A Leap in Strength

The Fanged Moon Tiger naturally could not speak. It merely let out a low rumble.

Jing Yang searched for the position of the Wild Wolf he had sent out to patrol—the other party was still under commanded control, and the Star Mark on its body was active. Jing Yang could vaguely sense the direction where the Wild Wolf currently was.

With a thought, Jing Yang switched the way he controlled the Wild Wolf to first-person immersion. "Jing Wolf" came online and possessed it. In the dim forest, a pair of ghostly green wolf eyes lit up. It twitched its nose and silently slipped into the darkness, searching for the person it had vaguely spotted earlier who seemed to be spying on his real body.

On Jing Yang's side, ever since night had fallen, the stripes all over Wu Er's body had begun to glow with a jade-like light. Amid the flickering firelight before the campfire, they possessed a bleak and beautiful charm... Jing Yang became lost in the sight without realizing it. Then he suddenly understood something. He used Gyo in reverse on his eyes—or rather, he performed "Zetsu" on his eyes—and fixed his gaze on the faintly glowing stripes on Wu Er's body.

The sorrowful, beautiful stripes gave off a jade-green glow as they slowly began to turn, like a corridor within a kaleidoscope...

Before his attention scattered and his mind became lost, Jing Yang decisively released the "Zetsu" in his eyes. With another layer of aura separating them, the rotating jade-green patterns returned to normal.

Wu Er let out two low growls, seeming to ask, "Are you all right?"

Jing Yang let out a breath. "No wonder your stripes are so flashy and eye-catching at night. So they have this kind of visual hallucination effect too... It seems this isn't a disadvantage that exposes you at all, but an advantage Fanged Moon Tigers use to lure prey in the pitch-black night."

Wu Er looked at him innocently.

As for "Jing Wolf," it circled through the dim forest again and again, but found nothing. There was no pale child anywhere. Perhaps it really had just been Jing Yang's illusion.

Jing Yang called the Wild Wolf back and had it deal with the leftover rabbit bones.

The next day proceeded as usual.

Jing Yang continued sending the Wild Wolf out on patrol, telling it to notify him if the trapping devices caught any birds.

Wu Er went hunting in the forest as well.

Jing Yang, meanwhile, continued his Nen Ability training for the day.

To Jing Yang, this sort of superpower was still quite novel and fun. Even without the Star Mark on the back of his neck controlling him and forcing him to train, he was still deeply interested in exploring Nen Abilities.

Ten, Zetsu, Ren, Hatsu...

Gyo, Flow, Shu, Ken...

Although he felt that his proficiency with Manipulator abilities was already maxed out, Jing Yang did not completely set them aside. He still carved out some time to continue training.

On the Emitter side, he practiced both the basic skill of simply emitting aura and his current Emitter finishing move, "Finger Flick Divine Art." Once he could fire aura bullets without relying on specific gestures and movements, the power of Finger Flick Divine Art would undoubtedly rise to another level.

He released the greatest amount of aura he could and wrapped it around himself to form Ken, silently counting in his heart... He pushed himself to exhaustion again and again, then, once the Star Mark on the back of his neck restored his stamina, he did it all over again...

To increase one's total Nen aura, there was basically no shortcut besides gritting one's teeth, sweating, repeatedly draining oneself dry, and then filling back up.

With the Star Mark helping him recover, he was already far ahead of ordinary Nen Users. Not everyone had training conditions as exceptional as Biscuit's, so what was there to be dissatisfied about? Precisely because of that, he needed to seize every second to train and increase his Nen quantity...

Through this repeated cycle of tormenting and restoring himself, Jing Yang nearly trained himself into numbness.

He suddenly understood a little why Biscuit had developed a Nen Ability like "Magical Beautician Miss Cookie"... As a woman, just how much sweat and effort had Biscuit put in to forge that earth-shattering strength and flawless body? When Biscuit was younger, with Cookie-chan's restorative abilities, she had probably trained even more crazily than he did now.

Though comparing himself to an expert like her was perhaps a bit too flattering, Jing Yang did indeed draw greater motivation from it. After giving himself a fierce bowl of motivational soup, the time he could maintain Ken unconsciously grew longer and longer...

It was the third day since he had come to this world, and the second day of formal training. It was just as fulfilling as ever.

The long night stretched on. Before the campfire lay a huge pile of picked-clean bones, which the Wild Wolf was gnawing at fiercely. Jing Yang, so exhausted that he could not even lift a finger, sprawled on the Fanged Moon Tiger's body and slept soundly.

"Nine hundred ninety-seven... nine hundred ninety-eight... nine hundred ninety-nine..."

