Plan Three X Catch-up Lesson X Four Major Principles

The winner had been decided, and so had life and death.

The loser could rest now, but the living still had to keep working to stay alive.

Qi Zhou turned around.

He walked over to Bayer, whose fate was still unknown, and bent down to check on him.

The bullet hadn't hit a vital spot, so he was still alive.

"Wennide," Qi Zhou called. "Come see what we should do with him."

A moment later.

Wennide dug the bullet out of Bayer's shoulder with extreme roughness, then tore Bayer's clothes into strips and tied them tightly around the wound. That was the extent of the treatment.

Staring at the unconscious Bayer, Qi Zhou asked in a deeply skeptical tone, "We're just leaving him here? Will he be all right?"

Wennide stood up and spread his hands. "We don't have any medical supplies. This is all we can do for an injury. Once I'm back, I'll have his men come and carry him home, but if he dies before then, there's nothing we can do."

Qi Zhou: "..."

Even if Wennide had medical supplies, he wouldn't have brought them out to use, would he?

"...But to think you actually killed Vincent just like that," Wennide murmured. "It's... hard to imagine."

Qi Zhou didn't respond to his remark. He slowly raised his hand, as if he could still feel the warm, sticky blood running over his fingertips.

He shook his head and gathered his thoughts. "What now? Are you going back to find people to take over Vincent's territory?"

Wennide froze at Qi Zhou's words. He abruptly looked up and stared at him as though startled. A moment later, the surprise and hesitation that had been deeply rooted in his eyes vanished completely.

He gave a low chuckle, tinged with both mockery and relief.

He had suddenly realized that he was no longer the meek little boss he'd been before. He no longer had to hand his credit and territory over to others.

Qi Zhou had no mind to pay attention to what Wennide was thinking. He said slowly, "If there's nothing else, let's head back first. Anyway... your men are gone too, so you can't do anything."

Wennide nodded and picked up the sword that had belonged to the red-haired man, Vincent, as well as the submachine gun lying in the corner. After asking Qi Zhou if he wanted them and receiving a refusal, he put them away.

In the Meteor Realm, firearms and ammunition were even more precious than gold.

Weren't those weapons, which could make them stronger, help them live longer, rise higher, and sleep more soundly, the very reason the small gangs fought one another?

After escorting Wennide back to his base, Qi Zhou couldn't be bothered to interfere in what followed. He watched Wennide for a while, and once he saw that he was all right, he returned to the garbage mountain in whatever district it was.

Sitting in the garbage den, Qi Zhou silently trained his Ten while waiting for someone to come back and take him to his catch-up lesson.

Night fell.

A hand pushed aside the plastic barrel blocking the entrance to the garbage den, and A-Wu appeared in the doorway.

"You're back?" Qi Zhou turned to look at him and smiled. "How'd it go?"

"Same as usual." A-Wu tossed something at him. Qi Zhou caught it and saw that it was a battered cell phone.

Qi Zhou examined the phone from every angle in surprise. It was the first thing he'd encountered in this world that could be considered high-tech.

Although both the flip cover and the body were badly damaged, the screen lit up when he opened it and pressed the power button.

"Impressive!" He looked up at A-Wu in surprise. "Where did you get it?"

"Someone threw it away. I had someone fix it. The number keys barely work, but I had my number entered into it," A-Wu said calmly. "If you select my number and call directly, I might be able to pick up if you're lucky."

Qi Zhou said, "Oh," and continued fiddling with the phone. It couldn't compare to the touchscreen phone he'd had in his previous life, but it still made him very happy. Perhaps it was because the phone gave him the same sense of familiarity as his previous world.

"Hey, have you never seen a cell phone before?" A-Wu had been waiting at the entrance for quite a while. Staring at Qi Zhou, who was focused entirely on his new toy, he called out helplessly, "Let's go, Buke. The person I arranged to meet is already waiting for us."

Qi Zhou, having been looked down on, shrugged, stuffed the phone into his pocket, and stood up. "Then let's go."

The two of them moved stealthily, leaping between the garbage mountains. In just over ten minutes, they crossed all of District Nine and arrived at the other end of the garbage mountains.

Whoosh, whoosh.

A-Wu stopped, and Qi Zhou stopped beside him. About twenty meters away, a man stood atop a garbage mountain.

The man had a square face and a sturdy build. He watched Qi Zhou, who stood beside A-Wu, warily, but after A-Wu gave him a look, the emotion in his eyes eased slightly.

