Silent Foundation Establishment

Before the age of three, Ryan was no longer a "baby," yet he was still far from being a "child."

He walked with steady steps, spoke little but expressed himself clearly, and enjoyed solitude without becoming overly withdrawn. The neighbors called him "a little adult," while his parents laughed and said, "This kid stopped crying when he was a year and a half. He's so easy to raise." But no one knew that he had never stopped deliberately training and controlling his body.

This was something he could never have done in his previous life—treating growth as a "systematic project." From the tiniest muscle activation, breathing rhythm, and neural reflexes to center-of-gravity control and inertia breakdown, every aspect could be quantified, recorded, and dissected.

He had no coach, no goal, and no template. All he possessed was the comprehension and logical reasoning ability retained from an adult.

He used it to carve this tender, newly born body.

Early in the morning was his "sensitivity-state training period." Before his parents woke up, he would first perform extremely slow finger-gripping and symmetrical toe exercises on the mattress. Then he would stand, using the bedframe or a chair armrest to practice "static balance"—keeping both feet flat while maintaining tension in his core muscles, arms raised forward, eyes closed, standing for at least one minute.

Rather than directly imitating the so-called stance training from movies and television, he preferred muscle-control exercises. When the body could naturally correct itself after the slightest disturbance to its center of gravity, it meant the neural network was forming healthy feedback.

The morning was for language and logic training. He would turn on the television and switch to local morning news or lifestyle interviews. They seemed boring, but the speech was steady and standard. He silently memorized the vocabulary and sentence patterns, secretly imitating their pronunciation, while cross-checking them against the casual supplementary words his mother used when reading storybooks. Did these words appear in ordinary citizens' daily speech? Were terms like Hunter Association, Heaven's Arena, news, or government mixed in? If not, did that mean the public did not know of the existence of this world's "true hierarchy of the strong"?

He classified this kind of observation as "Information Vacuum Identification." In the original work, most humans knew nothing about Nen, and only those who became Hunters, entered high-level regions, or became involved in criminal circles gradually came into contact with the Nen Ability system. That meant he had to actively explore where the boundary of the "world of the strong" lay.

The afternoon sunlight was gentle, and he would use outdoor time to train his body's response to "instantaneous movements." He deliberately made it look like he was "playing"—for example, kicking a rubber ball into a tree trunk. But the targets he set were "hit the target point accurately five times out of ten," "keep the kicking angle within a three-degree margin of error," and "do not lose bodily balance from inertia while kicking"...

This was not a "game," but a body-coordination exercise packaged in the form of childhood play.

Sometimes, he would also try low-intensity running and jumping in the small yard. He would not sprint at full speed. Instead, he set goals such as "circle a small loop twice at the same cadence," recording each time the impact his knees endured and how long his breathing could hold out. If his lower limbs felt slightly tight that day, he automatically reduced the training load and switched to static squats or stretching.

He understood that the greatest taboo in developmental training was "letting emotions take over." Blindly chasing excitement or challenges would only cause irreversible micro-damage to a young body. He valued "physiological adaptive growth" more—progress could be slower, but injuries had to be avoided.

One day, while hanging laundry, his mother saw him kicking at a tree trunk alone in the corner of the yard. He had kicked dozens of times without calling himself tired. Supporting her waist, she smiled and asked, "What are you practicing? Are you going to become a fighter someday, little Ryan?"

Ryan stopped, tilted his head, and thought seriously for a second before flashing an innocent smile. "No. I just want... not to be afraid of people bullying me in the future."

His mother's eyes reddened slightly when she heard that, and she hugged him.

She thought her son was expressing a childlike wish of a weak person wanting to become strong. She did not know that, in Ryan's heart, the true meaning of those words was: I'm building a combat adaptation system. It's just not convenient to say so yet.

He continued training. He continued pretending.

Before bed at night, he would review every movement from the day—what muscle actions had been uncoordinated, what judgments had mistimed their moment. He used this method to reinforce memory pathways and construct "movement-model feedback channels." Even without a mirror, he could form images of feedback from his own movements in his mind, gradually approaching the optimal solution.

It was as though he were silently building the first layer of armor at the lowest possible cost for some inevitable battle.

That armor was called the "physical body."

He knew that aura was still far away, and Nen even more distant. But if he could not fully control even his own bones, nerves, and reflexes, what right did he have to face that world where Nen and killing intent coexisted?

So he remained silent, drew no attention, and sought no praise.

