Chapter 290: Mental Materialization x Guanyin of the Hundred Type
Gotoh had a dream, a very, very long dream.
In the dream, he seemed to have returned to his embryonic stage, continuously dividing and developing from a fertilized egg into a morula, then a blastocyst, before landing into water with a thump and beginning implantation...
Even though it was merely an embryo that hadn't begun further development, let alone grown organs or a brain, Gotoh could identify it at a single glance. That tiny, round object anchoring itself onto the uterine wall was himself!
Am I reborn?
Or reconstituted?
Gotoh drifted outside the embryo, observing everything from a god's perspective. In his mind spontaneously surfaced the image of Roy, his silver hair swaying as he beamed a gentle smile at him. The butler remained silent, watching quietly... The blastocyst that should have begun further development at this point was suddenly injected with a streak of "warm," "genial" sunlight hazily radiating a solar halo...
Crack~ Gotoh instantly felt as though something had snapped in the deepest depths of his body... A blurry wave of sudden enlightenment surged into his heart along with the injection of "sunlight."
Looking again, he could clearly feel that his blastocyst self possessed far more vitality than before, and had grown slightly larger.
A stir occurred in the butler's heart, and that blurry wave of enlightenment steadily began to turn clear.
That was the sound of a Genetic Restriction snapping, being dragged by someone to be reforged.
It's the Young Master...
It's that drop of... blood... he gifted me...
That drop of essence blood that looked ordinary, yet contained the [Power of the Sun]...
Gotoh's heart warmed. Amidst his countless racing thoughts, traveling along with time, he continued to pay silent attention to his tiny self. Unsurprisingly, following the blastocyst stage, he quickly grew organs and developed limbs. Bursting with vitality, he turned over and swam freely, treating the amniotic fluid entirely like a swimming pool, spending an unexhausted amount of energy during his movements... completely different from an ordinary infant...
And this was precisely the distinctiveness bestowed upon him by his talented genes—beginning right from his mother's womb!
Soon, ten months passed, and Gotoh found himself finally crying his way into the world... Wrapped in swaddling clothes, he was treated entirely like trash, discarded in an inconspicuous garbage pile within Meteor City. As his consciousness shifted, he couldn't even see clearly... what exactly his mother looked like, or how she found the heart to ruthlessly discard his newborn self...
But once he remembered that the place was Meteor City—a hell where the majority of children didn't necessarily live to adulthood—Gotoh paused to watch that slender silhouette slowly vanish into the night after discarding him, and gradually... came to terms with it.
Following that, he was picked up by Tsubone and entered the Zoldyck household... beginning to learn butler skills and Nen aura as an apprentice butler. Years passed, until one day, he was instructed to take care of the young Eldest Young Master.
For the first time in his life, Gotoh saw someone whose smile could be so warm, so brilliant...
"Hello," that day, the Young Master, who still possessed a head of black hair, actively extended his right hand toward him.
That day, filled with complete trepidation, he placed his right hand over his chest and knelt on one knee to swear his absolute loyalty, finalizing the sole master of his entire life!
"..." For some unknown reason, the previously peaceful dreamscape suddenly vibrated violently... What he saw and heard was instantly interrupted. Gotoh was still in the middle of swearing his loyalty before Roy, but in the next glance, he forcefully lifted his head, narrowing his eyes as he looked toward the edge of the fracturing dreamscape...
Distance away, three silhouettes stood not far in front of him, separated from him by a single door, quietly saying something to each other...
At a certain moment, noticing his gaze looking over, the younger one reached out his hand from afar to press down gently, speaking warmly: "Don't panic, I'm here." Gotoh felt as though he had once again been injected with sunlight during his embryonic stage. Staying within the blood cocoon, he recognized Roy in a single flash, and subsequently closed his eyes once more in absolute peace...
[Prompt: Believer Gotoh, evolution process continuing...] [Current Process: 5/7 (Days)] [Exactly two days remaining until evolution is complete...]
Roy comforted Gotoh with a single hand. As was his custom, he scanned his panel...
[Believer: Gotoh (Note: Overflowing Loyalty)] [Current Status: Evolving ing...] [Physique +1+1+1+1...] [Current: 1274... compared to before evolution has increased by nine hundred points (Note: Still continuing to increase)] [Manifested Aura Volume: C (37,415/100,000) → C+ (15,784/100,000) (Note: Still continuing to increase)] [Potential Aura Volume: C+ (14,578/100,000) → B- (200,000/1,000,000) (Note: Still continuing to increase)] [Nen Category: Emitter] [Initial Nen Ability: Coin Guessing] [First Embrace Nen Ability: Currently awakening...] [Awakening Progress: 78%] [Evaluation: C+] [Note: Referencing Chimera Ants, your believer "Gotoh" has reached the level of a top-tier Chimera Ant Squadron Leader. His current strength is roughly at the level of a peak-era Kite, and he is advancing towards the B- rank.] [Governable Status — Under Absolute Domination]
Roy silently sensed that the karmic thread connecting him and Gotoh was still continuously thickening and growing. He suddenly heard Netero speak leisurely: "This butler of yours is quite sharp."
