Chapter 65: Navigation Arrow Minor Upgrade; Nen Tool Generation and Keyword Acquisition
Well. When Yusuke brought up the Sky Arena, Ross suddenly realized it might actually be quite a good fit.
His previous lack of interest in the Sky Arena had mainly come down to not wanting the attention, plus having already staked out Battleship Island as his long-term financial plan. Going or not going had seemed equally fine.
But plans had a way of not surviving contact with events. The Navigation Arrow's loot-drop function, which had first shown itself when Kazemaru went down, had received an update just yesterday, as it turned out.
The exact moment had been during the 400-meter hurdles match, when Ross and Bodoro were sitting at the starting line discussing the logistics of a voluntary concession. A familiar pulse went through the ability, and Ross activated the Navigation Arrow.
What happened was different from the Kazemaru and Rando extractions. Rather than moving to draw something out of Bodoro, the arrow circled his body in a pattern that felt more like a scan. Bodoro had just awakened to Nen and had not yet learned Gyo, so he had no awareness of any of it.
Eventually, the arrow paused briefly at Bodoro's most distinctive feature, that pronounced cleft in his chin, then returned directly to float above Ross's head.
And the text on the arrow that had previously read "GO" had been replaced with two words: "Prominent Chin."
[You have expanded the functions of the Navigation Arrow. Displaying updated ability description...]
[Navigation Arrow: Derivative ability of Little Tyrant's Endless Amusement. Preceding description unchanged.
The player's Navigation Arrow will produce different responses based on the player's choices.
When the player completely defeats or kills a non-Secret Realm enemy unit eligible for Navigation Arrow assessment:
The Navigation Arrow will extract a portion of that enemy's life force and Nen energy to generate a Little Tyrant Nen Tool matching that enemy's characteristics. Each unit can only be extracted once.
Player's current Nen tools: Tracking Shuriken Type I, Mega Buster.
When the player successfully rescues a non-Secret Realm friendly or neutral unit eligible for Navigation Arrow assessment:
The Navigation Arrow will scan the target and acquire a special keyword. The player may activate the Navigation Arrow with at least one keyword loaded, after which the arrow will ignore all distance limits and point continuously toward any game cartridge or related item possessing that keyword's characteristics. When multiple cartridges or items share the same keyword, the arrow will default to the nearest one by direct distance and will not redirect until that target has been acquired. The player may change the active keyword at any time.
Player's current keyword: Prominent Chin.]
Not just loot drops from defeated enemies, then. Rescuing NPCs now gave navigation hints. Probably a reflection of his own desire to collect more cartridges, made tangible by the same principle that made Nen abilities mirror their user's inner logic.
The keyword itself, though. If it had come back as "old man" or "grey hair" or "martial artist" Ross would have had a working sense of the range. "Prominent chin" was harder to get his head around and he almost lost composure on the spot.
What games had characters with notably prominent chins...
Well. Actually, quite a few, once he ran the mental filter.
The Moai from Moai-kun. Gimmick from Gimmick! The Easter Island statues that turned up as recurring obstacles in Gradius and similar titles. All of them had prominent chin energy in one form or another.
But two characters stood out well above the rest.
The first was Master Higgins from the Adventure Island series, four games on the Famicom in total. Stout build, grass skirt and hat, a wide round face that had seen some things, and a chin that read as genuinely distinctive.
The second was Batman from the Batman series, three Famicom entries, though not all from the same publisher. Upper half of the face permanently covered by the mask. Lower half permanently displaying a pale complexion and, objectively speaking, a strong chin.
In terms of IP visibility and mainstream recognition, those two were clearly in a category above the others.
Adventure Island had four Famicom entries. Batman had three. Different publishers on the Batman side, and fairly significant differences in genre and character performance between them. That broadened the possible cartridge pool considerably.
In terms of what the character actually brought as a protagonist, Ross leaned toward Adventure Island. Batman's IP name recognition was larger, and the Famicom games were genuinely good, but the playable character's ability set was not particularly exceptional mechanically. Adventure Island had more going on under the surface and more interesting things to do with it.
That said, he would take whatever came. Because in this world, there was nobody with a better claim to those cartridges than he had.
"Hey! What are you grinning about? Are you in or not?"
Yusuke had noticed Ross smiling to himself for no apparent reason and flicked him in the forehead.
In Yusuke's read, Ross was capable across the board and had accumulated an implausible amount of knowledge about all kinds of things, but he had a habit of drifting completely into his own head with no warning and sitting there looking extremely happy about whatever he was thinking.
"Oh! Right. Yeah, I'm in. Why wouldn't I be?"
Ross came back, rubbed his forehead, and committed. Whatever the original plan had been, it went out the window. He turned to Kuwabara.
"Kuwabara. I'd actually recommend you come too. The Sky Arena isn't just a place to watch fights. It's a legitimate place to earn money and train."
Both delinquents, knowing Ross never said things like that without a reason, gave him their full attention.
"We need to recalibrate how we think about things. Whether you want to accept it or not, from the moment we got those licenses, we stopped being ordinary people. In this world, if you're not moving forward you're falling behind. If you don't get the mindset right, being left in the dust by the people coming up behind you would be the mild outcome. There are people out there who would look at the three of us and see targets. People who want what you have and don't care about going through proper channels to get it."
Ross deliberately avoided saying "Nen users" outright, but there was no need. A few weeks of experience had made it fairly clear to both of them that the Association was consciously keeping most new Hunters in the dark about Nen's existence.
"And honestly, why just sit in the stands? Yusuke, don't you want to get in the ring yourself? Take on fighters you could only watch through a screen before? Because once you can reach the two-hundredth floor and above, everyone there is our kind of people."
"Hold on. Seriously?"
Yusuke's reaction was not performed. He genuinely had not connected those dots.
"Kuwabara."
Kuwabara snapped to attention, not knowing what piece of useful information was about to come out of Ross next.
"I know your family isn't exactly sitting on a pile of money. The license is technically worth a fortune, but selling it would be throwing away something far more valuable than its cash equivalent.
What the Sky Arena offers instead: reach the one-hundredth floor and above, and a single win pays roughly one million Jenny. One-fiftieth floor and above, you're looking at tens of millions per win. And if either of you can take a victory at the one-hundred-and-ninetieth floor..."
Both Yusuke and Kuwabara swallowed at the same moment. They watched Ross hold up two fingers.
"Two hundred million."
The two delinquents, whose entire frame of financial reference was built around ordinary family budgets, were struck as if by lightning.