During the evening, Conrad went out for a walk on his own.
At this point, many matters were completely outside of his control. There was not much he could actively do about them, at least when it came to external affairs.
"What can I do?" he asked himself.
The first thing that came to mind was naturally increasing his knowledge.
"I've postponed my research on Nen for quite a while."
"But right now, I have time."
At the moment, there were two major areas related to Nen that Conrad had discovered and begun developing—areas that differed from what most people knew.
One of them was Creational Condition.
The other was his growing mastery and understanding of ancient script.
Conrad took a deep breath and came to a stop. Looking to his left, he spotted a bar.
"I could do some studying," he thought.
As a Nen user, the effects of alcohol and the possibility of addiction were almost negligible. Because of that, drinking was not something he needed to worry about.
"Now then..."
Conrad found a seat in a corner, ordered some snacks and a beer, then pulled out the notebook and pens he always carried in his small bag.
He immediately began writing.
"Ancient Script. The written form of Nen. A single-use application of Nen."
"When the necessary conditions are properly structured like an If-Else algorithm and infused with Nen, it becomes possible to create one-time effects that are weaker than a full Nen ability but exist outside ordinary Nen applications."
After writing that down, Conrad smiled.
"When I first thought about it... this was how I interpreted Greed Island."
"No matter how you look at it, the entire game is essentially one massive Nen ability being sustained by multiple Nen users. Its rules are incredibly complex and capable of interacting with almost every aspect of reality within its boundaries."
"Now..."
"Conditions. Limitations. Emotional States. Risk. Potential Nen."
He wrote several new headings in his notebook.
At the moment, he was trying to understand which factors actively strengthened Nen abilities and Nen-related actions.
"Taking risks..."
"A source of power acknowledged by Nen."
"The more you give of yourself, the more Nen responds."
"But does Nen react to the emotions created by risk..."
"Or does it react to the exercise of one's will?"
Conrad pulled out a blank sheet of paper and glanced at the beer sitting in front of him.
"Conjuration symbols..."
"And a little Nen..."
He picked up his pen and began drawing symbols across the page.
His goal was simple.
To create another copy of his beer.
"Someone like Kortopi, a powerful conjurer, used time restrictions and touch conditions to accomplish something like this," he thought.
Conrad paused for a moment before pulling out three additional sheets of paper.
He wrote the same objective on each one.
Then he labeled them A, B, and C.
"Paper A."
"I want to create and materialize another copy of this beer."
He wrote the objective while infusing the paper with Nen.
Then he moved to Paper B.
He wrote the exact same objective, but this time added a condition beneath it.
"I want another copy of this beer. I must touch the original beer I wish to duplicate and materialize."
Afterward, he moved on to Paper C.
Once again, he wrote the same goal while channeling Nen into the page and adding the appropriate symbols.
"Before creating the copy, a few drops of the beer must be poured onto the paper."
"I may use this Ancient Script paper ten times per day to create beer."
"Before activating it, I must take one sip from the original beer."
Alongside various symbols, he carefully incorporated additional conditions and limitations.
At this moment, Conrad wanted to measure exactly how much conditions and limitations affected Nen when pursuing the same objective.
"Let's see..."
He picked up Paper A and infused it with Nen to activate it.
About three seconds later, the paper shattered into pieces, and another beer appeared.
Conrad barely paid attention to the newly created beer.
His focus was elsewhere.
To create a single beer using Paper A, he had just consumed nearly twenty percent of his total aura.
Even in a prolonged battle, spending twenty percent of his aura would normally require a considerable amount of time.
Yet with an ancient script that contained no conditions and no limitations, creating a simple object had cost him nearly a quarter of his available Nen.
Considering the total size of his aura reserves, it would not be inaccurate to say that creating a single beer had required roughly the same amount of Nen that Gon uses during channeling his Jajanken in his fight with Knuckle.
Conrad slowly exhaled.
Then he picked up the created beer and took a drink.
It was cold and refreshing.
Exactly as he had expected.
"So an ordinary object that I understand completely appears exactly as I imagine it..."
"Perhaps this experiment would have been more meaningful if I had specified additional details."
After thinking about it for a moment, he shifted his attention to Paper B.
First, he placed one hand on the original beer.
With his other hand, he injected Nen into Paper B and activated the Ancient Script.
This time, a new beer appeared in less than a second.
It looked completely identical.
There was no visible difference whatsoever.
"Interesting..."
"This time I only used around five percent of my total aura."
"With a single touch condition, the aura cost dropped to one-fourth of the original amount."
Conrad smiled.
"Conditions and restrictions really are important."
He had always known that limitations strengthened Nen.
However, seeing the numerical difference laid out so clearly was another matter entirely.
The effect was far more dramatic than most people realized.
Finally, Conrad picked up Paper C.