Five Months Later

Time flew by during the arduous training. Before he knew it, five months had passed.

Cocoyasi Village endured several cold spells and a few heavy snowfalls before finally making it through the harsh winter and reaching the season of spring warmth and blooming flowers.

Warmth mingled with the breeze, grass shoots poked through the frozen soil, and the orange orchard's expansion was gradually completed.

New saplings were being planted batch by batch, while loosening the soil, watering and fertilizing, pruning branches, and a host of other tasks remained to be done. Fat Ox and the others were busy from dawn to dusk, yet they enjoyed every minute of it.

Over the past few months, they had gradually integrated into the local community, and the villagers had slowly accepted this group of outsiders.

Compared to the days of fighting desperately to survive in the Colbo Mountains, their current life was practically heaven.

If only...

—If a certain little troublemaker weren't quite so mischievous, it would be even better.

"Hey!"

A small orange-haired figure suddenly darted out from behind a coconut tree, startling Fat Ox, who was lifting a bundle of orange saplings from the ground. He nearly threw out his back.

"Not again, Nami! Stop scaring people everywhere!" Fat Ox angrily planted his hands on his hips. "If you keep this up, I'm going to complain to Lord Xianuo and see how he deals with you!"

Ten-year-old brats were seriously annoying!

"Bleh-bleh-bleh~"

Nami pulled a face and turned to run. "My brother doesn't have time for that! If you want to catch me, come and try, you big stupid ox!"

As she passed the village entrance, the postman, who was delivering a letter, brightened at the sight of her. He hurriedly stopped his bicycle and waved.

"Wait! Nami, a package arrived for you. It's pretty heavy, though. You probably can't carry it home by yourself. How about I take it over for you?"

"A package?"

Nami's face lit up with delight. She immediately crouched down and began opening it on the spot. Inside was a thick stack of books.

The postman leaned over to look as well.

What were these? Atlas of the Four Seas, Treatise on Log Pose Craftsmanship, Advanced Complex Bathymetry Charting, To Vegapunk: Seastone Applications and Navigation Through the Calm Belt...

They were all massive tomes. Just reading the titles made his head spin.

"Are all these books for you?" the postman asked in astonishment. "Or are they for the adults at home?"

"They're mine. More precisely, my brother bought all of them for me!"

Nami giggled and patted the stack with satisfaction. "The bookstore in the village barely has any books, and I finished reading all of them ages ago. My brother often buys new ones for me from other towns nearby. This batch is really high-quality, too. It'll be enough to keep me studying for quite a while!"

"That's amazing, Nami."

The postman gave her a thumbs-up in admiration. "To be able to read books like these at such a young age... My daughter does nothing but run around and play all day. I wish she were as sensible as you!"

Sensible?

"Y-yes, exactly..." Nami guiltily nudged a pebble with her foot. "Oh, right, the books are pretty heavy, so... Uncle, could you take them home for me after all?"

"Sure. It's my job, anyway."

The postman nodded with a smile.

He had visited Cocoyasi Village many times and knew the terrain quite well.

Pushing his bicycle ahead, he turned left and right several times. Before long, a cozy wooden house appeared in front of them.

"We're home! Bellemere and Nojiko aren't here. They probably went to the orange orchard."

Nami pointed at the coffee table in the living room. "Uncle, you can just put the books there."

"All right!"

After setting down the books, the postman suddenly noticed a pile of hand-drawn nautical charts scattered across the sofa beside him.

He picked one up to examine it. The first chart depicted the island surrounding Cocoyasi Village. It was so exquisite and detailed that its quality far surpassed anything available for purchase on the market.

"Nami, did you draw all these?"

The postman was filled with even greater amazement. "How incredible! Your talent is unbelievably strong. You might become an outstanding cartographer someday!"

"Of course I will, Uncle!"

Nami smugly swept her beautiful hair behind her ear with an elegant, carefree motion. Unfortunately, she hadn't washed her hair in several days, and her hand got stuck. It took her quite a while to pull it free...

"Ahem... Anyway, my dream doesn't end there. My goal is to use my navigational skills to travel across the entire sea, then create a world map based on everything I've seen with my own eyes!"

"A world map?" The postman laughed heartily. "That's quite an extraordinary dream. But Nami, the outside world is very dangerous. There are plenty of powerful pirates out there. You won't be able to deal with them!"

"I can't beat them, but following my brother is enough."

Nami snorted. "He's the most famous Great Swordsman in the East Blue! Whatever pirate crew they are, one slash from him and he'll cut their ship clean in half!"

That young man named Xia Nuo?

The postman froze slightly.

He remembered that the name had indeed been making waves about half a year ago, but no further news had come afterward, and it had gradually faded from people's view.

The postman couldn't help asking curiously, "Where's your brother? Now that you mention it, I've been to Cocoyasi Village so many times, but I don't think I've ever seen him in the village."

"He's a training maniac. That's what everyone calls him, anyway. It'd be strange to see him during the day. As for this time of day..."

Nami leaned against the window and poked her head out, pointing toward the tallest mountain among the hills to the north. "There. Can you hear the sounds coming from the mountains?"

The postman cocked his head and listened.

Only then did he notice the muffled, rumbling booms echoing faintly from the mountains. Looking carefully, he could even see smoke drifting up from the mountain peak.

He was stunned. "You mean..."

"That's my brother. He's inside that mountain."

Nami grinned. "Those are all sounds he made. Luckily, the village is farther south, so you can't hear them very clearly. Otherwise, people would have complained about the noise disturbing them long ago."

"Your brother?"

The postman stared wide-eyed. Could a human really make that kind of racket?

Boom!

A massive boulder, five or six meters tall, was suddenly blasted into powder by a single punch.

Amid the billowing dust, the imposing figure of a broad-shouldered, black-haired youth emerged.

Xia Nuo stepped over the still-rolling rubble. Quartz grains crushed beneath his feet sparked with blue flames, and he soon crossed the spot where the boulder had originally stood.

He raised his head and gazed at the devastated mountainside before him.

It no longer even looked like a mountain.

As far as the eye could see, the entire mountain had been battered as though by a meteor shower, riddled with craters and exposing countless cross-sections of rock.

A tunnel pierced through the mountain and slanted toward the summit. It was wide enough for several people to pass through at once. If not for the numerous fist and bone marks remaining on the exposed surfaces, it would have looked as though a gigantic drill had bored straight through it.

"The hardness is still too low."

Xia Nuo stared expressionlessly at the rock walls on both sides of the tunnel. "The metal content is already the highest among all the mountains on the island, and the rock deeper inside is also the hardest. But for me now..."

He shook his head slightly. It was gradually becoming insufficient.

He withdrew his gaze, walked a few steps forward, and stepped beyond the mountain's shadow.

Afternoon sunlight spilled across his shoulders.

He now stood 1.87 meters tall. The muscles covering his body were knotted and twisted like thick tree roots, yet extremely dense, gleaming with an ironlike, cold sheen. His shoulders were terrifyingly broad, and in ordinary people's eyes, he resembled a towering little mountain.

Every step he took made the rocks beneath his feet tremble faintly. As he passed beside a large tree, he happened to step on several mushrooms.

Xia Nuo did not notice. But when he lifted his foot again, the mushrooms had already merged with the ground, flattened into two dimensions.

The reason was simple.

His body alone now weighed barely 250 pounds, but the black training outfit he wore had been weighted to 1.6 tons.

Considering the tremendous increase in pressure caused by the relatively small surface area of his soles, the force he imposed on the ground when he stepped down was even greater than that of a fully grown elephant.