Hunter X Hunter : The Boundary

Chapter 14: The Training Ground

Early spring in Tower City still carried a chill. This morning, after his run, Ryan didn't go back inside. He walked to the furthest corner of his backyard and pulled a grey cloth off a collection of discarded construction materials—wooden planks, steel frames, tires, and ropes.

His father had initially called it "junk," but when he saw Ryan methodically organizing and numbering the pieces, he'd stopped interfering. This corner was Ryan's training ground.

His training had evolved beyond simple exercises. He was now simulating combat in a real-world environment. The planks became barriers, the tires a narrow passage, the ropes a low-altitude crossing point, and the scaffolding a climbable frame. It was a small, enclosed urban simulation.

Each session had a clear set of objectives:

Find a blind spot and conceal himself within three seconds.

Jump from a high point and land with less sound than a hand dusting off clothes.

Traverse three obstacles in under five seconds while maintaining steady breathing.

Complete a full-field traverse in twelve seconds with no repeated paths.

He wasn't practicing how to escape. He was practicing how to make his own existence unpredictable with the help of obstacles. He guessed that many didn't die in head-on fights but were lost because their position was compromised or their movements were predicted in a confined space. Whoever mastered the terrain dictated the tempo.

His father once saw him slide between tires, flip over a rope net, and disappear behind a wooden plank in under four seconds.

"Are you playing hide-and-seek?" he'd asked.

Ryan had smiled. "Something like that."

"Trying to be a soldier when you grow up?"

"Not really," he'd said. "I'm just training just in case."

His father had just chuckled and shaken his head, already used to his son's cryptic answers.

Ryan's training schedule was now a rigorous: physical conditioning in the morning, academic lessons during the day, tactical training in the evening, and meditation at night.

One evening, he set up an imaginary scenario where an enemy entered the main gate, he had three seconds to perceive their movement and vanish before a line of sight could be established. In five rounds, he succeeded four times. The one failure was due to his foot brushing a metal bar, creating a faint sound.

Night fell, the sky like ink. Ryan told his mother he was going for a walk. He put on a grey jacket and went to the training area. This was his fixed nightly ritual. He turned off the courtyard light, relying only on the faint moonlight to navigate.

Five minutes in, the wind changed— a sudden, cold gust blew in from the north, lifting the grey cloth and rattling a loose wooden plank with a sharp crack.

What was training suddenly felt real. Ryan instantly pivoted, melting into the blind spot behind the planks, his body shrinking into the smallest possible silhouette. He didn't move. He waited.

The wind grew fiercer. From a distant alley came the faint, rhythmic sound of metal chains dragging on the ground, punctuated by the thump-thump of a loose construction fence. It sounded exactly like someone walking slowly down a railway track.

This was no longer practice. This was a real, uncertain event. He suppressed his breathing, his mind calm and composed. Sound is at my five o'clock. Distance, ten meters. Hostility unknown. Priority: Evasion.

He moved, hugging the wall, stepping on points. He squeezed into the crevice between a rope frame and the wall.

He held his breath, his body pressed to the ground, his heartbeat slowing to a crawl. In that moment, he felt an unprecedented state descend upon him. His nerves converged on a single point.

His consciousness, like a thin film of water, extended to the surface of his skin and then an inch beyond. He could feel the direction of the wind on his fingertips, the air displacement from the swaying ropes, the echo of the distant metal chain against the brick wall.

It wasn't an application of Nen yet, but it was a manifestation of it born from the overlap of body, mind, and spirit. He hadn't awakened his power, but he had just discovered one of its use cases.

A few minutes later, the sound receded. The wind softened. He remained motionless for two full minutes before confirming the environment was clear and slowly rising to his feet.

"Why were you so long?" his mother asked when he came inside.

"The path was slippery," he said. "I had to go slow."

She accepted it— but he knew the boundary he had just crossed. His training log that night was different.

He looked out at the now-calm night, his eyes shining. Nen wasn't just found in meditation. It actively sought you out in crisis, in judgment, in the heat of combat.

And now, he knew how to welcome it.