Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs

Inside the classroom.

Seeing Sephiroth return to his original seat, Gion giggled and teased him:

"Wow! Little brother Sephiroth, I never expected you to be so impressive! You really shocked me."

"Uh!? Just luck... just luck!"

Sephiroth gave an awkward laugh. He noticed the strange looks from everyone around him, as though they were all saying, "We agreed to be lousy students together, but you secretly started grinding!"

He smiled and scratched his head, thinking that maybe next time he should score a little lower. Passing would be enough...

"Wayne... 26 points!"

After handing out the last test paper, the smile on Shuzo's face became even more pronounced. He said in a booming voice:

"Now, I'm assigning the content of your next class. Listen the hell up!

The test was out of one hundred points. For every point you missed, you'll run ten laps around the track...

Now... get your asses out to the field and start running!!!"

Whoosh!

The military academy students immediately erupted in an uproar, groaning miserably.

"My God! A thousand laps—when am I supposed to finish...?"

"Won't that kill people? We already went through such brutal training this morning..."

Amid the noisy clamor, Shuzo raised his right hand and slammed it heavily onto the desk with a loud bang.

"Shut the hell up!

You lot are stupid enough already, and your strength is no good either. How are you supposed to become Marine officers in the future?

Do you really think Marineford Military Academy is a place for you to pad your resumes, where you can comfortably coast through a year and then put on the rank of lieutenant or commander?

Let me tell you, no way!

Whether it's physical training or your grades in other courses, all of it determines the rank you'll receive upon graduation. If you coast through a year here, the most you'll get is warrant officer.

If you don't want to suffer, then get the hell out of the Military Academy, or get your asses to the infirmary and request a year of sick leave!"

Shuzo's speech was like a bucket of cold water over their heads. Everyone stopped complaining, rose from their seats, and headed out of the classroom toward the training field.

Forget about deliberately scoring low! There was even corporal punishment? That's just brutal... Sephiroth watched Smoker and the others leave the classroom with their heads hanging, immediately making up his mind.

Before long, everyone else had gradually left the classroom, leaving Sephiroth alone.

He walked up to the podium and asked the Longarm Tribe man:

"Instructor Shuzo, they've all gone running. What am I supposed to do?"

Hearing that, Shuzo lightly stroked his chin and muttered:

"You?... You got full marks, so you really don't need to be punished with running... Go play by yourself!

The rest of this afternoon is for punishment runs anyway. There aren't any other classes scheduled."

"Instructor Shuzo, can I apply for something?"

"What do you want to apply for?"

"Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs, the kind with a single cuff... Of course, I'll pay for them." Sephiroth spoke tentatively.

"Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs?

We Marines only have the highest purity kind...

What do you want that stuff for?" Shuzo asked suspiciously.

"Hehe!... Of course, it's to train my physical fitness more effectively!

Although Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs suppress ability users, preventing them from using their abilities and putting them in a weakened state, they can also be used to temper the body more effectively..."

Hearing this explanation, Shuzo's eyes widened in surprise.

"Hey! I think that method could work! How did you come up with that, kid...?"

"Ah! Well... I once wore high-purity Sea Stone myself, but that stuff weakened my stamina too much, so it wasn't very practical..."

Sephiroth gave an awkward laugh and casually made something up.

He couldn't exactly say that he had remembered the training methods at Kaido's famous Internet Addiction Mining Center, could he?

Some time ago, with the Vampire Fruit's incredible regenerative power supporting him, Sephiroth had been able to train without restraint. He never had to worry about muscle strains, excessive exhaustion, or similar problems, allowing his strength to improve by leaps and bounds.

However, he had now noticed that he seemed to have entered a bottleneck. No matter how he trained, his strength and speed no longer improved as noticeably as before.

The feeling was hard to explain, but he could sense some kind of restraint. He felt that only by breaking through that limit could his strength rise to the next level.

That was why he had thought of this method.

Although he also trained his physical fitness in shallow waters on a regular basis, it was simply too dangerous!

Once, he had been struck by a huge wave on the beach and fallen into a completely weakened state. If the water had not been shallow and the tide had not been going out, and if he had not desperately burned through his stored lifespan to accumulate enough stamina to lift his upper body, he would have drowned in barely over thirty centimeters of seawater...

"Your idea has great value. I'll definitely mention it to Teacher Zephyr and see whether he can have the Marine Scientific Research Division rush out a batch...

They've been conducting Sea Stone research lately anyway, and they even succeeded in finding a way to make warships deceive Sea Kings. I'm sure they'll be very interested in your idea as well."

Shuzo laughed heartily, patted Sephiroth on the shoulder, then turned and left the classroom.

That day, due to the intense exercise, another large batch of people ended up laid out in the Military Academy infirmary...

Only seven days later, under Admiral Zephyr's urging, the Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs Sephiroth had requested were swiftly developed and mass-produced by the Marine Scientific Research Division.

That very day, Zephyr cheerfully handed every ability user in the Military Academy a pair of Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs and required all of them to wear them during physical training!

Then...

After completing a morning of physical training, Sephiroth, Smoker, Hina, and the other Devil Fruit users all collapsed, feeling as though half their lives had been drained away.

On the Military Academy training field.

"How the hell did that old bastard Zephyr come up with such a torturous method...?"

Smoker lay flat on his back like a salted fish. After prying open the clasp of the Sea-Stone Cuff on his left hand, his hands trembled like sieves as he lit himself a cigar.

"Hina feels awful!

Hina feels like her whole body is about to collapse..."

Pink-haired Hina sat with her legs folded to one side, supporting herself with both hands as she panted heavily. Sweat had soaked the hair at her temples.

"How about relaxing with a cigar...?"

As he spoke, Smoker glanced at Hina, pulled out a cigar, and offered it to her. She hesitated before asking suspiciously:

"Can this thing really help you relax?"

"Of course! Whenever I feel tired or low on energy, I have one..."

Thus, under Smoker's temptation, Hina began to give it a try...

Sephiroth listened to the Devil Fruit users on the training field constantly cursing and complaining.

After thinking it over, he decided that he absolutely could not let them know he had been the first to suggest the Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs. Otherwise, he might end up getting beaten up by everyone!

Training, studying, training... day after day, occasionally sparring with Gion. To make full use of every day, Sephiroth had compressed his sleeping time to four hours...

His life at the Military Academy was busy yet fulfilling. Especially after the Low-Purity Sea-Stone Cuffs appeared, the difficulty of physical training soared, often leaving him with the urge to just give up.

Fortunately, after removing the Sea-Stone Cuffs, the injuries and fatigue in his body always recovered quickly, allowing him to keep his body in peak condition every day.

Under the long-term, extreme strain of physical training, his already awakened Armament Haki gradually increased in both quality and quantity...

Meanwhile, with the continuous funding Sephiroth provided, Gild Tesoro formally established Umbrella Corporation in the Sabaody Archipelago. He recruited extensively and conducted Arms dealing with great momentum.

Vaguely, Umbrella Corporation had begun to show signs of becoming the largest arms dealer in the Sabaody Archipelago, while Gild Tesoro formed various connections with figures from both the underworld and the legitimate world.

To ensure the company's early cash flow, Sephiroth traveled to the Sabaody Archipelago every week during his days off, seeking pirates with bounties below one hundred million Belly. He used the opportunity to gain practical combat experience while Earn money.

During that time, he encountered two Devil Fruit users: one with the Zoan-type Cat-Cat Fruit, Leopard Model, and another with the Paramecia-type Web-Web Fruit.

Unfortunately, whether because he had bad luck or because the types of fruit he brought were incompatible, he did not obtain any reincarnated Devil Fruits.