Half a Year (Please Bookmark and Recommend)

After the three fled, a burly woman who looked more like a man arrived at the edge of the ruins. Her eyes wide, she examined the area carefully before finally confirming that this had been her home.

"Which bastard tore down my house?! I'm not done with you!" An enraged roar echoed through the forest.

Five kilometers away, Zhong Hao lay on a long stone, holding a massive barbell overhead as he performed bench presses. From time to time, the aroma of roasted meat drifted into his nose.

Beside him, enormous bones were roasting over a campfire. Garp and Bogart sat nearby, devouring the meat in huge mouthfuls.

"I wonder whether Dadan has gone back yet. Good thing she doesn't know I came. Better return to the ship first and go tomorrow. Honestly, who the hell set me up?" Garp complained after swallowing the last piece of meat.

Zhong Hao nearly lost his grip on the barbell. He had known Garp was scatterbrained, but he had never expected it to be this extreme.

Garp rose from the ground and said to Zhong Hao, "Kid Zhong Hao, Bogart and I are heading back first. Stay here and follow the training plan I gave you. Once you're done, reverse the order and make your own way back to the ship. No slacking off."

Zhong Hao felt as if he had taken on a fake master. He dragged out his reply, "Yeees—"

After Garp and Bogart left, Zhong Hao was alone in the forest. He completed a thousand bench presses with the half-ton barbell, then stored it away in his space.

Looking at the bare, gleaming bones on the rack, he could not help complaining, "They couldn't even leave me some? With this much exercise, I'm going to starve to death. Don't they know I'm still growing?"

After resting for a while, his strength gradually returned. He took out his long sword and began slashing. This was one of Garp's requirements. Since he already had a foundation in swordsmanship, it would be a shame to abandon it, so Garp had included it in his training regimen.

After performing each of the basic swordsmanship movements three thousand times, he finished his sword training.

He sat beside the fire, cut away the charred portions of the meat on the rack, and ate the rest clean. It had been a wild beast that came to harass him during training, and he had casually slain it to replenish his energy.

The sky was beginning to darken. Zhong Hao got his bearings and headed cross-country toward the dock.

Mountain paths were difficult to traverse at night, especially while Zhong Hao had to maintain a certain pace. By the time he returned to the ship, countless tiny cuts covered his body, and a doctor immediately came over to apply medicine.

Zhong Hao had a special constitution. As long as he had enough energy, external wounds healed quickly. Just as he was about to head to the dining hall, Bogart stopped him. "You ate all the food on the ship. The ingredients we procured are barely enough for the soldiers. With your appetite, you'll have to hunt for yourself."

Zhong Hao rubbed his hollow stomach. "What about that fish I caught earlier? Take it out so I can fill my stomach a little. How am I supposed to have the strength to hunt otherwise?"

Bogart turned around so Zhong Hao would not see his gleeful expression. "The Vice Admiral ate your fish. He said the fish was so lively that it jumped into his mouth on its own, so he reluctantly ate it. Mm! Those were the Vice Admiral's exact words."

"That old man doesn't act like a master at all." As waves of weakness washed over him, "master" instantly became "old man."

"If you want to fill your stomach, go hunt for yourself. There are wild beasts in the forest, and sea fish, sea beasts, and Sea Kings in the ocean. As long as you can catch them, twenty chefs are standing by at all times." After saying that, Bogart headed for the captain's cabin. He could no longer wait to report the term "old man" to Garp.

Zhong Hao did not immediately dive into the sea. Instead, he went to the kitchen and, before the stunned eyes of every chef, poured several plates of cooked food into his mouth. At least it took the edge off his hunger.

In the ocean, coral and seaweed gave off a bright glow, making for a wondrous sight. Zhong Hao darted through the water like a fish, pursuing a four-meter-long sea fish. The fish was extremely fast underwater, and he had already chased it more than a kilometer, moving farther and farther from shore.

Weakness and exhaustion flooded his mind without pause. His speed began to slow, until he could only watch helplessly as the sea fish swam farther away and disappeared into the darkness.