On the third day of training and the fourth day since arriving in this world, it was already past noon. The intensity of the Ken Jing Yang supported around his entire body seemed no different from three days ago.

But this was after he had already maintained Ken for more than ten minutes.

"One... thousand!"

Jing Yang gritted his teeth and counted out the final word. At last, he could no longer hold on. The aura released from his entire body completely vanished, and he collapsed to his knees as though paralyzed. Yet his sweat-soaked face bore a smile.

"One thousand seconds!"

He rolled onto the ground and lay spread-eagled, deeply satisfied. Back then, talented people like Gon and Killua took thirty days under Biscuit's nanny-like coaching to go from 3,000 aura to 20,000. Today, I, Jing Yang, spent three days alone to raise my total Nen quantity from 100 aura to 1,000... 1,000! A full tenfold increase! Looks like my talent isn't bad either!

Recalling the all-around, devilish training of the past three days, Jing Yang felt that all the suffering had not been in vain.

It was not merely that his total Nen quantity had increased tenfold. Jing Yang would not dare claim he had mastered the various basic practices of Nen Abilities, but he had at least become familiar with every one of them. After all, whether one could use these Nen techniques or not was fundamentally different. Looking at it that way, compared to three days ago, how could his overall strength have increased by only ten times?

If his current self returned to that night four days ago, back to that small ship, and encountered that guy who had caused trouble with a pistol again, Jing Yang would not need to ask Wu Er for help. Even without the Wild Wolf assisting from the side, with the solid fundamentals he had built now, he would definitely not lose. If he found an opportunity to use Finger Flick Divine Art, he could even win that battle from fifty paces away.

Can't get too carried away. After all, I still don't have much actual combat experience...

Thinking that, and feeling that his body had already recovered considerably with the Star Mark's assistance, Jing Yang sprang to his feet in one smooth motion.

He walked up to a tree so thick that three or four adults would need to link arms to encircle it. He raised a thick layer of aura around his entire body and threw a punch wrapped in white light. Crack! A huge hole was smashed into the tree, breaking it halfway through.

Jing Yang curled his fingers, gathering a clump of aura on his fingertip, then flicked it out with a bang.

Boom!

The upper half of the trunk, already half-broken by his punch, was blasted away by a "bullet." It spun several times in midair before crashing into a tree behind it and stopping. At the point of impact was a smoking crater surrounded by spreading cracks.

"Seems pretty good."

Jing Yang watched the scene and gave himself a brief evaluation, but quickly reminded himself, "Biscuit thinks a total Nen quantity of at least 1,800 is needed to make a living in the world. I only have 1,000. I still need to be more careful when I'm out there..."

The Wild Wolf beside him was already trembling in terror. Even without the Star Mark controlling it, it would probably immediately prostrate itself before this human and submit... He was clearly just a human cub!

Wu Er actually felt the same way, but it was very close to this human. While shocked, its feelings were completely different from the Wild Wolf's.

Jing Yang stroked the tiger head that had nudged up to him and scolded the Wild Wolf, "Useless thing. I told you to catch a bird, but after three days, you haven't even brought back a single feather! Wu Er has nearly hunted all the wild animals around here these past few days. If we go hungry next, I'll skin you, roast you, and eat you!"

The Wild Wolf trembled all over, pressing itself tightly against the ground as it whimpered without stop.

It waited in fear for a long time, but there was no movement. Then it heard the human cub's reprimand. "What are you standing around for? Hurry up and follow."

The Wild Wolf lifted its head and saw that Jing Yang had already set off with the Fanged Moon Tiger. Feeling as though it had been granted a pardon, it scrambled after them.

Jing Yang naturally had not given up on the idea of catching birds. In this place where he had no clue where he was, finding a bird to control and sending it into the sky to observe the terrain from above would be the most convenient option.

But by the second day, he had already understood that relying on those bird-catching devices was probably hopeless. After all, it was his first time making such things. It was understandable that they did not work well.

Now that his "divine skill had achieved minor success," he naturally had other methods available.

Jing Yang gathered aura in his eyes, greatly enhancing his vision.

After spotting several crow-sized birds of some unknown species chirping atop the treetops, he raised a hand to signal Wu Er and the Wild Wolf to retreat farther away. Then he shut all the Aura Nodes across his body, concealed all of his aura, and entered a state of Zetsu—Jing Yang became like an ordinary stone one could find anywhere. Even when he reached the tree beneath those birds, they had not sensed the slightest hint of danger.

Need to use less force...

Jing Yang flicked out an aura bullet the size of a grain of rice, accurately striking one of the gray birds.

