Killua steals a lesson

The heavy stone door slammed shut with a rumble, cutting off the last traces of light and sound from outside.

The cramped stone chamber sank into deathly silence and darkness.

"What the hell! Fifty hours! That's more than two days!"

Leorio was the first to lose it. He dropped onto the cold stone floor, clutching his head and tugging irritably at his hair.

"We're going to die in here! No food, no water, not even a toilet! How can the Hunter Association be so inhumane!"

"Quiet down, Leorio." Kurapika's voice sounded in the darkness, tinged with exhaustion. "Complaining won't solve anything. Those are the rules, so we have to follow them."

As he spoke, he sat down against the wall, apparently planning to pass the long hours resting with his eyes closed.

Gon, however, remained optimistic. He patted Leorio's shoulder and consoled him in his characteristically lively voice. "It's okay, Leorio. Two days will fly by! Just think of it as a break!"

"A break? In this hellhole?" Leorio was practically tearing his hair out. "Gon, how can you be so carefree!"

Killua didn't join their conversation.

He leaned against a corner on the other side, his hands in his pockets, his catlike eyes gleaming faintly in the darkness. There was no telling what he was thinking.

Every so often, his gaze drifted toward the figure in the farthest corner of the chamber.

Lin Yan.

Ever since entering the stone chamber, Lin Yan hadn't said a word. He wasn't agitated like Leorio, resigned like Kurapika, or naive like Gon.

He had simply walked calmly to the corner where he was least likely to be disturbed, then sat down cross-legged.

It was as though the fifty hours of confinement didn't bother him in the slightest.

Yet only Lin Yan knew that his condition was nowhere near as effortless as he made it look.

Hidden inside his loose sleeve, the index and middle fingers of his right hand twitched faintly beyond his control. Waves of piercing, bone-deep pain radiated from the meridians deep within his fingertips, spreading up his entire arm.

This was the inevitable price of forcibly compressing his true qi and unleashing it beyond his limits.

He gently closed his eyes, sank his awareness into his dantian, and began examining himself internally.

Through his divine sense, he could clearly "see" several tiny cracks, invisible to the naked eye, in the key meridians around his right fingertips and wrist, like hidden fractures in fine porcelain struck by a shock.

The dantian embryo at the center of his dantian, normally as lustrous as jade, had also grown somewhat dull, and even its rotation had slowed.

I pushed myself too far after all.

Lin Yan sighed inwardly.

He drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the burning sensation in his meridians,

and began guiding the little gentle true qi remaining in his dantian embryo along the damaged meridians, letting it flow slowly like a trickling stream.

Wherever the true qi passed, it brought waves of soothing coolness. The tiny cracks were gradually nourished and repaired at an extremely slow but undeniably effective pace.

This healing process couldn't be rushed.

He had to enter a state of samadhi, forgetting both himself and the world, to maximize its effects.

Time ticked by.

One hour...

Two hours...

Five hours...

Leorio's initial agitation had given way to utter despair.

He lay on the floor like a dried-out fish, endlessly muttering nonsense such as, "I shouldn't have made that bet," "I want a cola," and "Kurapika, are you asleep?"

At first, Gon had enthusiastically chatted with Killua, sharing stories of raiding birds' nests and catching the Lord of the Swamp on Whale Island. But as they talked, he too grew bored, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep against the wall, breathing steadily.

Kurapika maintained the same resting posture with his eyes closed, utterly motionless, his breathing long and even, as though he truly had entered a meditative trance.

Killua had become the most bored person in the entire chamber.

He had too much energy to sleep, and unlike Leorio, he couldn't talk to himself for hours on end.

With nothing to do, his gaze landed on Lin Yan once again.

Several hours had passed since they entered, yet Lin Yan had remained sitting cross-legged the whole time. He hadn't so much as moved, let alone changed positions.

If Killua hadn't still been able to detect his faint breathing, he might have mistaken him for a lifeless stone statue.

What the hell is this guy doing?

Killua's curiosity clawed at him like a kitten trapped in a cage.

He couldn't stand it anymore.

He rose soundlessly and approached like a real cat, making no noise at all. Crouching in front of Lin Yan, he began studying him closely with his far-superior night vision.

Then he noticed something strange.

Lin Yan's breathing... was too slow.

Unbelievably slow.

Killua was an expert assassin himself, versed in all manner of techniques for concealing his presence and regulating his heartbeat. He could minimize his presence, a skill honed for stealth.

But Lin Yan's current state was entirely different.

