Menchi's whole roast pig

The finish line for the second phase of the exam lay in a clearing surrounded by towering cedars.

Sunlight filtered through gaps in the canopy, dispelling the swamp's damp chill.

Satotz stood behind the finish line, smiling at the candidates as they arrived.

"Congratulations, everyone. You've successfully made it through Swindler's Swamp."

Lin Yan, Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio crossed the line together with barely a moment to spare.

"Hah... hah..."

The instant he crossed the line, Leorio collapsed onto the muddy ground as though his spine had been pulled out. His throat wheezed like a pair of bellows, and he couldn't get back up.

"Finally... finally made it..."

He gasped for breath, feeling as though he'd left half his life in the mist behind him.

Lin Yan wasn't doing much better.

He leaned against a massive cedar, using the rough bark to support his body as he struggled to settle the blood and energy surging inside him.

Imitating Satotz's "Silent Step" had helped him hold out until the end, but such an intensive technique placed an enormous strain on his body, especially his mind.

All he wanted now was to lie down and sleep for three days and nights.

As he adjusted his breathing, he quietly turned his awareness inward, sensing the changes within his body.

After being pushed to its limits and consciously guided, that strand of qi seemed to have grown more concentrated.

It flowed slowly through his meridians, but steadily and powerfully, like a small stream beginning to take shape, nourishing his depleted limbs.

"Hey, Lin Yan, are you okay?"

Kurapika handed him a water flask, curiosity in his eyes. "The way you ran got really strange in the second half."

"I'm fine."

Lin Yan took the flask and drank deeply, bringing a little color back to his cracked lips.

He pointed at Satotz in the distance and gave a wry smile. "I tried following the examiner's rhythm. Almost snapped my ankle."

Killua raised an eyebrow at that, glanced at Satotz nearby, then turned back to Lin Yan, looking thoughtful.

Of course he'd noticed Satotz's distinctive footwork too.

But he knew perfectly well that a technique like that required tremendous bodily control and coordination. It wasn't something anyone could learn overnight.

Yet Lin Yan had picked it up on the fly while teetering on the brink of exhaustion-and apparently even begun to get the hang of it?

Just how many secrets was this guy hiding inside his body?

Just then, an enormous rumbling sound interrupted everyone's thoughts.

It came from a man built like a small mountain, standing beneath a huge tent ahead.

He had a purple mohawk and an affable expression as he rubbed his stomach, which kept protesting.

Beside him stood a stunning blue-haired woman with a voluptuous figure and a skimpy outfit.

Her hands rested on her hips as she impatiently watched the late-arriving candidates.

"Ah, I'm so hungry."

The burly man, Buhara, spoke in a deep, muffled voice.

"Seriously, you're hungry again, Buhara?"

The blue-haired woman-Menchi-gave him an exasperated look.

Then she cleared her throat and loudly announced to all the candidates, "Welcome to the second phase of the exam! I'm your head examiner, the Gourmet Hunter Menchi!"

She pointed to the burly man beside her. "This is the assistant examiner, Buhara. He's also a Gourmet Hunter."

Gourmet Hunters?

The candidates exchanged looks, and whispers rippled through the crowd.

"The second phase will test your..."

Menchi's lips curled into a mischievous smile. "Cooking!"

Cooking?

The word struck like a blunt hammer, leaving most of the candidates stunned.

They were desperadoes, fighters, and assassins.

They'd come here in pursuit of thrills and power. Who knew how to cook?

"Are you kidding me? We're here to become Hunters, not cooks!"

A brutish-looking candidate immediately stepped forward and roared.

Menchi's expression visibly darkened.

"What did you just say? Do you have a problem with Gourmet Hunters?"

Several kitchen knives had appeared in her hands, their blades gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

"Hunters have to challenge all kinds of unknown beasts. If we're going to challenge them, then tasting them is only natural, isn't it?"

At her undisguised bloodlust, the shouting candidate's throat tightened. Like a chicken caught by the neck, he instantly fell silent.

