The candidate being flung around screamed, but Hisoka paid him no mind.
"Still, I have a rough idea of how powerful your conjured weapons are. The gun is a firearm, and the saw is a cutting weapon. They share the same weakness: range."
Hisoka flung candidates, rocks, and clods of dirt stuck to Elastic Love at Gelman from the front, back, left, and right.
Gelman's Vitality Constitution and Stamina Aura were both vastly different from what they had been a little over a month ago. He had not only improved his agility and strength, but also his endurance in prolonged combat.
He kept leaping backward, and Hisoka's "meteor hammers" missed one after another, smashing into the ground.
"If range is the weakness of my blunderbuss and Meat Saw..." Gelman abruptly stopped and said, "then it's yours too."
The Elastic Love connecting Hisoka to a candidate suddenly snapped, and the candidate was flung straight at Gelman.
Gelman dodged to the side, then gauged the distance and concluded, "About ten meters. Beyond that, your Elastic Love can't stay sticky."
"Bingo." Hisoka snapped his fingers with a crisp click, showing no embarrassment at having been figured out. "But that's a problem. At this distance, neither of us can fight."
"I have to get my Hunter License," Gelman declared. "Not next year or the year after. This year."
Hisoka's face lit up with the sly smile of someone who'd just pulled off a prank. "Then I'll have to do everything I can to stop you. You have to earn a 'pass' from me to move on to the next stage of the exam."
After a brief silence, the two of them suddenly charged toward each other in unison, deliberately closing the distance between them.
"See? We really are 'partners'!" Hisoka shot Elastic Love at Gelman, striking a pose like Spider-Man.
Gelman dodged to the side. With a clack, the Meat Saw transformed, doubling in length as its sharp teeth slashed toward Hisoka.
Hisoka was just as nimble. He leaned back to dodge, and the blade nearly brushed his nose. "When I saw the shape of this weapon, I thought this might be possible."
"Is that so?" Taking advantage of the moment, Gelman covered the blunderbuss with his Hunter Robe, aimed it at Hisoka, and fired with a bang.
The scattered bullets tore through the robe and shot toward Hisoka at point-blank range.
Hisoka narrowed his eyes. A few fingers, already poised, twitched, and the strands of Elastic Love stuck to the ground pulled together, flipping up a whole slab of dirt.
"I saw that coming," Hisoka said with a smile from behind the earthen wall.
The bullets went pitter-patter against the dirt.
Gelman darted to the side, only to come face-to-face with Hisoka, who had dodged in the same direction.
They looked at each other. Instead of backing away, they both stepped closer.
"I've got a rough idea of the blunderbuss's range and spread," Hisoka said with a smile. "And I've figured out how far the Meat Saw can reach after it transforms."
Hearing this, Gelman looked down and saw three strands of Elastic Love stuck to his Meat Saw.
"They stuck when you swung at me just now," Hisoka helpfully explained. As he moved closer to the saw, he calculated the area the blunderbuss could hit.
Gelman simply dispelled his conjuration, easily freeing himself from Elastic Love.
"How troublesome..." Seeing this, Hisoka didn't give up on closing in. Instead, he rushed at Gelman even faster. "That's why I really don't like Conjurers."
His fingertips produced a stack of playing cards. He poured Nen into every one, making them as sharp as knives, then shot them at Gelman, who had no room to dodge.
Enhancement was a neighboring Nen type to Transmutation, so Hisoka could occasionally use Enhancement abilities too.
Gelman reacted swiftly, raising his right hand. The transformed Meat Saw appeared in his palm again, and he clanged it against the cards, blocking most of them.
Still, two cards pierced Gelman's left arm, and there was no doubt that Elastic Love stuck to them.
Hisoka gave him a crazed grin.
"Ahhh, you can't raise your left hand freely for a while, so you can't shoot me with your blunderbuss... I can hardly wait to see the look on your face next—huh?"
The Meat Saw in Gelman's right hand vanished right under Hisoka's nose, replaced by a strange metal canister with a nozzle. The nozzle pointed straight at Hisoka.
With a whoosh, a sheet of flame burst from the Flamethrower and swallowed Hisoka in the blink of an eye.
Amid the roaring flames, Hisoka quickly retreated, then rolled across the ground without hesitation.
After tumbling around in a sorry mess, he finally managed to put out the flames on his body in time.
But when he stood up, his clothes had been burned away completely, leaving him stark naked.
That wasn't all. He had quite a few burns, a large patch of his fiery red hair had been singed, and much of the powder on his face had been rubbed off.
Hisoka stared at the Flamethrower in Gelman's right hand for a while before calmly saying, "I see. Your conjured weapons aren't limited to what you can hold in your left or right hand, and you can have more than two. I walked right into that one..."
Gelman put away the Flamethrower, then pulled out the two playing cards and tossed them far away. He let his arm keep bleeding, drops pattering onto the grass.
"Rather than a Conjurer, you seem more like a Specialist like Chrollo, the Leader," Hisoka speculated. "Since it's a neighboring Nen type, I should have realized you could pull off something like this."
"If I'm not mistaken, the gun, the saw, and the flamethrower aren't the true secret of your Conjuration. What you've really conjured is hidden on your person, and you use it to make everything happen."
Hisoka spoke quite seriously, but given that he was now completely naked, it was hard to take the scene seriously.
"Maybe." Gelman blinked his dark eyes and gave a noncommittal answer.
Hisoka fell silent for a moment, then chuckled. "Even after all this, you still won't tell me whether I guessed right? Fine. You've 'passed.' I won't bother you during the next stage of the exam."
"Hm?" Gelman tilted his head. "You wouldn't be able to bother me anyway, would you? First, you attacked an examiner, so you'll probably be expelled. Second, are you planning to keep fighting me without wearing a thing?"
Hisoka froze. For once, even he couldn't think of a retort to Gelman's words.
Suddenly, loud laughter rang out from the woods.
Gelman and Hisoka both warily turned toward the sound. They were both a little surprised that someone could get so close without either of them noticing.
An old man emerged, accompanied by Beanpaste Man, who had handed out their number tags earlier.
Before you continue