After Adarte left, Conrad did not stay in his room.
He put on his coat, stepped into the hallway, and took the elevator down.
He needed the orbs.
According to the limits he had set for himself, they could not be too small or too large.
Smaller than a human head, larger than a fist.
Heavy enough to feel real.
Conrad had already decided that mixing Conjuration into the ability would weaken the structure.
If the orbs were real objects from the start, the Nen would only need to give them function, not existence.
The fact that he was not a conjurer was also there, so he preferred to manipulate real orbs instead of conjuring orbs and then manipulating them.
Also, the fact that he needed real orbs as objects also added power to the ability.
The shop he found was not a big place, pretty ordinary actually.
Just a metalworker's store near the lower levels of Heavens Arena, the kind that sold weights, practice equipment, and custom steel parts for fighters if they needed anything.
The place also took special commissions if anybody wanted more than standard things.
The owner did not ask many questions.
Conrad inspected several options before settling on three steel spheres.
Each was slightly larger than an adult male's fist, evenly weighted,
He paid without bargaining and carried them back himself.
Once inside his room again, Conrad placed the three orbs on the floor in front of him.
He sat cross-legged, rolled his shoulders once, and closed his eyes.
He began by flowing aura over his hands, then letting it spill naturally onto the surface of the steel.
He observed how the aura reacted.
Conrad adjusted his output little by little.
Ten first. Then Ren.
Only after that did he begin shaping intent.
The orbs were not being filled yet.
That would come later.
Right now, he was doing something more important: establishing ownership.
Making sure his aura recognized the orbs as extensions of himself, not foreign objects.
Two hours passed like that.
By the end, sweat had formed along his neck and back.
When he opened his eyes, he reached out with his aura again.
The response was immediate.
One orb trembled.
Then another.
A second later, all three lifted off the ground at the same time.
They hovered a few inches above the floor, wobbling slightly as his control adjusted in real time. Conrad watched them.
"Good."
This was the foundation he needed.
Independent movement without direct contact.
It was not that hard for him to accomplish because his training in terms of nen control and mastery was great.
Not to mention, controlling objects with nen directly in line with his main category as a manipulator was pretty easy.
He experimented briefly, moving one orb forward while keeping the other two still.
Then rotating them slowly around his body.
"Three or four days," Conrad thought. "That should be enough."
Enough to move them at combat speed.
Enough to keep them stable under pressure.
He lowered the orbs gently back to the floor and leaned against the wall, breathing out.
The next step was more demanding.
Filling the first orb.
Aura Blast.
Conrad already understood the theory.
Emission at short range, condensed and released in a controlled burst.
Most Nen users either made blasts too wide, wasting power.
"I need some emission training and need to be sure how to use my aura as a blast."
"Whatever I want to put in the orb for later use in a battle, I should be able to perform it."
He knew that he needed to master the blast with his own body before encoding it into the orb.
Otherwise, the "program" would be flawed from the start.
Conrad stood up and moved to the center of the room.
He raised one hand and let aura pool at his palm.
He imagined compression and started manipulating his nen according to his wishes.
He stopped for a moment and then nodded.
"I should own a room that is big enough and protected for these tests."
In no time, Conrad rented a room that he could train in at Heavens Arena; the rent was cheap, nothing much, as Conrad was a Heavens Arena fighter at level two hundred, and he only paid a simple fee for it.
After entering the training area, he focused on the wall and closed his eyes for a moment and collected his aura in his hand and then first suppressed it as much as he could and then imagined blasting it towards the wall from his hands in an instant.
When he released it, the blast cracked against the reinforced wall with an impact.
The sound echoed briefly, then faded.
"Not bad."
He repeated the process, adjusting angle and output.
Each attempt refined his sense of timing.
Too early, and the blast scattered.
Too late, the aura amount was too much for him to keep a hold of.
After several tries, Conrad nodded to himself.
"One day," he said. "At most."
Once he could reproduce the blast reliably, transferring it into the orb would be straightforward.
After some training, he went back to his room to rest a little bit and made other plans.
He said to himself within.
"In fifteen days, everything will be ready, and on day sixteen, I will fight my next nen battle in the arena to test it out as well as have more experience fighting against nen users with different abilities."