*You can skip this chapter once I start explaining if you already know what Nen is. I had to add these explanations for anyone who hasn’t read Hunter x Hunter.*
November 20th, 1996
General POV
“Always a pleasure Edgar. I’ll see you at the yearly meeting next month.” Desmond said, ending the call. After learning about the ‘experiment’ Desmond & Trey tried to pull off, all five of his business partners expressed their concerns. Edgar had been the nicest of all of them, just telling both of them to be more careful. Raymond had been as mad as Jamie. He gave him a long, convoluted story on how the quest for power can be destructive. In the end, he somehow made an analogy of Picasso's quote, “It took four years to paint Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Pointing out how he was self-destructing, trying to speed up a process that was already at the perfect pace. After two weeks of reeducating both of them, things went back to normal.
Desmond stood at the edge of Traveler's walk in all-white workout clothes. He made five clones, each using a Template to train one power. He would work on Breathing Techniques, Magic, Armor Suits(Javelins/Iron Man), Chakra, and his new Mass Effect abilities. They all flew off to different parts of the island to train. Alone again, he sat back down, thinking about the power his main body would focus on.
He chose Nen. Nen was anime’s best power system. It was a power system that allowed its users to create almost anything with logical reasons for how & why the power worked. Nen’s power was based on Aura, the life energy produced by all living things through aura nodes. Once your aura nodes were opened through various means, you could begin to practice Nen. All uses of Nen fall under the four major principles of Ten, Zetsu, Ren, and Hatsu. A simplified explanation of the first three principles:
Ten (Envelop/Shroud) is the process of keeping the nodes open but also having aura flow through and around the body rather than away from it. Once maintained, it creates a thin shroud around the user that feels similar to standing in a lukewarm, viscous fluid. Despite being the most elementary technique of all, Ten plays an instrumental role in determining the strength and smoothness of a Nen user's aura flow.
Ten maintains youthful vigor and reduces one's aging since the energy powering the body no longer leaks away. Ten is also the most basic defense against emotional Nen attacks, and it also offers limited protection against physical attacks, but hardly any when said attacks are enhanced with aura. Through frequent meditation and practice, one can improve the quality of their Ten and eventually even maintain it in their sleep.
Zetsu (Suppress/Null) stops the aura flow from their body altogether. By closing all of their aura nodes, the user can halt all outflow of their aura-like water from a valve, making their presence much harder or even impossible to sense. Shutting off the nodes in their eyes prevents the user from being able to see an aura, but since they are no longer surrounded by their own aura, they become more sensitive to the aura of others. Despite the technique not affecting vision directly, activating Zetsu in front of someone else will give them the impression that the user has turned transparent.
Zetsu can also be used to relieve fatigue since it forces the body's external layer of aura to be fully contained within. For the same reason, it can be dangerous because it leaves the body defenseless against any aura attack. Even a weak attack enhanced with Nen can do massive damage.
Ren (Refine/Enhance) focuses on outputting a larger amount of aura than Ten, projecting it outwards explosively. This amplifies the user's physical strength and durability and provides a large pool of aura for any advanced techniques or individual skills they decide to use, albeit at the cost of expending said aura. If Ten is considered purely defensive, Ren can be regarded as its offensive counterpart, although it also grants the user vastly enhanced defensive abilities.
By tinging one's Ren with hostility, a Nen user can exert what is colloquially called "bloodlust." Since Ren is a show of power, it can also intimidate other Nen users, as it offers an approximate measure of the user's raw strength. In most cases, Ren reflects the user's hostility without their control, and it can even leave faint traces in the environment after the Nen user has left the scene. One can train their Ren to extend its duration and increase the amount of aura at their disposal. It is said to take one month to prolong one's Ren outside of combat by 10 minutes.
Each basic principle can be further used with advanced techniques. Gyo (Focus) is an advanced application of Ren by which a Nen user concentrates a larger than normal portion of their aura into one specific body part. It increases the strength of that one body part but leaves the rest of the body more vulnerable. In (Conceal) is an advanced form of Zetsu used to render one's aura imperceptible, even to other Nen users, effectively concealing it. Unlike Zetsu, however, In does not stop the user's aura flow; instead, it hides it, making it impossible to perceive with any of the five senses or extrasensory perception.
En (Circle) is an advanced application of Ten and Ren. With Ren, aura usually envelops only a small amount of space around the user's body. En is when one extends their Ren so that their aura extends further than normal, then uses Ten simultaneously to contain and give shape to that aura, usually a sphere. Someone using En can feel the shape and movement of anything within the area covered by their aura, with a degree of awareness and finesse depending on their skill level. Shu (Enfold) is an advanced application of Ten. Shu allows Nen users to enshroud an object with their aura and to use that object as an extension of their own body.
