Training etched into his bones

The fist imprint remained on the cold iron block, and like a seed, it took root in Lin Ye's heart. He clenched and unclenched his fist over and over, repeatedly guiding the faint aura inside him through his arms. Each success brought that familiar sensation of tightening and hardening. Though it lasted only a few seconds and covered an area no larger than his fist, it was already a qualitative breakthrough. He had finally crossed the threshold from nothing to something. Lin Ye did not rush things. He knew perfectly well that he had only just brushed the edge of Armament Haki. His reserves of aura were too small to sustain prolonged hardening, let alone use it in battle. There was only one way to turn Haki into real fighting power: train hard. From that day onward, Lin Ye doubled the intensity of his training. Before dawn, he strapped on weighted sandbags and ran ten kilometers through the mountains of garbage, building stamina and explosive strength. Meteor City's terrain was complex, littered with loose stones and discarded metal. Running through it trained not only his stamina but also his balance and awareness of his surroundings, making it a perfect fit for the foundations of Observation Haki. After his run came three hours of basic combat training: punches, kicks, throws, and defense. He repeated every movement thousands of times until it became muscle memory, so that even with his eyes closed and his body badly injured, he could execute the proper response. Afternoons were devoted to Haki training. For Armament Haki, he chose the crudest and most effective method-taking hits. He fashioned a makeshift punching bag from discarded rubber and metal, filled it with broken stones, and punched it every day. With every strike, he had to guide aura over his fist and hit the bag with his fist hardened. At first, he managed to coat only two or three punches out of ten with aura. After a few dozen punches, his aura was depleted and his fists were rubbed raw and bloody. But he never stopped. When the skin split, he wrapped his fists in scraps of cloth and kept punching. When his aura ran out, he sat down where he was and rested, feeling it slowly recover inside him, then resumed once it had returned. Besides hitting the punching bag, he deliberately sought out beatings. He found several street children who often wandered nearby and paid them in food to strike him with wooden clubs and steel pipes while he stood still and blocked with Armament Haki. At first, he often failed to stop the blows and ended up covered in injuries, but every injury made his control over aura a little more precise and deepened his understanding of Armament Haki. His Armament Haki was honed little by little through one beating and one injury after another. For Observation Haki, he drew on Meteor City's environment to find the method that suited him best. At night, Meteor City was full of danger and hidden enemies. Every evening, Lin Ye sat inside the air-raid shelter with his eyes closed, focusing all his attention on sensing the activity around him: the sound of wind blowing through garbage, rats scurrying past, the footsteps of street children in the distance, even bullets cutting through the air several kilometers away. He spread his awareness outward bit by bit like a net, catching every faint movement around him and anticipating possible dangers. At first, his perception reached only a dozen or so meters, and the slightest stray noise disrupted it. But as time passed, its range grew wider and its accuracy improved, expanding from a dozen meters to tens of meters, then hundreds. He could clearly sense stray dogs rummaging through garbage several hundred meters away and street children lying in ambush, waiting to rob someone. He could even vaguely sense their emotions-malice, fear, or greed. This was the embryonic form of Observation Haki, as well as the foundation of En, an advanced Nen technique in the Hunter world. En, however, perceived everything indiscriminately within a fixed range, whereas his Observation Haki was more flexible, more discreet, and less draining. Beyond Haki, Lin Ye had not neglected his training in the Six Powers. The first techniques he began practicing were Iron Body and Shave. The core of Iron Body was to tense every muscle in the body and concentrate strength to its utmost limit, making the body as hard as steel. It complemented Armament Haki perfectly. Every day, Lin Ye spent two hours practicing the foundations of Iron Body, repeatedly tensing his muscles and guiding aura over the surface of his body to harden it. At first, he could tense only his upper body, and it lasted less than three seconds. Even a little force could break through his defense. But as his Armament Haki improved, his control over aura grew more precise, and his Iron Body lasted longer and became harder. Eventually, an ordinary steel pipe striking him produced only a sharp clang and could not hurt him at all. Shave, meanwhile, was the most basic and practical movement technique among the Six Powers. Its central principle was to kick off the