Conrad truly was in no hurry.
From the very beginning, he treated Heavens Arena not as a ladder to be climbed, but as a classroom.
He started on the lowest floors, where Nen was nonexistent and brute force ruled.
Fighters relied on muscle, technique, aggression, and intimidation.
Conrad observed carefully how boxers telegraphed punches, how grapplers committed their weight, and how martial artists conserved stamina through rhythm.
"All of them have their own techniques and style."
"It seems like Meruem was right about the matter of the 'rhythm' of the individual..."
He fought cleanly at first.
He won most matches and lost a few deliberately by testing unfamiliar approaches.
Each loss taught him more than a clean victory ever could.
By the time he reached the fiftieth floor, things began to change.
The fighters were sharper.
Conrad began integrating Ryu into his movements, reinforcing strikes at the moment of impact, and redistributing aura to absorb blows he couldn't dodge in time.
But of course, he used the minimum, like 0.1% of nen, to fight against people with no nen; basically, his control of nen was there to just increase his mastery of "Nen" and "Ryu" to the fullest degree, not to hurt his enemy.
He still avoided excess.
"I'm here to learn," he reminded himself after every match.
"Not to show off."
He spent days moving between floors, sometimes pausing to watch other battles.
Patterns emerged.
When he reached the hundredth floor, the atmosphere shifted again.
This was where Nen users began to appear more frequently, unofficially at first.
Aura flared during moments of stress, during desperation.
Some fighters didn't even realize what they were doing.
Conrad did.
Occasionally, he activated Black Ring—State of Calm, but only for seconds at a time to see what really changes in himself.
"It was great..."
"It was too great..."
"It was like the effect of slowing time but not really."
"What a great ability..." Conrad thought.
Losses still came, as he did not want to overwhelm opponents and win fights just using "Nen."
He wanted to win because he thought better, strategized better, and fought better.
If he were to use "nen crush" to just finish off his opponents, what would he do when he encounters a nen user who is also a great fighter?
Nen's crush would not work, and his life would be in the hands of his opponent.
He did not want that.
"That would be pitiful to end the story..." he said to himself.
Some opponents were simply better in specific areas.
Each defeat added to his notebook.
By the time he climbed past the one hundred fiftieth floor, Conrad had become something else entirely.
First of all he read stances faster.
He felt intent through subtle shifts in aura, not the aura of the nen but of the individuals and their eyes, their behavior, and their will to keep their spirit up to keep on fighting.
He learned when to disengage.
Match rewards, bonuses, betting odds Heaven's Arena was generous.
By the time Conrad reached the upper floors, his account had swollen to nearly five hundred million Jenny.
More than enough to fund his future.
But money wasn't the point.
After exactly one week, Conrad won his final match on the one hundred ninety-ninth floor.
A clean redirection, a reinforced strike to the solar plexus, and controlled follow-up until the referee intervened.
When the announcer declared his advancement,
Conrad didn't raise his arms.
He simply bowed lightly and left the ring.
And Conrad knew exactly what that meant.
As he walked toward the registration corridor for the two hundredth floor, the environment itself began to change.
The noise faded.
The hallway stretched ahead of him.
Conrad slowed his steps.
"…So this is it."
"Somebody is going to greet me with a new attack."
This was the same passage Gon and Killua had once stood in.
The place where Hisoka's Nen had shown itself for real to stop them from going on to register themselves.
The threshold that separated ordinary fighters from true Nen combatants.
Conrad activated Ten without too much thought, and all the nen directed towards him to hurt him ceased to exist in a moment.
His aura wrapped around him like a shell.
"So this is Nen intimidation," he thought calmly.
"Crude…"
He took another step forward.
The pressure increased.
His muscles tensed, instinctively urging retreat.
Unlike Gon and Killua back then, Conrad understood what was happening.
Those without proper Ten would collapse here.
Conrad stepped out of the corridor and into the registration area of Floor 200.
Here, Nen was no longer hidden.
Aura flared openly.
Fighters stood casually with their aura surrounding them, unconcerned with concealment.
Conrad looked around calmly.
"So this is the real Heavens Arena," he thought.
"Where I will gain real experience of a nen battle..."