Warden followed a similar strategy at greater distance, straining his ears.

'Nen', huh? Perhaps he can continue to walk the path after all, once he figures out what Nen is precisely. Floor 200 is the goal.

On to floor 60 for now.

His fight schedule gets slightly desynced from the weird children. As a result it takes till the high hundreds before anyone even remotely challenges him, and they still don't show any signs of actual cultivation. Just martial skill and the weirdly high athletic ability that people from this world can get from intense normal exercise. Increasing prizes plus free housing make Warden's money issues a thing of the past.

His last few fights are attended by a handful of people from floors (fighter rolls are publicly posted). At first glance they appear to have level of life force but if he looks closely he can see that they're life force is unusually well ordered and that they have an extra glow around their eyes while watching the match. In other words they have abilities they are using to watch him, but are hiding their power levels. Unfortunately, they make a point of not sticking around after the match or being available to talk. Also, they seems strangely prone to physical aliments, one is flat out in a wheelchair.

If he does any research into nen, "magic", superpowers ect from public sources he will find... a whole bunch of contradictory BS most of which barely mentions nen. However he will also find out that "magic beasts" unambiguously exist and are typically dealt with by the Hunter's Association. There are some indications that both of these groups use nen, but just as strong indications that magic beasts are perfectly normal animals with usual biology and that the Hunters Association uses technology from the planet CRouton which appears to be from a comic book. So if he wants to know the truth he will need better than public sources.
After a few short months he will finally place onto the 200th floor.

There is an atrium before the "true" 200th floor where a receptionist will explain that at this level there is no more prize money fighter's compete soley for glory (and free luxury accommodations) there is a whole biannual tournament thing with needlessly complex rules if he actually cares but the important thing is not to go more than 90 days without a fight or lose more than 4 fights total.

Destiny awaits, just down the corridor.

Before that-

At around floor 150 he takes a few days' break, and gets a "taxi" or "plane" out to a nice mountain, somewhere isolated. He thinks he's reconstructed the important part of the Twelve Year Sunholder breathing technique. So if he just gets to a place with sufficient purity, and sufficient sunlight-

-Yes, he can, with enough effort, gather up dribs and drabs of Sun anam, sitting on the freezing mountainside and meditating in nothing but boxers. Very little for the effort involved, especially compared to taking pills or drawing from a Treasure or Natural Wonder. But he can gather it. He gratefully cycles the energy towards one of his meridians. He was starting to worry about losing progress or stalling out by taking too long without cultivating.

-And back in the corridor to the 200th floor, he's not looking out for trouble more than his baseline watchfulness.

A motley crew of fighters with very obvious auras will be waiting for him. It roughly seems that the one in the red trashbag mask is the leader, and the clown is separate from the rest be he can seem most of the ones who have come to watch him including the wheelchair guy.

"We know you have something strange going on, but do you actually know how to use 'it'? If you know what we mean then show us your Ten and we'll let you through."

"I'm very strange. 'It' is a mystery to me, beyond the name - Nen. If you wish to see me shroud..."

The Endless Depths defender technique should do nicely. After all, the cold watery immensity of the abyss of Ocean anam is one of the most shrouding things he can imagine. And if they decide to attack, having their blows affect him about as much as the sun bothers the ocean (well, not so much, but confidence is important here) is a bonus. Anam flows and pools around him as the technique forms.

The main group gets visibly confused and starts looking worriedly at their leader.

The clown takes the initiative.

“You weren’t the prey I’m came here for, but thats interesting enough I’ll help you learn.”

He then laughs and throws a Nen infused playing card at Warden.

He's seen this attitude from lower-circle disciples before. Nothing good will happen if he tries to dodge. He lets the card hit his technique, and then - probably - him.

He gives a creepy little grin as the card is negated by the Endless Depths but the real attack it was covering goes straight through. With his newly attached Bungee Gum a flick of the wrist allows Hisoka to forcefully pull Warden over to him. Finally he hits Warden with enough Nen to guarantee he'll awaken (or die) extruding an overpowering aura of malice in the process.

"Hmm, looks like you're smart enough to not try dodging that. I guess I'll take you to your room to recover, but I'll be expecting answers."

The gaggle of randos start to form some sort of objection to all this, but snap to their senses when the aura flair reminds them that they all have pressing appointments with people who aren't Hisoka.

Ow.

His breathing settles into his most-used cycling pattern, out of sheer habit. Perhaps Nen is enough like anam to respond to it. Or if not, at least to his willpower and focus, which is more sharply focused like this.

As Warden starts to concentrate his Nen fully awakens. This takes the form of his life force rapidly exiting his body through millions of microscopic orifices he didn't even know he had, or as non-native possibly didn't have until just now. It is not quite responding the way anam would, but his cycling is doing something. Also, he can now clearly see Nen as something akin to steam rising off of living creature, usually much less rapidly that it is coming off of him.

"Interesting. The conventional advice is to close your eyes, and relax until you can feel the flow then simply picture holding your aura in close to you. Of course, if you want to experiment you have an hour before you're in danger. More if your techniques are partially effective."

Yeah, the Nen is tearing apart his body from the inside out. His body is tougher than an average human's, but not enough to sustain this indefinitely at all.

It's just another kind of cycling. One he has to figure out more or less from first principles while in immense pain. No pressure.

Visualization is more important than breathing techniques? Very well. He attempts various shapes of - willpower, trying to feel out the shape of the Nen, and then trying to influence it. Even a faint waver would be a sign of progress.

Hisoka will give some feedback, but its actually kinda easy for Warden. He'll also explain that it's very common for people to die but this is usually because they don't have the ability to perform complex mental exercises while figuratively bleeding out, or because they don't realize what they should be aiming for fast enough. With Warden's discipline and Hisoka's coaching they shouldn't even get close to the time limit.

He will endure the pain for longer in order to gain more familiarity with this strange 'Nen' energy.

He will also humbly beg his honorable senior for guidance as to the theory and properties of Nen. Kissing up to those stronger than you is an essential skill, really.

"Oh you are shameless, but don't worry I'm known for helping promising young fighters. At some point I'll also want to know more about your strange technique, but for now the basics."

"There are many advanced skills but Ten, Restu, Zetsu, and Hatsu form the core of all Nen use. Ten is what you just learned. Zetsu is shutting down your aura entirely by closing your nodes. It's mostly used for tracking in its pure form, but its energy conservation aspect is used in some of the advanced skill like Ko, which combines all the basic skills. Ren is flaring your aura. By itself it's just a show of strength, but it is folded into many of the advanced techniques. Oh and water divination. Hatsu allows people to develop individual nen abilities. Since I don't know you well enough for my personality test, I guess we'll use water divination."

He gets a glass of water and sticks a leaf on top of it. Then indicates Warden should try Ren on it.