Kaen remained unconscious for hours after the battle with Eral. Vane carried him deeper into the forest and set up a temporary field of suppressed aura — a stealth net made of thin nen threads tied to trees in five directions. It wasn't foolproof, but it would hide Kaen's presence long enough for him to heal.
As night fell, a storm rolled over Whale Island, and rain fell hard through the leaves. Vane sat beside the fire, watching the boy sleep, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow, pained breaths.
"Three seconds of reality-bending," Vane muttered to himself. "Not even a month into training. And already you're creating nen laws."
He stared into the fire, eyes lost in memory.
"You really are his son…"
⸻
When Kaen finally woke, his first word was "Timer."
He jolted upright, clutching his chest. "Did I go over the three seconds?"
"You didn't," Vane answered. "But your aura burned out the moment the effect ended. You were lucky it didn't backfire."
Kaen took a deep breath, aura flickering faintly around him. "So it worked…"
"More than that. You rewrote probability within a bounded duration. That's a level of nen engineering most pro Hunters wouldn't dare attempt."
Kaen's eyes narrowed. "But I couldn't do it again. It was instinct. A gut reaction."
"That's the only time you'll ever create something under pressure," Vane replied. "The rest is refining it until it doesn't kill you."
Kaen sat in silence, processing.
Then he asked, "Eral called me a threat to balance. He wasn't wrong, was he?"
Vane looked up. "That depends on what you do next."
⸻
Over the next week, training resumed — but now with a new focus: regulatory control.
Kaen couldn't afford to create unstable techniques without understanding their structure. His Mind Palace was vast, but it had been growing like a wild forest. Now it was time to become its gardener.
The first thing he did was establish a System Codex inside the Palace — a ledger that logged every ability, glyph, echo, and illusion he had ever used or imagined.
He gave each entry:
• A Name
• A Nen Category (even theoretical ones)
• A Trigger Mechanism
• A Weakness
• A Cost Rating (A through F, with A being nearly fatal to use)
At the top of the Codex were three entries:
1. Echo Scribe – Enhancement/Specialist Hybrid – Passive memory logging – Weakness: requires observation or replay – Cost: C
2. Tactical Echo – Conjuration – Glyph-based auto-activation – Weakness: predictability – Cost: D
3. Impossibility Engine – Unknown/Speculative – Mental override + illusion-real fusion – Weakness: 3-second limit, extreme exhaustion – Cost: A
He highlighted the Impossibility Engine in red and locked it behind a mental gate in the Palace.
He would not use it again until he fully understood what he had done.
⸻
Meanwhile, Vane taught him about the politics of Nen.
"There are groups," he said one morning, "that monitor emerging abilities. Most people think the Hunter Association is the strongest force in the world."
He scoffed.
"It's not. Not by a long shot."
Kaen raised an eyebrow. "Then who is?"
Vane bent a tree branch slowly as he spoke. "The ones who remain hidden. There's the Hyo Brothers in the East — twins who manipulate time signatures. There's the Five Constellations in the Republic of Begora. Even the Phantom Troupe are afraid of them. And then there's the Council of Black Thread — Nen users who collect and erase abilities that 'shouldn't exist.'"
Kaen stiffened. "Eral is one of them."
Vane nodded. "I'm almost certain."
Kaen asked, "So why did they let me live?"
"Because they're not sure how far along you are. And they probably want to see what you'll do with the power. If they kill you now, they learn nothing. But if they observe you, they can map your evolution."
Kaen's thoughts turned dark. "So they want to use me as a lab rat."
Vane smirked. "Or a weapon. If your Mind Palace can copy, derive, and then enhance Nen abilities, you could become a living arsenal. You'll be a target from here on out. Not just for what you can do — but for what you might do."
Kaen stood up and walked toward the cliff's edge, staring into the ocean. "Then let them come."
He clenched his fist, aura igniting faintly.
"I won't just survive. I'll build something no one can control. Not them, not the Hunters, not even you."
⸻
That night, Kaen sat inside the Palace once more. He opened a new chamber: the Seed Vault — a storage for ideas that weren't full abilities yet, but that could one day bloom into them.
He added five Seeds:
• Time Hollow – A potential echo-based replay window (10 seconds of reversed reality)
• Phantom Key – Unlock nen-locked doors or barriers
• Curse Weaver – Apply conjured glyphs to others without their knowledge
• Shadow Interview – Temporarily use a stranger's Nen ability after one conversation
• Framewalker – Create multiple versions of self that explore different decision outcomes and merge knowledge later
Each Seed was a gamble — untested, dangerous, and wild. But with time, each one could change the battlefield forever.
Kaen smiled to himself as he walked through the vault, his mental footsteps echoing down long corridors of impossible knowledge.
The war hadn't started yet.
But the seeds had been planted.
And soon… they would grow.
⸻
To be continued in Chapter 7: The Framewalker Test