Buhara gave his belly a timely pat and announced loudly, "Then your task for this exam is cooking! Every candidate here must make a whole roast pig that satisfies both examiners!"

"Your ingredient will be the Great Stamps that live in this forest!"

As his words fell, savage snorting rose from deep within the forest, and even the ground trembled slightly.

"Great Stamps are the fiercest pigs in the world. Their huge noses can easily smash trees, and they're their toughest weapons," Buhara added, a sly glint in his eyes. "But they have one weakness-the poorly protected forehead behind the nose."

Though most candidates were unhappy, they could only steel themselves and charge into the forest.

"Roast pig? That sounds fun!" Gon was brimming with enthusiasm.

"Tch, what a pain." Killua pursed his lips and followed with his hands in his pockets.

Lin Yan and the other four joined the crowd.

Dealing with Great Stamps wasn't difficult. They only needed to avoid those iron-hard noses and attack the forehead.

Soon, squeals of agony and the candidates' cheers rang through the forest.

Working seamlessly together, Gon and Killua easily took one down.

Kurapika and Leorio joined forces to kill another.

Lin Yan acted alone.

His stamina still hadn't recovered, so facing one head-on like the others was out of the question.

He closed his eyes and slowly gathered the faint strand of qi within him into the meridians around his ears.

He activated Listening to the Breath.

He filtered out the noisy footsteps and soon locked onto the heavy breathing of a lone Great Stamp.

He didn't rush to attack.

Using the rudiments of "Silent Step" he'd just learned, he slipped soundlessly into a blind spot beside the pig.

The pig was rooting through the earth with its enormous nose, searching for food beneath the tree roots, completely oblivious.

He followed the pull of its energy-now!

Lin Yan picked up a fist-sized stone and channeled his scant remaining qi into the meridians of his arm.

"Go!"

The stone whistled through the air and struck precisely in the hollow of the pig's hind-leg joint!

"Squeal!"

The Great Stamp cried out in agony. One hind leg immediately failed it, and its enormous body lost balance and crashed to the ground.

It struggled frantically to rise, its huge nose striking wildly at the mud with dull thuds.

Only then did Lin Yan approach at an unhurried pace.

Holding another sharp-edged stone, he avoided the threatening, rock-hard snout and drove the stone into the center of its exposed, defenseless forehead with steady, ruthless precision.

Squch.

The fight was over.

Clean and efficient, without wasting a scrap of extra stamina.

"Phew..."

Lin Yan let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

Though he'd only fought a wild pig, he had already begun consciously combining the Daoist theories he'd learned with this world's methods of combat.

Overcoming strength with weakness, defeating brute force with skill.

That was the path he needed to take.

Yet when the candidates excitedly presented their roasted pigs to the two examiners, reality dealt them a crushing blow.

"Disgusting!"

"Too tough!"

"This isn't even cooked!"

Buhara accepted everything, devoured every roast pig, and gave them all a passing grade.

Menchi, on the other hand, failed every dish.

"You people don't understand the essence of cooking at all! All you do is roast, roast, roast! Burned black outside and still raw inside-how can you call this cooking?"

Menchi angrily knocked the final roast pig to the ground. The shattering plate sounded painfully sharp.

"Everyone fails!"

Those two words plunged the entire clearing into deathly silence.

"Are you kidding us?"

"We worked our asses off catching those pigs! What gives you the right to fail us?"

"Exactly! Buhara passed us!"

The candidates' anger flared, and a fight looked ready to erupt.

Lin Yan stood at the back of the crowd, silently watching it all.

Of course he knew where the problem lay.

Attitude.

And their contempt for good food.

As a Gourmet Hunter, Menchi wanted something worthy of being called a dish, something imbued with the cook's care and skill-not mere feed made by cooking meat through.

But these candidates looked down on cooks from the bottom of their hearts, and their arrogance had thoroughly enraged Menchi. She was no longer just an examiner, but an artisan who felt insulted. With her so fixated on the issue, no one was likely to pass, no matter what they served.

