After about three to five hours, Conrad kept his physical training and nen control training at their fullest.

  While he thought about these things, he also made sure to think about the st and the final condition of the nen ability that would let him teleport.

  Conrad thought again, then closed his eyes.

  Not to rest but to listen.

  "En condition."

  "Seeing condition."

  "One more condition that involves "real risk"

  He repeated them silently, feeling how they sat within his aura. They were stable. Sensible. Honest.

  He shook his head.

  "For a maniputor like me," Conrad continued, "this isn't sufficient."

  He leaned back and let his mind drift not toward imagination but toward precedent.

  Who has done this before?

  Three figures surfaced almost immediately.

  Know.

  Luini.

  And briefly, Leorio.

  He dismissed the st one almost as soon as the thought formed.

  "Leorio isn't a real example," he said quietly.

  Leorio's ability wasn't teleportation like he imagined it would be.

  It was reaching an emitted extension of force.

  Teleportation did not.

  Knov, then.

  Conrad's expression tightened slightly.

  "Hide and Seek," he murmured.

  Knov's portals were… problematic to understand for him, as there is not much known about them.

  Even within the Hunter Association, few agreed on what his ability truly was.

  Most of the people deemed it to be one of the best transportation and abilities that involved the function of teleporting.

  Not to mention oneself, it can also be used for logistics, most likely the best one there is.

  A conjured space?

  A real one appropriated?

  A non-constructed boundary yered onto reality?

  Conrad touched his chin, thinking.

  "Knov is an Emitter," he said. "But his ability is… abnormal."

  A personal apartment-sized alternate dimension that ignored conventional spatial logic.

  Even if one removed the complexity of the apartment itself, the basic mechanic drawing symbols on solid ground to open a portal felt deceptively light.

  "Too light," Conrad said.

  That kind of ability relied on an overwhelming, unseen cost.

  Mental strain.

  Something that didn't show itself immediately.

  Not something I want to gamble with.

  He moved on.

  Luini.

  Conrad exhaled slowly.

  Luini's ability was cleaner.

  "A closed room," he said. "No exits."

  Luini could enter an alternate dimension from such a space, travel to any location he had previously visited, or remain there to listen, observe, or wait.

  But it came with a rule.

  "If the room resets, if it opens, if the condition is broken, he can never use that room again."

  One-time use for the same enclosed space.

  Luini paid for spatial freedom by burning bridges behind him permanently.

  Conrad nodded slowly.

  "That's closer."

  He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  "I don't want a spatial anchor," he said. "And I don't want a one-time location."

  But he did want risk.

  "I need a drawback," he said softly.

  Something immediate.

  He stood and activated En again.

  Twenty meters.

  The room felt smaller instantly, every surface outlined by his awareness.

  He imagined teleporting within it, not the movement itself, but the moment before.

  The commitment.

  The instant when Aura would need to disengage from one position and reassert itself elsewhere.

  "That's where it hurts," he said.

  He smiled faintly.

  "Of course."

  He spoke clearly now, aloud, so Nen could hear him.

  "When teleportation is activated and I give the order, there will be a dey in the activation of the aura."

  The air seemed to tighten.

  "During this dey of activation of the aura," he continued, "as the teleportation begins, my Nen defenses will be reduced."

  He paused.

  Then corrected himself.

  "No."

  He shook his head once.

  "Halved."

  This time, his aura reacted sharply.

  Not physically but conceptually.

  As if something inside him had accepted vulnerability as part of the contract.

  Conrad felt it settle into pce like a bde locking into a sheath.

  "During the dey," he said calmly, "my defensive Nen output will fall to fifty percent."

  He let that sit.

  "And only after teleportation is complete will it reset."

  This meant even a fast, imperfect attack could become lethal.

  Any of them could kill him in that window.

  Conrad nodded.

  "That's real," he said.

  Conrad knew that he had his ability to save his life one per day, but it did not mean that this risk was still there.

  He can save his life one time, but what about the second time?

  It would not be weird and not unexpected to have one or two attacks in a battle that would be lethal if not dodged or protected.

  So, his previous ability did not drop the risk of this new condition for the teleportation ability at all.

  He lowered his end and sat down slowly.

  This condition did exactly what he needed.

  "If I use it," he said quietly, "I accept that I might need to take risks for it. I accept that I will be vulnerable to any kind of attack even more than usual in that window of use."

  Nen liked that.

  He reviewed the structure again, from the beginning.

  En-only range and visual confirmation.

  Also, the fact that the defensive nen aura is halved during activation until the end of the teleportation.

  Conrad exhaled slowly.

  "The teleportation would only need 0.1 seconds of time to activate and end, but even that 0.1 seconds is a risk that needs thought to be taken."

  "This is enough," he decided.

  Not perfect, but Nen abilities were never perfect.

  They were negotiated truths between desire and consequence.

  He would not test it today and would let it sit for some time and keep on focusing on it before testing it.

  He stood, letting his aura settle naturally.

  -

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