A night breeze stirred the sheer curtains. In a quiet bedroom, Werther sat cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed.
"Bzzzt~"
Lightning surged along Werther's arms, and Armament Haki rose to meet it. The lightning, steady a moment ago, suddenly turned violent.
Crack!
Arcs leaped into the air. The lightning on Werther's arms scattered, then slowly faded away.
"Haa..." Werther sighed and opened his eyes.
He had been in Mary Geoise for half a month. Apart from eating and sleeping, he had spent the entire time developing a new ability.
But things had not gone as he hoped. He had made no progress. The Lightning and Armament Haki within him seemed to clash somehow. The two energies could mingle, but neither could strengthen the other.
By "mingle," he did not mean that Lightning and Armament Haki truly combined. They merely mixed, like a cup of seawater poured into a cup of sand. They appeared to blend, but remained two separate substances.
Werther wanted to fuse the two energies into one. Yet no matter how many times he tried, they failed at the last moment for reasons he could not identify.
He could not figure out what was going wrong.
He relaxed and lay down on the bed, falling asleep still puzzled. When he woke, bright sunlight was already streaming through a gap in the curtains.
"Knock, knock, knock." Someone was at the door.
"No need to knock. I'm awake."
Werther sensed that Anita had come to see him.
Anita entered the bedroom, plainly displeased.
"Your little lover is here. Do you want to see her?"
"Little lover?" Werther looked at Anita in confusion.
"Antonio Kashi Nai."
At the name, Werther understood. It was that beautiful woman he had met while hunting in the wild.
When Werther had worked as