Timeline: Late December 1987

  Location: Republic of Padokea — Heaven's Arena

  Age: 12

  "He didn't even touch him. I swear on my life, he didn't even lay a finger on him."

  Elian leaned so close to the monitor in the upper-floor viewing lounge that his breath fogged the thick glass. He ran a hand through his hair, his brow deeply furrowed in absolute frustration. On the screen, a replay of a 200s class match was playing on a continuous loop. One fighter simply swept his empty hand through the air, and his opponent across the ring was violently hurled backward into the stone wall.

  "Look at that," Elian demanded, pointing a rigid finger at the screen. "Is the entire 200s class just cheap magic tricks? Or is it rigged? They have to be using high-tension wires. It’s the only physical explanation that makes sense."

  "There is no such thing as magic," I said, leaning back against the carpeted wall of the lounge. Beneath my cloak, the 1.2 tons of custom tungsten plating pressed down heavily on my shoulders, arms, and calves, keeping my stance deeply rooted to the floor. "And the fights aren't rigged. It’s just hidden intent. The attacker masked the flow of his energy, making it completely invisible to the naked eye. The other fighter walked right into a trap he couldn't see coming because his vision was fundamentally limited."

  Elian turned away from the screen, skepticism written all over his face. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest. "Invisible energy. Right. So how exactly are you supposed to fight something you can't even look at? You can't dodge a punch you can't see, Kaelo."

  "You open your eyes," I told him simply.

  I didn't explain the deeper mechanics of Gyo to him, mostly because Elian hadn't awakened his own aura yet. But I knew exactly what was happening on that broadcast screen. I had spent the last three weeks diligently preparing for it. Every night, in the quiet isolation of my room, I had been practicing the art of pulling my aura up from my core and pooling it strictly into my optic nerves.

  It wasn't an immediate awakening; it was rigorous martial conditioning. At first, the dense pressure of the energy caused a deep, throbbing ache behind my eyes. Day by day, I pushed the threshold, forcing my body to adapt to the flow until the heavy pressure became a comfortable, steady warmth.

  I closed my eyes now, took a slow, deep breath, and focused the flow of my internal aura directly into my eyes.

  When I opened them, the broadcast screen completely changed. Elian’s "magic trick" vanished. Through the clear, illuminating lens of Gyo, I could easily see a thick, shaped tether of dense aura connecting the fighter's extended hand directly to his opponent's chest. It was a flawless execution of hidden martial flow.

  "You're not nervous at all, are you?" Elian asked, watching my calm expression closely. "You're up for Floor 190 tomorrow afternoon. One more win, and you're stepping into that exact class. You’re going to be fighting these guys. And by the way, happy belated birthday. Most kids who just turned twelve are worrying about school exams, not fighting invisible ghosts."

  "Thanks," I said, letting the aura fade evenly back into my standard defense. "I'm not nervous because I know my current limits. That just means I still have work to do."

  Later that night, the heavy, muffled silence of Room 1014 was broken only by the sound of my own steady breathing.

  I stood perfectly still in the center of the room, my outer cloak discarded on the bed. The black tungsten bands gripped my forearms, calves, and chest, weighing heavily on my limbs. I closed my eyes and flared my aura, letting the fierce, burning shroud of Ren explode around me.

  Seeing the hidden attacks on the upper floors was only half the battle. If I actually stepped onto the 200th floor, I needed to master the advanced flow of combat. I focused entirely on my right fist, trying to draw every ounce of my aura away from my body and into a single, devastating point of offense—Ko.

  The energy gathered around my knuckles, glowing bright and impossibly dense. But when I willed that massive pool of energy to flow from my fist down to my left heel to guard against a hypothetical leg sweep—Ryu—the energy dragged. It felt like trying to pull thick, heavy mud through my veins. It took me nearly three full seconds to shift the aura across my body.

  Too slow. In a true fight against a master, a three-second delay was a fatal opening.

  I dropped the stance, exhaling sharply. I needed to test the absolute limits of my current vessel. I closed my eyes again and reached deep into my biology, pulling on the unique genetic heritage of the Kurta. I let my heart rate elevate, channeling a controlled burst of adrenaline until a familiar, burning heat flooded my optic nerves.

