Teach used Haki to resist the lightning, weakening its force as he slowly took control of it, until it reached the maximum intensity he could endure after being weakened. Teach's chest heaved as he used the Thunder Breathing Technique, generating electricity in his body. Producing it consumed his stamina, and it clashed with the lightning weakened by his Haki.
Even weakened lightning was no match for the electricity Teach produced. The disparity in power was like an egg hitting a rock, and the lightning's force far surpassed his own.
Lightning was a form of energy, and Teach used Life Return to slowly digest it. Excruciating pain shot through his brain. Compared to his strong muscles, his insides were extremely fragile. Though he had always used electricity to temper his body—especially important organs like his lungs and heart—
The stronger lightning still made Teach's body tremble. In that environment, static lifted his slightly curled black hair into the air. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose.
Teach felt a lingering fear. It had been too dangerous. He quickly used Life Return to heal his injured body. If he hadn't drunk the Monkey King Wine Monkey King Kakarot had given him, which had improved his physical strength, he would have been seriously injured.
Teach strengthened his Armament Haki, weakening the lightning further, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. He used the lightning to train his body while once again refining its energy with Life Return. Sometimes he truly marveled at whoever had created a technique like Life Return. In Teach's mind, it stood on equal footing with the Three Types of Haki.
With Life Return, ordinary people could surpass those gifted with natural talent. Of course, if they lacked the talent to learn Life Return, or couldn't master it—or even reach its deeper levels—then it was useless.
In Teach's eyes, Life Return was the secret behind the Navy hero Garp's enduring strength. Garp was the only person to have mastered it completely, allowing him to keep his body in peak condition for long periods.
Digesting the lightning's energy improved the quality and strength of the electricity inside Teach. At the same time, electricity continued to build within his body, fighting and mingling with the foreign lightning. His insides had become a battlefield, where electricity clashed with lightning. After being weakened further, the lightning no longer completely overwhelmed the electricity he produced.
His electricity struggled to hold out against the seemingly endless lightning. Still, it was clear that the electricity Teach produced was slowly growing stronger. His body refined the lightning's mysterious energy, replenishing itself so it could withstand stronger lightning and become more accustomed to its power.
The Sand Tribe on Thunder God Island had developed this kind of physique through centuries of evolution. With Life Return, Teach was achieving the same result much more efficiently and in a fraction of the time. And he wasn't simply digesting the energy: his finely controlled Observation Haki constantly distributed it, guiding it into his body.
A day passed. Teach had sat there for an entire day, and he could clearly feel that his resistance to lightning had increased. The electricity he produced had grown much stronger, too. He believed his own electricity would max out at ten million volts, which would be enough for him. To get stronger than that, he would have to use other methods.
Unique environments nurtured unique creatures. The beasts on Thunder God Island had an exceptionally high resistance to lightning.
A powerful leopard had now set its sights on Teach, who was still sitting in meditation. As luck would have it, it became his meal. After a day, Teach had more or less grown accustomed to the lightning's intensity. He no longer needed to sit still and could venture deeper to train against stronger lightning, which could also hone his Haki.
Teach pressed on. The lightning grew stronger, and he finally understood why it was so drawn to him. Using Observation Haki and Life Return, he made fine adjustments to the magnetic field of his body. Rather than preventing the lightning from striking, he made it descend more fiercely. The lightning in the sky connected to his body, pouring its tremendous power into him.
Teach continually expended Haki to resist it, making his training more intense. Deep inside Thunder God Island, the magnetic field was so powerful that his body seemed to grow lighter. It wasn't actually lighter; that was simply the effect of the magnetic field. Tiny grains of sand and stones floated in midair.
The island's interior was a desolate place, with exposed rocks everywhere. Only a few trees could withstand the lightning. They were known as lightning-struck trees. Their surfaces were charred black from lightning strikes, and they looked dead, but Teach sensed a dense vitality inside them.
Around the stones, arcs of electricity flashed through the air. As Teach arrived, the lightning connecting him to the sky—and his own magnetic field—disrupted the local magnetic field, which had barely changed for years. Some sand and stones fell, while others rose from the ground elsewhere.