Maintaining Shinkiyoku: Kenchō, the young boy stood shoulder to shoulder with Netero, saying with a smile, "He is inherently a meticulously minded person, otherwise he wouldn't be able to serve as a butler."
Netero let out a non-committal "Mhm." Casting another glance, sweeping over Gotoh who had returned to a peaceful sleep, he vaguely witnessed a magnificent evolution through the reflection of the butler's mind...
That was shifting from a "fleeting" meteor that embraced absolute death and was merely prepared to flash once... into a planet possessing its own fixed operational orbit, slowly rotating around a central anchor point!
The difference between the two—whether in terms of mass, scale, magnetic field, or vitality—was completely night and day compared to the past. And this process had taken less than a short two years.
As Netero's thoughts drifted, he calmly cast a sidelong glance at Roy... For that young butler whose upper limit could previously be discerned in a single glance to morph into this state, it was undeniably linked to the boy standing beside him with a genial smile.
A leisurely mountain breeze blew in through the window...
Gotoh slept peacefully. Netero's consciousness had left his body, showing no intention of returning just yet. At a certain moment, he reached out a hand and swiped across the space before him... The second-floor corridor vanished in the blink of an eye, replaced by a world blanketed entirely in a mental projection... a world where only the mind could briefly linger.
Bakudō~ The convergence of various gazes was instantly cut off and repelled...
Caught within the storm where Shinkiyoku: Kanchō and Shinkiyoku: Kenchō intersected and collided, everyone save for Maha—including Silva and Zeno—experienced a slight tremor in their bodies, instantly swept away and repelled by Netero's intent.
Silva and Zeno each fell silent, standing quietly in place, not moving their steps for a long while...
Tap, tap... tap... At this time, the sun had leapt completely past the horizon, and under the pouring of the scorching sunlight, the heat began to steam. Inside that dim, small room, Maha was listening to cartoons by himself, rocking his chair and rhythmically tapping the armrest to his own amusement... Lying there loosely, he allowed Netero's intent, which sought to screen everyone out, to sweep past... remaining completely unmovable.
Within the world of Shinkiyoku: Kanchō, Netero narrowed his eyes and laughed helplessly: "The old man is still as unyielding as ever."
Turning around, he simply followed Maha's lead, waving his hand to lightly manifest two or three small wooden stools alongside a calm, rippling mental lake, which materialized slowly right before Roy...
Roy's nostrils twitched, his sharp senses catching a familiar scent from the clear breeze sweeping across the mental lake. Casually seating himself upon one of the stools, he said, "This lake should be the mental projection Ging left behind here back then, right?"
As the boy's gaze shifted, he noticed that in front of the empty stool to his right, a fishing rod was angled into the ground. At the end of the rod, where the line connected to the float, it was secured by a red bead... completely identical to the rod Ging had used to fish by the shore earlier. In his mind flashed the images from the original story... Gon holding this exact rod, appearing several times to hook the Master of the Swamp... carrying Leorio to hook onto rocks, soaring across the ocean to land upon the deck of the Ship...
Opening his right hand, specks of light rippled. In the next instant, utilizing Wood Release, he materialized a perfectly straight wooden rod into his grip. With a casual flick... a Nen thread flew out, entering the lake with a splash~, stirring up ripples of water.
Sweeping his large sleeves, Netero selected the empty stool to Roy's left and seated himself. Watching the mental lake ripple as a few fish darted through the water, he said leisurely, "Ging is one of the few entities I have seen who possesses an exceptional affinity for nature."
"This lake, the fish within it, and the silhouetted birds and beasts drinking by the far shore are all deep impressions he left upon this old man in the past..."
The intent of Shinkiyoku: Kanchō lay in the clash of spiritual will! Words can deceive, and eyes can deceive, but the thoughts and reflections within one's heart, when projected into the mental space in the form of Materialization, cannot be hidden at all.
Following Netero's gaze, Roy looked at the birds and the beasts, recalling the day he broke into the prison alongside Ging to rescue Razor. The Nen ability Ging had displayed—allowing him to briefly borrow the talents of magical beasts through a Contract—made the phrase "affinity for nature" far from an exaggeration.
