Over the course of a year, life on Maple Leaf Island still failed to return to its former peace. With the arrival of the Great Pirate Era, more and more people were heading for the Grand Line.
Maple Leaf Island had now lost more than half of its original residents. The pirates' frequent visits to the island had driven most of the people away, and they had moved to other islands not far from here.
During this period, Wood's system had seemed to crash. Aside from issuing missions, it remained completely silent at all other times.
If it had not released the second mission earlier, Wood would even have suspected that his "cheat" had gone completely offline.
After the previous Simulated Life, Wood had gained swordsmanship and insights approaching the level of a Swordsman.
However, although he had acquired the corresponding sword techniques and state of mind, and possessed swordsmanship at the level of Cutting Steel, Wood still could not actually cut steel.
Ultimately, while his swordsmanship had improved, his physique was simply too poor.
After three months of chopping trees with an axe day and night, even under such intense training, Wood's physical fitness had improved considerably, but he was still only slightly stronger than an ordinary person.
Therefore, during that year, aside from absorbing the relevant swordsmanship insights in his mind, Wood spent most of his time tempering his body and undergoing rather brutal physical training every day.
A year ago, Wood still looked like a rather frail young man. However, after a year had passed, not only had his skin taken on a healthy Komugi-colored tone, but his bare upper body also showed that he was no longer the same person.
His healthy Komugi-colored skin shimmered beneath the sunlight, while the streamlined muscles on his body looked full of explosive power. His height had also shot up from his original one hundred eighty centimeters to around one hundred ninety.
During this period, Wood had also tried training alone like the CP Organization of the World Government, tempering his body until he achieved a Superhuman Physique so that he could learn the so-called Navy Six Forms.
However, the facts proved that although prolonged training had made his physique considerably stronger, even though he knew the principles behind the Navy Six Forms, he still could not grasp the essentials.
Wood believed there were two reasons for this. One was that his physical condition was still far from meeting the standard required to master the Six Styles.
The other was that the so-called Navy Six Forms might involve special training methods.
After all, the Navy Six Forms were, in the end, combat techniques used by most naval officers. As the Navy's signature techniques, it was clearly unlikely that someone like him, who had simply come to the island and practiced blindly on his own, would successfully learn them.
If the Navy Six Forms were really that simple, then with all the pirates who had witnessed them, wouldn't most of them be able to learn them in one try?
"Big Brother Wood, it's time to eat! Come back for lunch!"
After swimming several nautical miles through the sea bare-chested and completing his morning physical training, Wood spotted a little ponytailed girl carrying a vegetable basket by the shore. A smile immediately spread across his face, and he sent up a great spray of water with both hands as he swam toward the shore at astonishing speed.
"Aine, didn't I already tell you? You don't need to bring lunch all the way here.
"How dangerous this is! What if you run into pirates? The waters around the island aren't safe these days."
As Wood swam back to shore, he tried to minimize his movements so that he would not splash seawater onto the little girl's pretty floral dress.
"Big Brother Wood, you always lie. You promised Aine the same thing before, but every time you start training, you completely lose track of time and don't eat for the entire day.
"Besides, Aine isn't afraid of pirates! With Big Brother Wood here, mere pirates aren't your match at all.
"Big Brother Wood, you'll save Aine from the pirate villains just like you did a year ago, right?"
The girl who had just called out to Wood was named Aine. She was a cute girl of about seven or eight with a blue ponytail.
Aine was also a resident of Maple Leaf Island. A year ago, Wood had rescued her from a pirate underling, which was what prompted the system to activate.
"Knowing that Big Brother Wood trains like a madman every day, doing all kinds of physical training, Mom specially prepared lots of meat dishes.
"And this fruit too! Aine picked it in the forest herself today. It's really sweet."
Because of the pirates who had come to the island before, Aine's father had died protecting her. As a result, Aine now lived only with her mother.
Wood, meanwhile, perfectly fit the basic transmigrator setup: he was an orphan with neither father nor mother. To repay him for saving Aine's life, Aine's mother, Stia, had taken him in as well.
And because they lived together, combined with Wood's life-saving favor to Aine, their relationship soon became as harmonious as that of a family.
With her father killed by pirates, Aine undoubtedly hated pirates most of all. However, she was also fortunate that after her father was gone, she had gained an older brother who was powerful and extremely protective of her.
After obtaining swordsmanship at the Cutting Steel level through Simulated Life, Wood did not rush to reveal his strength. Instead, he had continued secretly cultivating and keeping a low profile.
After all, on this vast sea, powerful people were countless. His current level was truly nothing impressive.
The result of his previous Simulated Life had been his early death precisely because he had not kept a low enough profile.
This time, Wood had also made up his mind. Until he had quietly cultivated his strength to the point where he could move through the first half of the Grand Line without fear, he absolutely would not stick his neck out.
However, things often went against one's wishes.
More than half a year earlier, a group of pirates came ashore. Not only did they loot the island once again, they even set their sights on the beautiful mother and daughter, Stia and Aine, planning to capture them and sell them to the Slave Market.
With the "family" he lived with day and night about to be taken away, Wood naturally could no longer keep a low profile. He effortlessly slaughtered the pirates in front of him.
Unfortunately, among the pirates he killed, one seemed to be an officer of the pirate crew and was fairly powerful. Before Wood could kill him, the man had already fled too far away.
After killing an officer of someone else's pirate crew, how could the captain remain unmoved and still call himself the leader?
Thus, that pirate captain also attacked Wood. After an intense battle, the pirate captain died as well...
A pirate captain with a bounty of eight million Belly had actually been killed by a kid who looked like he had barely grown any hair.
When the other pirate crew members saw Wood's still youthful yet vicious face, they all looked terrified. In the end, they fled in a disorderly group, without even considering collecting their captain's corpse.
It was only because of this incident that the people of Maple Leaf Island learned that Wood was no longer the same person he had been.
If most of the island's people had not watched Wood grow up, they would not even have been able to believe that the teenage boy before them, who could kill a Great Pirate with a bounty on his head, was the Wood they had once known.
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