'Finally, I have enough points to buy [Universal Body].' I think to myself as soon as the day becomes the next and I get my daily sign-in points.

It's 11 months into our fourth year, and I finally have enough points to buy the ability I've been wanting since the moment I heard of it. Ciri had bought it two months after we came back from the Cyberpunk world, which was a trip not wasted at all. The information I got from hacking into the headquarters of the corporations is so next level, I couldn't believe it. The tech that's on the streets of Night City is nothing compared to the things they had researched and completed. I also left a surprise for Arasaka that should change any future events so V won't ever slot the chip with Johnny's engram.

Anyways, after we came back from Cyberpunk, we've been doing the same thing, except more nobles have been inviting us to social events. Some with the intention of hiring us as their personal guards/army and others with the intention of leading us to our deaths. We rejected their offers and obviously, we didn't die.

One notable thing that did happen, however, was that there were a few copycats. We had both heard and seen some people trying to imitate our party structure over the last few months. Unfortunately for them, it didn't work out, for the parties that wanted to do more combat-oriented tasks anyways.

The ones who decided to try to imitate our coin-making tactics such as investigation and delivery/menial jobs did okay, but nowhere near enough to survive. And that's when people in the mercenary circle realized that it was our group of six alone who was able to do what we did, which got us more fame and customers. Other than that, we also found another apostle that Guts fought and killed, without using nen.

And speaking of nen, Ciri had already begun training in nen but she's come to realize that her talent in it is average. I think it's because her elder blood makes her more attuned to magic and nen is akin to aura which is a physically based ability. Still, though, she hasn't decided to give up and has continued training in the basic techniques.

Yoruichi said she had no desire to train in nen considering her reiryoku is much stronger, while Uzui and Amelia still did not have enough points. They'll have enough towards the end of the fifth year, so they'll end up missing out on training time, unfortunately. And speaking of reiryoku, we also had the idea of training it, but it turns out there really isn't a way to train it, at least in a way similar to nen.

There is no training manual or cultivation technique for it, it all depends on the amount a person has from the beginning. We thought [Universal Body] would allow us to use it but it turns out [Universal Body] only enables you to train in any energy system, it doesn't give you a body with the energy. So if we wanted to train in reiryoku we would have to buy the technique in the store as doing so would give us the energy. Unlike nen or chakra, which can be trained in a systematic way.

It is a little unfortunate especially since the power level of reiryoku is so high, but life's not fair so all we can do is smile and wave. Still though, training in nen takes up too much time for us to be splitting our time between nen and reiryoku plus anything else we have, so it's also a little bit of a blessing in that sense. But I digress.

"Did you buy it already?" asked Guts who stayed up knowing I would want to get my nen started as soon as possible.

"Yes, I did. Thanks for staying up for me by the way." I said to him.

"No problem. Are you ready?" he asked.

"I'm ready."

"As soon as my nen opens your aura nodes, you'll have to try to control it or you'll pass out, maybe even die. Okay, I'm starting." he said before placing his hands on my back.

As soon as he placed his hands on my back, I felt a warm stream of energy enter my body before my nodes flared open.

"Now, try to stop the aura. Breathe and try to con-" said Guts before stopping, dumbfounded at what he saw.

Right as my nodes opened and my aura began to leak, I almost instinctively knew how to guide it to create a shroud around myself.

'This feels similar to when I surround myself with telekinesis.'

"You did it? You used Ten?" asked Guts.

"I think so. It feels like I'm in a warm fluid." I said.

"I thought I was a monster. You instinctively knew how to use Ten."

"Nice." I said with a smile.

"Let's see just how much a monster you are. Zetsu is when you shut off your aura nodes and contain it all inside yourself."

"Okay." I said before shutting my eyes and feeling for my aura nodes which I quickly shut off.

"That's just not fair." he said.

"Haha, I guess I'll catch up to you faster than I thought. What's next?" I asked.

"Next is Ren. If Ten is considered defensive, then Ren is considered offensive. Instead of containing your nen and shrouding yourself with it, you're going to focus on outputting a large amount outwards, explosively. Once you get the hand of it, you can tinge your Ren with hostility to create something similar to bloodlust." he explained.

