Chương 117: Angel's Breath

"Yo. Isn't this Razor? I almost didn't recognize you. This is the first time I've seen you in such rough shape." A sloppy-looking man with messy hair and a cigarette dangling from his mouth teased Razor, who was sprawled on the ground, badly injured. His tone was casual, but the seriousness underneath it was obvious. Razor had joined the team later, but everyone understood his strength. In terms of pure combat ability, he was generally regarded as the team's second-strongest member after Ging.

Seeing Razor beaten into this state made the messy-haired man tense. The opponent was strong enough to defeat Razor, who had access to GM spell cards, without taking a scratch. As he thought, the man casually glanced at Aren, who sat on a lounge chair not far away without a speck of dust on him. Because time had been short, Eta had only given a rough explanation. She had not described everything in detail. That made Razor's condition even more startling. Noticing the glance, Aren waved at him in greeting.

Not long before, after Aren explained his position, Razor had looked at the returned Communication card and finally contacted Eta, still half doubtful. He briefly explained the situation, with special emphasis on Aren's strength. Not long after the communication ended, two more streaks of white light fell from the sky. When the aura around them dispersed, two figures appeared. One was an elegant blond boy. The other was the messy-haired, cigarette-hanging man. Aren recognized them immediately.

They were also Greed Island's creators and members of Ging Freecss's team. The blond boy represented "D." Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Dwun. The messy-haired man represented "L." List. Both usually lived in Greed Island's city and handled explanations connected to clearing the game. Razor did not deny Dwun's teasing.

"Yeah. I lost thoroughly." Then he gave Dwun a look. The meaning was clear. They needed to restore their combat strength as quickly as possible while Aren had not made any obvious hostile move.

"Oh, right." Dwun seemed to remember at last. He patted around his clothes, then, under List's disgusted gaze, pulled a card from a place that clearly did not inspire confidence in its smell. Aren's eyes narrowed slightly. Angel's Breath. SS-3. A card that could instantly and completely heal even near-fatal injuries and incurable diseases, but appeared only once. If there was one item in Greed Island Aren wanted most, Angel's Breath was undoubtedly first. Aren himself did not care.

No matter how badly he was injured, as long as he did not die, he could heal instantly. But he lacked the ability to heal others. If Aren wanted to become a complete all-rounder, healing was a necessary skill. His Nen traits had nothing to do with healing, so he could not develop such an ability on his own. For a moment, greed stirred in him. He wanted to seize the card. In the end, he held back. There was no point risking the bigger prize over one card.

Angel's Breath was the card he wanted most, but Greed Island contained many other items he wanted. Mad Scientist's Steroids, for example. One bottle per day for a week could increase strength. Just as Aren had told Uvogin and the others before, once someone learned Nen, physical training became less important. Body strength could be divided into power, speed, endurance, muscle hardness, bone hardness, and defense. Nen could enhance all of those. More importantly, Nen's boost was not multiplication.

It did not multiply the user's physical base. It stacked additional power on top of the body, and that added amount depended on aura, not physical strength. In that situation, spending time slowly raising physical ability was less efficient than improving Nen. This was clearly shown by Gon, Killua, and Kurapika in the future Aren remembered. After opening Nen, Gon and Killua spent far more time training aura and techniques than training ordinary physical strength.

Even the tunnel digging on Greed Island was mainly for Nen practice, not bodybuilding. Kurapika was an even clearer example. Once Emperor Time activated, even against non-Troupe opponents, he became a high-level fighter. Aren had followed the same logic. After arriving in this world, he had supervised Neon's physical training, but he rarely trained his own body directly. During Biscuit's training, he had only done some secondary physical work.

Based on Aren's own estimate, without Nen, his raw strength might only be enough to push open the second Testing Gate, around eight tons. That was enough to crush ordinary opponents below Heavens Arena's two-hundredth floor. In the original future, Gon had reached the two-hundredth floor with only around two tons of pushing strength. But strictly speaking, Aren's raw physical strength was still below twelve-year-old Killua's. For someone aiming for perfection, that small weakness was unacceptable.

The weakness was not important, but it existed. Yet making him train his body in a slow, boring, inefficient way was another matter. That was why Mad Scientist's Steroids immediately surfaced in his mind. It solved the problem perfectly.

'If I can grow stronger while lying down, why would I refuse?'