Chapter 80: The Spirit Wave Style's Entrance Exam Is: Defeat Ross
Earlier, with the Sky Arena prize money in hand, Ross finally had spare funds to test some things he hadn't been able to test before. The most important of these concerned the positioning mechanics of the Little Tyrant console when running Secret Realm Mode.
Poverty defeats heroes; money makes things possible.
Ross spent a fair amount hiring a hot air balloon, a car, and a speedboat to test the console's behavior under both moving and destructive conditions.
Results: if the console was already placed on a vehicle before Secret Realm Mode started, the vehicle could transport it around. The "immovable" property locked to the console's relative position within the vehicle: inside the cabin, on the roof, in a seat, in the trunk. The vehicle could move normally, but the console couldn't be shifted from its placement while running.
When the vehicle itself was damaged, though, everything changed.
The Little Tyrant's "indestructible" property only protected itself. It didn't extend to the objects around it. So whether the vehicle carrying it was completely destroyed, or just the section it was placed on was cut away (for instance, the console resting on the roof while only the roof was sliced off), the result would be the same: the console entering its fixed mid-air state.
Same principle as when Kazemaru's shuriken cut through the tree and the console stayed floating in place.
Which meant: if someone dismantled the floor or table under the console during an active Secret Realm session, the console wouldn't follow the airship. It would stay locked at its original position in mid-air while the airship kept moving. The eventual outcome: the console punching through the airship wall, floating at cruising altitude above the open ocean, and Ross teleporting back to begin a freefall without a parachute.
After about half a minute of consideration, Ross wisely withdrew his plan to run Secret Realm Mode and went back to Entertainment Mode.
Pursuing efficiency wasn't worth it on an airship. If something went wrong there would be no recovering from it.
This situation also led Ross to a decision: once the internal cooldown expired, the next Little Tyrant accessory to conjure would be the 2P controller.
Strictly speaking, the 1P and 2P controllers were identical in basic function. But Ross had added one independent feature to the 2P that the 1P didn't have: a microphone.
The original Famicom's 2P controller had a built-in microphone. Ross, as the retro enthusiast he was, replicated the feature. Among the 1000-plus Famicom games, there were a handful that actually used it.
The original Legend of Zelda had small enemies whose manual stated they "feared loud sounds." When you encountered them in-game and shouted into the 2P controller's microphone, they would all immediately be defeated.
There was also Doraemon, where in certain flying shooting stages, shouting into the microphone would cause Gian, who was flying in the player's squadron, to break into song, producing the equivalent of a full-screen bomb and clearing every enemy on screen.
And with a 2P controller equipped with a microphone, theoretically it should be possible to reach a player inside the Secret Realm directly from outside.
Having abandoned the Secret Realm plan and settled back into Entertainment Mode, Ross found himself almost hoping the airship would develop some kind of incident, just to retroactively confirm his decision had been correct.
The result: nothing happened at all.
Which is its own kind of Murphy's Law.
After landing, the group split up. Yusuke and Kuwabara were from the same school in different neighborhoods, so they headed the same direction. Kurama was from a neighboring city and went alone. Ross, carrying his discipleship gift, headed directly for the mountain.
After climbing a stone staircase of absurd length, passing a large tree wrapped in knotted ropes and set with some kind of barrier, Ross finally arrived at a place that looked from the outside like a mountain temple or meditation retreat. Still barely winded despite the oversized backpack. This was the Spirit Wave Style's dojo.
Before he even reached the gate, he heard the noise coming from the courtyard.
He looked in. A large number of people, many of them with rather distinctive appearances, were spread across the open space in front of the dojo.
"...Damn it. Don't tell me there's a successor trial arc here too. This is just the Hunter Exam all over again."
Looking at a crowd of heads that could have been lifted directly from Episode 9 of Yu Yu Hakusho, Ross involuntarily scratched his chin.
Granted, Yusuke and Kuwabara weren't here. Rando was dead. Kazemaru, Kibano, Musashi, and Kuroda were all absent too.
Actually, looking at it that way, almost all the capable competitors from the original story were either dead or out of commission. There was no telling whether any HxH characters might show up, but the composition was genuinely very different from the original.
If they ran through the successor trial as written, there shouldn't be much real competition.
Since he was already here, Ross stopped overthinking it. If there was a trial, fine. He would treat it like sitting another exam.
His arrival barely produced any reaction. As far as everyone else was concerned, they were all here to seek a master. Nothing unusual about one more.
Then a crisp drumbeat sounded, and the courtyard went noticeably quiet.
The dojo gate, which had been closed until now, slowly opened.
And out walked a little old lady with her hands clasped behind her back: possibly a meter twenty at most, white hair with a faint pink tinge, face and body both thoroughly wrinkled, and yet radiating an inexplicable and entirely unignorable commanding presence.
This was the master of the Spirit Wave Style, Master Genkai.
About half the crowd was seeing her in person for the first time. That hadn't stopped them from knowing about the Spirit Wave Style's power and wanting to be her successor.
The other half were people who had been eliminated before and come back for another attempt.
The Spirit Wave Style's open recruitment for a successor had clearly been running for some time, and so far not a single person had caught her eye. In certain small circles, a rumor had spread: "Master Genkai's disciple recruitment makes the Hunter Exam look reasonable."
Though besides the higher survival rate, it wasn't entirely a rumor. After every trial, Master Genkai would tend to the fallen in large numbers. The Spirit Wave Style's exceptional healing abilities had spread from there.
But just as everyone braced for another punishing trial question, Genkai's gaze shifted, and she leveled a single finger toward the dojo entrance.
"You! The kid with the big backpack! Get over here!"
"...?"
Ross, who had barely arrived and was now directly singled out, looked confused. The surrounding gazes converged on him.
I don't even know Master Genkai. Why is she calling for me?
Looking every bit like a clear-eyed student who had accidentally wandered into the mountains on a field trip, Ross made his way step by step to Genkai's side, equally confused.
And then something even more dramatic arrived without warning.
Genkai addressed everyone who had come for the trial in a clear, carrying voice.
"The question for this examination is:"
She paused, then raised her hand and patted the still-clueless Ross beside her.
"Whoever can defeat him will become my disciple!"
"What!?"
Ross's eyes went wide. And immediately, a wave of killing intent surged at him from every direction.
Everyone in the clearing was looking at him the way hungry wolves look at a piece of meat, eyes practically glowing.
"CHARGE!"
No one knew who shouted it. Every single person swarmed toward Ross.
***
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