Chapter 83: A Primal Secret Realm: City of the Four Saint Beasts
On the tenth day after Ross joined the Spirit Wave Style, Yusuke showed up.
Whether or not it was Ross's influence, with his seemingly easygoing and yet genuinely balanced approach to training, the little old lady's edge, sharp as ever at seventy-plus, had softened somewhat.
So when she found that Yusuke was a decent prospect who also matched the Spirit Wave Style's preferred Enhancement type, she didn't hesitate long before taking him on as well.
Ross was the senior disciple. Yusuke was the junior.
Ross ruffled Yusuke's head with visible delight. Yusuke's face went the color of someone whose embarrassment had reached the boiling point and beyond.
Then Genkai quickly discovered that Yusuke was, in a certain sense, even better suited to Spirit Wave training than Ross.
In raw physical constitution, pain tolerance, fighting instinct, and sheer obsession with getting stronger, Yusuke left Ross at the time of his own arrival completely behind.
And Yusuke came in already carrying his own technique. The Spirit Gun, which stored Nen and released it all at once for massive burst damage, was in many ways the perfect expression of the Spirit Wave Style's greatest single-moment offensive output. If Ross hadn't arrived first, Genkai would have considered Yusuke the most qualified successor.
But there was one enormous problem with Yusuke that Genkai simply couldn't overlook.
The kid genuinely was more talented than Ross when it came to Spirit Wave training. That was limited, however, to the foundational physical side.
In plain terms: pure body conditioning, pure natural ability, pure raw numbers, pure brute force.
The Spirit Wave Style internally had five major areas of mastery: Attack, Defense, Healing, Refinement, and Spirit.
Each word offered a glimpse of the corresponding direction. The first four could be roughly summarized as their names implied. The fifth, Spirit, was a different matter. It was far too dependent on innate talent, so Genkai had never taught it lightly.
Yusuke was suited to exactly one of the five: Attack.
Only Attack. No Defense. Nothing else. Even in the original story's later timeline after he inherited the Spirit Wave Orb, nothing changed.
Every one of Yusuke's abilities could be explained as "sheer force" and "power solves everything." The moment anything required more precise technique, he fell apart.
Genkai could only acknowledge that no one was perfect. Talent had given Yusuke an extraordinary conversion rate in the Attack area, the ability to take ten points of latent Nen and amplify it to twenty, thirty, or more through emotional intensity. In every other area, the opposite was entirely true.
He just doesn't have the head for it.
Looking at Ross from the other direction: while he didn't have Yusuke's terrifying numerical conversion in the Attack area, he showed solid talent across all five areas except Spirit, with no clear weaknesses.
In particular, when it came to precise Nen control, Ross had an exceptionally stable output and a fine-grained capacity for building structures, which was extremely useful for the Defense, Healing, and Refinement directions.
From the standpoint of passing down the Spirit Wave Style as a complete tradition, Genkai clearly favored Ross.
Handing it to Yusuke would mean four of the five areas dying with her on the spot. That wasn't a succession, that was just passing on a punch.
So the two disciples' future development paths were immediately distinct.
Ross was the direct successor, the person who would become the next master of the Spirit Wave Style after Genkai was gone.
Yusuke was the school's combat face, better suited to building the school's reputation through visible strength.
People's talents went in different directions. Ross and Yusuke had different innate Nen types and different areas of strength. Having already understood the principle of teaching to the student, Genkai had no reason to force their training pace and direction to be the same.
Yusuke's overall physical conditioning intensity was higher, pushed to its maximum while still keeping meals and sleep, though even at maximum it was comparatively mild relative to the original timeline's equivalent period.
Ross, meanwhile, had the five areas of mastery weaved into his regular sparring sessions, advancing on all fronts simultaneously.
With two disciples now, one day per week was set aside specifically for sparring between them.
Their sparring sessions reliably devolved into fighting while trading insults: Ross calling Yusuke all brawn and no brain, Yusuke complaining that Ross kept running around instead of hitting him properly.
