The hotel room in Nancha City was austere, a far cry from the sterile luxury of Yorknew or the specialized lodgings of the research base. The air was cool and carried the scent of pine and distant woodsmoke. Kevin didn't mind the simplicity; it was a fitting environment for focused work. He cleared the small desk by the window, laying out his tools: vials of Luminous Lotus Pollen, a sliver of Soul-Settling Amber, his notes, and several blank journals.
For the past few days, the journey had been a forced pause. Now, the work resumed. The goal: to master the "resentment" or lingering will within A Moment of Dream.
Jin's words were the key. It wasn't true Post-mortem Nen—a curse fueled by the undying will of the deceased. This was something else: a Nen ability created under extreme, traumatic circumstances, which had then developed a quasi-autonomous "personality" or set of rules—the "craving"—that operated independently of Kevin's conscious will. It was a schism within the ability itself, a relic of the original owner's desperate, fragmented state when the ability was born. To fully own it, Kevin had to either integrate that foreign will or excise it.
Integration seemed impossible. The craving was a blunt, instinctual drive, not a consciousness he could reason with. Excision, then. But how did one surgically remove a concept woven into the fabric of one's own aura?
He started with the materials. The Luminous Lotus Pollen was a harmonizing agent; its property was to settle conflicting energies into a stable, resonant state. The Soul-Settling Amber was said to "negate aggressive spiritual reactions"—to pacify hostile will. Both were tools for imposing order on chaos.
He didn't brew a potion. He was past that for this task. Instead, he entered a deep state of Zetsu, minimizing his aura output to a whisper. Then, with painstaking slowness, he began to circulate his Nen, not through his normal pathways, but along the specific, almost intangible "circuitry" that A Moment of Dream inhabited within him. He visualized it not as a tool, but as a recipe—a complex formula of intent, memory, and transformation.
As he traced this internal formula, he introduced minuscule amounts of the Pollen's essence and the Amber's resonance into his aura flow, not as physical substances, but by imprinting their Nen properties onto his own using his Transmutation affinity. It was an act of supreme mental and spiritual alchemy: he was attempting to Transmute his own Hatsu's inherent properties.
He focused on the "craving." He didn't fight it. He analyzed it. When the faint desire for the swamp monster's blood arose in his memory, he didn't shy away. He held the feeling, examined its texture—its greed, its hunger for power, its impersonal, consumptive nature. Then, using the Pollen's harmonizing principle, he attempted to re-contextualize it. Not as a foreign drive, but as a sensory input. A highly specialized form of En, a radar that pinged not on life, but on latent potential or condensed essence. The craving wasn't a master; it was an instrument. A flawed, shrieking instrument that needed tuning.
The Amber's property he applied to the "resentment"—the lingering emotional charge of trauma and desperation that birthed the ability. He envisioned it as a stain on the parchment of the formula. The Amber's energy was a gentle, neutralizing solvent. He didn't try to erase the stain; he tried to render it inert, to transform its chaotic emotional energy into static historical data—a footnote in the formula's origin, not a driving force.
Hours passed. The light outside shifted from afternoon gold to evening purple. Sweat beaded on Kevin's forehead, not from physical exertion, but from immense mental strain. This was uncharted territory, self-modification of a Hatsu at its deepest level.
A breakthrough came not with a bang, but with a subtle shift. While meditating on the memory of the Ichigo-Gamera strawberry, the craving that arose felt… cleaner. Less like a hungry ghost's pull and more like a librarian's pointed finger towards a specific, relevant shelf. The desire was still there—the material was still desirable—but the frantic, possessive edge was muted. It was a data point, not a command.
Simultaneously, the background hum of unease that always accompanied thoughts of the ability's origin—the faint echo of another's pain—dimmed. It was still a memory, but it no longer felt like a live wire.
He opened his eyes, breathing heavily. He was exhausted, mentally drained. He hadn't eliminated the craving or rewritten his past. But he had changed their relationship to his will. He had begun the process of installing a governor on the engine, of annotating the chaotic manuscript.
He looked at his hands. No visible change. But internally, the structure of A Moment of Dream felt more… his. It was a subtle but profound difference, like the shift from renting a haunted house to owning it and beginning renovations.
A soft chime came from his phone—a calendar reminder. Dusk was approaching. It was time to meet "Old Man Fen" at the White Goat Inn on North Ridge.
Kevin packed his materials, his mind still partly in the deep, introspective space of his work. The confrontation with his own Nen ability was a more intimate and demanding battle than any street fight. But it was the most important one. Mastering the power within was the foundation for everything else—surviving the Exam, navigating the politics of the Hunter world, and ultimately, crafting the future he wanted.
