Water Divination X Identification Method

Baishi looked around.

Not a single examinee who should have been fishing by the river was in sight.

Once the test is over, I need to get a phone or a watch...

Baishi was a little unsure how much time Advent Emulation and his recovery had taken. His brow furrowed slightly, then slowly relaxed.

With Menchi's personality, there's no way it'll end that quickly, but I need to complete Leorio's weighting task as soon as possible. If it expires because the test ends, it won't be worth it...

With that thought,

Baishi walked to the riverbank and looked down at the rushing water.

His sharp eyes easily picked out the many kinds of fish swimming freely in the water, but most were strangely shaped species he had never seen before.

There were blue carp with squid tentacles, barrel-shaped, pitch-black pupil snailfish with a ring of fish eyes, rat eels with rat heads and eel bodies, and ugly triangular fish covered in shells and sporting triangular shellfish...

Even the fish in the Hunter world looked so distinctive?

After looking at them strangely for a while, Baishi extended and retracted the highly elastic rubber Nen Aura at his fingertip. Once he had picked a target, he shot the Nen gum from his fingertip at great speed.

Whoosh! Smack...

The instant the rubber Nen Aura struck the water's surface, it abruptly stopped.

Just as he thought...

Baishi, who had already anticipated this result, wore a thoughtful look of understanding.

As an Advent Emulation Talisman seed, or an ability's shadow, Talisman - Bungee Gum possessed the elasticity of rubber and the stickiness of gum, whether he was proficient with it or not. Its penetrating power was sorely lacking.

The defining feature of Transmutation was changing the properties and form of Aura, but no matter how it changed, it remained in a state of energy.

The drawback was that Nen Aura couldn't leave the body. Just like Bungee Gum, which could freely stretch and extend thanks to its rubber properties, but would still snap on its own once it exceeded ten meters.

"But I do have a cheat, after all..."

The corners of Baishi's mouth curled up slightly. He bent down and picked up several stones, first sticking them to rubber Nen Aura, then activating Needle-Person Control's penetrating property and wrapping it around them. He picked a fish as his target and flicked his right hand forward.

Whoosh! Pfft!

In an instant, a stone pierced straight through the brain of an arm-length, arrow-shaped black fish. Then, with a slight thought from Baishi, the rubber Nen Aura attached to the stone transferred over and stuck to the fish's body.

Splash!

The Nen Aura retracted, pulling the black fish straight back!

Baishi repeated the process more than ten times, using different amounts of force to catch different fish. Apart from the first few, he was largely able to wound rather than kill them through deliberate control.

That should be enough...

Holding the desperately struggling fish bound with sticky rubber Nen Aura, Baishi chuckled and prepared to head back.

However, he had only taken a few steps

when a rough wooden cup with its interior hollowed out caught his attention beside the river.

Whoosh! He shot out Nen Aura to stick to it and pull it back. Baishi glanced at the fairly clear river and, since he was already there, decided to try the Water Divination test he had long been looking forward to.

Because the wheel was conjured, he had judged himself to be a Conjuration type, but the information from his self-Analysis had never shown anything related to it.

That had made him quite curious.

Perhaps... the result would be different?

With a hint of anticipation for the unknown, Baishi looked down and carefully examined the palm-sized wooden cup. It was very rough, as though it had been cut and carved with a blade from a piece of deadwood picked up at random. There were also distinct scratches inside the rim.

They always used glass cups in the original. A wooden cup shouldn't make much difference, right?

As he pondered, Baishi found a reasonably thin stone flake on the ground and wrapped it in Shu to sharpen its edge. He then used it to roughly shave down the inside and outside of the wooden cup.

Once he had worked on it until it wouldn't cause too much expenditure when Nen Aura penetrated it, he scooped a cup of clear water from the river.

Then he found a relatively clean rock and sat down, placing the cup in front of him and a leaf on the water's surface. He held his hands on either side of the cup and sent as much Nen Aura as he could into the water.

Gradually, tiny black crystals appeared inside the cup.

The crystals were round like the wheel, with a few octagonal ones mixed in.

Tsk~

It really was Conjuration alone.