Each breath was extraordinarily deep, long, and faint. Killua silently timed him and discovered that Lin Yan was taking roughly one breath a minute!

Was he even human?!

Even a hibernating bear didn't breathe this slowly!

What surprised Killua even more was that, accompanying this peculiar breathing, he could keenly sense an extremely faint yet highly regular "field" forming around Lin Yan's body.

It was an uncanny sensation, like a tiny, invisible vortex gently and slowly drawing in some kind of free-floating energy from the surrounding air-something he couldn't comprehend.

Something stirred in Killua's mind.

Almost without thinking, he sat cross-legged like Lin Yan and began trying to imitate his deep, slow breathing.

As a once-in-a-century prodigy of the Zoldyck Family, his ability to imitate others and control his body was exceptional.

Before long, he began to get the hang of it.

As he slowed his breathing and focused all his attention on the act of inhaling and exhaling, he discovered that the irritation brought on by his boredom was actually subsiding, little by little.

Not only that, but the fatigue accumulated from his earlier consecutive battles also seemed to fade bit by bit with this peculiar breathing.

The effect was slight, but it was real!

It was more efficient than any form of rest he knew!

"Hey."

Unable to hold back any longer, Killua reached out a finger and gently nudged Lin Yan's shoulder.

"What are you doing? Training?"

Lin Yan slowly opened his eyes.

They shone startlingly bright in the darkness, as though starlight were swirling within them.

After several hours of regulating his breathing, his damaged meridians had stabilized, and some of his true qi had recovered. His somewhat pale face had regained a little color.

He glanced at Killua's curious face. Rather than getting angry at the interruption to his cultivation, he simply asked calmly, "Is there something you need?"

"What school of martial arts is this?"

Killua went straight to the point, true to his nature. "It feels like... instead of squeezing strength out of your body through training like we do, you're using 'breathing' to 'accumulate' something. That's the complete opposite of every way of using strength I know."

Looking into Killua's catlike eyes gleaming in the darkness, Lin Yan's own eyes flashed with approval.

He truly was a prodigy of the Zoldyck Family.

Without even having systematically learned Ten, he had perceived the fundamental difference between true qi cultivation and physical training through nothing but an assassin's instincts and his incomparable talent.

Lin Yan considered it. Rather than explaining it through Nen, which Killua couldn't yet understand, he chose an explanation closer to its essence-and one that would shock him even more.

"You're right." Lin Yan spoke evenly, as though stating a fact. "Ordinary people gain strength by training their muscles and pushing their physical reserves. In my homeland, we call that 'technique.'"

"Technique?" Killua turned the unfamiliar term over in his mind.

"Yes. Technique means methods and skills." Looking at him, Lin Yan continued, "But what I cultivate is the 'Dao.'"

Seeing the bewildered expression on Killua's face that all but said, Speak plain English, Lin Yan smiled and offered a more accessible explanation.

"Let me put it this way. Training your body is like modifying a car-fitting better tires, reinforcing the chassis, improving its performance and speed. But its core, the engine, stays the same."

"The engine?" Killua seemed to be starting to understand.

"Yes."

Lin Yan nodded, his voice taking on a peculiar guiding quality. "I'm not modifying the car. I'm trying to redesign, even rebuild, the 'engine' itself."

"Muscles age. Physical stamina has limits. The power you unleash will eventually run out. Those are all the limits of 'technique.'"

"But the 'Dao' I cultivate seeks a fundamental transformation of the 'engine' itself, allowing it to connect directly with all things in heaven and earth and draw endless energy from them."

Lin Yan paused, his gaze profound.

"I'm not training a single breath. I'm using that breath to ignite the most fundamental flame of life, ultimately reaching a state... beyond life's limits."

Immortality.

When Lin Yan lightly uttered that word, Killua's expression froze in astonishment for a moment.

"Huh?"

Killua scoffed, disbelief showing on his face. "Immortality? Are you kidding me? That's something you only find in fairy tales meant to fool little kids. You..."

Halfway through, his voice cut off abruptly.

He had remembered the sensation of every cell in his body rejoicing when he imitated that strange breathing earlier.

It hadn't been an adrenaline rush, but the tangible feeling of his very essence of life being nourished.

Everything he had been taught since childhood told him that life was finite, and strength had limits.

Even someone at the pinnacle of the world, like his grandfather Zeno Zoldyck, would eventually grow old and die.

Yet what Lin Yan was describing completely overturned his understanding of the world.

It wasn't simply about becoming stronger.

It was... an evolution to a higher level of life!