"Outwards, explosively. Got it." I said before shutting my eyes again and focusing on my aura. Considering I had done something similar with my tk before, this should be just as easy. Instead of making my aura flow around me contained, I made my aura flow freely and explosively outward.

WHOOSH

Opening my eyes, I could see there was pressure exerting outwards with me at the center, causing the grass around me to move and also letting me know I had succeeded. Knowing I could use Ren, I decided I would try to tinge it with hostility while I was at it. And not knowing any other way to do so other than thinking about my time spent killing during the axe test, it ended up working. Too well apparently.

"U-ugh, s-stop." said Guts who was attempting to stay standing while gritting his teeth.

"Shit, sorry. Are you okay?" I asked as I got up to check on him.

"I'm f-fine." he said while trying to catch his breath.

"Sorry, I didn't think my bloodlust would be so strong. I underestimated it."

"W-where'd you get s-so much bloodlust from?" he said still trying to steady his breathing.

"When I got my axe, I had to go through a test before I could even use it. I ended up on a battlefield where all I did was kill for a whole year. I used those emotions and memories to fuel my bloodlust and apparently it was stronger than I anticipated."

"A whole year? What the hell kinda axe is that?" he said standing up.

"A strong one."

"I bet. Well, you can clearly use Ren, but you should try to hold it for as long as possible. That'll give you a feel for just how much aura you have in reserve." he said, getting back on topic.

"Isn't there a better way to find out?" I asked.

"Not really, as a person trains their nen and uses it more, they'll get an understanding of just how much they have." he explained.

"Okay, but before I do that, tell me about the advanced techniques." I said with a smile.

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AN

Sorry for the three-day absence, had no time to write but I'm back to writing and we should be good from now. I'm going to try to make a stockpile so things like this don't happen anymore.

I've come to the realization, with the help of some commenters, that nen as a power system has a ceiling that doesn't go very high when compared to other power systems. For this reason, I decided to make his nen ability more supplemental and support, of course, that's not to say it'll be useless or easily phased out. Let me know what you think.

Specialization

Mind Palace

As a consequence of creating the mind palace, learning speed and memory retention are increased

Allows for user to enter the mind palace after meditating for 5 minutes with no disturbance

Mind Palace rooms include but are not limited to, and can increase with training

Library for user's and other's memories

Movie Room - Able to watch memories rather than read them

Garden - Meditation

Training Yard

1 minute is one hour in the mind palace

Staying for longer than 1 minute will drain stamina and put a burden on user's mind and aura reserves

Longer than 5 minutes has a chance of causing permanent damage

Training the technique extends the time dilation as well as the duration before damage is caused

Able to forcefully enter the mind palace and slow down time dilation to 1-second equals 30 minutes at the cost of doors being closed for a month

Able to tap into the memories/knowledge of other people as long as certain conditions are met.

Three questions must be asked consecutively and answered

What do you do?

Do you like what you do?

Would you ever recommend that profession to someone?

A book will be created within the users' mind palace corresponding to the person's memories

User must read the book to see their memories

User will feel the emotions of the memories/knowledge associated with them

Able to use memories/knowledge as mental attacks at the expense of forgetting the memory/knowledge used, can regain the memories/knowledge used

A possible variation of this after training in Emission/Manipulation is to use memories of people he's fought before/gotten memories from to create nen constructs

The questions themselves might change to something more natural and fluid, but you get the gist of it. And some people might not know but the more conditions, restrictions, and drawbacks that a nen ability has, the more powerful it is. Let me know what you guys think. Also shout out to Justin_Baldwin for pointing me towards HatsuVault on Reddit, really helped.

And in regards to the reiryoku, I made it that way because one, he would be spread too thin, and two it would give too much of a powerup. I searched everywhere to see if I could find that there was some way to train your reiryoku, other than fighting and having it naturally, and I couldn't find anything. If they did get a zanpakuto, it would also unlock their reiryoku, but not right now.