"Damn it." He cursed inwardly as Zhong Yunxi's nagging laughter echoed in his head, irritating him to the extreme.

Suddenly, he sensed something strange about the current ahead, as though a giant hand were stirring the tide. Then he saw the sea fish that had escaped earlier desperately swimming back at an even greater speed.

Just as he smiled, thinking dinner was secured, he saw an enormous creature with a crocodile-like head following behind the fish. Zhong Hao froze. Wasn't that the Lord of the Coast that had bitten off one of Shanks's arms?

While he was stunned, the sea fish had already reached him. Zhong Hao shuddered and hurriedly grabbed its tail, letting it pull him along while he kicked hard.

On the warship, Garp and a group of Marines stood at the rail. One soldier pointed at the sea and said, "Vice Admiral, something seems to be swimming over here. Vice Admiral? Vice Admiral?"

Beside him, Garp stood ramrod straight, but his head was tilted to one side, and the snot bubble on his nose swelled and shrank.

The soldiers all had black lines across their faces. Suddenly, a short figure clinging to the tail of a sea fish burst from the water twenty meters away.

"Sa... save me, Teacher Garp~~!" Zhong Hao cried out as he spotted Garp aboard the warship.

Then an enormous shadow surfaced and lunged at Zhong Hao and the fish. The waves it raised battered the warship until it rocked violently.

"Pop." The snot bubble burst.

"Who dares sneak attack me?" Garp, still bleary-eyed from sleep, opened his eyes and saw the giant black shadow before him. He instinctively threw a punch.

Bang!

His fist had clearly not touched the Lord of the Coast, yet a large section of its belly caved in bizarrely. The tremendous force sent its fifty-meter-long body flying. After flipping violently through the air twice, it crashed into the sea and fled in terror without even caring about the pain.

The soldiers pulled Zhong Hao aboard. He first had the chefs prepare the sea fish, then went to Garp and complained, "Teacher, why didn't you keep that thing? It was over fifty meters long, perfect for filling our stomachs."

Garp crossed his arms over his chest and laughed heartily. "It's embarrassing to be chased around by that big thing while screaming for help, isn't it? If I killed it for you, would you be satisfied? I left it for you. Before we leave this island, go catch it and eat it yourself. Mm... the tail is mine." With a slurp, he sucked back the drool that had reached his mouth.

"That works too. But tonight I can only eat that fish. It was all because it led that Lord of the Coast over here and almost got me eaten." Zhong Hao pinned the blame on the sea fish and headed for the kitchen. He was already ravenous and could not wait to eat it.

A ten-thousand-meter full-speed swim; a five-thousand-meter full-speed sprint; fifty thousand meters of mountain cross-country running; a thousand half-ton barbell bench presses; three thousand repetitions of every swordsmanship move; hunting and killing his own meat, with the workload increasing as his strength grew. This was the training plan Garp had set, with no consideration for the fact that the person undergoing it was only a seven-year-old child.

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, half a year had passed...

One hundred meters from shore, Zhong Hao fought the Lord of the Coast for the fourth time. The shore was packed with Foosha Village residents: the odd-minded village chief, the beautiful tavern owner Makino, merchant caravan boss Uncle Qiao Si, the young Luffy, and everyone familiar or unfamiliar. They had all gathered together to cheer loudly for him.

Hundred Style: Reverse Cut

Holding his katana in a reverse grip, Zhong Hao slashed upward. A silvery-white slash shot fifteen meters across the air and struck the Lord of the Coast's crocodile-like head, cutting a wound into it. Blood gushed out, staining a vast stretch of seawater red.

The injured Lord of the Coast became even more frenzied. Its vicious eyes locked onto the human who had provoked it time and again. It whipped its tail madly across the surface, smashing the boat beneath Zhong Hao's feet into pieces.

Hundred Style: Fine Joint Slash Zhong Hao flipped through the air and released a thin slash that struck the wound on its head directly, instantly piercing inside.

"Hiss—" The Lord of the Coast let out a miserable shriek.

"It's still not dead? What a hard head." Zhong Hao landed atop that crocodilian head, gripped his sword with both hands, raised it high, and rapidly slashed down at the wound.

