Jeffrey Castillo
patreon
FG Chapter 35: First Conjuration
🕑 Added 2025-09-30 10:23:15 +0000 UTCUrokodaki Sakonji’s training regimen was, as expected, thorough.
Step one: tree-hugging practice.
He even gave it a poetic name: “Everything breathes—every flower and blade of grass is alive. So the first step in learning a Breathing style isn’t sword drills; it’s understanding what ‘breath’ is.”
“Rōichirō, start with that birch. When you understand how a tree breathes, you may touch a blade.”
After accepting him as a disciple…
Urokodaki left Roy under a birch with two brief instructions and walked off, hands behind his back.
A squirrel peeked from a branch to watch. It saw the human pause in thought—then bizarrely spread his arms and hug the birch.
A few minutes later…
he was sleeping soundly.
Abstract… how can a person become a tree?
That familiar falling sensation—
Roy rolled up from the soft bed, his mind still fogged with the image of himself bear-hugging a birch and dozing off. As Urokodaki said, only by truly being a tree can you enter its life—feel its breath, its pains and joys. Except—
this kind of “make-believe” practice has one prerequisite:
don’t get so immersed you fall asleep.
Like now.
Dong… 4:00 a.m. The wooden clock in the corner chimed, as always: time to run.
He rubbed his face, pulled on his tank and shorts, shut the door, and slipped into the vast dark forest under a pale hint of dawn. From the castle on the peak to the butlers’ villa half-lit on the slope…
This run felt lighter—his pace quicker—thanks to another “Minamino Hirotomo” added to Physique.
[Silent Gait: Proficient (89→99)]
[Rhythm Echo: Proficient (67→84)]
[The Snake Awakens: Novice (83→98)]
The panel made plain how “+1 Physique” had shifted the baseline: even without targeted practice, the raw stats kept raising his floor.
So I should heed Urokodaki’s advice—finish the ‘tree-hug’ training fast.
Sweat beaded and fell; he wiped it away. Fingers brushed his ear—made him stop. Something light swung in the wind with a faint rhythm. He touched it—
the sun-and-mountain earrings—Yoriichi’s heirloom, which Father Tanjuro had hung on him.
When did this happen? How did I bring it into reality?
He froze, thinking—then a door banged open up ahead. He looked up: he’d reached the Testing Gate at the foot of the mountain.
Bang—
The little “corner door” on the lower-right of the gate was kicked open. In trooped three or four burly thugs… behind them, Zebro, all smiles and key in hand.
The “old” gatekeeper—still in his prime—doffed his cap. “Good morning, young master.”
Ffft— That greeting drew a few vicious stares.
“Zoldyck brat?”
“Perfect.”
“Grab him, and we’ll fetch a fat bounty!”
“Third, look up the price… boys, today we strike it rich!”
Whether they would or not, Roy didn’t know. He only knew that this morning Mike could have seconds.
“ROAR—”
The beast swept past; a whirlwind rose. Blackness swallowed the men’s sight, and the next thing, half of each of them was already in Mike’s mouth. One swallow and down they went. He hacked up a few scraps of clothing, flicked them out with a claw.
Smooth, practiced.
Zebro, likewise practiced, took a broom and tidied up.
Roy watched a beat, then turned uphill and ran on.
The world’s top assassin clan draws gamblers—men who think blind ferocity can let them climb over the Zoldycks. In the end…
they become dogshit.
Tap… tap… He didn’t break stride, nor his train of thought.
Given how suddenly the earrings appeared, he could only think of one reason…
A Conjurer’s ability—and the “tools” they bring out—track to their most indelible memories or events. Kurapika’s Judgment Chains against the Spiders… Shizuku’s Blinky to suit her goldfish memory… the power always mirrors the soul.
And me… Minamino’s gift boosted my Physique…
And Father Tanjuro entrusted this legacy to me, making me prize these earrings—so, through the dream, I unconsciously conjured them…
He ran past the villa and through the trees; the castle rose ahead. He slipped behind a trunk and tried, by visualization, to send the earrings back into the cognitive world.
Nen light wrapped the earrings…
No dice. They clung to him, swaying at his ear, refusing to leave.
So reverse conjuration failed—or perhaps Conjuration is one-way to begin with: aura into object, but not object back into aura—no “recall.”
Bad news for Roy—and for Tanjuro.
“Mass-energy convertibility” may not hold in the mercurial world of Nen.
He stepped out from the tree—
and back into the brightening morning at the castle.
4:25 a.m. Gotoh would be five minutes yet with breakfast.
Roy strolled the gallery, hooked a foot on the windowsill for a few stretches, and out of the corner of his eye saw a tall figure emerge from the bend—unhurried, steady, face grave.
As they passed, the man stopped.
“Father.” Roy lowered his leg.
Silva looked down at him. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“When’s the test?”
“Next Sunday.”
“Good. Remember that.” Hands in pockets, Silva walked on.
