Smoker

Rock lowered his head and looked at the white-haired little punk before him.

Just moments ago, the boy had looked like he feared no one, as if even the heavens themselves could not intimidate him.

But when he truly stood before Rock, he was so nervous that he straightened his back.

He even deliberately held his breath, yet his eyes shone with astonishing brightness.

Admiration.

Excitement.

And an agitation he could barely suppress.

Rock silently watched him as thoughts raced through his mind.

—Smoker.

An exceptionally unusual figure in the future Marines.

Rock traced the boy's future path in his mind. If it had to be summed up in the simplest terms—

A Logia with an explosive start,

A discarded character in the middle stages,

And later, forced into becoming a "tool of justice."

His growth trajectory was practically a microcosm of the changing power system of this era.

Smoker had appeared too early, and that was nearly his greatest tragedy.

As the first Logia user to appear, back in those days—

The Haki system had yet to become truly widespread; even the concept itself had not fully taken shape.

In that environment, a Logia was practically synonymous with invincibility.

Once the Smoke-Smoke Fruit was activated, his body became smoke. Ordinary attacks simply could not touch him.

Even if Luffy threw punches with all his strength back then, they could only pass through a cloud of smoke, unable to touch even a single hair on Smoker's head.

That overwhelming, unsolvable sense of oppression had been pushed to the limit. Everyone had thought—

This man would become Luffy's lifelong nemesis.

Some had even believed he would grow into one of the Marines' top future combat powers.

Unfortunately, the times changed too quickly.

As the Haki system gradually became widespread, Logias were