White light—invisible to normal eyes—condensed between Liam's palms.
Not light, exactly. Aura. Life energy. The stuff that separated Nen users from corpses and corpses-in-waiting.
It flowed like water down his arms. Wrapped around thin shoulders. Swept across his torso, down his legs, over his head. A full-body coating of power he could feel but not see.
Everyone had aura. Normies just let it leak from the top of their skulls like a faucet nobody bothered to turn off.
The first step in Nen training: stop the leak.
Ten—wrapping aura around your body—was Nen 101. The absolute basics.
Liam opened his eyes. Glanced at an imaginary stopwatch. "One minute. Not bad for a self-taught kid with zero formal instruction."
Then again, I've been using my Hatsu like a pro. Maybe I'm just shit at fundamentals and god-tier at advanced techniques.
Classic video game build: maxed out ultimate ability, level 1 base stats.
The midday sun beat down like a physical presence. Heat shimmered off the forest floor.
November. If the newspaper date was right, I'm either near the tropics or south of Kakin. Somewhere hot. Somewhere isolated.
Liam wiped sweat from his forehead. Stood in a clearing surrounded by trees. Lumos—daytime version, no glowing markings—lounged nearby, watching with feline curiosity. The tiger's head tilted. Eyes tracked Liam's movements like he was the world's most boring TV show.
"Don't judge. I'm improving myself. Very productive use of time."
Lumos blinked slowly. Sure, kid. Whatever you say.
Fenrir was elsewhere. On patrol. Following orders.
They'd ridden for hours after leaving the graves behind. Found nothing. No towns. No villages. No people. Just trees and more trees and the growing suspicion that Liam had absolutely no idea where he was going.
Getting lost speedrun, any percent completion.
So he'd stopped. Made a plan.
Used biscuit crumbs as bait. Built crude bird traps from branches and vine. Set them up at intervals through the forest. Then gave Fenrir simple instructions: patrol between the traps; when one catches a bird, scratch your own leg.
The Star Mark would auto-activate. Heal the self-inflicted wound. The mark's activation would ping Liam's awareness like a Discord notification.
Low-tech alarm system using magical healing and animal abuse. I'm definitely going to hell.
But it's EFFICIENT.
With the perimeter secured, Liam got to work.
Ten took one minute. Now for number two.
Zetsu.
The opposite of Ten. Instead of wrapping aura around yourself, you sealed it inside. Closed every pore. Went completely dark. Zero aura signature.
Perfect for stealth. Invisibility to other Nen users.
Also perfect for dying like an idiot because it removed all defensive aura. Left you vulnerable as a newborn.
High risk, high reward. The glass cannon of Nen techniques.
Advanced users could switch between Ten and Zetsu in under a second. The truly terrifying ones maintained Ten even while sleeping—unconscious defense, automatic protection.
Meanwhile I'm over here taking a full minute to wrap aura around myself like a toddler learning to tie shoes.
The Four Major Principles: Ten, Zetsu, Ren, Hatsu.
Hatsu—individual Nen abilities—Liam had covered. Shepherd's Song worked great. He could mark targets, control them, heal them. The flashy ultimate technique that defined his build.
What he didn't have: a solid foundation. Deep aura reserves. Stamina.
All flash, no fundamentals. I'm a one-trick pony who passes out after two Star Marks.
Ten and Zetsu would fix the defense problem. And Ren—the fourth principle—would fix the stamina problem.
Ren was pure output. Releasing maximum aura. The "power up" phase. Dragon Ball's screaming-and-glowing transformation but less theatrical.
Probably less theatrical. This is anime logic. Who knows.
The problem: Ren drained reserves fast. Liam's baby-body aura pool would empty in two minutes tops. Then he'd collapse and the training session would be over.
So: practice Ten and Zetsu first. Build the container. THEN fill it with Ren practice later.
Efficiency. Planning. I'm basically a productivity influencer but with magical powers and childhood trauma.
Liam closed his eyes. Focused inward.
Felt the aura wrapped around him—warm, present, there.
Then reversed the flow. Pulled it back inside. Sealed the gates. Closed every pore.
The aura vanished. Not gone—hidden. Locked behind closed doors.
Zetsu.
His defensive coating disappeared. He felt naked. Exposed. Vulnerable in a way that made his hindbrain scream warnings.
This is how you die. This is how predators catch you.
Liam held it for three seconds. Then released. Let the aura flood back out.
Ten again. Safety restored.
He repeated the cycle. Ten. Zetsu. Ten. Zetsu. Faster each time. Building muscle memory. Training the mental reflexes.
Switch speed matters. Half a second of exposure can get you killed if someone's attacking during the transition.
Gotta be faster. Smoother.
Sweat dripped from his nose. The heat was oppressive. His child-body wanted to quit. Wanted shade and water and maybe a nap.
No. Push through. This is life or death.
This world doesn't care that I'm three years old. The next Musse won't care. The Chimera Ants won't care.
Git gud or die trying.
The mechanics of Nen rattled through Liam's head as he trained.
Six categories arranged in a hexagon:
Manipulation → Emission → Enhancement → Transmutation → Conjuration → Specialization → back to Manipulation.
Each person had one natural category. Born with it or awakened to it. That was your home base. Your 100% efficiency zone.
Everything else? Diminishing returns.
Liam—Manipulation type—had this efficiency spread:
Manipulation: 100% (home advantage)
Emission: 80% (next door neighbor, pretty good)
Enhancement: 60% (across the street, doable)
Transmutation: 40% (different neighborhood, rough commute)
Conjuration: 60% (back to semi-decent)
Specialization: 0% (no access, locked out, try again never)
Translation: if Liam and a natural Transmuter both learned the same Transmutation technique, Liam would need to work twice as hard to achieve 40% of the result.
Mathematically terrible. Strategically idiotic.
The smart play—developed by Netero's Shingen-ryu school—was the Mountain Method: focus on your main type and the two adjacent types. Build a tactical arsenal within your efficiency range.