It seemed the more Menchi enhanced the ingredients the stronger special effects they would have.
That of course meant she needed to be able to cut and cook them.
"Let me see you try." Roman spoke.
Prompting Menchi to pull out her sharpest knife.
If she enhanced her knife as much as she did the ingredients she shouldn't have an issue.
But instead she used her energy to sharpen the blade.
And with all her strength she only managed a paper cut.
"Why not use more strength?" Roman inquired.
"I can only do one or the other." Menchi replied, making Roman frown.
It seemed she had subconsciously restricted her ability to make its effects stronger.
While she hadn't been tested for her talent category, Roman was pretty sure she was a transmuter.
Making her sharpening skill greater than her enhancing skill.
But she was also using a steel knife against flesh, there shouldn't be any problem.
The only thing Roman could think of was that she actually leaned toward the enhancer talent quiet a bit.
But that wasn't enough to explain this.
Unless for some reason she had been training her energy in enhancement much more than in transmutation.
Sighing.
He needed to think and test something's to truly understand this. But Lewy was here so he couldn't.
For now he spoke. "Try again."
Making Menchi confused, but did as told.
As she brought down her knife and used all her strength, limiting her aura to only sharpening her knife.
Roman activated an ability of his own, and the mark he had placed on her years ago pulsed unbeknownst to anyone.
Menchi's soul seemed to strengthen and grow, and in that moment her knife sliced through an onion in her hand.
Widening her eyes, Menchi felt renewed strength and quickly chopped up all her ingredients. Before looking back at Roman.
"How?" She was curious about his ability.
But Roman only smiled. "Try to figure it out yourself, and I'll tell you after a meal."
Roman walked away, awaiting Menchi to finish cooking so they could share this meal together and problem solve.
What Roman actually did wasn't a new ability, just a side effect.
A soul was only strengthened through time and based on how powerful its anchor was.
Having many more years under his belt from his last life and much more training in this life, his soul was much more powerful than Menchis.
When he activated the soul mark on Menchi, his soul would temporarily strengthen its target's soul and by extension the target's body.
Through a few trials he learned it was only temporary and never permanent.
And would only strengthen a weaker target, but if the target was too weak the target's soul would instead be injured.
Making it impossible to make use of a mark on a small animal or bug.
Greatly restricting his ability to manipulate others.
Only able to manipulate living things with a soul, while too weak and the being would be harmed or even killed. Not to mention creatures even a quarter of his strength were impossible to control.
This was something that Roman determined not even the strongest or most skilled life energy masters could completely overcome.
This meant he needed to turn to restricting his ability to make use of either side of the spectrum. The weak or the strong.
Choosing both would restrict his ability too much for his liking.
Though it was never his intention to manipulate others with a soul mark, but rather to counter other manipulators.
Anybody who knew this world would know when it came to manipulation.
Two people can't manipulate one thing.
It was first come first serve.
Since he had a soul mark on Menchi, nobody could manipulate her but himself.
Unless another manipulator had a specially tailored ability, or was much stronger.
Looking up, Menchi walked into their room with a wide tray full of food.
Before Roman could take a bite, Menchi spoke. "How?"
Pausing slightly, he took a bite of Menchi's well prepared food and, similar to the past, grabbed a cup of water and a piece of lettuce.
Placing it in front of an observant Menchi, he spoke. "Use your aura."
Not questioning, she placed a hand over the cup and engulfed it with aura.
And to the surprise of both Menchi and Roman, impurities rapidly formed.
Menchi was a conjurer.
This didn't make much sense to Roman. After all her mild impulsiveness wasn't that of a conjurer like Kirapika.
Kurapika was very in check of his emotions, almost never making an outburst.
Not to mention her thoughtfulness wasn't the same as Kurapika either.
But she was young. So maybe these things weren't yet defined or accurate.
Though this rose another question, why was her enhancement skill so much stronger than her transmutation.
Conjurers were even weaker at enhancement than transmutation, almost abysmally so.
While Roman was lost in thought, idly eating.
Menchi was getting annoyed by his silence.
Cough*
She interrupted Roman, who glanced at her with a weary smile.
"I can't keep helping you every time, so let me show you how to overcome this hurdle yourself." Roman answered Menchi's silence.
Taking his time to eat while setting up a pentagon with some of the food.
"This energy we both have, everybody has." Roman paused.
"But not everybody can acceses it. In fact it's true name is Nen." Roman continued.
"And everybody's is different, diverging from six unique catagories." Roman began to explain.
Sharing not only the uniqueness of each catagory but their relationships with one another.
Pointing Menchi into the direction of her Nen catagory to further her ability's.
"But why can a specialist have more! And a conjurer like me have less?!" Menchi was annoyed that a specialist could tap into every category.
While a conjurer was cut off from the specialist catagory, and even obstructing her access to other catagories.
Hearing this complaint Roman just smiled.
"Nen is full of mystery, what you see on the surface isn't ever the whole truth." Roman replied.
"A specialist may have an advantage with having more talent in all the catagories as a whole and being less predictable."
"But each catagory has its hidden charm, an enhancer for example having the second most access in the catagorys. May struggle creating an abilty, though an enhancers ability to enhance everything passivly to an unnatural degree is strong too."
"Enhancers can recover from Injury's faster, learn things and grow stronger faster, all passivly."
This could be seen in the original story with Gon, who not only recovered from a broken arm within a week or two.
But eventually caught up to Killua's strength, somebody who had been pushed from childhood to be as strong as possible.
"Meanwhile manipulators and conjurers…" Roman paused seeing Menchi perk up.
"Manipulators and Conjurers can awaken a Specialist ability."
That was all that needed to be said, and this was displayed by Kurapika in the original story.
While many chopped this ability up to the significance of his eyes.
Roman didn't see it this way.
Roman believed that when a Kurtas eyes glowed they only became stronger.
It was unrealistic to assume every Kurta had eyes that sacrificed the user life span to tap into the full potential of every Nen catagory.
Or at the very least offered a unique Nen ability to each user.
Rather Roman believed that Kurapicka as a conjurer and having gone through so much awakened the latent potential hidden in a conjurer and awakened a specialist ability.
Specialists were unique and often when a specialist awakened Nen their ability's naturally awakened, not allowing the user an opportunity to use their imagination to manifest an ability concisely.
Most specialists awakened abilities subconsciously, reflecting the heart's deep hidden desires.
Desires the person themselves had never truly realized or known about.
Menchi's subconscious ability to enhance the effects of food and grant special effects, actually wasn't a specialist ability.
Her aura simply responded to her repeated desire to make the most delicious food possible.