Chương 20: Restrictions and Pledges

Over the next month, Aren taught advanced Nen techniques in pieces. Gyo, Shu, In, En, Ken, Ryu, Ko. He did not push too deeply into their personal Hatsu. That road had to grow from the user. If he interfered too much, he might damage the future instead of improving it. Uvogin found his direction fastest. After learning Ko, he poured everything into one fist and smashed a reinforced concrete block into powder.

"Big Bang Impact!" The name came out before the punch had a true form. For now, it was only Ko used with Uvogin's ridiculous physical strength. It lacked the refinement, conviction, and monstrous weight it would one day carry. But the shadow was already there. Nobunaga moved differently. He wrapped aura around his sword with Shu, extended awareness around himself with En, and tried to fuse the two into a killing range where stepping inside meant death. En was difficult. Much harder than Ko.

His circle trembled, collapsed, and reformed again and again. Nobunaga did not complain. He only adjusted his grip and continued. Machi progressed fastest in ability development. Her aura control was delicate enough to make Uvogin curse and Nobunaga fall silent. With Transmutation and her natural thread work, she began forming Nen stitches long before Aren expected it. The first version was crude. It closed wounds, but not gently. Uvogin learned that directly.

"Stop moving," Machi said. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"It hurts more than the cut!"

"Then stop getting cut." Uvogin sat on the floor, covered in shallow sword wounds while Machi stitched them one by one with aura thread. Across the room, Nobunaga had one black eye and a swelling cheek. Aren looked between them.

"Daily sparring?"

"He started it," Uvogin said.

"He tried to crush my ribs."

"You aimed low again."

"A battlefield has no forbidden angles." Machi tugged the thread. Uvogin howled.

"Quiet," she said. The system was ugly but effective. Uvogin and Nobunaga hurt each other every day. Machi practiced healing them. Better healing let them fight harder the next day. Harder fights created better wounds for her to treat. A closed loop of violence and improvement. Very Meteor City. Aren improved as well, but his progress followed a stranger path. His aura reserve kept growing.

Using the rough estimates he remembered from Knuckle's ability, his total available aura had already climbed near one hundred thousand. That number did not mean he could defeat true masters. Netero's strength had never been just aura quantity, and monsters like Youpi stood in another category entirely. Still, the number mattered. More important, his recovery was absurd. He could exhaust himself, wait a breath, and feel life energy flood back from the Undying like a tide that never stopped.

His bottleneck was not fuel. It was output, control, and ability development. Spatial power was difficult. Even with endless life force and a Specialist trait, Aren could not simply declare a portal into existence. Nen did not work that way. A vow could sharpen a blade, but first there had to be a blade. Restrictions and Pledges were amplifiers. They made an ability stronger by giving it costs, limits, risks, and meaning. They could not replace the work of building the ability itself.

Aren spent weeks grinding toward a first true spatial technique. The foundation was weak. Weak was enough. He had something most Nen users did not. Life. More life than he knew how to spend. Aren created a small spatial distortion above his palm and watched it tremble.

"Then I'll pay with lifespan." The distortion stabilized for one second longer than it ever had before. Aren laughed quietly. That evening, he called Uvogin, Nobunaga, and Machi together.

"I've reached a breakthrough," he said.

"I'm going into seclusion for a while." Uvogin blinked.

"Seclusion? Like an old man?"

"Like someone about to do something dangerous." Nobunaga's expression sharpened.

"How dangerous?"

"Dangerous enough that no one enters my room until I come out. No matter what you hear." Machi looked at him.

"Will you die?"

"No." She kept staring. Aren met her eyes.

"I mean it. This isn't life-threatening." Machi's sixth sense pressed against the words. He was hiding something. But not death. She exhaled slowly.

"Fine." Then she turned toward Uvogin and Nobunaga. Her voice went cold enough to frost metal.

"If either of you makes too much noise outside his door, I'll twist your heads off." Uvogin raised both hands.

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Because you're loud." Nobunaga nodded.

"She has a point."

"You're loud too!" Aren left them arguing and went upstairs. Inside his room, he locked the door. The spatial distortion opened above his palm again. This time, he fed it life. And began.