Chapter 10: chapter 10-trick tower
Adam sat on the floor of an empty room, focusing on his nen to shroud his body without leaking. This is ten.
Adam wanted to get some more practice on ten before phase three, which he remembered was the trick tower full of traps as well as life and death battles against prisoners.
After 2 hours of practice, Adam noticed some differences in his ten, now it was more refined and under his control compared to before, albeit it was only a little better and the duration he could hold ten has been constantly increasing.
"It seems that my talent in nen is not bad"
After another 10 hours, Adam's practice came to an end as the ship had finally arrived above the tower.
"It seems my nen talent is quite good, even though I have been practising for 10 hours I can notice a significant improvement but this could just be because I'm still a beginner so it's easier to make improvements."
The aura around me has doubled and I can feel it's easier to control.
"Everyone please disembark the airship. We have arrived at the third phase of the hunter's exam"
Adam stepped off the airship on top of the tower and watched the airship fly away, he saw a man try to climb down the side but Adam knew that that was a futile attempt.
Adam began to walk around on top of the tower hoping to step onto a trapdoor.
And to his luck, he fell through the floor 5 minutes in.
He picked up a watch on a podium where there was one other watch that was counting down from 72 hours.
"It seems that this route is meant for two people"
Adam then heard a voice come from above.
"Very good, my name is Lippo, I am the prison warden here not to mention your examiner. For the third phase of the exam, we've gone to the trouble of preparing multiple routes through the tower, and the one you've chosen is the path of teamwork. If you want to pass, and I'm sure you do, cooperation is the essence of success. One person acting separately could trap you until the end of the third phase. You won't be permitted to start until a companion for you turns up, that's it. Contestant, best of luck"
'I hope it doesn't take long until someone falls down. In the meantime, I should continue my training'
After another 10 hours of waiting while training and making some progress on his nen and ten mastery, someone finally drops down.
It is a man of average build and height. He has spiky, green hair. He wears a blue tunic over a long green sleeve shirt, a belt that carries his sheathed broadsword, plain pants, and boots.
"Hi, I'm called Ryu. What are we supposed to do for the third phase here?"
'I don't recognise him, he might not be very skilled. I hope he doesn't drag me down' thought Adam.
"I'm Adam, for this phase we did have 72 hours but now only 62 hours remaining to go through helping each other out to get to the bottom and we can't do this solo we have to work together"
Adam then threw over the other watch at a fast speed to check this person's reaction speed.
Ryu managed to grab the watch and put it on, when it was on his wrist a door opened up in the wall.
"Let's take this slowly," Adam said wanting to be more cautious since he knew now that he was still weak after his battle and had nearly died if it weren't for Hisoka saving him.
Ryu didn't say anything and started to follow Adam. As they started to walk through the door, they were met with a fork straight away and a sign that read 'one person per path'.
Ryu then walked into the left path and Adam into the right, to both be met with dead ends with a button.
Ryu tried pushing the button in and nothing happened.
"I think we need to push the buttons at the same time" Shouted Ryu.
"3…2…1…Go" and they both pushed the button, then a wall descended splitting them off and the floor started to descend downwards.
After they both reached their destination they were separate from each other.
Once again Lippo's voice spoke from above.
"Both contestants must defeat their opponent to move on"
Then a door opened up in front of Adam and what came out was a giant of a man with knuckle dusters on each hand.
"Hahaha I'm going to kill you and earn my freedom"
He then charged towards Adam.
Adam activated his ten and waited for the giant to swing first so that he could avoid taking a blow from the knuckle dusters, as Adam knew that he would be severely injured even with his ten activated.
When the giant punched towards Adam, Adam ducked and avoided then went to counter-attack by stepping closer and punching forwards. But the giant's other arm was already ready and was about to implant into Adams's face, Adam narrowly dodged by spinning his body and coming to the side of the giant.
Adam then threw a straight punch to the side of the giant sending him flying back and hitting against the wall.
But the giant still stood up even after that punch and began to run towards Adam again, Adam this time didn't cower away since he had assessed the strength of this giant and wanted to go onto the attack to finish this quickly.
Adam threw the first punch this time and forced the giant to block with his forearm, the giant threw his own punch but Adam easily avoided it. Since this giant was moving slowly from Adam's perspective.
Adam then punched the stomach of the giant, sending him sliding back. Adam chased after him and jumped with all his strength and reached his hands out to grab the shoulder of the giant. He used his momentum to spin around the giant and sit on his back while moving his arms to wrap around the neck of the giant to strangle him.
The giant tried to grab Adam off his back but he couldn't reach, so Adam held tight and strangled the giant.
The giant then moved back and tried squashing Adam against the wall by ramming into it over and over again.
Adam ignored the pain he was feeling in his back and gritted his teeth while pulling tighter onto the neck of the giant.
Finally, after a gruelling minute for Adam and a lot of pain, the giant finally passed out.
Adam just lay on the floor out of breath and in pain.
While Adam was waiting for an hour and recuperating, Ryu was on the verge of death in another room facing a slim, small man with metal claws for fingers.
"Hahaha I'm finally going to be free" the man then licked the blood off of his blades with his tongue, while Ryu was on the ground barely unable to move.
The small man then sat on top of Ryu and slowly ran his claws up the chest of Ryu while laughing maniacally.
Ryu, while on the ground, slowly reached for his sword unnoticed by his opponent.
When he finally felt the hilt of the sword, he grasped it as firmly as he could and slashed the man in the back leaving a long and deep slash.
The small man fell back and the life in him slowly faded away, leaving only Ryu panting for breath.
Lippo's voice sounded again "Well done on passing the first test. You may proceed"
Another set of doors opened in each of the rooms.
(Thanks for reading, If anyone feels like buying me a coffee: Ko-fi.com/hunter931)
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