Should I step forward?

The thought flashed through his mind, but he immediately rejected it.

No.

Showing off now would be stupid.

His current strength was nowhere near enough to handle an enraged starred Hunter.

Besides, he remembered clearly that this stalemate wouldn't last long. That old man would arrive any moment.

The chairman of the Hunter Association would personally clean up this mess.

All he needed to do was be a good spectator.

Sure enough, just as one candidate could no longer resist attacking Menchi, an utterly terrifying pressure descended from above.

Boom!

Dust billowed everywhere.

A short old man wearing wooden clogs and sporting a long beard dropped like a meteor, blasting a huge crater into the ground.

Isaac Netero, chairman of the Hunter Association.

"Ho ho ho, Menchi. It seems you've stumped all of this year's candidates."

Netero stroked his beard and spoke with a chuckle.

Seeing the chairman himself arrive, Menchi immediately lost half her bluster.

Feeling somewhat wronged, she explained what had happened, admitting that the candidates' insults toward Gourmet Hunters had made her lose control and compromised her judgment.

After listening, Netero nodded, his gaze profound. "Yes, I understand. Respect for cooking is respect for life. Still, failing everyone because of an examiner's personal feelings is rather too harsh."

"How about this? Since the previous task is void, why don't you give them a new one and demonstrate it yourself?"

"A demonstration?"

Menchi's eyes lit up. She took a deep breath to compose herself. "Good idea! In that case, let's settle this with that!"

And so, with Netero's mediation, the final task for the second phase became "boiled eggs."

Of course, they weren't ordinary boiled eggs.

They had to descend into a gorge to retrieve Spider Eagle eggs.

Everyone traveled to the exam site aboard the Hunter Association's airship.

Fierce winds howled.

Countless Spider Eagles nested on the sheer cliffs. Their nests hung between the cliffs on tough strands of spider silk, swaying in the wind.

Menchi leaped without hesitation.

Catching a strand of silk, she swung between the cliffs as though riding a swing, easily retrieved an egg, then used her momentum to jump back aboard the airship.

The entire sequence flowed effortlessly, leaving every candidate staring in shock, their breathing catching.

"Did you see that? That's what a Gourmet Hunter does!" Menchi proudly held up the egg.

Most of the candidates were scared out of their wits, their legs turning weak.

But those four daredevils-Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio-jumped after her without hesitation.

Lin Yan stood at the edge of the airship, looking into the vast abyss below as the fierce wind slashed at his face.

Fear stirred in his heart too.

He knew he'd be safe as long as he caught the silk.

But knowing was one thing. Actually jumping still took enormous courage.

"Phew..."

He drew a deep breath and forcibly circulated his qi, suppressing his stray thoughts and fear.

Fixing his sights on a thick strand of silk, he closed his eyes and leaped.

Weightlessness struck him abruptly, and his heart felt ready to leap out of his throat.

The wind shrieked in his ears.

He clung desperately to the spider silk, his body swaying violently in midair.

Steady! Stay steady!

"If one can always dispel desire, the heart will quiet itself..."

He forced himself to calm down and began adjusting his center of gravity, swinging on the spider silk as Kurapika had.

Soon, he too managed to retrieve a Spider Eagle egg.

When everyone returned to the Airship with their spoils and began enjoying the delicious boiled eggs, Lin Yan did not join them.

He found a corner by a window and sat down alone.

This exam had once again made him realize how weak he was.

Whether faced with Menchi's fury or Chairman Netero's unfathomable aura, as deep as an abyss and as vast as the sea.

He was like an ant that could be crushed at any moment.

Knowing the plot could not guarantee his safety.

Only strength.

Only strength in my own hands is something I can truly rely on.

The Airship flew steadily toward the venue for the third test.

This was a rare stretch of rest in complete safety.

I can't wait any longer.

Lin Yan watched the clouds race past the window, his gaze hardening with unwavering resolve, as though a fire burned deep within his eyes.

He would use this time to take the most important step since coming to this world.

Foundation Establishment!