He was merely laying foundations, building a base for his more distant future self.

—Like the deep well beneath a tower, unseen by anyone, yet supporting everyone standing above it.

When Ryan's training entered its third stage, the family yard became the place where he appeared most often.

It was a small patch of concrete ground. In one corner stood a pomelo tree that had been planted years ago. Against the wall on the other side were piled discarded wooden boards left over from his father's work, cable reels, bricks, and several metal rods. During the day, sunlight slanted in through the canopy, forming patchy squares of light and shadow on the ground. That was his "training area."

He began imitating boxing.

Not flashy moves without substance, nor the repetitive use of a single attack from anime. Instead, based on the "basic punching logic" in his memories, he established repeated movement models through five separate stages: stance, starting motion, shoulder rotation, borrowing force, striking, and recovery. Every movement was broken down into several nodes and learned one by one.

He did not specialize in any particular boxing style. Instead, he combined the various training methods he had seen and learned in his previous life with the occasional demonstrations of fighting techniques found on television, online, and in books. Step by step, he fused them into a simplified training system suited to this young body. He knew that at this stage, he did not need strength or pursue speed. He only needed to "accustom himself to the movement patterns" and let his body form habits.

At first, he could only remain steady for more than three seconds while throwing a punch. Gradually, he could breathe steadily and complete the motion from punch to recovery in one go. Later, he tried to unleash combinations in a continuous rhythm—three punches, four kicks, sidesteps followed by kicks... all of it was being built bit by bit.

He had never "performed" these exercises in front of his parents. Yet his mother could always see him from the kitchen window, practicing enthusiastically in the yard with every punch and kick. His father had also quietly watched from the doorway several times. Once, after turning back to his wife, he said softly, "He really isn't just putting on a show."

"Do you think he's taking this too seriously?" There was a hint of worry in his mother's voice.

"What's wrong with being serious? Aren't kids these days always glued to the television or refusing to put down their tablets? I think this is pretty good." His father sighed. "That drive to do real work—it's like I was back then."

They did not interfere much.

But Ryan knew that his parents' tolerance was the greatest support resource he currently possessed. As long as he did not reveal any "abnormal behavior," they would let him do as he pleased. This trust had to be treasured, and it certainly could not be abused.

To prevent training from causing muscle fatigue or injury, he created the "Interleaved Cycle Plan." Namely:

Boxing training would not exceed two sessions a day, and each session would not exceed twenty minutes;

Repeated movements could be performed for at most three rounds. Beyond that, he had to stretch and relax immediately;

If any part of his body showed obvious discomfort, the next day's training load would automatically be reduced;

Every five days would be a "movement review day." He would not practice new movements, only review and perform breathing exercises.

Through this method, he gradually adapted his body to the load. Coordination and endurance far exceeding the standards for his age were taking shape little by little.

Besides that, he quietly added "simulated reaction" drills.

For example—he would arrange small objects of different heights and angles around the yard. When he stepped among them, he would randomly trigger the "emergency signals" he had created, requiring movements such as jumping, turning, retreating, or dropping to the ground. He changed the combinations once a day. Once, his father saw him dodge around an old wooden crate and suddenly roll behind the tree trunk. Amazed, he clicked his tongue. "Where did he learn that?"

His mother frowned. "Did he learn it from television cartoons?"

"But his movements look pretty convincing." His father scratched his head. "He doesn't pull anything or fall over. It looks more professional than kindergarten gym class."

"He hasn't even started school yet."

"That just proves he's impressive."

When Ryan heard this conversation inside the house, he merely smiled.

He did not care "what other people thought." He only cared whether he had accomplished what he was supposed to accomplish that day.

At night, after washing the dust from his body, he would lie on his stomach on the bed and secretly record his training log. Since he could not write, he used bamboo sticks of different lengths to draw lines in the dirt: one line represented one round of striking drills, short lines represented footwork tests, and curved lines represented reaction simulations... Day after day, he left those marks in the crack in the wall behind the flowerpots, erasing them every seven days and replacing them with new records.

In this silent manner, he built a quiet archive belonging solely to "Ryan."

To the outside world, he was merely a child who exercised diligently.

But Ryan knew that he was laying every necessary foundation for the moment he would "awaken" in the future.

Nen would not arrive early just because he had memories of a previous life.

Nen was part of the world's rules. It would not favor anyone.

And what he had to do was become part of those rules before he gained their protection.