New Tactical Test

"Hey! You two!" Wright watched helplessly as Smoker kept releasing smoke while Rosinante stared blankly at the cigarette between his fingers. He had no choice but to interrupt them. "Practicing is fine, but don't you think my room is becoming increasingly uninhabitable?!"

Wright's room was now filled with all kinds of smoke—some produced by Smoker, and some from their cigars and cigarettes...

"Smoke in my room again and I'll kill you! Get the hell back to your own rooms to experiment!"

After driving off the two bastards, who thanked him profusely yet refused to apologize, Wright cast a large-scale Purification Spell to cleanse the air in the room, then collapsed onto his bed. "Ah... let me die in bed..."

Although he had not participated in the battle directly, Wright had needed to keep his Observation Haki active the entire time in order to provide aid immediately. He had also needed to expand his sensory range to cover the whole warship, even predicting attack strength based on the emotions of certain pirates prone to extreme actions so he could use the most suitable healing methods at the right moment. It had been more exhausting than wiping out an entire pirate crew himself.

"The Smoke-Smoke Fruit and the Silence-Silence Fruit... I wonder how far those two will develop them. I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe they'll bring about plenty of interesting changes..." Wright thought hazily before quickly falling asleep.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye. Over those three days, the Training Camp trainees had clearly reflected deeply on their shortcomings in battle. Not only had they gained a thorough understanding of their own flaws, they had also followed the example of Wright and the other two ability users—trainees with similar fighting styles formed discussion groups, exchanged experiences, learned from one another, and improved together.

Zephyr and Gumir watched all of this and grew increasingly satisfied. Moreover, based on the previous battle, Wright proposed a new team-combat tactic—each combat group with a different style would send one member to form a squad, practicing coordination between different fighting methods to see whether they could pose a threat to high-level combatants.

Zephyr was quite surprised that Wright had studied areas beyond individual combat strength. To test the tactic's effectiveness, Zephyr arranged for Wright to serve as a sparring dummy...

The Marines of this world still had a weak sense of "team combat." Influenced by the mindset that personal strength determined everything, they placed greater emphasis on individual valor. As a result, the Marines' numerically superior low-ranking soldiers could often only serve as cannon fodder to harass the enemy, unable to effectively harm the enemy's mid- and high-level combatants.

The reason "human wave tactics" were frightening was that every unit in that sea of people could inflict damage on the target. Even if the damage was minimal, the target would eventually be worn down and killed. But if it became a "piecemeal tactic," a sufficiently strong target could completely slaughter an entire so-called "human wave."

Unfortunately, the Marines' so-called "human wave tactics" often devolved into "piecemeal tactics"—they surrounded without attacking, with only a handful of soldiers stepping forward each time, and they even had to worry about accidentally hurting their own side. This was the drawback of a world where personal strength ruled all.

Thus, the Marines were often keen on cultivating high-level combatants. Even a seasoned "education expert" like Zephyr thought this way—as a top-tier fighter himself, he understood that one such fighter could decide the course of a battle, so he naturally paid less attention to lower-level combat strength.

What was the Elite Training Camp for? It was not meant to train low-ranking soldiers—that was handled by regular Marine Academies and training grounds at the various branches. There was no reason to trouble an admiral with that. It existed to cultivate the backbone of the Marines: elite officers!

But Wright was different. When he had read the manga, especially watched the anime, what he had complained about most was—Why the hell did only two or three Marines rush in at a time to get instantly taken out whenever they surrounded a target?! Why couldn't they all rush in and kill him?! Were those people afraid of dying, or were they just watching a show?! Why did the ones who went in only know how to swing their swords? Couldn't they do anything else?! As soldiers who had received systematic training, they performed worse than pirates who had learned by trial and error!

Normally, as a Training Camp trainee holding only the rank of ensign, even the strongest trainee had no right to propose tactical changes to the Chief Instructor, a Marine Headquarters admiral. But Wright was Zephyr's true personal disciple, and Zephyr was an admiral focused on education. Combined with Wright's formidable support abilities, Zephyr viewed him differently. Sure enough, Wright merely voiced an idea, and the open-minded Zephyr told him not to hold back and to explain all his thoughts.

To prove that his carefully considered tactics were effective, Wright personally acted as the sparring partner. Rather than using Ashes, he casually picked up an ordinary standard-issue longsword. He had already crushed three training squads and pointed out their mistakes, as well as the most important thing—what kind of damage they could have inflicted on him without those mistakes.

Using Observation Haki to carefully sense the battle, Zephyr nodded to himself. "Fourth Squad, take the field half an hour later. Exchange experiences with the first, second, and third squads, then fight Instructor Gumir!"

Since Wright was a swordsman and his tactical guidance concerned sword combat, Zephyr decided to have Gumir—also a swordsman who had not experienced this kind of battle—test it personally to see whether it worked. Could five or six trainees with officer-level strength put pressure on a commodore? Zephyr, who knew Wright's strength well, understood that Wright's combat power had already surpassed Gumir's, despite Gumir being a commodore!

Of course, as one of Zephyr's students, whether Gumir truly possessed only commodore-level strength or was an old schemer unwilling to accept a promotion was something Wright did not know. Still, since he would supposedly take over command of the G2 Branch in the future, Gumir's personal strength should not be weak!

Wright returned to Zephyr's side. This made him a true teaching assistant... That was lieutenant general treatment!

"If a squad composed of junior officers can use coordinated tactics to put pressure on a commodore, then they may be able to defeat ordinary majors and lieutenant commanders. They might even be able to hold back captains and remain undefeated." Zephyr sighed as he glanced at the combat squads engaged in heated discussion, then turned to Wright. "If this works, Wright, you will have rendered a great service!"

"Hehehe, I won't go easy on them, Wright." Gumir smiled as well. "Let me experience it personally in a moment!"

"You won't be disappointed, Teacher Zephyr," Wright said confidently. "The same goes for you, Instructor Gumir. I fought them just now. Even without systematic coordination training, they are already much stronger than when they fought separately. If they can accomplish the points I just raised, their combat power will definitely increase greatly—though of course, you cannot use Haki. At this stage, that would be a dimensionality-reduction strike against them."

Although Gumir and Zephyr did not understand what a "dimensionality-reduction strike" was, they more or less understood Wright's meaning. After all, this was meant to test universal applicability. Not every Marine Headquarters commodore could use Haki, so using Haki to test the new tactic truly would not be appropriate.

"Gumir, do not use strength beyond the commodore level. Pay attention to the testing details."

"Please rest assured, Teacher."

...So he really was another old schemer.