Gon's Innate Dao Body

Just as Killua and Lin Yan's conversation drew to a close and the stone chamber fell silent again, an almost imperceptible change came from the corner.

Gon had been sleeping soundly, his breathing even, but without anyone noticing, that steady rhythm began to change.

It became like Lin Yan's: deep, long, and slow.

He lay curled in the corner like a small animal in hibernation, his body rising and falling with each breath in a natural rhythm that blended seamlessly with his surroundings.

"Hm?"

Lin Yan noticed the unusual fluctuation almost immediately.

He whipped his head around and looked at Gon, his eyes startlingly bright in the darkness.

Rather than looking with his eyes, he sank his awareness into his dantian and activated the little divine sense he had just recovered-his Qi Observation Technique-extending it over Gon.

The next instant, Lin Yan's breath caught.

Through his Qi Observation, Gon no longer looked like an ordinary person.

An ordinary person's body was like a sieve leaking everywhere, its life energy constantly spilling out.

Gon was the exact opposite.

The life energy that had been radiating from him-the "Nen" of this world-was now perfectly contained within his body by that strange breathing rhythm. His energy flowed in a seamless internal cycle without a single leak.

He looked like a flawless piece of lustrous ancient jade, radiating a soft yet profound white light.

What stunned Lin Yan most was that the faint traces of natural energy drifting through the surrounding air seemed drawn toward Gon by some kind of pure magnetic field.

Like birds returning to their nests, they flocked joyfully to the surface of Gon's skin, quietly nourishing his essence, energy, and spirit.

These energies circulated naturally along some mysterious course, strengthening every part of his body.

The entire process was perfectly harmonious, as instinctive as breathing or a heartbeat.

He did not even need to painstakingly guide and circulate them the way Lin Yan did.

His body was born knowing how to coexist with this world.

"This... this is..."

Lin Yan was shaken to his core.

He recalled a legendary constitution recorded in Taoist texts-the innate Dao body.

Born in harmony with the Dao, such people could cultivate without practicing and understand without learning. Their very existence embodied the highest principle: "The Dao follows nature."

They were truly heaven's chosen, the children it favored most.

Their cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds, with no bottlenecks to speak of.

Lin Yan had always thought this was merely a beautiful fantasy of the ancients.

But now, he had seen it with his own eyes.

Gon possessed just such an "innate Dao body"!

His seemingly carefree nature, his heart without a trace of impurity, his animal-like instincts-everything about him aligned perfectly with the essence of the Dao.

Looking back at himself, Lin Yan could not help feeling a pang of bitterness.

He possessed cultivation theories far beyond this era, but he had only awakened his internal breath thanks to the benefits of crossing worlds. Then, with a little luck, he had condensed his "dantian embryo" under the pressure of Hisoka's killing intent.

Put plainly, he was still an ordinary person with mediocre aptitude who had to advance one step at a time.

And Gon?

He needed to do nothing. As long as he ate, slept, and played, the energy of heaven and earth would come flocking to him.

His body was like a vast ocean constantly expanding itself-that terrifying accumulation "without cultivation" had already given him enough resources to tower above everyone else at the starting line.

At that moment, a powerful, indescribable sense of urgency surged through Lin Yan.

He had always believed his greatest advantage was the knowledge from another world in his head. Only now did he understand how pale and powerless knowledge could sometimes seem before true "talent."

It was like being a cook with the finest recipes, but only a battered pot and a dull knife to work with.

Gon, meanwhile, had been born with a complete set of top-class cookware. Even if all he knew how to make was a plain boiled egg, it would taste better than the exquisite delicacies Lin Yan painstakingly prepared.

I can't afford to slack off anymore.

Lin Yan told himself.

I have to work harder. I have to devote every moment to cultivation if I want any chance of catching up to, or even surpassing, this... monstrous talent.

Rather than discouraging him, this realization only fueled his fighting spirit.

He was already defying heaven, pursuing the elusive great path to "immortality."

This road had always been fraught with hardship and danger. If merely seeing someone else's talent made him want to retreat, what right did he have to cultivate the Dao?

Lin Yan slowly withdrew his divine sense and closed his eyes again, sinking his awareness fully into his dantian.

He shut out everything around him and focused all his attention on that dim dantian embryo.

The dantian embryo was his Dao foundation, his "battered pot."

What he needed to do now was use every ounce of his concentration and will to polish and nurture it, gradually turning that "battered pot" into a "precious cauldron" capable of producing peerless delicacies!

Just as Lin Yan entered samadhi again, Killua noticed something unusual about Gon.

"Hey, Gon..."

Killua leaned over and held a hand beneath Gon's nose.

That deep, long, steady breathing made his eyelid twitch.

"What's going on? How does he know that weird breathing method of yours too?" Killua asked quietly, looking back at Lin Yan.

Without opening his eyes, Lin Yan replied calmly, "He isn't copying me. He was born knowing how."

"Born knowing how?"

Killua froze. He looked at the soundly sleeping Gon, then at the motionless Lin Yan, his thoughts growing even more tangled.

One relied on painstaking training, the other on inborn instinct.

What kind of monsters were these two?

Killua felt as though his entire understanding of the world had been shattered, pieced back together, and shattered again over the course of this single night.

As he watched Gon's utterly unguarded sleeping face, a complicated emotion flickered in his eyes.

As the Zoldyck Family's once-in-a-century genius, he was used to looking down on his peers. Even with Gon, he had always been certain of his absolute superiority in strength.

But now, watching Gon's almost "inhuman" breathing rhythm, Killua felt a chill rise up his spine for the first time.

It was not a difference in strength, but something more fundamental: the boundary between a "monster" and a "human."

He had thought that as long as he never let up, he could always stay ahead, pulling this radiant friend along as they ran.

Only now did he realize that the abyss called "talent" behind Gon was closing the distance between them at an utterly unreasonable speed.

So there really were people in this world who had no need for the stepping stone called "effort."

So the gap between people really was decided from the moment they were born.

No, that wasn't right.

He looked at Lin Yan again.

Lin Yan's aptitude was certainly inferior to Gon's, and perhaps even his own. Yet with a complete system of theory and unwavering resolve, he had forced open an entirely new path with limitless potential.

Could talent really decide everything, then?

Killua did not know.

All he knew was that something beyond his understanding, yet vitally important, was happening inside this small, dark stone chamber.

He did not want to be left behind.

Taking a deep breath, he followed Lin Yan's example and settled into a cross-legged position again.

He closed his eyes and focused all his attention on his breathing.

He had neither Lin Yan's systematic theory nor Gon's innate affinity.

All he had was his refusal to lose and the absolute control over his body honed through his life as an assassin.

If breathing can change my state, then I'll train until even my breath becomes a weapon.

For a time, a strange stillness settled over the entire stone chamber.