Seeing no further changes in the cup, Baishi shook his head slightly. It really was disappointing when an unknown result turned out just as expected.

What a pity...

He had originally thought that if he had a different type, he could use it to develop a Nen Ability of his own.

Now that he had confirmed he only had the Conjuration attribute, even if he wanted to develop a Nen Ability, it would be best to use it to fill gaps in the wheel's capabilities and make them even better.

Otherwise, if he developed one he couldn't use, all it would do in the end was take up memory space in his brain!

Sigh...

Baishi sighed softly and slowly rose to leave, feeling a little disappointed. The dozen or so fish still stuck to his Nen Aura were pulled up with him.

But that very action made Baishi pause. After a moment's thought, he sat back down.

If I remember correctly, I did the test with the wheel active... What if I put it away?

As soon as he thought of it, the conjured wheel that had been stuck to the back of his hand vanished.

Thud, thud, thud~~

The dozen or so fish fell all over the ground, thrashing and flopping about.

Paying them no attention, Baishi focused entirely on the transparent Nen Aura wrapped around his body. Without dwelling on guesses, he placed his hands on either side of the cup again, and the transparent Nen Aura directly covered and penetrated it.

Hm?!

Why wasn't anything changing?

He continued sending Nen Aura into the cup, but the clear water showed no change. A trace of confusion flashed in Baishi's eyes as he tried to recall how Water Divination distinguished the six types.

First, he ruled out Conjuration, which he had already tested and which produced crystals. Enhancement directly increased the amount of water, Emission changed its color, Manipulation moved the leaf, Transmutation changed the water's taste, and the most unusual type, Specialization, produced a phenomenon different from those of the other five.

In other words... without the wheel conjured, my Nen type is fundamentally Transmutation?

A hint of surprise appeared in his eyes. Baishi stopped feeding in Nen Aura, dipped a finger lightly into the water, then put it in his mouth and touched it to the tip of his tongue.

It had a rich sweetness like a combination of chocolate and honey, with a faintly cool aftertaste.

So sweet...

That wouldn't affect his later development of Nen Abilities, would it?

Baishi rubbed his chin, then rose and stretched, pleased by the unexpected discovery.

His original type was fundamentally Transmutation, but after he conjured the Talisman Wheel, it would be overwritten with Conjuration.

Oh, right...

Suddenly remembering that he hadn't tested Scarlet Eyes, Baishi stopped halfway through his stretch and quickly conjured the wheel. He removed Extensive Knowledge and Strong Memory, replacing it with Scarlet Eyes and activating it.

Hum~

As deep purple Nen Aura penetrated the clear water, tiny wheel-shaped crystals gradually formed at the bottom of the cup, just as before.

This time, however, the changes didn't stop immediately.

As the crystals formed, the leaf floating on the water's surface turned a vivid red, as though stained scarlet. It looked like a blazing flame, coloring all the clear water in the cup the same shade.

Seeing this, Baishi calmly and rationally extended a finger, dipped it in the water, and tasted it again.

I see... During the first test, it wasn't that there were no changes apart from the crystals. The water's taste must have gradually changed, but I didn't try it then...

And there's the Specialization change from Scarlet Eyes...

Counting them carefully,

he currently had three types: Transmutation, the wheel's Conjuration, and the Talisman's temporary Specialization!

It looked complicated, but each had its corresponding use.

There's no need to rush a Transmutation Nen Ability right now. I'll think it over carefully before deciding whether to develop an ability linked to the wheel or an independent Nen Ability...

His absolutely rational thinking kept Baishi in a state of constant, calm analysis. Thus, after quickly analyzing what he needed, he calmly removed Scarlet Eyes and accepted the emotions it had suppressed and controlled once more.

Click, click!

After rearranging the Talismans on the front of the wheel, Baishi returned to normal. Hisoka's figure flashed through his mind, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

"The longer this drags on, the less certain it is who'll come out on top, Hisoka..."

Before the words had faded,

strands of rubber Nen Aura had silently stuck to the strange fish scattered around him.

Tap, tap, tap, swish, swish, swish~