Chapter 36: Thank You, Shingen-ryu
Following Ross's lead, Yusuke placed his palms against either side of the cup.
The moment his aura activated, the water level inside began rising on its own and quickly spilled over the rim.
"Water increasing in volume is the hallmark of Enhancement type."
This one caught Ross off guard.
Prior association had probably set the expectation. Given that the Spirit Gun was Yusuke's signature technique, Ross had mentally placed him as the archetypal Emission type. Looking at it now, though, the Spirit Gun was really just a finisher — a decisive closer. In the original, Yusuke had even reinforced its individual impact by setting a vow that capped it at four shots per day. In regular combat, Yusuke went straight at things with fists and feet, thought in straight lines, and once he committed to a course of action there was no pulling him back. That combination of traits — uncomplicated forward momentum, absolute physical investment, doing the most with what your body could do — was entirely characteristic of Enhancement types.
"My turn, my turn!"
Kuwabara elbowed Yusuke aside and placed his own hands against the cup.
Like Ross, Kuwabara had worked through the foundational techniques during the descent at a rapid pace — his natural talent had done most of the work — and he could now run a rough version of Ren. But unlike either Yusuke or Ross, the water showed absolutely no change.
"What does that mean?"
Kuwabara looked at the cup with visible suspicion.
Next to him, Ross had already dipped his pinky into the water and tasted it.
"...There's a faint bitterness. Vaguely like tea."
"What?" x2
Both delinquents immediately did the same, working it around their mouths for a moment.
"Kind of like Suntory oolong tea. The kind that's been watered down to basically nothing."
"Oh — you thought so too?"
The two of them reached the same conclusion on the flavor simultaneously.
"Water changing taste is the characteristic of Transmutation type."
His prior assumption broken again, Ross ran Kuwabara's abilities back through his head and it clicked. Of course — the Spirit Sword operated on the same underlying principles as Bungee Gum.
Free extension and retraction, tough elastic stretch, the ability to twist together like a rope — all of these were expressions of Transmutation's defining trait: changing the properties and form of aura. Transmutation wasn't exclusively fire and lightning. Anything that reshaped what the aura was or how it behaved fit the category.
It was worth noting, as a side point, that some people's abilities pushed hard in one direction while others produced multi-type constructs from the start. Nen beasts — the typical summoned constructs — generally involved Transmutation for the aura's form, Conjuration for creating something from nothing, and Manipulation for remote control, all three working together.
If Kuwabara was naturally Transmutation, though, it put a fairly clean crack through Hisoka's personal theory about inferring Nen type from personality. Transmutation types, in Hisoka's framework, tended toward fickleness and a fondness for deception. Kuwabara was, by almost any measure, Hisoka's exact opposite on those traits.
"Now that the types are confirmed, a few basics."
"Sure." x2
Ordinarily, neither of them went near a classroom if they could avoid it. Right now both of them were listening to Ross with more focused attention than they had probably given any lesson in years. Interest turned out to be the best teacher after all.
The five of them were the only ones on this floor, and Ross was the only one speaking. The other two veteran Nen users — and Lippo, who had been paying particular attention — were listening as well, whether actively or not.
"Enhancement is the best type for straight combat. Enhancement users are their own weapon — attack, defense, and recovery all operate at maximum.
Transmutation changes the properties or form of aura. Fire, lightning, a pole. Anything that works by reshaping what the aura is or does falls here. High adaptability; rewards users who can read and respond.
Conjuration uses aura to produce specific objects. Conjured things typically carry their own embedded rules, which makes them good at catching people off guard. Second only to Specialization when it comes to producing genuinely unusual abilities."
Ross's hand moved clockwise on the paper, skipped straight past the six-o'clock position, and landed at eight.
"Manipulation first — this type uses aura to control objects, the user's own body, or other people. Usually needs a real, physical carrier as the medium.
Emission — aura maintains its power after leaving the body and continues following the user's directions to a degree. The standard long-range aura-blast type."
"Last is Specialization. Short version: everything that doesn't fit any of the other five ends up here. Specialization is almost always innate — you cannot train into it through effort. Extremely rare exceptions exist, but rare means rare. Training in any type outside your natural one reduces efficiency — and for Specialization, if it isn't your natural type, efficiency is zero."
"Using myself as the example."
Ross pointed at Conjuration on the hexagon.
"My adjacent types are Transmutation and Specialization. Training Transmutation gives me eighty percent efficiency. Specialization is innate-only, so I get zero there regardless.
One step further reduces efficiency by twenty percent. That puts Manipulation and Enhancement at sixty percent for me. The worst match is Emission — forty percent."
By now Ross had noticed Yusuke looking like he was holding something back.
"Under normal conditions, developing along your natural type is the right call. That said — sometimes a person's character is strong enough that it pulls their ability in a different direction. If someone who's naturally Enhancement has a personality built around stealth and watching others in secret, they might awaken an ability that's fundamentally Specialization in nature. It happens.
From a training standpoint, staying with your natural type is correct. But that doesn't mean actively suppressing what grows naturally out of who you are. In my view, going with the flow is the approach most consistent with what Nen actually is — a life energy."
What Ross had just laid out, drawing on the Shingen-ryu theoretical framework and his own understanding accumulated from working through the source material, was solid enough to function as the core curriculum of a Nen school. No filler. All of it distilled, organized, and accurate — comprehensive coverage of every foundational knowledge point on types. The kind of thing that was genuinely rare and valuable for anyone who had reached Nen without guidance.
That observation applied specifically to Hisoka.
Lippo was a licensed Hunter affiliated with the Association, and the Association Chairman Netero was the creator of the Shingen-ryu framework. Everything Ross had just said was available to Lippo through official channels whenever he wanted it.
Illumi had family lineage that gave him essentially the same architecture, possibly with different specifics in places, but the same underlying structure.
Hisoka had never heard type theory explained this clearly or comprehensively in his life.
He was genuinely powerful. He was also, in the most literal sense, a completely self-taught Nen user — no master, no guidance, nothing but instinct and the accumulated learning of surviving one life-or-death encounter after another, shaping himself through sheer attrition.
Everything he had built was perfectly suited to him. It had also, inevitably, involved unnecessary detours along the way.
What Ross had just described was not classified information for anyone with proper training. For Hisoka, it was enough to immediately resolve questions that had been sitting somewhere in the back of his mind for years.
Which raised an obvious question.
Someone who had been using Nen for under two days. Someone who hadn't even known Ten when they started. Where had this clearly precedented, systematically organized, thoroughly distilled body of Nen theory come from?
Was there actually something specific behind this person's background?
In the eyes of anyone paying attention, Ross's origins had just become considerably more interesting.