Hunter x Hunter: Infinite Growth

He had a vague feeling that someone was following him; it was an intuition. However, he hadn't noticed anyone else's presence before, so he suddenly used an irregular "circle" to force the other person out.

The fact that the other person could react to his "circle" indicates that he is also a Nen user.

This person must have used the "Absolute" skill just now, secretly following him for quite some time.

As far as Kevin knew, there were only four Nen users on the island: himself, Kate, Locke, and the radio boy.

The radio boy has just awakened his Nen ability, and even his "Entanglement" is not yet stable; Kate will not take the initiative to fight him before the final exam.

Therefore, the person in front of you is undoubtedly Locke.

Sure enough, the figure that had been hiding stopped on a tree trunk in the distance and turned to look at Kevin.

"It really is you. What, you want the number tag on my chest?"

Locke, whose skin was somewhat dark, nodded briefly.

Kevin asked, somewhat puzzled, "With your strength, you should be able to come and go freely on this island, right? As long as you focus on hunting, getting enough points to advance to the top eight should be a piece of cake for you, shouldn't it?"

In this situation, choosing such a difficult target would be rather unwise for a hunter.

Locke simply looked at Kevin quietly and said in a calm tone, "I'm curious why you scored 5 points higher than me."

"Just because of this?"

Locke nodded. He was a Nen user and knew that there were very few Nen users like him. Most of the Nen users he had encountered were no match for him.

He believed that obtaining the hunter's license would be a piece of cake. Even though he had seen other Nen users, he felt that he was the strongest based on his outward appearance.

That's why he's been taking these exams alone, quietly, because he doesn't care.

And so we got to this stage.

The examiner was making it clear to everyone that Kevin was the strongest.

This was unacceptable to him, and he wanted to test Kevin's strength.

Seeing the other party's response, Kevin smiled and said, "Since you're so eager to know, leave your scorecard as payment for my answer."

With another loud bang, Kevin stomped a hole in the ground and shot out like a cannonball.

"So fast!"

Locke's eyes widened, and in an instant, he raised his right hand and grabbed at the air. A black machine the size of a head appeared in his hand, with a handle at the bottom. After he gripped it tightly, it flew upwards.

"A drone?" Kevin recognized it instantly; it was a drone.

But this drone, towing Locke through the forest, circled around for a short while before flying to an open area and then soaring straight into the sky.

This drone is clearly a high-tech product that has been materialized. Locke must have put in a lot of effort to materialize such a thing.

But now a problem has arisen: they can fly, which makes the situation tricky.

Kevin's long-range attack capabilities are currently limited unless he uses firearms.

However, he did not carry it with him because of the exam, even though carrying a gun was allowed during the exam.

Locke didn't stop after taking off. He gripped the handle below the drone with his left hand and threw it forward with his right, sending another drone flying out.

The drone was much smaller, about the size of two hands put together, and flew silently.

Without a sound, the drone hurtled toward Kevin like lightning.

Before figuring out the mechanism of his opponent's Nen ability, Kevin didn't want to rush into a head-on confrontation, so he quickly dodged to the side.

A thought was launched, but it missed due to the opponent's agile maneuvering.

He used the "Concealment" technique on his mental projectile, but the opponent nimbly dodged it, indicating that the opponent had maintained the "Concentration" technique throughout the battle.

No wonder he was unconvinced; this guy's Nen skills were definitely proficient.

The drone was extremely fast and agile, silently moving back and forth around Kevin, with a clear objective: to touch Kevin's body.

Before he could figure out what was going on, Kevin could only try to keep his distance from the shuttle, but he ended up getting entangled in the process.

After a moment's thought, Kevin immediately retreated into the forest, trying to create more distance between himself and Locke.

He felt that this thing should have certain distance limitations, since Locke was able to materialize such a high-tech item, so it was very likely that it would follow some of the characteristics of the item in reality, such as signal transmission and power consumption, which could become weaknesses of the opponent's Nen ability.

Kevin kept increasing the distance until the straight-line distance between him and Locke exceeded two hundred meters.

At this moment, although the shuttle did not stop, Kevin keenly noticed that Locke, who was floating in the air, had moved.

Two hundred meters is not necessarily the limit; it could also be a trap set by the other side.

Thinking of this, Kevin stomped his foot, his speed instantly exploding as he retreated rapidly.

At that speed, the shuttle could barely keep up, but the drone Locke was riding in certainly wasn't going that fast.

When Kevin's burst of power instantly increased the distance to 250 meters, the shuttle paused and came to a stop.

"Alright, confirmed. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, 250 meters is the maximum distance. To be on the safe side, it's best to maintain a distance of 300 meters," Kevin thought to himself.

The opponent can materialize two drones with different functions, one with offensive capabilities and the other with flight capabilities. This configuration is very reasonable.

Locke stopped upon seeing this and did not continue the pursuit.

Kevin has already tested the shuttle's ability to travel the furthest distance from Locke.

Locke had to admit that Kevin was very perceptive.

Although he materialized a drone, if the distance was too far, a situation similar to signal interruption would occur, causing the control to become inflexible.

For a "shuttle" that requires precise control, losing flexibility renders it useless.

Locke has already revealed his abilities, and Kevin has even detected some limitations in him.

However, he has yet to witness Kevin using his Nen abilities, which makes him hesitant to act rashly.

"call out!"