  When I opened my eyes, the world was bathed in a flawless, luminous red.

  The Scarlet Eyes.

  The change was instantaneous. It wasn't just a sudden, massive boost in raw aura output; it was an absolute explosion of control. The heavy, sluggish feeling of my aura vanished entirely. The chaotic noise of the world faded away, and I felt myself slip seamlessly into what elite athletes and martial artists called The Zone.

  It was a state of pure, hyper-focused flow. Time seemed to dilate. Every single micro-current of energy in the room became perfectly visible and entirely pliant to my will. In this state of absolute immersion, shifting my aura from my fist to my heel didn't take three seconds—it happened at the exact speed of thought. My mind and my energy were perfectly synchronized.

  I sat down cross-legged on the floor, letting the Scarlet Eyes slowly fade, and the heavy sluggishness of my normal aura returned. The contrast was staggering.

  I sat there on the mat and let my mind drift to the very nature of my existence. I was a reincarnator. A soul that had crossed the boundary of death.

  Sometimes, I analyzed what would have happened if I had been reborn somewhere else. What if I had woken up in a hidden ninja village, bound by the rigid, suffocating servitude of a shinobi? I would have found it incredibly tedious. The idea of adopting a fixed "nindo" dictated by village elders, or sacrificing my life for a feudal lord in endless, cyclical wars, felt entirely inefficient. A world like that was a closed loop. If you already knew the history, the villains, and the final conflicts, the world lost all its mystery. It was just a restricted environment demanding self-sacrifice for a broken system.

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  But this world was different. The Hunter Association offered absolute, unapologetic freedom. And beyond the known borders lay the Dark Continent—an infinite, terrifying frontier that remained entirely unsolved.

  That was what I craved. I didn't view this second life as a video game to be "cleared." I wasn't rushing to reach an ending. I just wanted to actually live it. I wanted to test my limits, feel the physical push and pull of a real fight, and see how far I could take this new body.

  Because I had already died once, the primal, biological fear of death simply did not exist in me. Death was a solved equation; I had already seen the other side of it. I didn't fear the void. I only cared about the quality of the life I was currently living, and how perfectly I could refine this vessel.

  There was no arrogance in my mindset, just a quiet acknowledgment of the variables. If I put in the methodical work, the results would naturally follow.

  As a Nen user, my ultimate technique would be a direct reflection of my soul. I knew from my past-life memories exactly how true that was.

  Isaac Netero had spent over a decade punching the air out of a profound, overwhelming gratitude for the martial arts. In return, his aura manifested as a towering Bodhisattva, a divine figure of salvation and ultimate martial dominance. Chrollo Lucifer’s soul was defined by his identity as a thief. His greed and fluid identity manifested as a conjured book, allowing him to steal and hoard the techniques of others. Meruem, the Chimera Ant King, was born with the biological imperative to rule and consume. His absolute gluttony and belief in his own supreme right to devour the weak manifested as an aura that grew stronger only by eating the life force of his prey.

  Hatsu was a mirror. It revealed exactly who you were at your core.

  So what was my nature? I thought back to my Water Divination months ago. A Specialist.

  But my glass hadn't frozen, or boiled, or shattered into an obscure phenomenon. Instead, all five standard reactions had triggered at the exact same time. The water swelled, the color shifted, the leaf spun, impurities formed, and the taste changed. All five categories perfectly balanced, happening simultaneously without overriding one another or collapsing into chaos.

  It made perfect sense. I didn't fight out of anger, or a desire for revenge, or the chaotic thrill of a brawl. I hated flaws. I despised wasted movement and the unpredictable chaos of inefficient variables. I looked at the fragile limitations of the human body, the slow processing speed of the human brain, and the rigid, uneven percentages of the Nen Hexagon, and I refused to accept them.

  What I truly desired, above all else, was absolute perfection in every discipline. The water divination reflecting all five categories simultaneously was the physical manifestation of my soul's refusal to be limited. I wanted to take the warring, unpredictable variables of reality and force them into perfect, mathematical order.