Hundred Style: Demon-Slaying Barrage

In a short time, he swung his sword twenty-two times in succession. Twenty-two small slashes struck one after another. With every hit, the skull cracked a little more. "Pfft." Finally, the last slash broke through the skull and pierced the brain. The Lord of the Coast went completely still.

The Marines and fishermen worked together to drag the more than fifty-meter-long Lord of the Coast ashore. When Zhong Hao declared that he would host a feast for the entire village, with the infamous Lord of the Coast as the main course, everyone erupted into cheers and shouted, "Long live!"

The soldiers and villagers bustled about preparing for the feast. Zhong Hao and Bogart sat on a high slope, watching the busy crowd.

After half a year together, the two had gradually grown familiar with one another. Zhong Hao no longer maintained the deliberate silence he had displayed when they first met, and Bogart was no longer so "cool." With Bogart occasionally teaching him swordsmanship, their relationship had become much closer.

"I used up more than half my strength just to unleash twenty-four slashes and kill the smallest type of nearshore Sea King. If it were a deep-sea Sea King five thousand meters long, I probably couldn't kill it even if it lay still and let me chop at it. When will I be able to split the sky and sea with one slash?" Zhong Hao was deeply dissatisfied with his progress.

To ordinary people, killing a Sea King represented glory and martial strength. But to Zhong Hao, he was still far too weak. He had set himself a "goal": to slice the planet in half with a single strike.

Bogart's mouth twitched, and he laughed. "Split the sky and sea? You really dare say it. Even I can't do that. You're just a seven-year-old brat, yet you're this arrogant and spouting such wild claims?"

Zhong Hao asked in confusion, "Wild claims? Haven't I heard that there are great swordsmen who can cut islands as easily as slicing watermelons?"

"Do you know how many people in this world practice the sword? There are only around a hundred who can become swordsmen, and those who achieve the rank of great swordsman number in the single digits. Besides, great swordsmen can cut through small islands, but not as easily as slicing watermelons. I was fifteen before I had your current strength. Without relying on Devil Fruits and purely through personal training, you are absolutely unmatched among seven-year-olds."

Zhong Hao offered no response. He drew his sword and saw grain-sized chips all along the blade, while cracks covered the sword's body. "This sword is done for too. I'll have to find a better one."

Bogart looked at Zhong Hao seriously. This fellow could be considered his disciple in swordsmanship. He took out his own sword and held it out to Zhong Hao. "This sword is called Aurora, one of the Fifty Skillful Grade swords. I'm giving it to you."

"No. You've used it for so many years; it only suits you. I'll find a sword that belongs to me." Zhong Hao swallowed hard, forcibly suppressing his desire as he pushed Aurora back. Then he added, "Besides, you're such a powerful swordsman. Shouldn't you at least have a Great Grade sword? Can a Skillful Grade sword bring out your full strength?"

Bogart put Aurora away and explained, "Some swordsmen do not even possess a Skillful Grade sword. Although a Skillful Grade sword only costs several hundred thousand Berries on the market, and the expensive ones no more than a million, these things cannot be bought with money alone. They are even rarer than Devil Fruits."

The lowest market price for a Devil Fruit was one hundred million Berries, while a Skillful Grade sword cost at most a little over one million. The difference was a hundredfold, but their nature was entirely different. Even an ordinary person could quickly gain powers and become a superhuman by eating a Devil Fruit, whereas a Skillful Grade sword required swordsmanship cultivation.

Zhong Hao did know that Loguetown had two Skillful Grade swords, but there were still fourteen years until Luffy set sail. He did not know whether they were there yet.

"What about Teacher Garp?" Zhong Hao asked.

Bogart answered, "We set sail tomorrow to return to Marine Headquarters. Today is the Vice Admiral's last time gathering with his family, though he'll return tonight. After all, you've already killed the Lord of the Coast, and he's had his eye on that tail since half a year ago."

Zhong Hao nodded in understanding. Then a thought suddenly occurred to him. He had killed this Lord of the Coast ahead of time—would Shanks still lose his arm?