With Elian meditating in the center of the room, I let my mind untangle the bottleneck of my Vector idea.

  I couldn't do the math in my own head. I needed a processor. But conjuring a piece of complex hardware out of thin air was impossible without understanding exactly how it worked on a molecular level. I needed a physical prototype first.

  I stretched my legs out on the carpet, leaning back against the wall. I couldn't build a computer from scratch. I needed to outsource.

  The Hunter Association didn't really have a neat, centralized category for "Technology Hunters." The closest equivalents were Information Brokers—people who lived in the overlap between high-end cyber security, data brokering, and Nen. Those were the people I needed to tap into first.

  I broke the problem down. A processor is basically just a massive collection of microscopic switches—logic gates interpreting signals. My aura would be the power source. But for the switches, the actual software, I needed Divine Script.

  If I could decode those ancient runes, I could arrange them to act exactly like physical logic gates. To get this running fast, my best bet was to study the existing technology of this world and simply imitate it. If I learned how their operating systems assigned variables and ran algorithms, I could translate that logic directly into Divine Script. I could start by writing basic programs with the runes, mimicking standard software, and scale up.

  But I couldn't just walk into a public library and find books on ancient Nen runes or classified hardware schematics.

  Starting tomorrow, I needed to hit the underground auctions. I’d use our arena earnings to buy whatever coding textbooks, hacking manuals, or fragmented script texts I could find directly from Information Hunters looking for a quick payday. I would spend the next eleven months just absorbing their computer science and basic script translation.

  By December, I’d take the Hunter Exam.

  Not for the title. Just for the ID card. I needed the unrestricted access it gave to national archives and the Hunter-exclusive web.

  With that license, the physical work would finally start. I’d track down Hunters capable of creating Nen weapons and artifacts. I’d pay them to craft the physical pieces of the Crown I couldn't make myself yet—the conductive alloys, the neural interface.

  While they built the hardware, I’d go rune hunting. I’d use my clearance to access restricted ruins and dead cities, tracking down complete, untranslated records of Divine Script to finish writing my software.

  Only when I held the physical machine in my hands, when I understood every single circuit and line of script running through it, would I finally be able to conjure it myself.

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  It was a long road. But it was bulletproof. When I finally flipped the switch on Vector manipulation, there wouldn't be a single flaw in the system.

  "Kaelo."

  I blinked, pulling myself out of the quiet hum of my thoughts.

  Elian was standing a few feet away. His Ten was perfectly stable around his shoulders, sweat dripping from his chin, but his eyes were sharp. He had that specific look—a fighter who had just figured out how to win.

  "I have my concept," Elian said, his voice steady.

  I smiled, pushing myself off the floor and adjusting my cuffs. "Let's hear it."

  Elian walked over to the coffee table and grabbed a bottle of water. "I don't have the Nen capacity for a long fight. I need to end things in one hit. So I was thinking... I gather as much aura as I can into my fist, pack it down tight, and just let it explode the second I punch. Like a bomb."

  I leaned back against the windowsill, shaking my head slightly. "That’s not a Hatsu, Elian. That’s just a massive Ko punch with a wind-up."

  Elian frowned, lowering the bottle. "It would put them down."

  "It would," I agreed, keeping my tone casual. "But you’re still draining the exact same pool. Packing your aura down like that takes a massive, immediate burn of energy. If you miss, or if a master just slips outside your guard, you just dumped a huge chunk of your reserves into empty air. You'd run out of Nen even faster."

  Elian crossed his arms. He was a fighter; he knew the reality of missing a heavy swing. "So how do I hit harder without blowing my whole capacity?"

  "By finding a more efficient way to multiply your strength," I said, walking over to him. "You’re an Enhancer, which means your natural affinity for Transmutation is at eighty percent. Right now, you're just trying to throw raw aura at the problem. What if, instead, you changed your aura to act like actual muscle?"

  Elian’s eyes narrowed, trying to picture it. "Like... growing more muscle?"

  "Not growing it. Wearing it," I explained, gesturing to his arm. "You use Transmutation to shape your aura into thick, elastic cables. You weave them over your skin like an exoskeleton. When you punch, you flex your real arm, and you contract the aura-cables at the exact same time. It's like having three extra arms pulling the exact same punch."

  Elian let out a slow breath, his martial artist instincts immediately catching up to the idea. "If someone kicks me, I could stack the cables on my forearm to absorb the hit. Or anchor them across my back to increase my throwing power."

  "Exactly," I nodded. "You literally wear artificial muscle. It gives you absolute physical dominance. But here is the catch."

  I reached out and tapped the bone just above his wrist. My tone dropped, stripping away the excitement to leave only the brutal reality of the mechanics.

  "Your skeleton is the frame," I told him. "If you wrap this arm in aura-cables that pull with the strength of a silverback, your real arm is caught in the middle. If you swing, and you haven't used Enhancement to harden your own bones first, the sheer pressure of your fake muscles contracting will snap your arm in half."

  Elian looked down at his arm. He didn't need a physics degree to understand that. If he flexed too hard without protecting himself, he would crush his own body.

  "You can't just swing blindly," I continued. "Every single time you use those fibers, your focus has to be flawless. You have to reinforce your own skeleton before you contract the exo-muscle. Reinforce the bone, then flex the aura. If your timing is off by even a fraction of a second, you will rip your own joints apart."

  Elian didn't flinch. The danger didn't deter him; it just meant the power was real. He looked back up at me, a feral, confident grin spreading across his face.

  "Then I better learn how to reinforce my bones."

  I smiled back. The theory was out of the way. Tomorrow, we'd start seeing exactly how much pressure his body could actually take.