Chapter 69: Real Men Climb to the Two-Hundredth Floor
It was only now, staring at his hands, that Ross recognized his base physical strength was no longer what it had been at the start of the exam.
To explain briefly: humans in the Hunter world had some specific quality in their muscle growth and neural recruitment capacity. A large number of people were capable of reaching ton-class baseline strength without any visible change to their physique. This had already been in evidence during Phase 2, when candidates including Gon had been able to carry and cook Pork de Roa by themselves, creatures that weighed hundreds of kilograms to over a ton even after gutting.
Ross had not been consciously training for this. But the steady stimulation of life energy on the body, combined with the tempering that came from fighting for his life in actual combat, had been raising his baseline physical condition in a continuous upward line. The process had become as automatic as breathing, and it would probably continue until the natural body-conditioning process hit the ceiling of what his physical constitution could absorb.
The majority of ordinary Sky Arena competitors, whatever their style or whatever impression they made, would not have cleared the Pork de Roa hunt in Phase 2.
Ross had used the most basic Back Throw in the All-Style Judo repertoire. The force he applied had been the same level he used sparring with Yusuke and Kuwabara.
An ordinary human in the path of that had no way to absorb it. The boxer's shoulder had dislocated the instant Ross's grip made contact. If the muscles and skin had not been holding the arm in place, the whole limb would have separated from the body like a piece off a toy figure.
The result startled the two delinquents as well. From the distance they were watching, they had not registered Ross exerting any particular force. The other man had simply flown like a bag of sand. They had known the ground floors would be weaker than the top, but this weak had not been on their radar.
"Combatant 2318."
"Yes."
"You go to floor fifty."
"Understood."
The referee, who had clearly registered that something unusual had walked into his ring, did not bother checking on the other combatant. He ran the ticket through his device and handed it over.
Ross took it and glanced sideways at his Navigation Arrow. As expected, defeating the boxer had produced no response from it at all.
Either the boxer had not met whatever minimum threshold the mechanic required, or, more likely, the ability only activated against Nen users.
Separately: the arrow was actively doing something. It was pointing at the Sky Arena itself, or at something on one of the upper floors.
Two possibilities followed from that.
One: a cartridge was already somewhere up there, waiting, and the only way to get to it was to climb.
Two: there was some precondition that needed to be met inside the Sky Arena first, similar to how Trick Tower's environment had been what produced the Nekketsu New Record cartridge.
Either way, the path was the same. Climb.
The same fast-track happened to Yusuke and Kuwabara in short order. With Ross's result as a reference point, the practical effect was that their opponents fared somewhat better: they needed only to take one punch before sleeping peacefully. All three had advanced within half an hour.
Word spread among the referees quickly after that. Four monsters among today's new arrivals. Strong suspicion that they had come specifically to sweep the lower floors as a group.
A staff member guided them upward, explaining the rules as the elevator climbed.
"The first two hundred floors operate in tiers of ten. Winning at floor fifty advances you to floor sixty. A loss drops you to floor forty."
The exchange window was positioned close to the elevator. Present the winning ticket, collect the corresponding prize.
Floor one's payout: 152 Jenny. Approximately the price of a canned beverage.
The vending machines positioned right beside the exchange window were a thoughtful touch, evidently there to accommodate everyone who looked at that number and decided it was better spent immediately.
Ross picked a can labeled soy sauce sea urchin flavored coffee at random. The flavor was difficult to describe precisely, but it was somewhere in the vicinity of chewing coffee grounds that had been soaking in seawater for an extended period.
"Winning on this floor is fifty thousand. At least today's food and lodging is covered."
Ross said this to his two companions, who had respectively selected oolong tea and cola.
"Wait, can we still fight again today?"
Kuwabara had already crushed his cola can into a small ball and was holding the result.
"All three of us jumped up from floor one, so by the Sky Arena's standard schedule we should have at least one more fight today. Probably."
Ross kept the qualifier honest. His knowledge came from the source material, and the management's scheduling decisions on any given day were their own.
"If we get fifty thousand each, let's do yakiniku tonight."
Kuwabara's young body was making its need for fat intake clearly known. The food on the airship had been, to be fair, mediocre.
"We'd need an all-you-can-eat place to survive the three of us eating properly..."
Ross pulled out his phone and started looking up nearby options. The step back to something approaching the old Nokia era of mobile interfaces was a mildly interesting experience.
The concern was real, though. Three functioning Nen users eating at full capacity could eat through 150,000 Jenny without trying. And they needed to budget at least two more days of food and lodging before reaching floor 100, where the Sky Arena provided each fighter their own private room.
The three of them walked and talked, following the directional signs into the floor fifty locker room.
Floor fifty was noticeably more organized than the ground floor. A proper athlete facility, closer to a gym changing room than anything on the first floor. The overall atmosphere was different too.
The fighters here had something to them. Whatever their level relative to Nen users, they carried genuine killing intent, a quality of danger that had been absent downstairs. When the three of them entered together, the alert, assessing, openly hostile attention came to them immediately from every corner.
In practice, if it came to actual combat, the gap was probably much the same as floor one. But the air felt different.
What they noticed quickly was a corner of the locker room that was empty, in what should have been a completely full space. The fighters present were clearly avoiding that particular area.
In a room that smelled comprehensively of sweat, body odor, and the faint metallic note of iron, a clean and distinctly plant-like fragrance was coming from that unoccupied corner.
"Hm? That smell..."
Yusuke frowned, sniffed, and seemed to have something pulled up from his memory. He moved toward the empty spot. His expression shifted visibly as he got closer: clear surprise followed immediately by recognition.
Because what was in that corner was a familiar rose-pink figure.
"Kurama!? What are you doing here!"