Urokodaki Sakonji truly had a wealth of training experience.
His very first assignment was—tree-hugging practice.
And he even gave it a fine-sounding name: "All things breathe; every flower and blade of grass is alive. So the first step in learning a 'Breathing' style isn't sword drills, but understanding what 'breathing' is…"
"Eiichiro, start with that birch. Once you figure out how a tree breathes, only then will you be allowed to hold a sword."
After Roy formally became his disciple…
Urokodaki left Roy beneath a birch with a couple of simple instructions and walked off, hands clasped behind his back.
A squirrel poked its head out from the crook of a branch, watching curiously as—after a moment's thought—the human spread his arms and hugged the birch.
A few minutes later…
He was sleeping soundly.
'Abstract… how is a person supposed to become a tree?'
That familiar falling sensation—
Roy rolled up from the soft bed, his mind still stuck on the scene of himself bear-hugging a birch and dozing off.
As Urokodaki said, only by truly taking yourself as a tree can you step into a tree's life, feel its way of breathing, its hardships and joys. Except—
this kind of "make-believe" cultivation has one prerequisite…
Don't get so immersed you fall asleep.
Like he just did.
"Dong…" Four a.m. The wooden mantel clock in the corner chimed, same as always: time for the morning run.
The boy rubbed his face, pulled on vest and shorts, shut the door behind him, and slipped through the vast, quiet mountain forest under a faint lightening of the sky.
From the castle at the summit down to the butler's villa at mid-slope where the lights were already on…
This time Roy clearly felt his body lighter again; even his stride had quickened—no doubt thanks to gaining one more "Nanino Hirochi" in Constitution.
[Dark Step: Proficient (89→99)]
[Limb Bend: Proficient (67→84)]
[Serpent Step: Novice (83→98)]
The panel neatly recorded the qualitative shift brought by "Constitution +1,"
letting Roy keep getting stronger steadily off pure "stats" even without focused practice on those assassination arts these last few days.
'So I should take Urokodaki's advice and finish the "tree-hug" training soon.'
Sweat slid off his hair; Roy wiped it away. His fingers brushed past his ear, touched something, and he stopped short.
It was light, moving only when the wind tugged it; when he reached up to feel—
it was the Sun-and-Mountains earrings, passed down from Tsugikuni Yoriichi and later hung on him by his father Tanjiro.
'When did this happen? And how did I conjure them into reality?'
Roy blinked, thinking it through—when a door thumped open ahead. He looked up and realized he'd already reached the Testing Gate at the foot of the mountain.
"Bang—"
The small corner leaf of the Testing Gate was booted inward, and—
Three or four burly men filed in. Behind them came Jie Rongbo with a placating smile and a key in hand.
The "old" doorman—still in his prime—doffed his cap to Roy. "Good morning, young master."
That single flick—"shff"—drew a few savage, bloodthirsty stares.
"A Zoldyck heir?"
"Nice."
"Grab him and we can cash a fat bounty!"
"Third bro, look up the price… boys, we just hit the jackpot!"
Whether they'd "hit it" Roy didn't know. He only knew Mike would get an extra course this morning.
"Roooar—"
Beast on the move, a gulping whirlwind. The burly men saw black for a heartbeat; in the next, half their bodies were already in Mike's jaws. One tilt of the neck and they were down the hatch. Mike opened wide again and spat out a few scraps of clothing, then used a paw to rake them out through the gate.
He was very practiced at the whole routine.
Jie Rongbo, likewise practiced, produced the broom he'd prepared and began tidying up.
Roy watched for a moment in silence, then turned and headed back uphill toward the summit.
The world's foremost assassin clan has a reputation; gamblers will always risk it all. They think sheer ferocity will let them step on the Zoldycks to climb up. They don't realize the ending, more often than not—
Is to become a heap of dog crap.
Tap… tap…
Roy never broke stride; the little incident didn't interrupt his train of thought.
Running, he mulled it over…
Given how suddenly the earrings had appeared, there was only one explanation he could accept…
A "Conjuration" type develops the Nen ability—and the "tools"—most closely tied to the deepest, most indelible memory or event in their heart…
For example, Kurapika, whose clan was slaughtered, developed "Chain Jail" specifically to target the Spiders.
Or Shizuku, scatterbrained as she is, copied the idea that "a fish's memory lasts seven seconds" and created the "Pop-Eyed Fish."
All of these, more or less, touch the spirit and reach into personality.
'As for me… it was Nanino Hirochi's bequest that let my body strengthen.'
'And because my father Tanjiro entrusted the inheritance to me, I treasured these earrings so much that I unconsciously conjured them from the dream into reality…'
Roy pondered.
He ran past the butler's villa, through the woods; the castle loomed ahead…
He slipped behind a tree and, by force of imagination, tried to send the earrings back to the cognitive world.
A Nen glow wrapped the earrings…
But they seemed set on sticking with him, refusing his will—swinging from his lobes and unwilling to leave.
Obviously, "reverse conjuration" failed. Or perhaps from the start, "conjuration" is one-way: you can transmute Nen into an object by imagination, but you can't reverse an object back into Nen and reclaim it…
Not good news for Roy—or for Tanjiro.
The "matter–energy can freely convert" rule might simply not hold in Nen's treacherous domain.
He stepped out from behind the tree, attempt failed…
By the time he returned, dawn was brighter; he reached the castle again.
It was 4:25 a.m. Wutong would need five more minutes to bring breakfast.
Roy strolled the corridor, braced a foot on the window sill to do a few extra stretches. Out the corner of his eye, a tall man appeared around the bend, strolling with measured calm, a grave look on his face…
He stopped as he passed.
"Father." Roy lowered his leg.
Silva looked down at him. "What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"When's the test?"
"Next Sunday."
"Good. Remember it." Hands in his pockets, Silva walked on.