Since he was here, Teach naturally wanted to see Thunder God Peak. Through Observation Haki, he had already found its location, and the peak was easy to spot: even through the thick fog, he could make out a massive shadow. That was Thunder God Peak, an extraordinarily tall mountain, even by the standards of the New World.
As he drew closer, Teach had to adjust his magnetic field again, slowing the rate at which lightning struck him. With its power growing, he needed to get used to it all over again and stabilize the clash between the lightning and the electricity inside him.
Teach wasn't Kaido. Kaido had incredible vitality, and more importantly, he was a Mythical Zoan: Fish-Fish Fruit, Model: Azure Dragon user. A dragon's greatest strength wasn't summoning wind and rain, but its Nine Transformations of the True Dragon. It gave him unmatched adaptability, allowing him to survive and adjust to any harsh environment. This had given Kaido powerful immunity to all kinds of attacks, especially damage from natural-disaster Devil Fruits.
At last, Teach arrived. The peak stretched beyond sight, as though it connected heaven and earth. He could clearly feel how hard the land was. After centuries of being tempered by lightning, it was no less sturdy than steel.
Thunder God Peak was precipitously steep, its slopes approaching a ninety-degree angle. Teach sensed many powerful creatures nearby. He had encountered plenty on the way, but none dared approach, frightened off by the lightning that kept striking him. But here, in the heart of Thunder God Peak, the lightning was even stronger and denser. No other creatures would come anywhere near this area.
Then Teach's Observation Haki picked up something unusual. On Thunder God Peak, he found a Devil Fruit and another, peculiar energy signature. He wasn't surprised to find a Devil Fruit in such a remote place. Many Devil Fruits were hidden on obscure islands that few people had ever visited, or ended up at the bottom of the sea after ships sank in battle.
But the unusual energy signature was strange, and Teach was curious. He leapt onto Thunder God Peak, then kept jumping from one foothold to the next. The Devil Fruit was halfway up the mountain, while the strange energy was near the summit.
The storm clouds above Thunder God Island hung very close to the ground, only five thousand meters up—not even close to the ten thousand meters of altitude where the Sky Islands were found. Thunder God Peak was just over five thousand meters tall. Teach kept leaping upward, gaining seven or eight meters with every jump. After five minutes, he reached the mountainside.
In a crevice along the sheer cliff, a Devil Fruit grew. It was blue and peach-shaped. Teach had guessed it might be golden, and that a Devil Fruit growing in such an environment might have a lightning-related ability—perhaps a lightning-related Mythical Zoan.
Teach couldn't help but laugh at his own assumptions. Even if there had been one, someone would have picked it already. Why would it have been left for him? Plenty of powerful people had trained on this island over the years, and climbing Thunder God Peak was nothing unusual. Finding a Devil Fruit at all was already incredibly lucky. Teach didn't know what power this one held, though, so he would have to look it up later.
Teach put the Devil Fruit away. Including this one, he now had six: an Ancient Species: Night Blood Bat, a Paramecia Bounce Fruit meant for a future crewmate, two top-tier Zoan Devil Fruits he had found on a Marine warship—the Mantis Fruit and the Emperor Crocodile Fruit—an unknown Zoan Devil Fruit, which he suspected was related to snakes because it had been traded by Tiger King and Snake King, and this newly found fruit.
Counting the two he had given away as investments and the three he had given Kaido, Teach had obtained eleven Devil Fruits in total. He felt like he was already preparing Devil Fruits for all his future crewmates. Of course, he had deliberately been collecting them. With his finely controlled Observation Haki, he could immediately spot any fruit shaped like a Devil Fruit within its range.
Unlike the Teach in the original story, who had single-mindedly pursued the Dark-Dark Fruit and looked down on every other power, this Teach had a different approach. There had naturally been plenty of powerful Devil Fruits among the Whitebeard Pirates, and he had read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. With his strength, it would have been easy to get one, but he had never taken any.