ground more than ten times in 0.36 seconds, using the instantaneous reaction force to move at extreme speed. It demanded tremendous explosive strength in the legs and instantaneous control over aura. At first, Lin Ye could not do it at all. His ten-year-old body lacked the leg strength to support such rapid steps, let alone release a burst of aura at the same instant to increase his speed. He practiced countless times and fell countless times, leaving his legs covered in bruises. At his fastest, he could strike the ground only six times in 0.36 seconds, nowhere near the threshold for Shave. But he did not give up. He strapped heavier weights to his legs and trained with squats, frog jumps, and kicks every day, relentlessly building his leg strength. At the same time, he incorporated the theory behind the Nen technique Ren into his Shave training-at the instant he kicked off the ground, he released a burst of aura through the soles of his feet, increasing the force and speed of each step. That broke through his bottleneck outright. One day, three months later, Lin Ye was practicing Shave as usual in the clearing outside the air-raid shelter. He focused all his attention, his leg muscles tensed in an instant, aura burst through his soles, and his feet hammered the ground. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud- The rapid series of footfalls came so fast they almost merged into a single sound. The next second, Lin Ye vanished from his spot. When he reappeared, he was already ten meters away. Moving too fast to keep his balance, he crashed hard into a garbage heap and ended up covered in filth, but a wildly delighted smile spread across his face. He had succeeded. He had finally used Shave. The distance was short, his speed was still far below the standard of the Six Powers, and afterward his leg muscles ached so badly he could barely lift them, but he had truly done it. It meant that his martial prowess had finally entered an entirely new realm. The days passed, and before he knew it, half a year had gone by since Lin Ye arrived in Meteor City from another world. In those six months, he had gone from a dying ten-year-old child to a formidable fighter who had secured his place in these mountains of garbage. He had grown considerably taller, his body had become strong and sturdy, and his eight years of kickboxing experience had fully integrated into this body. His Armament Haki could now cover his arms and legs completely and last for more than a minute. Ordinary steel pipes and machetes could not penetrate his defenses. His Observation Haki could cover a radius of one kilometer, allowing him to anticipate approaching danger. He had mastered Iron Body and Shave from the Six Powers. Iron Body could harden his entire body, letting him take full-force blows from steel pipes head-on. Shave could carry him twenty meters in an instant, allowing him to dodge an opponent's attacks with ease, circle behind them, and launch a surprise strike. No one in these mountains of garbage was his match anymore. The street children who had once bullied him or tried to steal his belongings now kept their distance whenever they saw him, not even daring to raise their heads. Quite a few even wanted to follow him and make him their leader, but he turned them all down. In Meteor City, bonds were a luxury-and a weakness. He still lacked the ability to protect others. Rather than lead a group and bring endless trouble upon himself, he was better off alone, focused on training and growing stronger. But he also knew that standing out made him a target. His growing reputation in these mountains of garbage would inevitably attract bigger trouble. Meteor City was full of gangs and Nen users. His current strength put him at the top among ordinary street children, but against the truly ruthless fighters, he was still nowhere near enough. He had to grow stronger faster. Lin Ye raised the intensity of his training another notch. He began attempting two more techniques from the Six Powers: Kami-e and Finger Pistol. Combined with Observation Haki, Kami-e could provide the ultimate in evasion; combined with Armament Haki, Finger Pistol could deliver the ultimate concentrated piercing strike. Both were extremely powerful killing moves in actual combat. But trouble arrived sooner than he expected. That afternoon, Lin Ye was searching the mountains of garbage for edible food when his Observation Haki suddenly detected three intense sources of malice closing in on him from three directions. Three grown men, reeking of blood and radiating murderous intent, approached him step by step, each carrying a weapon. Their leader was nearly two meters tall, with a scar running from his forehead to his chin. He held a steel pipe as thick as a wrist and stared fixedly at Lin Ye with the eyes of a vicious wolf. "You're the brat who killed our brother on this turf?" The man's voice was hoarse and cold, thick with killing intent. Lin Ye slowly stopped walking and tightened his grip on the dagger in his hand, his gaze turning cold in an instant. He knew a battle to the death was now unavoidable.