A whooshing sound rang out as a stone shot out from the woods. Locke hurriedly maneuvered the drone to dodge, barely managing to avoid the attack.

“Compared to his shuttle, the drone carrying him is clearly much less agile,” Kevin thought, and then fired a few more stones.

The stones he casually tossed were incredibly fast, easily traveling a distance of three hundred meters.

At this moment, Kevin was at a safe distance, while Locke was within his attack range.

Although these stones weren't particularly powerful, they were enough to cause Locke some trouble.

The situation reversed instantly, with the offensive and defensive positions reversed.

Kevin remained calm and circled Locke at a distance of 300 meters, occasionally throwing a stone from various directions, some of which were imbued with Nen and would suddenly increase in power.

“No, this can’t go on.” Locke was forced into a passive position.

He hadn't expected Kevin to throw stones at such speed, almost like bullets, which almost certainly meant Kevin was an Enhancement-type Devil Fruit user.

In his understanding, it would be very difficult to achieve such power without using a Nen ability, unless one is a Enhancement type.

"His circle is too wide, damn it, how can it be such a big circle?" Locke thought to himself as he dodged the stone attacks.

He had never seen a circle that could expand to nearly 400 meters; it was simply outrageous.

Moreover, he clearly felt that Kevin's "circle" seemed to be different from the conventional "circle".

"Could it be his Nen ability?" Locke couldn't help but speculate in that direction.

He had never heard of an irregular circle, let alone seen one in person.

But when Kevin's "circle" swept over me, the strange feeling was not like being completely swept away; it was as if something was quickly swept over me.

"But this ability doesn't seem like something an Enhancement-type should have. Could it be an Emission-type?"

Locke dodged while pondering the situation.

After all, these stones imbued with Nen energy are quite in line with the characteristics of the Emission type.

However, the opponent's martial arts moves and the power they unleashed did not match.

However, he didn't have much time to think at that moment.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!"

Like machine gun fire, a barrage of stones rained down on Locke, almost completely blocking his escape routes.

Relying on the drone for cover, he had limited space to hide, so he had no choice but to gather his spiritual energy in his body and use his fists and legs to defend himself.

Fortunately, the large number of stones fired at once limited their power, and he only needed to accurately block the stones imbued with Nen energy.

"So he wasn't that amazing after all... Wait a minute!"

He immediately realized he had been tricked.

Just as Locke was dealing with the dense barrage of stone "bullets," Kevin seized the opportunity and suddenly charged toward the shuttle that had been eyeing him menacingly within a 300-meter radius.

He quickly approached and then threw a punch, which was filled with a large amount of Nen energy, and slammed it heavily onto the shuttle.

The moment the shuttle was hit, Kevin crossed his arms and used his qi to form a protective barrier in front of him, and his entire body quickly retreated.

To his surprise, the expected explosion did not occur.

The shuttle was smashed into pieces like scrap metal by his punch and vanished into thin air.

"Damn it, he caught us off guard," Locke cursed.

He didn't expect Kevin to be so decisive, launching a direct attack on the shuttle.

The moment the shuttle was destroyed, another wave of stones flew over.

Locke could only concentrate on dodging the attacks while slowly rising into the sky.

“Without the limitations of the shuttle, he is indeed more flexible in controlling this drone.” Kevin said as he slowly approached, throwing stones at him.

He remained constantly vigilant of his surroundings, fearing that the other side might have hidden a weapon.

Throwing stones, Kevin rushed into the open space.

When he appeared in the open space, Locke's eyes widened, because Kevin rushed out carrying a wooden stake.

Kevin instantly enveloped the wooden stake with a large amount of Nen energy and hurled it towards Locke in the air.

"You brute monster!" Locke cursed, doing his best to control the drone and dodge.

Just as he finally managed to fly out of the wooden stake's attack range, a tree branch came hurtling towards him.

Fatal, this was a fatal attack, Locke made a decisive decision.

He let go, and the drone carrying him vanished instantly.

His body tumbled in the air to dissipate some of the force before landing on the ground, panting as he stood up.

At that moment, Kevin had already walked quickly to him.

There must be a cooling-off period after the drones disappear; otherwise, the other party wouldn't be so reluctant to let their drones return.

"I lost, take it." Locke raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Kevin smiled slightly, stepped forward, and easily took the number plate worth 95 points from his chest.

Watching Kevin's actions, Locke asked, "When you were probing me, was that circle-like Nen your Nen ability?"

"No."

Upon hearing this answer, Locke's expression instantly turned extremely ugly, as if he had eaten a bitter pill.

He hadn't expected that Kevin would defeat him so easily without even using his Nen ability; it was simply a difference in their basic strength.

Of course, Kevin could be lying to him, but he chose to believe him because Kevin was indeed very capable.

That Nen ability was too ordinary.

“Don’t be discouraged, your Nen ability is quite interesting. And you should also have a drone, right?” Kevin said.

Upon hearing this, Locke's pupils contracted slightly.

"Ha, I've already used every trick in the book."

It didn't matter if Locke didn't admit it; Kevin didn't care.

In fact, Kevin had sensed that someone was following him before, and he had noticed the spying coming from different directions.

Since Locke used drones for tracking, it's reasonable to assume that he also used reconnaissance drones, which is one of the most basic functions of drones.

However, in the battle just now, reconnaissance drones may not have been able to play a role, as the opponent may have only been able to materialize two of them at the same time.

Therefore, Kevin deduced that Locke had also hidden a drone.