Conrad had been using Haki for over a month. His Conqueror's Haki, which had originally surged wildly in every direction, had shrunk to a radius of six and a half faces, but it still affected an area.
So he started training Observation Haki and Armament Haki.
As the name suggested, Observation Haki was a kind of sensory ability. At its highest level, one could even see the future.
But Conrad seemed to have had a little of it since he was a baby. He would often roll around to dodge adults trying to touch or catch him.
When he was a teenager, while exploring and training his way around construction sites, he had repeatedly run into danger and narrowly escaped death. But that was a story for another time.
So now he could vaguely sense the auras around him. For instance, he could tell when someone was approaching within fifteen meters.
At that moment, while fishing, he sensed someone coming closer, so he picked up a lobster from the iron bucket and tossed it behind him.
But the scream he expected never came.
Confused, Conrad thought, Who else would sneak up behind me without saying a word except Kujaku? Did I hit the wrong person?
He turned around and found himself face-to-face with a pair of rose-red eyes.
Ain held the lobster in her hand, her gentle, soft features framed by the play of light on her sea-blue curls. She gazed quietly at him.
Conrad blushed and sprang to his feet. "Sorry."
Ain held the lobster as she walked to the shore and crouched down, her sandals planted beside the rocks. "Can I let it go?"
It was Conrad's only catch. He had been planning to show it off when Kujaku arrived, but he still nodded. "Sure."
Ain let go. The lobster dropped into the water, flicked its tail, and darted away. "Why did you ask my name yesterday? What are you after?"
"What am I after?" Conrad hadn't thought that far ahead. He rarely did. When people overthought things, their movements tended to get awkward.
He held out his hand and grinned. "Let's be friends."
Ain didn't take his hand. Looking at the fishing rod, she asked, "Why are you fishing?"
"To save money and get an extra meal." Conrad withdrew his hand. He only offered his goodwill once. If the other person didn't accept it, he took it back. It was an orphan's survival rule.
The sea breeze, carrying the scent of rock and ash, blew past and stirred the waves. A scattered flock of birds flew overhead. Neither of them spoke again.
A minute passed, then an hour. By dusk, Conrad had packed up his bucket and fishing line. Ain was still sitting beside the rocks, gazing toward the horizon.
Only when Conrad walked away with his bucket did Ain suddenly speak. "You got nothing out of it. Don't you think you wasted your time?"
"You watched me all afternoon." Conrad kept walking.
Ain's face suddenly grew forlorn. In a voice like a murmur in her sleep, she said, "I have plenty of time."
Conrad returned to the dorm.
He knew Ain was dangerous.
She was a Return-Return Fruit user, able to turn the state of anything she touched back by twelve years. In other words, if she touched him, he might drop dead on the spot.
She was one of the students aboard the Elite Intern Ship, the last class trained by Zephyr. Three years later, the entire ship would be slaughtered by a mysterious Shichibukai. She was one of only two surviving students.
Of course, Conrad wasn't the least bit worried about being aboard that ship. Three years was plenty of time—so much time that he figured he could roast an Azure Dragon and season it to taste.
He stretched, then drank a large glass of milk and a full bottle of water. If he didn't drink enough, he'd wake up thirsty in the middle of the night and interrupt his sleep.
Hooking his bent legs over the rail of the lower bunk, Conrad hung upside down and closed his eyes. It was time for his vital growth and development.
Whenever the blood rushed to his head, he felt his intelligence surge and inspiration spark. It made him feel completely safe.
For the first time in a while, all three members of Dorm 108 went out together.
They had all passed the first test.
Drake's Doriki Value was second-highest in the entire group, exactly four hundred, behind only Prince. But Drake claimed he'd held back because he didn't want to draw too much attention.
An Ancient Zoan Allosaurus Fruit, combined with a six-foot-seven frame at just nineteen years old—it was terrifying.
He'd grown even faster than Conrad, who was still in the middle of his adolescent growth spurt. It made no sense.
The three of them entered the training grounds. The huge square was much emptier this time. The Devil Fruit Users and the Marines were all lined up in rows beneath the assembly platform.
As luck would have it, Kujaku was on Conrad's left, holding a Combat Whip. She snapped it taut and slack again, making it crack as she gave him a sly grin.
Conrad knew that being struck by the whip would make him obey the other person's commands. Still, he couldn't help wanting to test his willpower against this strange ability, just to prove it wrong.
When it came to that, he only had sixty percent confidence. Honestly, that was the lowest confidence he'd ever had in anything. Even when scratching lottery tickets, he was seventy percent sure he'd win. He almost never came away empty-handed.
Bzzzt—
The microphone crackled.
"Testing, testing—thump!"
A tall, gaunt, dark-skinned man appeared at the north gate. He called out twice, but though the sound came through, it was as if he couldn't hear it himself. Then he smacked the microphone hard, making everyone's eardrums ache.
Only after hearing the sound did the man remove his earplugs and eye mask. He walked from the gate to the assembly platform, step by step.
He yawned, his legs seemed weak, and he looked utterly listless.
Once he reached the middle of the platform, he scratched his fluffy curls and said, "I'm Marine Vice Admiral Kuzan, codename Aokiji. Just call me by my codename. I'll be in charge of the second and third tests. Honestly, I didn't really want to take this on. What a pain. Sigh..."
Conrad didn't like people who lacked professionalism. They tended to set a bad example for those who came after them.
But apart from Sengoku, Aokiji was undoubtedly the strongest person Conrad had seen so far.
Even Zephyr, who had spent too long away from the front lines teaching, probably wouldn't be a match for Aokiji.
At six-foot-six, in the prime of his life at thirty-six, Aokiji brimmed with invisible Haki. Combined with the amphibious powers of the Logia Ice-Ice Fruit, he had practically no weaknesses.
After Aokiji introduced himself, the training grounds fell silent. As he breathed, icy mist streamed from his mouth and froze his hair. Then he began snoring bubbles, as if he'd fallen asleep and forgotten all about them.
Prince glanced at Conrad and saw him raising an eyebrow.
He had a feeling Conrad was about to speak up and steal the spotlight, so he hurried to call out first. "Sir! Please wake up! It's time to start the competition!"
"Achoo!" Aokiji lowered his head and sneezed. A cloud of icy mist shot hundreds of meters, hitting Prince with pinpoint accuracy and freezing him into a block of ice.
Aokiji rubbed his fluffy hair and nose. "Where was I? Oh, right. Do you want to consider dropping out now?"
His words caused an uproar. The Marines looked bewildered and alarmed.
Fullbody raised his fist. "Sir! We worked so hard to pass the test. How could we surrender before it's even started?"
"Young people are so full of passion. I used to believe in... Burning Justice, too." Aokiji straightened his suit jacket and shirt and stood up straight.
"The second elimination test and the third test—a real mission at sea—will be combined. That means anyone who passes will have to accompany us on the third test's mission."
"We're veteran Marines who've seen plenty of battle! We're not afraid of a real mission at sea. We've captured plenty of pirates."
A man dressed in foreign clothes, with his hair in braids, spoke up. He had two joints in each arm and belonged to the Longarm Tribe.
Aokiji rubbed his forehead as if he'd expected this. He spoke slowly, one word at a time. "This mission isn't about ordinary pirates. It's a high-level Marine operation."
"We're going to West Blue to deal with the five Mafia families." Ice crystals spread across the ground from beneath Aokiji's shoes. In the blink of an eye, frost covered the vast training grounds, as if winter had descended.
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