The black-robed figure had been gone a long time before everyone finally recovered.
They sat around the edge of the Spirit Essence Grassland, talking over one another for ages without reaching any conclusions.
No one knew who the mysterious masked figure was, where he had come from, or why he had singled out Kurapika to pick the grass, only to eat it and spit it back out.
It was too strange.
Kurapika leaned against a tree trunk, gently rubbing the Chain with his fingertips.
Questions piled up in his mind like a mountain, but he had no answers.
He pushed his thoughts aside and clenched his fist.
If he wanted answers, there was only one way: grow stronger and keep heading deeper into the Cloud Sea.
One day, they would meet again.
Meanwhile, Gon had not been idle.
That overwhelming pressure had shaken him badly.
For the first time, he had felt just how wide the gap was between him and a truly powerful fighter.
He stood at the edge of the clearing, practicing Spinning Rock against the empty air again and again.
Golden Nen spinning at fifteenfold speed whirled around his fist, rustling the surrounding grass.
The gentle energy of the Essence Grass still flowed slowly through his body, tempering his muscles, meridians, and bones.
Once, twice, ten times, a hundred times.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on Gon's forehead, but his eyes grew brighter.
He could feel the bottleneck loosening.
He was close to breaking past the fifteenfold limit.
"Hah!"
Gon shouted and drove his right fist forward.
His golden Nen surged, its rotation accelerating sharply.
Sixteenfold!
Seventeenfold!
Eighteenfold!
Boom—
The force of his punch slammed into a huge boulder nearby.
The hard boulder, half as tall as a person, shattered into powder. Debris flew more than ten