He left the modest hotel, stepping into the crisp mountain evening. The air was thin, and the first stars were pricking through the deep blue veil of the sky. He followed the hand-drawn map from Menchi and Buhara, heading away from the city's lights and into the embracing darkness of the foothills. The path to the White Goat Inn was the first step into the true wilderness, and the next phase of his journey. He moved with a new sense of clarity. The alchemist was not just refining potions; he was now refining his very essence.
The evening deepened over Nancha City. In the quiet hotel room, Kevin was engaged in a form of spiritual archaeology. His hands rested on the cool, immaterial surface of the manifested pharmaceutical table, a construct of aura, memory, and lingering obsession. The flow of his Nen into it wasn't about powering a tool; it was a delicate infiltration, a probing of psychic scar tissue.
The "resentment" wasn't a sentient ghost. It was an echo, a fossilized emotional imprint baked into the Nen ability at the moment of its catastrophic birth. Each surge of that old, frantic desire—"Want to make medicine, want to make medicine, want to fuse medicine!"—was like a fingerprint left in cooling clay. The original Kevin hadn't just been obsessed; he had been consumed. His entire identity had funneled into that single, narrowing channel of alchemical pursuit, and his death at that pinnacle of frustrated ambition had stamped that single-minded fury onto his very soul's expression.
Kevin, the new tenant of this body and ability, felt a strange kinship mixed with pity. He was, in many ways, the same. He loved the craft, the puzzle of materials, the thrill of a successful synthesis. But his love was not a prison. It was a path, one of many. He had Bisky's discipline, Mori's chaotic inspiration, Begel's ethics, Menchi and Buhara's collaborative spirit. His obsession had room to breathe, to grow in different directions.
This difference was his lever.
"Alright, alright," he murmured, his voice a soft counterpoint to the silent scream in the Nen. "I get it. You wanted to see what happens when you mix the twilight moss with the dawn-root sap. You were furious you never got to test the seventh variant of the strength formula." He didn't fight the echo. He listened to it. He synchronized his own genuine passion for the craft with its simpler, rawer scream. He matched its frequency.
Then, with the precision of a surgeon and the patience of a scribe, he began the excision. Using his own will as a scalpel—guided by the harmonizing principles of the Luminous Lotus Pollen he'd internalized—he gently teased apart the "resentment" from the core structure of the ability. He didn't destroy it. He acknowledged it, gave it a moment of recognition, and then carefully, tenderly, peeled it away.
It was tedious, microscopic work. Each session, he could only manage a fragment. A sliver of frustration over a failed batch here, a thread of anger at an interrupted experiment there. He collected these discarded emotional shavings not in a physical container, but in a dedicated, isolated corner of his mindscape, where they could dissipate harmlessly like mist in sunlight.
The immediate effect was subtle but profound. The next time he felt the "craving" for a material—a brief flicker as he thought of the swamp monster's potential essence—it came without the accompanying, subliminal buzz of desperate need. It was clearer. A pronounced interest, a strong attraction, but one he could view with analytical detachment. The side effect of emotional bleed—the frustration or anger that could sometimes seep into him after prolonged use—was noticeably absent.
He was purifying the ability. Making it a sharper, cleaner instrument. A Moment of Dream was slowly shedding the lingering trauma of its birth and becoming a true extension of his will, not a hand-me-down haunted by another's unfinished business.
A knock at the door broke his concentration. It wasn't the hotel staff; it was too deliberate, too firm.
Kevin let the pharmaceutical table dissolve into motes of light. He took a steadying breath, the deep mental fatigue of his work settling over him. He checked the time. It was nearly dusk. His meeting with Old Man Fen.
He opened the door. Standing there wasn't a grizzled mountain man, but a young woman with sharp, watchful eyes and practical, worn hiking gear. She held up a small, carved token—a stylized goat's head.
"Old Man Fen is busy. Sent me instead. I'm Lia," she said, her voice low and devoid of warmth. "You're the one looking for the quiet paths into the deep ridges?"
Kevin nodded, assessing her. No Nen that he could sense, but she moved with the easy balance of someone who knew the mountains. "I am. Kevin."
"Good. We leave in ten minutes. From the back. Bring only what you can carry for a three-day walk. The inn is a two-day hike from the trailhead. Cash. Half now." Her instructions were clipped, efficient.
This was it. The transition from the city's edge to the true wilderness. Kevin grabbed his prepared go-bag—lighter now, with materials used or stored—and counted out the agreed-upon cash.
As he followed Lia out into the gathering twilight, leaving the modest hotel behind, he felt the weight of the past few weeks shift. The urban conflicts of Yorknew, the intricate research of the wetland, the theoretical work on his Nen—they were all prologue. This trek into the mountains was the beginning of the next volume: the search for personal history with Mito, the final preparation for the Hunter Exam, and the continued, quiet refinement of his own power, one peeled-away resentment at a time. The air was cold and clean, scented with impending snow. The path ahead was dark and steep. Kevin followed the guide, his mind clear, his purpose focused. The alchemist was entering his true laboratory.
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