Changes X An Uninvited Guest X One of the Three Beauties

To be precise, he liked fighting Jiang Ye.

He had told Gray Beak as much more than once.

It wasn't because he had any great respect for the twelve-year-old alliance leader, but because every time he sparred with Jiang Ye, he felt something that sent a chill down his spine.

Jiang Ye was changing!

With every clash of their sticks, every dodge and counterattack, he was evolving at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The speed made Bago feel as though he wasn't training a person, but watching the entire process of a tree growing from a sapling to the height of a man.

He liked the process.

He was even addicted to it.

Jiang Ye didn't say much.

He walked to the center of the open ground, bent down to pick up a stick as long as his arm, weighed it in his hand, and tossed it to Bago.

Bago caught it and tightened his grip, his mouth curving into a grin.

"Fight."

Jiang Ye said a single word.

Bago didn't hesitate.

He raised his stick and pressed forward, moving more cleanly than he had the first time. The wind from his stick swept up dust from the gravel as it struck at Jiang Ye's shoulder.

Jiang Ye didn't meet it head-on.

He turned half an inch aside, letting the stick skim past the hem of his clothes. At the same time, the end of his own stick swept up from below, cutting toward Bago's ribs.

The muffled thud of colliding sticks echoed across the open ground.

The days that followed began to run like a calibrated machine.

During the day, Jiang Ye trained his body.

Ten covered his body at all times as he ran around the camp's perimeter with lead weights tied to his calves.

His feet wore several paths of varying depths into the gravel. Sweat ran down from his temples, glinting faintly in the gray-white daylight.

In the afternoon, he sparred with Bago.

Wooden sticks broke one after another, and whenever one broke, they replaced it.

Bago's attacks grew faster and faster, while Jiang Ye's blocks and counterattacks became more frequent.

When shadows spread out in the evening light, Jiang Ye's movements became harder to predict. Sometimes, Bago couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes through an entire exchange.

At night, he ate.

The magical beast meat Iron Wall brought was cut into chunks and boiled in an iron pot.

Fat floated on the surface of the broth, and the aroma of meat rose over the rim and drifted into the converted shipping container where he lived.

Jiang Ye sat on the edge of the bed with a bowl of meat soup, eating it mouthful by mouthful and helping himself to another bowl whenever he finished one.

The meat settled in his stomach as a tangible warmth, then spread to his limbs and bones.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, Jiang Ye stood before the old sheet of metal opposite his iron-framed bed, which could barely reflect a person's image. He took off his shirt and looked at his outline in its surface.

The changes had come silently, but looking back, they were more obvious than he had imagined.

The skin beneath his collarbones, once sunken, had been filled out by newly grown muscle.

His shoulders were half a palm wider than before, and his arms no longer looked like sticks of dry firewood. Thin bands of muscle now lined them.

It wasn't dramatic, but it was real.

His ribs no longer jutted out one by one along his abdomen, and a thin, resilient layer of flesh had formed around his waist.

He could even tell clearly that he had grown taller.

The face in the mirror was no longer as gaunt and sharp as it had been when he first arrived.

It had taken on a clearly defined appearance, with sword-like brows and starry eyes, revealing its naturally handsome features.

Without a doubt, his underlying features were good.

That thought rose in Jiang Ye's mind as he looked at the face in the mirror.

He had never paid attention to this body's looks before, because prolonged hunger and malnutrition had blurred all its features beneath the withered flesh.

Now that he was getting enough nutrition, what hunger had stripped away was slowly returning.

He didn't care much about that. Looks were ultimately nothing more than the appearance of a skeleton.

What he cared about was the more substantial line of change beneath the mirror.

Aura!

He could clearly feel that all the magical beast meat he absorbed each day, along with the intense exertion and recovery, was slowly but steadily raising the upper limit of the Aura in his body.

His Ten flowed more smoothly, his bursts of Ren lasted longer, and even expanding his Shadow Space had become easier than before.

His Aura could now support Divine Dog: Totality fighting at full speed for three minutes.

He had successfully become a true three-minute man!

After all, it had been less than a month at most since Jiang Ye awakened his Nen Ability.

By any standard in Meteor City, that speed was astonishing.

But Jiang Ye knew full well that three minutes was still nowhere near enough.

A true expert wouldn't give him three minutes.

But he wasn't in a hurry. He was waiting for that curve to keep climbing, and the road could be considered a long one.

It was a long-term undertaking that required a great deal of time,

"We'll continue combat practice this afternoon."

Jiang Ye turned away from the sheet-metal mirror and pulled on his old coat.

"It's time to see the results of all this work."

As soon as he finished speaking, someone knocked on the door.

Knock, knock, knock!

The knocking was noticeably more urgent than usual.

Jiang Ye pulled the door open. Iron Wall stood outside, his rugged face uncharacteristically lacking its usual calm composure.

"Alliance leader."

"A... a guest has arrived."

Jiang Ye turned around.

Iron Wall stood in the doorway, his broad face wearing an expression unlike any Jiang Ye had ever seen on him before.

Iron Wall was afraid.

Jiang Ye had known Iron Wall for so long, from the Rust Bone Gang to the Rust Remains Alliance, and the man had never worn that expression even when facing the Combined Forces of Tie Liao and Shu Mu.

"Who?"

Jiang Ye asked at once.

He began guessing who could have made Iron Wall so nervous.

Iron Wall's Adam's apple bobbed. Only after hesitating for a while did he dare say the name.

"The visitor calls himself... Illumi Zoldyck."

The moment the words fell, the room went quiet for a while.

Outside the metal shipping container, the wind brushed against the walls with a low moan, as though something were drawing near.

When Jiang Ye heard the name, his eyes narrowed slightly, and he was filled with surprise.

The Zoldyck Family!

The moment the name surfaced in his mind, he instinctively checked his shadow.

Toad lay deep within it, Rabbit Escape was curled up in a corner, and Divine Dog: Totality's outline lay quietly spread out.

All three Shikigami were there, ready to be summoned at any time.

The Zoldyck Family: the Hunter world's premier family of assassins, their legacy passed down through generations.

The underworld's universally acknowledged strongest group of killers, who ran assassination as a business.

Photographs of family members could sell for over a hundred million Jenny on the black market, and the name Zoldyck alone was enough to silence most factions.

The family estate stood on Kukuroo Mountain, the entirety of which was privately owned by the family. The price of an outsider trespassing was usually a corpse.

And every member of the family, from the grandfather to the grandchildren, was beyond ordinary understanding.

This information raced through Jiang Ye's mind.

He knew who Illumi was.

Killua's eldest brother, and one of the three beauties of Hunter.

Behind that pale, delicate face was an extremely rational mind. He measured everything against the framework of his family and raised his younger brother Killua as a perfect assassination tool.

To bring Killua back onto the right path, he could even make deals with someone like Hisoka.

His appearance in Meteor City could only mean he had come with a clear purpose.

Jiang Ye fell silent for a moment and pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind.

He showed no sign of panic, nor did he ask any pointless questions. He simply spoke slowly.

"Bring him in."