"Swordsmanship?" Dracule Mihawk asked in a puzzled tone.
Shin nodded. "That's right. Techniques have limits, but the Dao is boundless. From the very beginning, I never intended to teach you any so-called sword techniques."
He paused and cast his gaze into the distance. "Mihawk, your talent is the best I've ever seen. In terms of dedication and obsession with the sword alone, even Shanks falls slightly short of you. But remember this: you have to forge your own path. No matter how well someone else's clothes fit, they still belong to someone else. You will find a path that belongs to you."
"There's an island not far ahead. We'll part ways there."
Listening to Shin's calm words, Dracule Mihawk lowered his head. This was completely different from what he had expected. He had thought that once he caught a fish, he would be able to learn the swordsmanship he had long dreamed of. Instead, he was told that all his training had already ended.
He could not say for certain whether he had grown stronger, but he clearly knew that he had gained something he had never even imagined before. He could even hear the vitality of his sword, though it was entirely different from the "life" humans understood.
He finally understood that his defeat to Shanks had not been unjustified. It had not simply been because of that so-called Sword Qi Thunder Sound. There had been a gap between their understandings of the sword. Without these months of quiet reflection, even if he had truly learned the same technique, he would still have lost to Shanks.
"Thank you!"
A thousand words ultimately condensed into just those two.
Shin smiled. "Consider it payment for your meals. Your cooking really is quite good, though there's still room to improve. As a