Attribute Enhancement

Shiryu was, of course, joking.

As a close roommate who knew exactly how hard Noah worked, he wasn't surprised by any breakthrough the latter achieved; he was a man who firmly believed that sweat never went to waste.

The only thing he was slightly curious about was just how far Noah had managed to cultivate Kami-e.

With this thought in mind, Shiryu tried several more offensive and defensive maneuvers against Noah, only to conclude that this guy was simply not human. He had quietly pushed his Kami-e to a level far beyond what any recruit should be capable of, leaving even him and Rosinante in the dust.

Consequently, since entering the recruit camp, Noah had, for the first time ever, made his proud and arrogant friend feel a twinge of sour envy in areas other than his looks.

Noah was in high spirits for the rest of the day, which made up for his regret over not being able to show off during the assessment. He even had a massive appetite at lunch, accidentally polishing off five bowls of rice, leaving Rosinante, who sat across from him, completely dumbfounded.

The afternoon training session focused primarily on swordsmanship.

Zephyr, who hadn't appeared all morning, finally showed up. After confirming that tomorrow's assessment was canceled and that they would be heading out to sea next week for a live-combat assessment, he began teaching the students swordsmanship personally.

The former Admiral, who had once dominated the seas and was known as "Black Arm," was undoubtedly most proud of his inhumanly powerful taijutsu.

However, Zephyr was also quite accomplished in swordsmanship. He might not compare to a dedicated master swordsman, but he was more than qualified to teach recruits like Noah.

Noah listened intently the entire time, and during free practice, he would often go to Zephyr for individual guidance.

As a dual-wielding swordsman, he needed to integrate Zephyr's teachings with his own unique sword techniques, which was both physically and mentally exhausting—far more taxing than it was for his peers.

But Noah enjoyed every bit of it.

At night, he continued his solo training.

After adding points to his stamina, Noah could now train until around ten o'clock at night. To avoid waking Shiryu by knocking on the door, he made sure to bring his key this time.

The effect of the Taijutsu Training Acceleration Card was far stronger than he had anticipated.

When he finished his training and dragged his exhausted body back to the dormitory, Noah could almost feel that he had become significantly stronger than he was the day before.

He did the math: by the time he finished using this seven-day acceleration card, it would be just in time for the live-combat assessment Zephyr had mentioned. The timing was seamless, with almost no time wasted.

This made Noah start looking forward to the live-combat assessment. At this rate, if he kept up the intense training for these next few days, his strength would likely take another major leap by the time they set sail.

Before going to sleep, adhering to the principle that it would be a waste not to use his daily free detection, he thought for a moment and then stealthily cast a detection on the sleeping Shiryu.

The previous detection on Garp had revealed a strength so immense that the string of question marks provided little information, merely satisfying Noah's curiosity.

However, as one of the top recruits in their cohort, Shiryu's base physical stats were quite valuable as a reference, allowing him to see exactly how long it would take to catch up to and eventually surpass him.

[Character: "Rain" Shiryu]
[Age: 23]
[Strength: 9]
[Agility: 8]
[Stamina: 9]
[Intelligence: 7]
[Charisma: 3]
[Skills: Rokushiki (Beginner), One-Sword Style (Intermediate), Firearms (Beginner), Observation Haki (Novice)...]
[Estimated Romance System point reward...]

Before seeing the last line, Noah quickly shifted his gaze upward, barely managing to keep his eyes from being contaminated.

He wasn't interested in how many points he could get for "romancing" Shiryu, and he decided to form a good habit of subconsciously blocking out the bottom text whenever he detected someone of the same gender.

"Strength and agility are both two points higher than mine. As expected of Shiryu."

Looking over these base stats, Noah couldn't help but feel a bit envious. However, Shiryu also had several base stats lower than his own, which provided him with some small comfort.

Especially in terms of charisma—this guy always had a gloomy face, looking like he didn't want anyone to approach him. Sure enough, once the data came out, it was shockingly low, just as expected.

By comparison, what he was more concerned about was that Shiryu's skill list included Observation Haki.

He had never heard that guy mention it before.

Looking at the "Novice" level tag, Noah pondered it for a moment. He guessed that perhaps even Shiryu hadn't realized it yet; he would likely need to go through a few real battles before he could gradually find the knack and truly master Observation Haki.

"Observation Haki, huh..." Noah lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

As a swordsman, he had always longed for this ability. Unfortunately, their current batch of recruits had only been learning Rokushiki for two or three months; systematic training for the two types of Haki wouldn't happen until at least the second half of the year.

Come to think of it, there was actually a certain connection between Kami-e and Observation Haki. It wasn't exactly a prerequisite skill, but in a sense, Kami-e could be considered a low-end version of Observation Haki.

Having already mastered Kami-e, perhaps he would find it easier than others to train in Observation Haki in the future.

With beautiful visions of the future in mind, Noah finally closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Over the next few days, Noah repeated the training routine that seemed incredibly dull to outsiders, enjoying the pain that was necessary for becoming stronger.

He had temporarily pushed the Romance System to the back of his mind, though he didn't forget to use his free daily detector on a random colleague nearby.

If you can fleece the system, you might as well do it.

Just like that, several days flew by. The Taijutsu Training Acceleration Card expired, and Noah's base physical stats all saw long-awaited breakthroughs within that week.

[Name: Romanov Norsha]
[Age: 19]

[Strength: 8]

[Agility: 7]

[Stamina: 12]

[Intelligence: 8]

[Charisma: 10]

[Current Points: 1301]

Strength and Agility had each increased by one point, which was well within Noah's expectations.

After all, he had been stuck at a bottleneck for a long time before obtaining the system, like a volcano waiting to erupt. This kind of opportunity only came once; in the future, even with acceleration cards, it would be impossible to improve his base attributes as rapidly through diligent training alone.

However, his stamina, which was already ridiculously high, had also increased by one point during these few days of hellish training, which was a pleasant surprise.

He estimated that his stamina had improved by about thirty percent compared to a week ago, which was simply shocking.

--Even by the most conservative estimate, there was likely no one else in the entire headquarters' recruit camp who could compare to him in this regard.

"One step closer to being able to take two hits of Thunder Bagua in a row."

In the middle of the night, lying in bed, Noah silently summarized the progress he had made over the past week.

Tomorrow was the day the entire elite recruit camp would set sail for their live-combat assessment. He was a bit too excited and couldn't fall asleep for a long time, accidentally staying up past midnight.

It was at this exact moment that Noah thought of something. He checked his system panel and, sure enough, discovered that the random items in the shop had finally refreshed--

[Swordmaster Ryuma's Insight Notes (Fragmented): 2000 Points]

[Mandatory Volume Adjuster (Consumable): 100 Points]

[Senzu Bean (Consumable): 60,000 Points]

[Six Styles: Soru Skill Scroll (Intermediate): 1000 Points]

[Gambling Mastery (Master Level): 60,000 Points]

[Western Economics (Master Level): 8000 Points]