Training

After washing up, Gray felt completely refreshed.

The smell of vomit in the room was hard to describe. He opened the window, grabbed a mop, and cleaned it all up.

In just ten minutes, everything was spotless again. Sunlight streamed in, lifting his spirits.

With the room cleaned, he followed his rumbling stomach to the cafeteria next door.

"Oh! Little Gray, you're up!" Jora was in her usual spot, admiring her art. When she saw Gray come in, she looked at him with a teasing grin.

"Last night, our little Gray was quite the man!"

Gray scratched his head and gave her an awkward but polite smile. "Heh heh!"

The most embarrassing thing about drinking was having someone remind you what you'd done. What could Gray do but change the subject? "Aunt Jora, I'm hungry!"

Jora rolled her eyes. She wasn't fooled by such a lame attempt to change the subject. "I kept yours warm in the kitchen!"

"Same as always: clean up after yourself when you're done!"

"Got it. Thanks, Aunt Jora!" Gray brought out his food and dug in without hesitation.

This was the best thing about the Donquixote Family: every meal included Sea King meat. Their food was incredibly nutritious.

"Ah, being full feels great!" After wiping the grease from his mouth with a napkin, Gray quickly took his dishes to the kitchen and washed them.

Half an hour later, Gray shook the water from his hands and called out to Jora, "Aunt Jora, I'm off to train!"

Jora waved him off, lost in her indescribable art. "Sure, sure!"

Art was the power of the Devil Fruit Jora had eaten. That was why she studied art every day.

Honestly, Gray couldn't say whether her Art-Art Fruit ability was any good, but he could barely see any artistic merit in the paintings she made herself.

Her paintings were like the works of famous artists in his past life: just a few haphazardly scrawled lines, with absolutely nothing that an ordinary person would recognize as art.

Still, even if Gray didn't understand it, he respected it.

And if he actually said that out loud, it might lead to an argument and make Jora, who ran the cafeteria, dislike him. It simply wouldn't be worth it.

Gray didn't do things that took effort and earned him nothing.

"All right! Time to start today's effort!"

Snap—

With a stylish snap of his fingers, he activated his Devil Fruit ability, applying one-times gravity to himself.

"Mmgh!" He felt uncomfortable for a moment, but his Blood Bull Physique quickly helped him adjust.

Even in a child's body, with the local specialty—the Blood Bull Physique—and his body strengthened somewhat by the Devil Fruit, one-times gravity was just about his limit.

Of course, that was his limit within the normal, safe range. He could handle more gravity physically, but his internal organs couldn't take it.

"With my Gravity Cheat, I don't need training equipment or anything like that. I'll live in a high-gravity environment around the clock. Let's see you keep up with me!"

Gray also called the Gravity Cheat his lazy man's cheat. Since he couldn't be bothered to move, he was extremely pleased with this ability.

"Gwahahaha! From now on, you old farts better watch out!"

"With this ability, I'll squeeze every last coin out of you!"

"I could even punch my way through the nursing home."

"Heh heh heh." With the gravity field active, Gray cheerfully headed back to his room.

He had some free time now, and with nothing else to do, he planned to draw up a shuriken design and have the family's quartermasters make it.

After all, the Meteor was his only means of attack at the moment, so he had to put some thought into it.

But even though he tried, the design he drew was laughable. Its crooked lines only vaguely suggested a round throwing star.

Gray: ...

Looking at his drawing, Gray felt rather embarrassed. He'd just been making fun of Jora's art.

"Forget it. This'll do!"

"I'll just explain it to the maker later." Holding the bizarre design, he headed out to find the underling who helped feed Shark Chili.

It was such a small matter that there was no need to bother Trebol.

Although this was only a branch base of the Donquixote Family, there were still about a hundred underlings handling its logistics.

They lived either near the harbor or at the very back of the training ground.

The harbor was where the sailors who unloaded cargo and the guards were stationed. The people at the back helped Trebol manage logistics.

Gray went to the logistics office and spent ages explaining his shuriken design to an underling. Just as he was about to leave after they finished, he suddenly spotted something good.

"Huh, Gray! Why are you sitting in a wheelchair? You hurt your head, not your legs!"

"Or did you get a screw loose?" Last night's drinking contest was still fresh in his mind, and Trebol kept needling him.

"Bah! What do you know?" Gray shot him an annoyed look. "I've just come down with a disease that keeps me from walking!"

Of course, that was just an excuse. What he was really after was elegance!

In a fight, he would sit in his wheelchair, wave his hand to end the battle, then turn around and leave with a cold expression.

Wouldn't that be stylish, cool, and elegant?

After all, Lady Gray had once said, "Elegance never goes out of style!"

Trebol: ...

"Hey, hey! How come I've never heard of that disease?"

"That's because you're ignorant. It's called Usopp Disease!" Gray ignored Trebol and used his Devil Fruit ability to move the wheelchair while keeping the gravity field running.

That was right—Gray had simply thought of a better way to train. He wasn't really doing it just to look elegant.

He was doing it to train himself to multitask.

In Gray's vision of the future, most of his battles would take place in the air, letting him use his strengths against his opponents' weaknesses.

In this world, Geppo let people fight in the air, but it wasn't true flight. Its stamina cost couldn't compare to Gray's flying.

While flying, the spinning force field had a certain amount of inertia. Gray only needed to devote a little of his attention to maintaining it, and it took relatively little stamina to keep himself safely airborne.

However, even though fighting in the air reduced the mental strain, it still took up part of his attention.

Controlling the force field's rotation, using Observation Haki to evade enemy attacks, coating his own attacks in Armament Haki, calculating his moves, and more—

All of that took mental effort.

Until his mental strength improved, he only had so much to work with. If he couldn't manage two things at once—or three, or even more—what would he do when he couldn't keep up with everything in a fight?

Fortunately, this world had ways to strengthen and train one's willpower.

Aside from Conqueror's Haki, the ability that made the most use of willpower was Life Return.

Life Return let someone infuse their will into their body's cells, controlling the corresponding organs and enhancing their abilities.

Not only that, Life Return also let people eat enormous amounts of food to speed up stamina recovery and heal injuries. It was a must-have ability for top-tier fighters.

Friends, if you like the story, please help it get more reads. It needs a little traction to get recommended.

Please don't let it pile up unread. What if it dies from being left alone?

The author bows in every direction, begging!

Finally, thanks to Shaonv Jing Bei Sange Laoshi Buzhi Zuoye, Naoxue~Shuan Buzhu, Yese Liaorao Gongzi, Lingchi Gongzi, and others for their 100-coin tips.