Zetsu X Nodes

Bang, bang-

A cracking sound suddenly rang out!

It came from the wheel in his hand.

In an instant, irregular cracks spread all over the Talisman Wheel.

The next moment!

With a bang, the wheel shattered completely and vanished.

Seeing this, Baishi, whose mental energy had instantly doubled and filled him with vigor thanks to [Spirit +1], was startled. He thought something had gone wrong with the wheel's evolution.

It hadn't been long since he'd given up on testing the wheel's material, yet it had already shattered and vanished on its own while evolving under its restriction.

Before he could show his disbelief:

[Talisman Wheel... restriction... evolution complete!]

[Wheel material: black iron]

[Next-stage evolution restriction: evolve from black iron to bronze...]

[Note: Due to restrictions forcibly imposed by the world's rules, triggering the wheel's next evolution requires filling all unsealed slots and using Advent Emulation to obtain the fourth Talisman...]

Buzz!

The wheel that had vanished a moment ago suddenly appeared in his consciousness. This time, however, it was no longer the crude gray-white stone wheel from before, but a finely crafted black iron wheel with a dark sheen.

On the front of the Talisman Wheel, which looked to be made of black iron, [Dynamic Simulation] remained set in the twelve o'clock slot, while the slots at one and two o'clock had both been unsealed!

The remaining slots were much the same as before, except that the stone blocking them had been replaced by iron.

In addition, a deep horizontal scratch resembling the character for "one" had appeared at the very center of the Talisman Wheel.

Baishi didn't know for now whether it had any other purpose, and the wheel hadn't given him any information about it after evolving. The changes to the spare slots on the back of the Talisman Wheel, however, surprised him a little.

The twenty-four slots, which had originally been arranged in a rather crude pattern, were now arranged in four groups of eight.

Simply put, all the slots had been divided into four rings from the inside out, with eight equally sized spare slots in each ring.

That's eight more spare slots than before... Tch! If only they'd been added to the front, so I wouldn't have to meet some evolution restriction to unseal them...

Shaking his head slightly and seeing no other changes to the black iron wheel, Baishi willed it into being by gathering Nen Aura in his hand and conjuring it.

The Talisman Wheel had reappeared without being activated. Baishi couldn't help feeling a little exasperated that he had to activate the Talismans manually every time. What was he supposed to do if something unexpected happened? The local world's rules really were too rude!

He channeled colorless Nen Aura from his fingertip into [Talisman: Dynamic Simulation]. In an instant, the talent boost that had vanished along with the wheel was restored to Baishi as it activated.

He then glanced at the two empty slots, flipped the black iron wheel over, removed the Talisman [Needle-Person Control] from a slot in the innermost ring, and set it into the one o'clock position on the front.

Buzz~

The ability Talisman activated, and the colorless Nen Aura instantly turned black and purple.

Hmm~~~

After carefully comparing the two, he found that, unlike the talent Talisman, which gave him an obvious boost, the Nen Ability Talisman seemed to boost his Nen Aura more.

He could only say that each had its own strengths and weaknesses.

Buzz~

As he played with the slightly cool black iron wheel, which seemed to have shrunk noticeably because of its evolution, Baishi quickly tested its various properties and functions.

As before, he could summon and dismiss it at will, and it still vanished after leaving his body. This time, however, it didn't disappear instantly; it gradually turned transparent and vanished after two or three seconds.

Next were its enlargement and shrinking functions. The effects were the same, but the Nen Aura they consumed had been cut in half.

Relatively speaking, that meant the wheel could grow twice as large for the same amount of Nen Aura as before!

As for the conspicuous scratch in the middle of the wheel, no matter how Baishi tested it, even feeding it a considerable amount of Nen Aura, he couldn't discover any special use for it.

Seeing this, he could only give up investigating the scratch for now and turn his attention to [Zetsu].

Whether using Advent Emulation on Talismans or testing the evolution, he had consumed quite a bit of Nen Aura. Relying on the passive recovery speed of [Ten] alone would clearly require a great deal of time to build it back up.

So, if he wanted to recover quickly, he had to make [Zetsu] a priority!

[Spirit] has risen to seven points, and my mental strength seems to have doubled. Does that mean I can control my Nen Aura better with the help of [Needle-Person Control]...?

Lost in thought, Baishi experimentally manipulated his black-and-purple Nen Aura, forming various numbers at the tip of his right index finger.

Buzz, buzz, buzz~

As the numbers formed from Nen Aura changed, a gleam of delight appeared in Baishi's eyes.

Compared with when he'd tried it out for Gon and the others at the warehouse, the precision of his Nen Aura control had clearly doubled. With the boost from [Needle-Person Control] in particular, not only could he control the size of the numbers well, but the speed at which they changed was vastly different from before.

[Zetsu]!

As one of the Four Major Principles fundamental to Nen training, [Zetsu] was a technique for stopping the loss of [Aura]. Simply put, it was used specifically to train the opening and closing of Aura Nodes throughout the body. The more Aura Nodes were closed, the more [Aura] was retained.

In the process of drawing in one's aura throughout the body, various passive effects naturally arose. Outwardly, isolating that aura steadily weakened one's presence until all the Aura Nodes in the body were closed and one's presence vanished completely.

Of course, this so-called presence had more to do with perception. If someone kept watching with their eyes, the disappearance of one's presence wouldn't make them completely unable to see the person. [Zetsu] didn't make a person transparent; their physical body could still be seen.

It also came with a major flaw: while using [Zetsu], one's ability to attack with Nen also fell close to zero.

The internal benefit was that it allowed [Aura] to accumulate and recover extremely quickly. After all, it stopped all [Aura] from leaking away, and [Aura] was life energy. As life energy rapidly replenished itself, physical and mental fatigue could naturally be healed as well.

Whew...

After adjusting his breathing and working out the general details based on his knowledge of the original story, Baishi didn't dwell on what the training techniques in this world were actually like now that it had become real. To him, any applied technique that worked at this stage was a good one.

Zetsu...

Calming his mind, Baishi used [Ten] to observe himself and focus, carefully sensing the circulating flow of Nen Aura as it wrapped around the inside and outside of his body.

[Ten] wasn't a fixed film of Aura like armor. Rather, as Nen Aura wrapped around him, it maintained a stable, dynamic circulation of Aura with the inside of his body.