Chapter 79: International Flight Again, Gaming Addiction Again
Yusuke took his first win at the two-hundredth floor.
Unexpected, yet it made complete sense.
Before the match, Ross had estimated Yusuke would lose his floor-200 debut. That judgment was based entirely on the ability characteristics of both sides. But Yusuke's combat instincts were stronger than expected.
He might not have known why the Tornado Tops deflected his Spirit Gun, but he picked up sharply on the instability in the pivot point between the prosthetic and the floor, and landed the decisive strike without hesitation.
That one strike completely changed the match. Gido, hit by the full force of Yusuke's pent-up punch, was KO'd on the spot, and every point he had accumulated became irrelevant.
Yusuke's current state was all raw power with minimal resilience. His defense was essentially nonexistent. All his Nen went habitually into offense. This meant that Gido's Ten as a Manipulation type couldn't stop Yusuke's Enhancement-type punches. The type efficiency gap made it lopsided from the start.
But the winner wasn't as happy as expected.
Yes, he had been facing a typical arena scoring specialist. The match still genuinely exposed his own gaps. The three blind-spot top hits had actually hurt.
"The other floor-200 fighters can't all be at that human-top's level, right?"
Yusuke rubbed the side that had taken the hits. His Ten practice had clearly been neglected, and that area was already faintly bruised.
"Hisoka."
The familiar name coming out of Ross's mouth made both Yusuke and Kuwabara instinctively stop mid-step. Kurama, noticing their reactions, stopped too.
"Hisoka is also a floor-200 fighter. And he's very close to Floor Master."
Ross turned, ran through his memory for a moment, and continued.
"His current record should be 8 wins and 3 losses. But those three losses weren't actual defeats. He used the 90-day forfeit loophole to voluntarily give them away. Which means he's effectively 8 wins and 0 losses in real combat.
"Of those eight wins, he's given up a total of 4 points across all of them, and only left one opponent alive. Nothing like those hyenas who only target newcomers. This is genuine ability domination."
Ross had only provided the numbers. The gap was already obvious.
The fighters at the Sky Arena didn't represent the Nen user community as a whole, but they offered a reference point.
Yusuke hadn't been complacent about beating Gido. But hearing that Hisoka had won 8 matches while giving up only 4 total points still made his expression tighten.
He had lost 5 points in a single match.
"Ross."
After a brief silence, Yusuke spoke.
"What kind of person is the master you're going to apprentice under?"
February 6th, 2000. 10 AM. Batopia International Transit Hub.
Four young people with completely aligned destinations, bags and all, boarded an international flight heading for the island nation.
Yusuke had originally made peace with skipping the homecoming for now, planning to follow Ross and see what the Spirit Wave Style was about. Then he found out the school's address was in his hometown. Of course nothing gets delayed. Everyone wins.
Go home, let his mom get a look at him. Stop by Keiko's family place for a bowl of ramen. Then go with Ross to see what the legitimate Spirit Wave Style actually looked like in practice.
Perfect. Yusuke gave his own plan a full score.
Kuwabara was somewhat tempted too. But first he didn't know the Spirit Wave Style's enrollment requirements, and more importantly, he still needed to sit down with his family before deciding his next steps. Blind decisions were not the move.
As for Kurama: after going home to confirm he was alive, he planned to handle school matters first. Probably donate some money to maintain his enrollment status or something along those lines. His mother was traditional in that way and had a deep attachment to the idea of her children pursuing their education. The current Kurama probably wouldn't be constrained by ordinary academics much longer.
Once the enrollment issue was settled, he would try to track down that friend of his who frequently said the opposite of what he meant. The Jagan Eye user.
The recent weeks of interaction had essentially confirmed for Kurama that Ross's knowledge was real. As long as you didn't probe too deeply into where it came from, there was no friction. He might genuinely be able to help with that friend's problem.
As for Ross himself...
"Sage, die! Dragon, die! Demon King, die!"
Barely an hour into the international airship flight, Ross had found his rhythm and cleared the Tower of Druaga that he'd gotten his hands on just yesterday.
Ross was gaming, as always.
As previously noted, Tower of Druaga was essentially a fantasy Pac-Man in overhead-maze form. Once you had the layout memorized, the game itself wasn't too hard.
The Famicom version had 60 stages, effectively 60 floors. Almost every floor contained a "treasure" that required a specific condition to trigger, and this was the game's defining feature.
If Sonic 3 had given Ross movement speed and Gold Ring reserves, and Nekketsu New Record had given him combat techniques, real combat experience, and injury recovery, then Tower of Druaga provided something different: auxiliary-type treasures suited for various specific situations.
Take the treasure on Floor 1. Eliminating 3 green Slimes along the way satisfies the trigger condition and generates a treasure chest containing the Iron Hoe on the map.
As the lowest tier of hoe-type implements, the Iron Hoe's effect was simple: it breaks walls. Breaking two consecutive walls destroys it. But by using it only once per floor, the uses reset when advancing to the next.
He hadn't formally entered the Tower of Druaga Secret Realm yet. But based on previous Secret Realm experience, a consumable one-time item like this probably had roughly the same Conjuration difficulty as the Flame Shield.
A conceptual wall-breaking tool like this should be effective in certain specific situations.
The tower's treasures weren't limited to that type.
Speed Boots for increased movement, a Hero's Shield for extra defense, Dragon-Slaying Potion to counter dragon-type enemies, a Green Ring to resist blue flames: all of them looked unremarkable on the surface but were genuinely interesting in practice.
The only issue was that obtaining them one by one was genuinely just grind work.
Fortunately, Ross was very good at grind work. Mental or physical, it didn't matter.
What he was currently deliberating: whether or not to just activate Secret Realm Mode while crossing the ocean.