Back in the room, Elian could be seen practicing in the center of the floor. He was sitting perfectly still, his brow furrowed as he focused his aura inward.

  "It feels like my bones are crushing," Elian muttered, his voice strained from the effort of holding the concentration.

  I stood nearby, observing the flow of his Nen. "That's because they are. If you don't do this now, your skeleton won't be able to bear the pressure once you apply more force later. When I talk about 'muscle,' I don't just mean your physical body—I mean the Nen threads. The power of your Hatsu will depend entirely on the tension and strength of those threads. If the frame holding them isn't solid, the body collapses."

  Elian adjusted his focus, tightening the layer of aura around his radius and ulna. It was a slow, grueling process of conditioning, but necessary. By forcing the bone to withstand this internal pressure, his body would naturally reinforce the structure to handle the load.

  "Keep doing that training for an hour, and make sure you continue it daily," I told him. "I'll make sure we get you on a better diet to help increase your bone strength. I'm heading out for a while."

  I left him to his exercise and headed back into the city.

  I found a bookstore a few blocks away. It was a standard, functional shop, and I spent some time talking to the owner, inquiring about the specific technical manuals I needed. I eventually settled on several books regarding computer architecture and the fundamentals of binary logic.

  I paid for the stack with my winnings and headed back out. These were the basic foundations I needed to understand before I could start creating or designing my own ideas for the processor.

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  My next stop was the same electronics shop where I'd bought my phone. All types of electronics were available here, from basic radios to the latest communication gear.

  A salesman in a neat dress approached me as I walked toward the computer display. He looked professional and waved a hand toward a bulky, grey machine sitting on the counter.

  "The 1987 Model-V," he said with a hint of pride. "It's portable, reliable, and the fastest unit we've seen all year."

  Looking at it, I felt a strange sense of nostalgia. The technology in this world was skewed; they had developed advanced transportation and Nen-based tools, but personal computing felt years behind what I remembered.

  The truly advanced hardware used by people like Milluki Zoldyck was clearly not something found on a public shelf.

  "I'll take it," I said.

  I didn't need anything more advanced for now. I just needed to get started with these basics and learn how their systems handled logic.

  I walked back to the Arena with the heavy laptop and the bag of books. Elian was still deep in his training when I returned. I set the machine on the desk, plugged it in, and opened the first textbook.

  The laptop's monochrome screen hummed to life. I spent the next hour reading through the chapters on basic binary manipulation. I needed to understand exactly how numbers flowed through the hardware, how simple ones and zeros became usable data, and how that data was programmed to perform tasks.

  By the time I finished reading, I had a basic idea of how the numbers moved through a computer to execute commands. I didn't know all the nuances yet, but I understood the foundation. Behind me, Elian finally let out a long, exhausted breath. The thick layer of aura around him dispersed.

  He slumped forward, rubbing his forearms. "I feel like I just got hit with a sledgehammer."

  I walked over to him, looking at his flushed arms. "How does it feel?"

  "Like my bones are bruised on the inside," he groaned. "Did it work?"

  "Biology doesn't happen in a single afternoon," I corrected, grabbing my room key. "It takes time for the calcium to rebuild and solidify the micro-fractures. You won't feel the actual density increase for at least a few weeks."

  Elian sighed, stretching his stiff shoulders. "So I just get to be sore until then."

  "Exactly," I said. "But sitting in an air-conditioned room won't test how well your body is adapting to the stress."

  He stood up, shaking out his arms and letting out a tired but eager laugh. "Good thing my next match is scheduled for this afternoon, then."

  "Grab your tag," I said, opening the door. "It's been almost a month since we got here, and you are already at the 180th floor. The normal fighters in these classes aren't useful for you anymore. You need to push for the 200th floor faster. If you want to actually grow stronger, you need to experience real Nen fights."