The days after Kaen agreed to train with Vane passed in a blur of sweat, bruises, and shattered preconceptions. Vane didn't believe in soft starts or explanations. His philosophy was simple: "You survive the lesson, you learn the lesson."
On the first morning, Kaen awoke with a splitting headache and his body sore from the previous night's aura sparring. Vane had shown him what real Ren looked like—an oppressive wall of energy so dense Kaen felt like he was being pressed into the earth. It wasn't an attack, just a demonstration. But it left him gasping for breath and barely able to stand.
"Lesson one," Vane had said as Kaen lay in the dirt, panting, "You don't train Nen. You forge it. You don't study Hatsu from the comfort of your books. You earn it through battle, blood, and mental fire."
Today, Kaen stood once more at the clearing near the cliffs, his shirt soaked through with sweat, fists trembling slightly. Vane circled him like a predator, dark eyes calculating.
"Again," Vane barked.
Kaen took a deep breath, activating Ten to stabilize his aura around his body. His field wavered but held. Then, he gathered energy into Ren—his aura surged outward in a powerful wave, more intense than before. But Vane was already moving.
The older Hunter dashed forward, appearing in Kaen's blind spot in a blur. Kaen barely had time to activate Gyo before a palm struck his shoulder, sending him tumbling across the ground.
"You flared too wide. Power without direction is just noise," Vane said. "Control is king. Try again."
Kaen spat out dirt, pushed himself up, and nodded. His muscles screamed in protest, but his mind… his mind was alive.
Because even in these beatings, he was learning.
Inside his Mind Palace, the rooms began to change.
Each time Vane struck, each time Kaen failed to block, a new fragment of understanding was born. Not just in combat patterns or aura flow, but in the way energy behaved in motion. Vane used a technique Kaen couldn't yet replicate—but he could feel its structure.
After their sixth spar, Vane finally called for a break. They sat beneath the shade of an old tree. Kaen sipped from a canteen, breathing heavily.
"You're a Specialist," Vane said, "but your gift is closer to a library than a weapon. So I'm going to train you like both."
Kaen blinked. "What does that mean?"
"It means your ability—this 'Mind Palace'—it thrives on input. So I'm going to give you input. Painful, personal, precise input. Every technique I know, every strategy I've used, I'll throw at you until your Palace can't hold them all. Then we'll see what happens."
Kaen frowned. "You're trying to break my ability?"
"No," Vane said, smirking. "I'm trying to upgrade it."
⸻
That night, Kaen sat alone in the moonlit clearing, eyes closed, aura focused inward.
In his mind, the palace was shifting.
Where once there were only simple rooms and long corridors, now there were sparring halls. Floating glyphs. Moving statues made of light reenacting Vane's strikes in slow motion. Each punch, each feint—captured and stored.
He walked through one of the new rooms, labeled "Vane – Ghost Step."
He watched as the mental construct of Vane blinked in and out of visibility, appearing behind imaginary enemies. Kaen slowed the playback. Studied the timing. Understood how Vane used precise aura suppression mixed with body feints to vanish from view without even using In.
"Not teleportation," Kaen muttered, "just misdirection and perfect Zetsu blending with footwork."
That was enough.
Kaen raised his hand, focused on the image, and whispered: "Imitate."
Aura pulsed around his feet.
For the first time, his body moved with the echo of Vane's Ghost Step. Not perfect. Not seamless. But real.
Kaen smiled.
Mind Palace wasn't just copying.
It was translation. Conversion of knowledge into practical, usable energy.
But something else caught his attention.
At the far end of the palace—where new corridors constantly formed—stood a door he hadn't built.
It was made of black stone, inlaid with silver veins that pulsed faintly like a heartbeat. There was no label, no glyphs, just a chill that radiated from its frame.
Kaen approached it cautiously.
As he reached for the handle, a whisper echoed in the back of his mind. A voice he hadn't heard in years.
"Not yet."
Kaen froze.
He backed away slowly, heart racing.
Was that his memory? Or something else living inside his Palace?
⸻
The next day, Vane introduced the second phase of training: Simulation Combat.
Using dummy constructs created with aura-enhanced puppetry, Vane recreated classic Nen scenarios—enemies with abilities Kaen had studied but never fought.
"Three rounds today," Vane said. "Enemy types: Emitter, Transmuter, and Conjurer. You lose? You don't eat."
Kaen grimaced. "You're enjoying this too much."
"I am," Vane admitted, cracking his neck. "Now go."
The first puppet wielded an aura rifle—an Emission-style attack Kaen had read about. The shots were fast and nearly invisible. Kaen dodged the first volley using Ghost Step, but was grazed on the second.
Inside his Palace, he summoned the schematic of the aura rifle, studied the energy charge time, and calculated a new ability on the spot:
"Mirror Shell."
A thin aura lens in front of his body redirected the emitted aura sideways. Not a full reflection—just enough to throw off aim.
It worked. The next burst missed completely. Kaen moved in and dismantled the puppet in five hits.
The second battle was harder.
The Transmuter puppet used an aura whip that conducted electric pulses. Kaen was caught once and felt his entire left arm seize.
Desperate, he pulled from his Palace a half-formed ability: Cognition Lash, which he had started imagining weeks ago. He refined it mid-fight—sending false signals to the puppet's neural net, making it miss its next strike.
Then Kaen slammed it into the ground with raw aura-enhanced strength.
By the third battle, Kaen was bleeding and barely standing.
The Conjurer puppet summoned mirror shards that floated around it, tracking Kaen's movements. It anticipated his every step.
He had to think bigger.
He reached into his Palace and formed a new door mid-fight, one labeled: "Prediction Field."
A dome of aura around him that visualized enemy intent as color trails—giving him a second to react before attacks landed.
With it, he disarmed the puppet and shattered it in a final strike.
⸻
Later, as he lay staring at the stars, Kaen whispered, "One day, this Palace will be infinite."
From behind him, Vane said, "Let's hope it doesn't eat you before then."
⸻
To be continued in Chapter 3: The Three Trials.