The Gray Bird had been chirping away when its vision suddenly went black, and it tumbled headfirst from the branch.

The other birds—some white, some green, some gray as well—spread their wings in alarm. But soon, they too felt something strike their heads one after another. Rolling their eyes and lolling their tongues out, they fell from the treetops...

"Done." Jing Yang clapped his hands beneath the tree.

He cut off a strand of his hair, wrapped a wisp of aura around it, and bent it into a tiny Pentagram. He brushed it over the hard beaks of the five unconscious birds on the ground one by one as though stamping them, leaving behind five miniature Rose Gold Star Marks.

"Wake."

Jing Yang spoke a single word.

The five miniature Star Marks activated at once and merged into the birds' own life energy. In an instant, all five birds opened their eyes.

"Fly."

Jing Yang gave another command.

Flap, flap...

The birds chirped for a moment, then quickly obeyed the command and flew into the sky in orderly formation.

Jing Yang looked up. With a thought, he switched the control method from ③ to ①. Instantly, it was as though he had gained five external heads, five secondary consciousnesses, and five secondary viewpoints, all soaring on the wind and spreading their wings dozens of meters above the endless forest.

"So this is what flying feels like?" Jing Yang, walking through the forest below, completely shared the sensation. It was quite novel.

Still, he had not forgotten what mattered. He immediately controlled the five birds to spread out in the air and continue rising. They flew toward five different directions as much as possible, surveying the place where he currently was from above, determining what exactly this place was like, which way would let him leave the forest the fastest, and whether there were any human towns at all.

"An island?"

Jing Yang leaped onto the tiger's back, called for the Wild Wolf to follow, and raced through the forest in the direction he had chosen.

"Actually, it's a peninsula..."

Using the broad field of vision from the five birds flying a hundred meters in the air, Jing Yang already understood where he was. This was a peninsula that extended north from a larger landmass into the ocean. Nearly all of it was covered in lush forest, while town areas stretched along both the eastern and western coasts.

The place where Jing Yang had first awakened after crossing over was at the northernmost tip of this peninsula. Beyond that was the boundless sea. The small cruise ship was naturally nearby as well. Along the entire North Coast, let alone towns, there was not even a lighthouse. The shoreline was completely bare.

Previously, in order to give the suspected Hunter and the body of his newly acknowledged godmother a proper burial, Jing Yang had ventured deep into the peninsula's interior. Then he had wandered around in a muddled daze while training desperately. His current location was somewhat closer to the town cluster along the East Coast.

He did not know whether he was seeing things, but at the far left end of the East Coast's town area seemed to be a... Jing Yang controlled all five birds to turn at once and look in that direction. Combining their five perspectives, he confirmed that it really was a large amusement park. But distant mountains could tire out a horse—well, tire out a tiger? In any case, with his lack of experience, Jing Yang had no idea how many kilometers they still had to travel. It would probably be quite a journey.

Still, he finally had a destination. Jing Yang felt much more at ease, and even had the leisure to admire the scenery along the way. After all, he was not the one expending effort to race through the forest.

"Stop, Brother Tiger. I said stop."

Jing Yang lightly patted the tiger's back.

He jumped down and walked toward the right. The forest here gradually grew sparse, and ahead stood a wire-mesh barrier... Just then, Jing Yang's gaze shifted. Through one of the five birds circling overhead, he seemed to see several furtive figures inside the other side of the barrier. At a glance, they did not look like good people...

Jing Yang walked forward along the wire-mesh barrier for more than ten meters, then suddenly saw a sign hanging on it.

Having already learned the writing of the Hunter World, Jing Yang naturally recognized the illustrated content on it. It was precisely because of that that he fell silent.

"Endangered Animal Reserve, Fanged Moon Tiger Habitat, No Entry..."

No wonder I haven't encountered anyone all this time. So I've been wandering around outside the reserve these past few days...

Should I say I've actually been pretty lucky? At least I wasn't handcuffed and hauled away as a poacher...

Wu Er gave two low growls. It appeared to recognize the wire mesh.

Jing Yang thought for a moment, then suddenly understood something. He turned and asked, "Were you wounded by poachers and escaped the reserve? Then you happened to pass by where I was, and your injuries only healed because of me? Is that what happened?"

Wu Er tilted its head at him, then walked over and rubbed its head against Jing Yang.

"How can I let that slide? Those damned poachers bullied Brother Tiger. Not happening!" Jing Yang had been looking for a chance to test his current skills. He climbed onto the tiger's back. "Come on. Let this fake Hunter go meet them."