Time passed. By early April, both had been training for roughly two months and had finally received Genkai's permission for a break.
Since the dojo was in the mountains, Ross had gone over sixty days without seeing anyone except his master and junior disciple. Setting foot back in a busy street felt like stepping into a different world.
"Hey! Yusuke! Ross!"
A red pompadour visible from a considerable distance, waving an arm with full energy.
Finally free from what had felt like training in hell, naturally the next move was to go out with his best friends.
Kuwabara had just gotten back from wherever he'd been. Three people together again.
"How have you been? I heard you also found a master?"
Yusuke immediately put Kuwabara in a casual headlock, greeting him the way he always did.
"Yeah! My master is a one-star Hunter!"
Kuwabara's face lit up with pride when the topic came up.
"Who is your master? Can you say?"
Ross asked, casually, sipping a cup of machine-dispensed cola.
"Yeah, of course I can say. My master's name is Wing. One-star Sea Hunter."
"I also have two senior disciples. One is called Zushi, mouth on him but a decent person underneath. The other is Shoot, doesn't like looking at people directly."
Hearing that Kuwabara had apprenticed under Wing, Ross paused mid-sip of his distinctly too-watered-down soft drink.
Among professional Hunters, Wing was probably the person Ross thought of when he thought of someone whose abilities looked unremarkable at first glance but whose limitless imagination extracted extraordinary applications from them. The word that fit him best was adaptable.
If Kuwabara could genuinely grasp the essence of imagination under Wing's guidance, the Spirit Sword might start developing in quite a few new directions.
"You found yourself a good master."
Ross said, meaning it.
"Of course I did! Yusuke! At this point I'm definitely stronger than you! I'm still the top delinquent of Sarayashiki Middle School!"
"Idiot Kuwabara! We're not students anymore, that title is past its expiry date!"
"What are you talking about, Yusuke? Being on leave of absence isn't the same as dropping out."
"...Huh? It isn't?"
This time it was Yusuke scratching his head.
Correct. The two of them, who had both been planning to formally drop out, had the principal attaching himself to their legs and refusing to let go.
An ordinary, unnamed island nation school. An ordinary, unnamed middle school within it. Producing two professional Hunters in one go was not merely a boost to the school's reputation. It was an explosion.
Compared to the equivalent back home, this was more prestigious than a school producing two provincial top-exam scorers. By a wide margin.
In the next enrollment period, just mentioning this in recruitment materials would, conservatively, more than double the incoming class size.
So when word reached the principal that both were planning to drop out, the man who hadn't cried even when surrounded by a fleet of black luxury vehicles broke down completely, and without a shred of remaining dignity clung to two delinquents and begged.
The final arrangement: attendance was entirely optional, end-of-term assessments would be handled and scored at maximum by the school on their behalf, everything sorted administratively, just please do not formally withdraw.
Right then.
Both of them were reminded once again that this status they carried was genuinely something else.
"So, do we have any plans?"
Yusuke turned to look at Ross.
Since Ross had been the one to suggest this outing, Yusuke didn't know what was actually on the agenda.
"We do, my friends. We definitely do."
Ross summoned the Navigation Arrow as he spoke.
"We're going treasure hunting."
The three followed the arrow's direction through the streets and arrived at a run-down storage unit in a back alley. They went through the door without ceremony.
Ross got down on the dust-covered floor without complaint, knocked around for a bit, and lifted a floor tile.
Underneath was not more floor. It was a strange glowing green void.
At the same time, text appeared on the Navigation Arrow, pointing down into the green void below.
[You have discovered a Primal Secret Realm entrance: City of the Four Saint Beasts.]
[Complete the Primal Secret Realm walkthrough of City of the Four Saint Beasts. This Secret Realm will convert to a Game Secret Realm of equivalent scale. You will simultaneously receive access rights to Intermediate or higher tiers of this Secret Realm's stages, along with the corresponding game cartridge.]