  The brief moments I had just spent in The Zone with my Scarlet Eyes active gave me the blueprint. That state of hyper-calculation, where my control exploded and time slowed down—that was the peak of human capability. But it was temporary, tied to my biology and adrenaline.

  I needed to make that perfection permanent.

  My first Hatsu couldn't be a weapon. It had to be an internal evolution. A Genius Override that fundamentally shattered my cognitive limits, accelerating my mind into a permanent state of boundless intellect and flow, while forcefully dragging all of my other Nen affinities toward that simultaneous one hundred percent efficiency my Water Divination had promised.

  Only after I secured that perfect internal foundation would I be able to freely create any other Hatsu I desired. Once my vessel was flawless, my adventure into the unknown would be truly limitless.

  I checked my current aura reserves. I knew the reality of the situation. I needed the upcoming ninety-day preparation period on the 200th floor to aggressively expand my limits and bring this absolute perfection to life.

  The next afternoon, the noise on Floor 190 was deafening.

  "Last match of the 100s," Elian shouted over the roar of the arena as we stood near the tunnel entrance. "Corin is tricky. He’s a veteran who uses a lot of rapid feints to break your rhythm and open your guard. Keep your root solid, Kaelo. Don't let him dictate the pace."

  "I will," I said, adjusting the heavy cuffs of my sleeves. "Thanks, Elian."

  I stepped out of the tunnel and walked up the short stairs into the ring. Corin stood across from me. He was older, his face scarred, his stance loose and constantly shifting. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his eyes darting across my posture, actively looking for a weakness.

  "Begin!" the referee shouted, slashing his hand forcefully through the air.

  Corin didn't rush in blindly. He shuffled his feet, darting into my range and instantly dropping his right shoulder. His eyes locked fiercely onto my jaw as he twisted his hips, telegraphing a vicious, rising right hook.

  To the normal human eye, it was a flawless distraction. But I had already routed a steady stream of aura into my eyes. Through the clear lens of Gyo, I saw his true intent laid completely bare.

  There was absolutely no energy flowing into his right shoulder. The feint was entirely empty. Instead, a dense pool of aura was rapidly gathering in his back thigh, bracing for a sweeping low kick meant to shatter my knee the moment I raised my guard.

  I read the hidden flow a full half-second before his leg even twitched.

  I didn't retreat. Sinking my weight deeply into my foundation, I established an unshakeable root. Instead of blocking the fake punch, I stepped directly forward, blending smoothly into the exact space Corin was about to occupy.

  As his low kick lashed out, it struck nothing but empty air. The sudden lack of impact betrayed his momentum, pulling his center of gravity entirely off balance.

  I placed an open palm gently against the center of his chest. Joining his chaotic flow, I pivoted smoothly on my heel and redirected his own unbalanced, forward-rushing energy.

  Corin's feet left the stone mat entirely. Unable to stop his momentum, he spun wildly through the air and crashed heavily out of bounds, tumbling violently across the outer concrete floor.

  "Ring out!" the referee shouted over the stunned silence of the crowd. "Winner, Kaelo! Advance to Floor 200!"

  I didn't raise my arms in victory. I turned and walked calmly over to the official's desk. The clerk handed me a thick, heavy cardstock ticket printed with the number 200.

  I had spent the last four months forging my body. I had rooted my stance, mastered the flow of redirection, opened my eyes to the hidden world of aura, and finally understood the shape of my own soul. The foundation was set.

  I walked past the cheering crowds, leaving the noise of the 100s class behind, and stepped into the private elevator reserved for the top floor. I slid my ticket into the brass slot. The heavy metal doors slid shut, sealing me inside, and the car began its smooth, silent ascent.

  As the digital floor indicator ticked steadily upward—197, 198, 199—the atmosphere inside the small elevator began to drastically change.

  The air grew unnaturally heavy, thick with a suffocating, malicious pressure that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It felt like walking into a freezer. The true initiation of Heaven's Arena was waiting for me just outside those doors.

  For the first time since my rebirth, a genuine thrill raced down my spine. This wasn't a broadcast on a screen anymore. This was real. A wide grin broke across my face. I didn't brace myself or overthink it. I just let my own aura flare to life, completely excited to see what was waiting on the other side as the elevator chimed and the doors began to slide open.