Kamar-Taj's Daily Routine (Part One)

Kamar-Taj · Morning Bell

Kamar-Taj was shrouded in a thin veil of mist in the early morning, while the distant Himalayas revealed their dark blue-green outlines beneath the dawn light.

Dressed in a dark blue training uniform, Chen Xiao jogged along Kamar-Taj's stone-paved paths. His steps were steady, his breathing even. Each footfall landed in the mist, kicking up faint sprays of moisture.

"Good morning, Senior Brother!"

A young disciple emerged from the side corridor with a stack of ancient books in his arms. Upon seeing Chen Xiao, he quickly stepped aside to make way, a respectful smile on his face.

"Morning." Chen Xiao gave a slight nod without slowing down.

"Senior Brother!"

As he ran past the training grounds, several disciples doing morning exercises stopped in unison and clasped their fists in greeting.

Chen Xiao raised a hand in response, his pace as steady as ever.

"Good morning, Senior Brother."

The voice came from behind him, but Chen Xiao had already run far away.

Over the past two years, he had heard greetings like that dozens of times every day. From feeling unaccustomed to it at first to being completely used to it now, Chen Xiao sometimes found it surreal himself—an undocumented outsider who had crossed over somehow becoming Kamar-Taj's senior disciple.

Come to think of it, it really had not been luck. Two years ago, when Ancient One had asked whether he wished to stay, he had immediately called her Master. But becoming the chief senior disciple was not something he could achieve just by addressing her that way.

Chen Xiao ran past the corner of the library. An uphill stretch lay ahead, and he slightly accelerated without disrupting his breathing.

The power of a Devil Fruit was closely tied to physical stamina. Though this Rumble-Rumble Fruit was a manifestation of dimensional power, this trait was similar to how it worked in anime. When his stamina was abundant, he could unleash a Thunder Net large enough to cover half of Kamar-Taj. When he was exhausted, he could not even produce an electric arc from his fingertips.

Fortunately, seawater did not affect him, and this world did not have minerals like Seastone. Otherwise, if his enemies learned about it, with Marvel's level of technology, he would be countered to death the moment they faced him.

Observation Haki and Armament Haki were also major drains on stamina. Fortunately, he had mastered elementalization, so he did not need to use Armament Haki very often.

That was why his morning runs were nonnegotiable. Rain or shine, no matter how late he trained the night before, every morning Kamar-Taj's disciples would see their senior brother running along the same route. From half a lap, to one lap, to five laps, until now, when he unfailingly ran fifty laps.

The stone path had been worn smooth and gleaming by his footsteps.

On the final lap, Chen Xiao stopped at an open platform. From here, he could see all of Kamar-Taj and gaze into the distance at the snow-capped mountain peaks.

He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

Two years.

A full two years.

Over seven hundred days and nights, he had gone from an ordinary man who screamed in fright even when his soul left his body to the "freak" Kamar-Taj now unanimously recognized him as—though in the flattering sense.

Two-Color Haki

Chen Xiao raised his right hand and spread his fingers. There was no magic circle, no incantation—only pure concentration. A visible layer of black "armor" covered his fist. He lightly struck the stone pillar beside him.

"Crack."

Several fine cracks appeared on the pillar's surface, but Chen Xiao's fist did not even have a red mark on it.

Armament Haki. It was an ability unlike any known power system in the Marvel universe. It did not come from dimensional magic, technological modification, or genetic mutation—it came from pure willpower, from a cultivation method that transformed intent into strength.

Chen Xiao had not known that a fruit manifested from dimensional power would come with this. Perhaps it was the mischievous whim of some great god, or perhaps it was some cosmic law he had yet to understand. After all, Marvel was not without powers driven by belief. Although he had known how to use all three types of Haki from the start, he simply could not make them work until his physical fitness improved.

In any case, when he had accidentally used Haki for the first time to block a magical artifact a disciple had mistakenly sent flying at him, Ancient One's expression had changed for once—though that change lasted only a fraction of a second.

"Interesting." That was what Ancient One had said at the time. After questioning him in detail about the principles behind it, she had left with her hands behind her back.

That was the first time Chen Xiao had heard Ancient One say, "Interesting."

Later, when he went looking for the training room, he found a group of disciples battered black and blue by dodgeballs. Ancient One sat leisurely in the corner, sipping tea with an indifferent expression, as though the chaos before her had nothing to do with her.

Besides Armament Haki, he had also touched upon the threshold of Observation Haki.

Chen Xiao closed his eyes. The sound of wind passing through the corridors, the faint patter of mist droplets landing on bluestone, the subtle sound of melting snow dripping from the distant mountains, the clanging of spatulas against iron woks in the kitchen below, the tiny rumble from a disciple in the western meditation chamber whose stomach growled after meditating for too long... every sound and every breath of life entered his perception with perfect clarity.

He was not listening with his ears. It was a more profound form of perception—as though the air itself served as a medium, conveying all information about his surroundings, telling him the position and condition of every living thing, even the faint emotional fluctuations in their hearts.

His Observation Haki's range was not particularly large yet. It could barely cover all of Kamar-Taj, and anything farther away became blurred. But compared to the ignorant, oblivious person he had been two years ago, it was already a world apart.

Chen Xiao slowly opened his eyes, a faint smile curling at the corner of his lips. He softly said to himself, "I still have a long way to go."

Rumble-Rumble Fruit Development

After training his Haki, Chen Xiao began his routine Devil Fruit ability practice.

He extended his right index finger and lightly tapped the air.

"Crackle—"

A hair-thin electric arc shot from his fingertip and precisely struck a copper coin ten meters away. The coin flew off, spun several times in the air, then landed on the ground with a series of clinks.

Then came the second, third, and fourth arcs... The electric arcs grew thicker and faster, changing from single shots to rapid fire, from pinpoint strikes to scattered blasts.

Chen Xiao's figure suddenly vanished from where he stood, transforming into a streak of golden lightning that appeared at the other end of the platform in an instant.

Body elementalization. This was the most basic and core application of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—turning his body into lightning, rendering him immune to physical attacks while granting him almost teleportation-like speed. Over the past two years, he had spent countless days and nights practicing this ability. At first, he could only maintain it for a fraction of a second, but now he could move, attack, and even speak freely in lightning form.

"Thunder Bird."

Chen Xiao pressed his palms together, then violently pulled them apart. A mass of lightning gathered, expanded, and transformed between his hands, eventually becoming a thunder bird with outstretched wings. Its body was a deep azure, its feathers formed from leaping electric arcs. After releasing a shrill cry, it shot into the sky and exploded a hundred meters above, turning into a rain of blue light.

"Thunder Beast."

He pressed both hands against the ground. Lightning poured from his palms into the earth, spreading wildly through the gaps between the stone slabs. Ten meters away, it gathered, swelled, and took shape—a blue cat made of pure lightning rose from the ground, its body wrapped in crackling electric arcs as it opened its mouth in a silent roar.

Chen Xiao clapped his hands, and the Thunder Beast dissipated.

He nodded in satisfaction.

Although he could not compare to Enel's godlike level of development, he could already replicate most of Enel's techniques—electric discharge, Thunder Bird, Thunder Beast, Thunder Dragon, Thousand Thunders, Raigo...

Of course, he still could not control a destructive technique like Raigo very well. The last time he attempted it, he had nearly blown the roofs off half of Kamar-Taj, and Ancient One had punished him by making him copy the Vishanti Incantations one hundred times.

One hundred times—one hundred times! No magic allowed, all copied by hand. His hands had nearly fallen off from writing.

Even Wong praised him for setting a new record for the number of copied passages.