Gon decides to send a letter to his aunt Mito in order to inform her about the events that had happened during his journey. He started to narrate the story on the events starting from the preliminary Hunter exam to the point when he met Leorio, Kurapika, Killua and the other examinees.

A letter from Gon arrives at Whale Island for Mito... (A recap of everything that has happened.)

The game Greed Island, which holds a clue to finding Ging, is finally on auction. Gon and Killua ask the winning buyer to hire them as players, but they're told that their Nen is too weak. They begin to work on special abilities so they can be selected as players.

Gon and Killua are trying to get themselves chosen as Greed Island players. Tsezgerra, the judge, says that he will make his decision after they show him his Nen. Only 32 of the 200 applicants will pass.

Gon and Killua set off for Masadora in search of spell cards. On the way, they run into many different monsters. However, they struggle against some of the stronger monsters. A girl named Biscuit watches as they fight their way through.

Gon and Killua have finally made it inside the world of Greed Island, their clue to finding Ging. However, all they found was a message from Ging telling Gon to enjoy the game. Their first step is to find a city and gather information. There, they receive an invitation to join a group that's trying to clear the game.

Team Genthru now has 96 different types of restricted slot cards after tricking Team Tsegzerra. Gon and Killua receive an invitation from other players to team up to prevent Genthru from beating the game. They head to Soufrabi to monopolize Patch of Shore, one of the cards Genthru is missing.

Gon and Kurapika reunite with Leorio and Killua at the Phase Two site. Satotz leads what remains of the candidates to meet the second phase examiners, named Menchi and Buhara. The examiners declare the next phase is to test their cooking skills, much to the candidates' disbelief. The test requires pork, so the candidates are sent to find pigs in the forest. However, the pigs living inside the forest are carnivorous and tear through the candidates. Thanks to Gon, they discover the pigs' weakness and they manage to each get one for their cooking. Upon tasting the candidates' cooking, Buhara gives a pass but Menchi fails all of them. Knowing the candidates will riot, Satotz informs Chairman Netoros of the Hunter Selection Committee to make an appearance. Netoros arrives to correct Menchi's habit of getting biased whenever it's related to cooking. Netoros allows Menchi to stay on as examiner, and she gives the candidates a retest: boil eggs laid by spider eagles on Mt. Split-in-Half.

Gon, Killua, and Leorio are trying to get their hands on enough money to buy Greed Island. As they pass through the market, Gon stumbles across a way to identify valuable items. The plan is to buy cheap and sell low, but someone else is bidding on all their items.

To ensure that Netero's last wish will be followed, Ging convinces the other members of the Zodiacs to procede with the election according to some rules defined by him. However, after the first round of voting, a winner is not decided and a second round begins. Meanwhile, Illumi informs Hisoka about Gon's condition and asks for his help to ensure Killua's safety as well, in a plan that somehow involves a fifth, yet unrevealed member of the Zoldyck siblings.

Gon learns to master his accuracy with his pole to try and steal Hisoka's number plate.Finally mastering it,He decides to steal it when Hisoka is busy catching his Prey.

The leader of the Phantom Troupe is dead... Kurapika is shocked by the news. Unconvinced, he tries to get a glimpse of the body. Meanwhile, the dead bodies of the other Troupe members have been discovered.

Gon, Kurapica, and Leorio arrive at Kukuroo Mountain only to find out that they cannot get close to the Zoldyck family estate. The Zoldyck family owns the mountain and all of the surrounding forest and the entire region is gated shut. There is a guard outpost immediately outside of the gate, but instead of serving as a guard, the man working in there actually cleans up the mess created by the watchdog whenever there are intruders into the grounds. Gon, unwilling to give up on "rescuing" Killua, learns from the gatekeeper that the actual door is the massive stone gate and anyone who enters via that path will not be attacked by the watchdog. Leorio tries to pull and push on the gate, to no avail. The gatekeeper informs them that the gate opens up different amounts of stone slabs based only on the strength of the person; however, the least amount of strength anyone needs to open the smallest portion of the door requires two tons of strength on each side.

Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio are finally reunited. Kurapika reveals his Nen powers to the others. However, Killua is afraid that Kurapika is now in danger because one of the Troupe members can read minds. Meanwhile, Chrollo is using the fortune telling power he stole from Neon to tell the fortunes of the Troupe members.

Chrollo uses the information he has on Neon to identify the location of the chain user, Kurapika. Meanwhile, Killua is keeping an eye on the Phantom Troupe base when he is joined by Melody, who helps determine that the Troupe is headed towards Kurapika's hotel. The Troupe is finally closing in on Kurapika.

The story begins with a young boy named Gon, who aspires to be a hunter just like his father Ging. Ging leaves his son in the care of Mito, Gon's aunt, and has not been seen since. Gon catches the local monster fish, "Lord of the Lake", in order to prove his ability to take the exam. Although Mito is reluctant to let Gon leave his home, she relents after he is determined to understand the reason his father left him and his interest of being a hunter.

With the navigators' help, Gon, Kurapika and Leorio arrive at Zaban City, the venue of the exam. The navigator leads them to a small restaurant, which is revealed to be the front for the venue. Gon's group is led to an elevator disguised as a back room, which leads a hundred floors underground. Below, they meet the rest of the participants and given their numbers. There they meet Tonpa, a regular participant who claims to have tried and failed 35 times in the exam.

Gon and Killua have begun to listen to the cassette tape left behind by Ging in anticipation of Gon becoming a Hunter.

Having learned his Nen ability, Kurapika pursues a Hunter's work that will get him close to the New York auction.

Killua returns after easily passing his second try at the Hunter Exam. Now that Gon, Killua, and Bisky are together again, they begin working on beating this game by collecting cards. Meanwhile, the other players are scheming to gather the cards they need to complete the game.

In order to beat the game, the other players must face off against Genthru. Tsezgerra offers to distract Genthru for three weeks. While Gon trains hard, Team Tsezgerra leaves the game temporarily to delay Genthru, but Mr. Battera has an unpleasant surprise for them.

Despite all efforts to save the queen, she does not resist her wounds and dies, but not before revealing to Colt the name she had chosen for the king, "Meruem". A final live offspring is found inside her body and Morel offers himself to protect both after he promises that they will never eat humans anymore. As the other squad leaders leave to build their own colonies, the king and the royal guard arrive at the neighboring country of East Gorteau.

Ikalgo is attacked by Welfin but the enemy's attempt to restrain him backfires and they find themselves in a stand off. In the occasion, Welfin regains some of his lost memories from when he was still human and gives him a hint regarding Palm's location.

Gon, Kurapika and Leorio reach Dolle Harbor and are given instructions by the captain to head for the cedar tree on the hilltop behind the city. Moving through a small town, the three are stopped by a group of people, where an old woman gives a question requring them to choose from two choices. Answering wrongly, refusing to answer or attempting to head back will result in failure of the exam.

The airship reaches Trick Tower, the Phase Three site, which is a tall featureless pillar built on an equally high platform. The candidates are told that to pass Phase 3, they have to climb down from the top to the base of the tower. An experienced rock climber candidate tries to climb down but is eaten by some flying monsters. Later, Kurapika finds that more than half of the candidates have discovered hidden doors to go inside the tower, which Gon finds one as well. However, the catch is that there are many hidden doors, each one can be only used once and only one person can fit through a door, which means they have to split up. When they try out different doors, they realize that they end up in the same room. In the room, Gon's group are given instructions and special wristwatches for five of them to follow the majority, but they cannot proceed without a fifth member. Lippo, one of the Phase 3 examiners tells them this while explaining they have chosen the path of majority rule.