"What about that patch over there?" Roy sat peacefully by the lake, fishing without a hook. His gaze swept over, noticing a patch of lush green grass on the shore wantonly radiating a faint, sparkling light, exactly like gemstones refracting multicolored light under the sun...
An answer vaguely formed in his heart—spontaneously thinking of a certain old woman who liked to present herself as a young girl!
"Your guess is correct, that is the impression Biscuit left upon this old man..."
An impression is nothing less than a mental impact; precisely because the impact was powerful enough, it became indelible.
Imitating Roy, Netero moved his thought, casually picking up a piece of dry firewood scattered on the ground to use as a fishing rod. Fishing without a hook, he said with a beaming smile, "It is entirely natural for girls to like gemstones. This disciple of mine has loved collecting these shiny, sparkling objects since childhood."
"Hohoho... sometimes she piles them up until the entire room is full, leaving this old man with nowhere to even step..."
Truly, that sounded exactly like something the old woman would do... Roy's gaze bypassed the patch of gemstones, continuing to scan further out... Far in the distance, he could see dust flying, chariots roaring, and the continuous sound of gunfire... Faintly, artillery shells trailed long tails of fire as they exited their barrels into the sky... This time, without waiting for Roy to ask,
Netero actively explained, "That is the impression Botobai left upon this old man."
Botobai, an army unto himself... As the universally acknowledged number one person beneath Netero within the Hunter Association in the original story, possessing this level of strength was far from surprising.
Next, Roy saw jungles, saw bizarre rocks, saw wind-blown flowers, and saw snow-covered moons... until a mottled amusement park forced its way into his vision.
The boy's body experienced a tremor. He keenly discovered that this abandoned amusement park was barred by a massive, rusted iron gate, which was firmly secured by a substantial lock.
Roy abruptly turned his head, looking toward Netero.
He saw the old man's gaze turn profound, carrying no small amount of reminiscence, sadness, and emotion as he spoke leisurely: "Your guess is correct, this is the impression your grandfather Zzigg left upon me back then."
As expected. Roy silently put down the fishing rod in his hand, stood up tall, and said directly, "Can I take a look inside?"
Netero remained silent for a moment. Moving his hand, he lifted a fish from the water and said, "No." Following that, with a toss, he dropped the fish back into the mental lake...
"Why?" Roy's beautiful silver hair swayed with the wind, the tips overflowing with a glazed golden light as he said calmly, "That isn't merely your mental projection, it contains Grandfather Zzigg's as well..."
Netero didn't look at Roy, merely stating, "It is precisely Zzigg who keeps it dead-locked, refusing to let anyone enter."
Roy: "..."
For a time, silence fell between them...
After a long while, a green leaf drifted down, landing into the lake and stirring up ripples... The boy remained silent for a good while before opening his mouth to ask again: "Has my Great-Grandfather looked inside?"
An abrupt, cold snort traveled leisurely along the mental threads into Roy's ears before Netero could even answer...
He heard Maha say, "This old man is far too lazy to look!"
A single sentence caused both Roy and Netero to look at each other, thoroughly dumbfounded, falling into a collective silence.
"Hohoho... It seems the old man's anger won't dissipate anytime soon..." After a long while, Netero let out a forced chuckle. Gripping his wooden rod, he lifted it once more, catching another fish from the water...
The fish thrashed and slapped its tail, splashing a bit of lake water that wet a section of Roy's clothing.
The young boy subsequently fell into a deep silence for a good while, casting a profound look at that sealed, abandoned amusement park. With another glance, he withdrew his gaze, completely losing the interest to continue measuring the mental landscape. Turning his head to look at Netero, his entire being froze once more!
Chime~ A leisurely, resplendent chime—sounding like a great bronze bell—echoed resoundingly by Roy's ears.
When his vision withdrew and landed upon Netero's form, Roy's amber eyes ignited with two streaks of divine light with a puff~, seeing with absolute clarity...
Behind the old man in his billing robes, elongated earlobes, and white eyebrows, sitting in a relaxed posture... rested a towering, majestic Buddhist hall!
This hall had its dome supported by dozens of thick pillars. It possessed no couplets, no Buddhist verses, and not even... a wooden fish.
Peering inside through the wide-open doors, there was only a towering, massive statue of Guanyin. She wore a precious crown upon her head,
ornaments draped around her neck, willow-leaf curved eyebrows, her eyes slightly open, her lips slightly pursed, her earlobes rich, and her cheeks full. Bearing a slight smile, her posture was poised as she looked down from above...
The divine form was magnificent and solemn!
Merely having that slightly smiling gaze cast down—perhaps due to the statue being far too towering—looking at humans was like looking at ants, forcing one to look up in reverence... Straining to straighten his neck, it was only through her shoulders that he could witness the one hundred arms abruptly extending from behind her back!
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