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Ko (Temper) is a combination of Ten, Zetsu, Ren, Hatsu, and Gyo in which all of the user's aura is concentrated into one particular body part. Gyo is utilized to focus aura on a part of the body, while Ten is used to prevent it from dispersing. Zetsu is used to completely stop the flow of aura in all other parts of the body, increasing the output in the desired area. With Ren, the amount of aura is increased even further. This makes that one body part extremely powerful but at the cost of leaving the rest of the user's body unprotected.
Ken (Fortify) is the advanced form of the essential Ten and Ren techniques. It is a primarily defensive technique where a Nen user maintains a state of Ren for a prolonged amount of time. The amount of aura surrounding the user's body during Ken is about ten times higher than during Ten.
Ryu (Flow) is the term for using Gyo while in a state of Ken to perform real-time offensive and defensive value adjustments. Suppose Ko dedicates 100% of one's aura to offense or, much more rarely, to defense, and Ken splits it evenly between the two. In that case, Ryu is redistributing one's aura according to any other percentage (e.g., by focusing 70% of one's aura in one fist and 30% everywhere else as one is about to strike, or 80% in one's leg and 20% everywhere else to block an incoming kick). Ryu is difficult to master, as it requires the user to control one's aura flow with great precision and estimate the amount of aura utilized by the opponent at a glance.
One can become powerful from these techniques alone, but Hatsu is where Nen branches off into something different. Hatsu (Release/Act) is one's personal expression of Nen. Its qualities are influenced by, but not restricted to, the Nen user's natural Aura type, one of the six available. Hatsu is used to project one's aura to carry out a certain function, creating a special and unique paranormal ability called a Nen ability. A good Nen ability reflects a person's own character and idiosyncrasies, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. The key is that it should feel suitable to the user themselves. Gut instincts play a very significant role in developing one’s Nen abilities. Furthermore, it is best if someone creates their own ability from scratch; if an ability can be achieved through Nen, then it is possible for someone to learn how to use it. However, one can never truly master Nen if they only copy someone else's abilities.
There are six types of aura for Hatsu: Enhancement, the ability to use aura to strengthen or increase the natural abilities of an object or one's own body. Enhancers can greatly increase their physical attack and defense and are best suited for melee combat.
Transmutation means a person can change the properties of their aura to mimic something else or replicate specific attributes. Transmuted aura can be made to take on the properties of natural elements, man-made substances, and even animals,
Emission means that a user can easily separate their aura from their body. Due to its properties, Emission is typically employed in abilities with an emphasis on range and those that have long-lasting effects. Primary applications include shooting out projectiles or beams of aura at high speed. Aura usually decreases in intensity very quickly when it leaves the source body, but adept Emitters can separate their aura from their body for long periods of time, over long distances, and still be able to maintain it and its functions.
Conjuration involves creating a physical, independent, material object out of one's aura. However, users of this category can also make laws and principles and affix them to a specific area or even create their own pocket dimension. Though a Conjurer has to undergo a lot of visualization training, once they have mastered the materialization of a certain object, they can conjure it and dispel it instantly, whenever they want.
Manipulation allows the user to control living or non-living things, including aura constructs. The main advantage of this category in combat is the ability to manipulate the enemy themselves. Manipulators are the Nen users who can pour the most aura into an object and often rely on a medium of some kind to utilize their ability. The object they use as a medium will be one that they have been utilizing for years. In many cases, they are capable of inflicting and maintaining the effects of their abilities from afar, seemingly without the aid of Emission-type Nen, most commonly achieved with the assistance of their specific medium.
Specialization can be broadly defined as any abilities that do not belong to any of the other five categories, making it the vaguest Nen type. Specialist abilities also tend to have more steps and conditions than abilities of other Nen types.
Every individual is born having one of these six different aura types. Upon learning one's own aura type, a student of Nen can set about learning to apply the technique in a unique way that suits their personality, which can develop into a special skill. There are numerical approximations to indicate precisely how efficient a Nen user would be at utilizing categories into which they were not born. Starting at one's own aura type, a Nen user has the potential to be 100% efficient at using abilities based in that category alone. One has the potential to be 80% efficient at using aura types adjacent to one's primary type, 40% efficient at the category opposite of their own, and 60% efficient in the two remaining categories. Specialization is the exception to the rule. It is typically unusable for non-Specialists. One either can or cannot use Specialist abilities. However, turning into a Specialist later in life is possible, with Conjurers and Manipulators having the highest chance of succeeding.
Finally, Nen users can set Conditions, Limitations, and Vows to make their Hatsu stronger. The creator of a Nen ability can include Conditions in it to increase its power or to make the ability feasible in the first place, whether because the user lacks the degree of skill otherwise required or because the effects of the ability exceed what can be achieved with Nen without a trade-off.
Restrictions are called Limitations and the act of swearing to respect them are Vows. This type of Nen can increase the overall power of an individual skill by stating a self-imposed restriction that forces even more conditions on it. The stricter the limitation, the stronger the user's resolve, and thus the more their ability is strengthened. Limitations seem to strengthen an ability to a greater degree than Conditions. However, limitations are also considered liabilities since the power they grant is not consistent.