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~~~

The three Amori Brothers were dead.

A few other bit‑part characters whose names Xiang Nan couldn't quite recall—but whose faces he knew well—were gone too.

But… the great Tonpa was still alive.

You had to admit, there was a reason this guy could keep taking the Hunter Exam year after year and survive.

The upheaval in Zaban City didn't seem to have interrupted Tonpa's "career" of sabotaging rookies; in his usual overly familiar way, he had already latched on to Gon and the others.

Killua's bond with Gon was nothing if not strong. After two rounds of setbacks in this year's exam, the white‑haired boy still gravitated toward Gon—as if, in Killua's eyes, the little "sun" simply possessed a natural pull. Gon, for his part, thought Killua's trick of skateboarding during the run was downright cool.

Xiang Nan paid them no mind. He lengthened his stride and ran to the very front of the procession.

Along the way a few players sidled up, trying to strike up a conversation—obviously fishing for inside information about the intruders who had appeared in Zaban City. All the players had received the system announcement; because they had been right there in the city and taken part in the incident, they assumed Xiang Nan, a high‑level player, must have contributed a great deal.

Xiang Nan gave only the briefest of explanations and clearly had no intention of saying more. In the Reincarnation Dimension, once you clear the Extinction Game everything becomes clear sooner or later. Telling them now would be useless; many of them would probably be eliminated anyway.

To obtain intel you first needed outstanding ability—and an organized player faction large enough to make use of it. He couldn't yet vouch for their future ability, and they certainly didn't have the organizational structure. So most of the curious players were waved away.

After the situation in Zaban City was resolved, Beishi and the other two left to deal with their own affairs, leaving only him and Manman to take the exam. The first test posed no difficulty at all for the two of them; it was only long and grueling, torture for examinees with poor stamina.

He, Hisoka, and Illumi stayed at the very front, right behind the Examiner who was running ahead. The three of them had nothing to say to one another—each ran his own race.

Halfway in, people began to drop out. Many examinees were stuck for an entire day, including Gon's group—no doubt helped along by Tonpa's dirty tricks.

The underground passage was 80 kilometers long. The challenge wasn't the distance but the claustrophobic space, the slope, and the maze‑like network of tunnels where you could easily lose the examiner or your sense of direction.

On top of that, you had to maintain a constantly changing but steady pace, which drained stamina even faster. And overtaking the examiner was forbidden—no one knew exactly where the exit was, and even if you did get ahead you might emerge at the wrong place because of the convoluted route.

After several more hours of grinding, Xiang Nan and the handful at the very front followed the examiner up to the surface, completing the first test's first half. Gon and the others finally appeared at the tail end of the course, squeaking through just before the cutoff.

One scene from the original story did not occur: Hisoka never attacked Satotz. The monkey that impersonated the examiner never showed up either. So the plot had indeed shifted a little, but not much.

Once the examiner was sure no more candidates would reach the exit, he announced the next challenge: everyone had to cross the Milsy Wetlands—nicknamed the Swindler's Swamp—to reach the site of Phase Two.

By now the examinees could already see the vast, fog‑shrouded sea of forest ahead, and their faces were a study in mixed emotions. The wetlands teemed with cunning, treacherous creatures lethal even to would‑be Hunters. After explaining the rules, the examiner turned and disappeared.

Xiang Nan glanced at Hisoka, then led Manman away at once. He could tell Hisoka's curiosity hadn't been sated by the rogue intruders. That man's hunger for discovering "ripe fruit" was bottomless; every examinee was, in his eyes, a blind box waiting to be opened. Which meant Hisoka's killing performance was likely still on the schedule.

There weren't many examinees left. After making friends with Gon and the other main characters, almost all the players voluntarily quit the exam; they could have handled the tunnel, but knowing what events lay ahead in the wetlands, they decided not to stay. In the entire candidate pool, only Xiang Nan and Manman remained from the player side.

Xiang Nan and Manman passed through the wetlands with zero interest in whatever drama unfolded behind them. The bizarre wildlife was entertaining, though: carnivorous strawberry tortoises that looked like miniature dinosaurs, hallucination‑inducing butterflies… creatures nearly impossible to encounter anywhere else and apparently dependent on this unique environment, all woven into a natural food chain.

These exotic beasts were fundamentally different from magical beasts, yet to the transmigrated Xiang Nan they were wonderfully novel. In his gem‑collecting travels he had seen many strange life‑forms, but Hunter × Hunter was, at its core, a world with a distinct "other‑realm" flavor.

Manman frolicked like a kid at the zoo, bounding everywhere. Even when a colossal strawberry tortoise snapped her head whole into its jaws, she still beamed with delight.

"The first test's tunnel measured stamina and endurance," Xiang Nan chuckled softly, "but this swamp—without the examiner's visible oversight—strips away restraints. Shrouded in fog, the place turns chaotic and gives Hisoka a perfect stage to play on. The real test, though, is observation and reflex—the ability to sense natural dangers."

He glanced back at Manman having the time of her life.

"Let's go."

"Okay!"

Reluctantly saying goodbye to the huge beast, Manman hurried after him. For the two of them, the Hunter Exam was just a sightseeing tour.

Unlike Hisoka, Xiang Nan had no perverse "hobbies," so they reached the Phase Two venue in record time—first to arrive. Xiang Nan picked a patch of grass, sat down, and pulled out a book; Manman wandered off to amuse herself.

Hours later the other candidates trickled in, some bedraggled, others unfazed. Among them was Hanzō, the bald shinobi of the secretive Cloud‑Hidden Style. That underground group took on assassination jobs and such. Xiang Nan remembered him well.

In the Hunter world—whether in public view or in the shadows—the forces shown in the original plot were only the tip of the iceberg…

Immersed in the joy of acquiring knowledge, Xiang Nan's reading now ranged far beyond medicine and genetics to archeology and ruins studies—volumes he had obtained through his network and through his earlier globe‑trotting quests.

He had clear reasons for learning this material. But from the moment he arrived, he sensed someone secretly watching him. Xiang Nan pretended not to notice.

~~~

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