Shichibukai Recovery Plan Underway

Could Austin use swordsmanship too?

I thought he probably could.

It was just that this fighting style had never been Austin's best choice.

Although becoming a swordsman also required strength—just like Zoro's years of daily weight training, which ultimately allowed him to hold his blades against those monsters' attacks—

that did not mean that for someone immensely strong, practicing swordsmanship was the best path forward.

On the contrary, Fist Bone was the best method of attack for those blessed with monstrous strength and Conqueror's Haki.

If Big Mom had learned Fist Bone from childhood and trained and refined it diligently, she might not necessarily have been much weaker than Garp in their era.

Nor would she have been chased all over God Valley by him.

So after understanding this, Austin had not focused on swordsmanship training.

Even when Teacher Zephyr saw how easily he learned everything and wanted him to master more combat techniques, forcing swordsmanship lessons on him,

Austin had not studied it in great depth.

He had merely stared with his scarlet eyes as the examiners teaching swordsmanship at the Marine training camp demonstrated it a few times.

After pondering and savoring it for a moment,

he took out a standard Marine longsword and coated it in Armament Haki.

"So-called swordsmanship... should be a way of projecting one's power through a blade..."

Energy did not appear from nowhere. Even rule-defying Paramecia Devil Fruits consumed immense stamina when used.

Thus, the slashes swordsmen unleashed—slashes capable of altering terrain without Haki—were essentially an advanced application of physical arts.

As long as it was physical arts, there was no difficulty in learning it for Austin, who specialized in stats and Haki.

When Zephyr heard the news, even the documents in his hands fell to the floor.

Austin...

really always managed to