Stone-Like Will

Ta's winter was dry and cold. Wind swept dust through the gaps between high-rises, and at six in the morning, the streets were still dim. Most children were still asleep beneath their blankets, waiting for the school wake-up bell, while Ryan had already finished the second lap of his morning run.

He ran along the road around the residential district, his stride steady and breathing even. Every step landed on the balls of his feet, minimizing the impact rebounding through his knees. A simple weighted harness was wrapped around him. It did not look heavy, but it kept every muscle in his body lightly tensed.

Running was not a warm-up. It was the foundation. It was the first thing he did every day, without interruption, for years.

After his morning run, he spent fifteen minutes warming up his joints and checking the state of his core strength. Then he washed up, ate, and slung on his backpack before leaving on time.

School was the only part of his daily life that required him to "fit in with the crowd." He never stood out at school, and his grades remained near the top. He did not compete or show off. Teachers liked his steadiness, while the other students regarded him with a measure of awe—they neither bullied him nor casually approached him.

After school, he did not play or fool around. He went straight to his backyard, changed clothes, and began the second stage of training.

This stage focused on strength and reaction training. His training system had evolved from simple sit-ups and kicking drills into a complete set of modules:

Weighted squats combined with dynamic footwork;

Continuous dodge simulations under resistance-band tension;

Segmented load resistance training for both shoulders and wrist strength;

Slow-point correction drills using an old wooden post as a target.

Every exercise had a schedule, repetition count, rest ratio, and weekly feedback log.

His self-discipline was almost harsh.

Not because anyone supervised him, but because he had long regarded "training" as the root structure of his daily existence—as long as he completed it, his existence had direction, rhythm, and belonging.

At night, the scent of home-cooked food filled the house. As usual, his mother asked, "How many laps did you run today?"

"Eight." His answer was neither too much nor too little.

His father grinned around his chopsticks. "This kid plans his life better than I did when I was young."

"He's already ten, yet he's still this self-disciplined. He doesn't even crave candy or ask for a game console," his mother said wistfully.

"Other kids are always demanding this and that. But you? Every day, you just stare at that notebook, writing and drawing. And whenever you feel like it, you sit cross-legged and close your eyes. How old are you, really?"

Ryan neither argued nor denied it.

He merely smiled, calmly took a sip of soup, and replied, "It's faster this way."

"Faster?" His father raised an eyebrow. "Faster for what?"

"To grow up faster." After saying that, he continued eating.

The answer left the dinner table silent for a moment.

There was a trace of complicated emotion in his mother's eyes. His father frowned, but in the end, he only smiled and shook his head. "Honestly, what kind of kid thinks like that?"

But both of them knew that this child had long been different.

That night, Ryan sat on the meditation cushion in the corner of his room as usual. The room was so quiet he could hear the ticking inside the water meter box. He slowly sank his awareness into his body, relaxing himself as his breathing rose and fell with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

He knew he was still one layer away from the door to "awakening aura." But his heart was utterly calm. If someone asked what his strongest ability was now—

It was not strength, not speed, not technique.

It was—stability.

He was so stable that no external disturbance could shake his resolve; so stable that he never grew weary day after day; so stable that even without any progress, he could keep moving forward.

That was the true beginning of his path to becoming a "Hunter."

Not through talent, but through a will as immovable as stone.

Night descended, and the city's clamor gradually sank beneath the lights and shadows. The houses in Tower City's western district seemed especially quiet in the winter night. Only the occasional hiss of gas stoves and barking dogs from around the corners reminded people that this neighborhood was still breathing.

Inside the house, Ryan sat alone on a small mat in the farthest corner of the training room.

For two straight weeks, he had extended his nightly meditation to thirty minutes. Before entering the state each time, he washed his hands and feet, adjusted the line of his spine, and made sure there was not a trace of unnecessary tension in his body.

That day, he no longer deliberately "visualized aura," nor did he force himself to "find the feeling."

He did only one thing—gently pushed his awareness beyond his body.

It was not an out-of-body experience, nor was it a wandering of the mind.

Rather, he gradually shifted his "core of perception" from his head, chest, and abdomen—to every boundary along the surface of his body.

Fingertips. Toes. Backs of his hands. Shoulder blades. Jaw.

Under the gaze of his intensely focused awareness, these outermost parts of his body became more "sensitive," yet more "blurred" than before.

They were sensitive because he seemed able to feel the flow of air. They were blurred because within that flow, there seemed to be an invisible "screen," much like a membrane in water—thin and unseen, yet clearly capable of "bouncing back sensation."

He did not open his eyes, yet he "saw" it:

A "line of aura" that was neither light nor flow slowly circulated an inch beyond his skin.

He knew it was not an illusion.

It was the outermost layer of the Nen Ability system: the "Pre-Aura Sensory Membrane."

He had not yet awakened "aura."

But he was already standing before that door, his fingers lightly resting against it, able to sense the warmth and breathing behind the wooden panel.

At that moment, he was not excited.

He merely took a deep breath.

Slowly withdrawing his awareness from meditation, he opened his eyes. There was no ripple in their depths.

After rising, he walked to the wall, tore off a sticky note, and wrote:

[Critical Experience Record · Pre-Aura Sensory Membrane Response]

Time: 326th day of meditation (10 years and 2 months old)

Experience:

Awareness successfully extended beyond the surface of the body

Felt "spatial echoes" and a "floating epidermal membrane sensation"

No aura movement, spontaneous heat, or awareness of self-rotation/flow

Judged to be a pre-aura structure: "slight tactile sensation from boundary displacement"

Conclusion:

The training system is effective. Bodily perception has entered a "non-conscious, non-imaginary state," making continued contact with aura possible.

He carefully stuck the note at the very top of the "perception log" section in his notebook.

At that moment, he understood:

True "awakening" would not be an explosive miracle. It would be that faint flash of light when, after hundreds of daily meditations and training sessions, aura finally responded to you.

And he had already touched its edge.

The next morning, after running eight laps and finishing breakfast, he slung on his backpack and went to school as usual. As he passed the street corner, a familiar neighbor teased him:

"Hey, little grown-up, not late again? Yesterday, I saw you sitting alone in the yard with that notebook for an hour. Cultivating immortality or something?"

He smiled politely. "Writing a diary."

"You really don't seem like a ten-year-old. You look like an old scholar."

He did not respond, only nodded and smiled.

—He had long grown used to others not understanding.

Because they did not know that what he recorded was not a diary, but the steps of a tower leading into the world of Hunters. Nor did they know that he was not walking through childhood, but through the morning of the tenth year of his path of cultivation.