"This is Weisite. You've met him, but you probably don't remember," A-Wu introduced him to Qi Zhou.

Qi Zhou looked him over and nodded. He might have been the person who had ambushed him with someone else on the garbage mountain, but that person had worn protective gear to hide his identity, so Qi Zhou didn't remember much about him.

"Let's skip the unrelated stuff and get straight to it." A-Wu looked at the man again.

"Neither of us even counts as a beginner yet, so sorry for the trouble, but please explain it from the beginning."

Black lines appeared on Qi Zhou's face at A-Wu's assessment, but he obediently kept quiet. A poor student who needed remedial lessons wasn't qualified to argue.

Weisite, meanwhile, also looked at them oddly.

He couldn't understand how someone who didn't even count as a beginner had introduced someone else to Nen, but he knew better than to ask.

He said slowly, "All right, then I'll start from the beginning."

After pausing to consider how to explain it, Weisite raised his hand and released his Nen, gathering it in his palm. "Every living being gives off a small amount of life energy, but most people let it leak away without realizing it. We generally call this energy 'aura.'"

He said softly, "'Nen' is the ability to freely manipulate the aura emitted from the human body and use it to attack and defend."

"Normally, learning Nen takes years of training, but in Meteor City, almost no one learns it that way."

A-Wu scoffed. "More precisely, if you took it slow, you wouldn't live long enough to learn it, would you?"

"That's one reason, but even outside, it's quite difficult for someone who knows nothing about Nen to learn it. Without guidance, they might never find a way in their entire life, let alone in a place like Meteor City."

Qi Zhou: "..."

That was true. If someone here learned Nen, there was no way they'd be kind enough to teach someone else. No one knew whether, at some point, some conflicting interest might turn two friends into enemies in an instant.

People here never believed in "trust."

Weisite paused for a moment, then continued, "So, generally speaking, most of us learned Nen because we'd been attacked with it before, forcing the Aura Nodes in our bodies open."

He silently studied the two children standing across from him, looking thoughtful. "But with this method, if the person subjected to the Nen attack can't get their Nen under control in less than five minutes, they'll soon die from exhausting their life force. Even if they don't die, the tremendous strain the Nen pressure puts on their body will leave them disabled."

Qi Zhou broke out in a cold sweat. He turned to A-Wu and said, half joking and half reflective, "So, someone really was lucky to survive."

A-Wu remained calm and expressionless. "You flatter me."

Weisite: "..."

He fell silent for a moment, then said, "Next, I'll briefly introduce the basics of Nen, the four major principles."

He raised his hand. "You've already learned Nen, so you can try them as I explain."

"First is 'Ten,' the most basic technique for using Nen. Wrapping the aura from your entire body around its surface and maintaining it steadily and continuously is called Ten."

After explaining Ten, Weisite paused for a moment.

Qi Zhou's and A-Wu's expressions changed instantly.

In their perception, the man clearly standing opposite them had, in the space of a breath, become almost impossible to notice. He was standing right there, yet they unconsciously overlooked him.

"Next is 'Zetsu,'" his voice came. "You draw your aura back into your body and erase your presence. During this time, your body's defenses against Nen are practically nonexistent, but at the same time, your presence is harder for others to notice."

Qi Zhou frowned and thought, So this technique is called Zetsu?

He had used this technique on the night he fought Kelirui. He had used Zetsu and Kelirui's arrogance to deceive him and kill him, allowing himself to survive.

Weisite said, "Next is 'Ren.' It can strengthen the aura in your body for a short period of time."

Using Gyo, Qi Zhou saw the aura suddenly erupt around Weisite and nodded inwardly. He knew how to use this one too.

He shook his head helplessly, marveling that practice really did lead to true knowledge.

Even though a certain half-baked teacher had never properly taught him, he had managed to teach himself while struggling to make a living in Meteor City.

He turned to look at A-Wu, who also looked thoughtful.

He had told A-Wu about these techniques, though he hadn't known their names before, and A-Wu had been trying to use them too. He would probably get the hang of them soon.

"Last is 'Hatsu.'"

Weisite's tone grew emphatic. "After training in the techniques mentioned above, you can release your Nen. Depending on the individual, this produces a variety of Nen Abilities."

Weisite placed heavy emphasis on the words "Nen Ability."

"Nen Ability!" "Nen Ability?"

Qi Zhou and A-Wu likewise repeated those words emphatically in their hearts.

Those words were like a door blocking their path, and now, the strange and wondrous new world behind it was opening up to them.