He had decided long ago to leave the Whitebeard Pirates. He was deliberately collecting powerful abilities to prepare for his future voyage and his crewmates. That didn't mean he had given up on the power that was fated to be his. He believed it would end up in his hands. If someone else ate it, he would kill them and wait for the fruit to be reborn.
Teach continued climbing. The storm clouds drew closer, and his Observation Haki could sense the immense, terrifying energy more clearly. Many years ago, Kaido of the Beasts had come here and trained for half a year. Teach knew that. Kaido must have trained inside those storm clouds. But Teach didn't dare approach that terrifying place yet. The lightning was too powerful, and he didn't know whether his Haki could withstand it.
As he drew closer to the storm clouds, Teach finally reached his destination. It lay directly beneath them. Powerful, terrifying lightning crisscrossed the peak, and Teach could sense its energy hidden inside the rocks. The stones had spent years in this place and had changed, giving rise to a kind of rock infused with lightning. It contained immense lightning power, but it wasn't electricity.
Up close, Teach could feel the tremendous lightning power within it. He coated his hand in Haki, formed a claw, and struck the mountainside hard. His powerful fingers sank straight into the hard rock. Cracks spread where he had struck. When he pulled his hand free, broken stones fell from a height of a thousand meters. Teach's gaze settled on a small patch of exposed golden crystal.
It was a gemstone containing powerful lightning. It couldn't compare to natural lightning, but its power was around twenty to thirty million volts. He removed it and gripped it tightly in his hand.
Without realizing it, Teach had started using the Thunder Breathing Technique. As he spent stamina and generated powerful electricity inside his body, it drew out the lightning power in the stone. He couldn't fuse it with his own electricity, but he could use his electricity to draw the lightning power around his arm, increasing the force of his attacks while reducing the stamina they consumed.
After he left, he could also use the stone's lightning to temper his body and strengthen his electricity. In just a short time, Teach had thought of several ways to use it. As it happened, he had been wanting to upgrade his famed sword, Thunderclap.
Thunderclap was a famed sword and could make better use of lightning, but it wasn't as sturdy as Purgatory. Teach also wasn't good at maintaining it, so the blade had sustained some damage. Still, it was made of superb natural materials and contained lightning power that could easily be used to slash out bolts of lightning.
This stone was extremely hard, and carrying it around was inconvenient. Teach wanted to find someone to forge a guard for him from the lightning stone, so he could use it at any time in battle. This was an unexpected boon, greatly enhancing his lightning power. He could use Haki as fuel for his demonic claws and flames, but Haki had little effect on lightning. Electricity was extremely unstable, while flames, though formless, could still be coated in Haki.
Through Observation Haki, Teach could see that there were many lightning stones inside the top of Thunder God Peak. There would be more than enough for him. Each was about the size of a fist. He put away the one in his hand and took three or four more—plenty for Thunderclap.
Teach had tested them, and using the lightning power in the stones consumed very little. He could also replenish it with the electricity his body generated or with natural lightning, so he wouldn't have to replace the stones often.
Teach trained on Thunder God Peak for the next ten days. His strength improved a little, both in physical ability and Haki. The increase was slight, but it made him happy. More importantly, the strength of the electricity he could generate had increased considerably, reaching around seven or eight million volts.
His training here was over. Teach still had a long journey ahead, and he needed to return to the small town on the outskirts of the island. Since he had brought his magnetic field under control, no lightning struck him anymore. He didn't want to turn into a monkey like before.
He found the inn where Mobius and the others were staying. The outcome pleased him: Mobius and Wos were training hard. Pito was training too, but not as intensely. Teach didn't mind. She was a rare natural talent, quick to learn anything, and he had never expected her to train hard.
Two months had passed since they set out. Three islands remained on the journey, each with its own kingdom. They were moving much faster than Teach's original plan of three months. After that, they could reach their final destination: Wano Country.
Two months was a short time, but compared to life aboard the Moby Dick, it had felt much longer—and far more exciting. He had also gathered a group of future crewmates. The seeds had been planted, and when they took root and bloomed, they would shock the world.
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