A statistical probability that low approaches zero infinitely, entering the same category I belong to myself, where mere luck cannot explain it.
Everyone's potential and talent are different, but beyond a certain critical threshold, the key factors show up especially clearly — heredity and mutation.
Ging had figured out why the old man had stayed here as long as he had. But now that same "reason" had stirred him up as well.
Already drawing up plans and training options for bringing out Mousse's Nen, he noticed white flashes at the side.
When he turned and saw Piyon with a phone in her hands, taking photos of Mousse and occasionally snapping selfies with him in the frame, Ging's eyebrow started twitching — which Piyon naturally didn't miss with her camera.
Ordinary cameras can't capture Nen.
But Piyon — one of the Zodiacs, specializing in ancient and forgotten languages, often closely linked with Nen... how could she not have the right equipment?
That plain-looking phone was actually state-of-the-art, custom-built, and processed with Divine Script.
Well, now all the Zodiacs know about this...
Ging let out a gloomy sigh, knowing perfectly well her playful, mischievous nature — especially when there was a chance to mess up Pariston's and Cheadle's plans after they'd hidden this information about their shared protégé from the others.
I almost feel sorry for you, kid. You got thrown from the sauna straight into a boiling cauldron.
I'd like to go easy on you, but I'm too curious myself, so sorry. If you die from overwork, I'll be sure to pray for you.
/**/
Two weeks.
That's how long I lasted before ending up with full-on mental exhaustion.
They hadn't gone easy on me before either, but after a certain point, the difficulty shot up to a completely absurd level.
In my previous life, I'd been diligent and quick to absorb information, but sometimes I had to reread a text five, even ten times to fully understand and retain it.
Now, one read-through was enough for information to settle into my memory like solid stone.That feeling was intoxicating in its own way.
Greed awakened in me, and I wanted more because it was so easy to absorb.
And when you add top experts from every field as personal tutors, each of them capable of answering even the most foundational and tricky questions, my hunger for knowledge made perfect sense.
But even if my body could keep up with their erratic pace, my consciousness was still utterly ordinary compared to them.
It was like giving Einstein's brain to a caveman.
It would definitely turn him into a genius, but he still wouldn't reach the same potential he would've had if he'd been born that way, not including the part that he would be stressed thinking.
Under the pressure of the Zodiacs' curriculum — and with that realization sinking in — my determination slowly began to crumble, weighing down my whole body.
My mediocre "self" gave out in the face of this extraordinary body.
I feel like Leorio trapped inside Meruem's body...
And when depression finally swallowed me up, I said it outright: I couldn't do it anymore.
Most of them took it easily, and some — like Cheadle and Mizaistom — even apologized for pushing too hard.
As for Pariston...
I hadn't known it was possible for him to shine even brighter than before.
That state lasted for about three days, which was exactly how much rest the Zodiacs gave me.
The training would continue after that, but no longer as part of Chairman Netero's direct assignment.
I can understand them. I'm basically every teacher's dream student.
But that's for later.
Right now, real Nen training was finally beginning in earnest.
Naturally, the main focus would be on the basics, but with certain considerations for my privacy, we'd also start building the foundation of my future Nen system and the basic functional expressions of Hatsu.
The training itself was rather unusual, since most of the Zodiacs didn't even know each other's dominant Nen type, let alone each other's Hatsu techniques.
Cheadle and Gel helped me isolate the technique I'd been using unconsciously.
According to them, the result was much weaker now, but I could use it consciously — and even heal others while in Zetsu.
I'd already gotten a couple of ideas while watching that healing emerald aura.
Botobai and Mizaistom, because of their specialty, started teaching me how to detect Nen users and recognize hostile intent.
For inspiration, I decided to use a compass as the basis for a future technique.
Cluck and Ginta focused on stealth and movement.
Saccho and Pariston focused on reading an opponent's intent through fluctuations in Nen, as well as detecting lies.
With Pariston, I even developed a simple lie detector, but it never managed to catch him — even when he wasn't rephrasing questions or dodging from specifics to generalities.
He lied to my face directly, which honestly threw me off a little, considering he didn't know the mechanism behind my technique.
Saiyu and Kanzai focused entirely on combat — specifically Shu and Ryu, and on imbuing aura with intent and properties, which in its own way can be called a manifestation of Hatsu.
Piyon told me various bits of hunter know-how, like the hunters' information site, leaving the bulk of things for lessons with Ging.
Ging's training... was pretty eccentric, but it produced the best results by far.
On the very first official lesson, he asked me about my worldview and principles.Answering all his questions was difficult, but even that, apparently, counted as a result.
Hmm... how do I put it...
We were simultaneously training and goofing off.
At one moment, we'd be discussing Nen ability ideas and their possible growth through stronger vows or harsher restrictions.
At another, we'd just be playing games and flipping through magazines.
And then right after that, we'd do exercises filling in the gaps left by everyone else's training.
Oh, and Bodoro and Ponzu joined in too, but almost immediately our lessons got split apart because of "difference in learning speed."
The training finally helped me almost completely recover from the intense studying.Almost — because most of them stopped pressuring me that way, except for Cheadle and Mizaistom.
Even Pariston stopped, but his shining smile only started worrying me more...
/***/
Author's note: The training with the Zodiacs is coming to an end. I won't overcomplicate things for now and will go with the formula a lot of fanfics use for the next arc... if you know what I mean.
Sorry for the lack of chapters — I recently got a job. It's not that I didn't have time exactly, but I definitely had no desire to write.
Still, not without upsides.
While getting back into this work, I've already managed to build a solid chain for the MC's foundation and future events and... [King Crimson!] -̴̠̟̒̈́-̵̯͛-̷̨̆-̷̛̫̲̌-̴̝͛͘-̸̈́͜-̵̦͐̆-̵̲̫̈́͠-̵͙̥͐͘-̶̖̅-̵͎̆͝-̶̝̈-̴̝́ͅ
_̵̲͗_̶͝ͅ-̸̥̜͐̌_̸̮̍-̷̬͚̑̄_̵͕̳̐_̵̛̫̖̏-̷̘͗_̴̗͙̈́_̵͇͆̀-̸̺̯͐͆_̷̘̟̈_̷̲͓́͘-̴̭͙̔_̸̥͎͑̾... So yeah. Guess who's back?"