Awakening: Pseudo-Dragonification

"Freeze time and space."

Sengoku murmured Zephyr's words to himself, then fell into thought. Indeed, aside from freezing time and space, he could not think of any other explanation for such an ability.

Mythical Zoan fruits—fruits even rarer than Logia fruits—each possessed all sorts of strange special abilities.

Phoenix Marco's regenerative traits and the shockwave traits of his own Buddha Form were both examples.

If that was the case, then it would not be strange for Loa's Ice Dragon Fruit to possess the ability to freeze time and space—my ass!

This was freezing time and space! Once developed, what a terrifying ability it would be!

Not much was needed. As long as Loa could freeze a Yonko-level powerhouse for one second, Sengoku would dare to head to the New World right now and reclaim lost territory.

What Shichibukai? What worst-of-the-worst Revolutionary Army? They could all get lost. If they refused to accept it, he would bring Loa and Kizaru along. One second without any defenses—if that did not kill them, it would at least beat them half to death.

Sengoku excitedly shared his thoughts with his old friend, then suddenly sighed. "But from the looks of it, unless Loa reaches that point himself, he probably does not even know he has this ability."

"Of course." Zephyr picked up the photos from the table. "Otherwise, we would not have been able to take these pictures. With that brat's slippery nature, he would definitely hide this kind of trump card deep, deep away. Besides, even if he was not afraid of exposing it and could use it freely, he should have directly frozen the Silverback Great Ape's time and punched it to death."

At that, Zephyr reminded Sengoku, "However, judging from the photos, objects whose time has been frozen by the Ice Dragon are unaffected by external forces. I doubt your idea can be realized."

"Ah! True." Sengoku sighed and stroked the goat's head by his feet. "In any case, it is still too early to talk about this. Whether Loa can develop it to that extent remains unknown. Before he gets there, who knows how much trouble he will cause me! Do you know how many anonymous complaint letters about Loa I received last month? Some were even from those instructors!"

"Hehe."

Faced with his old friend's complaints, Zephyr recalled what Loa had done last month. A smile tugged at his lips as he fell into thought.

At that moment, Loa still had no idea how much "legend" he had left behind on the island. As for freezing time and space, he truly had not noticed it.

In that fierce battle, without Observation Haki, why would he distract himself with a stone by his feet that posed no threat whatsoever? How stupid would he have to be?

The Silverback Great Ape's fists were no joke.

What troubled him now was what to do if his military uniform tore and he did not know how to sew. Waiting online, urgently needed.

"Ahh... I forgot again. This was my last set of clothes!"

Just now, after the blue energy entered Loa's body, the dragon markings on him immediately began to pulse out of control. Pale blue dragon scales flickered in and out of view across his skin with the rhythm.

Loa froze for a moment, then immediately realized what was happening.

Just as he prepared to take off his clothes, the dragon scales had already burst from his body. He was ultimately a step too late. His pants and T-shirt had been sliced apart by the sharp scales, a huge hole had opened in the back of his clothes, and a pair of bat wings stubbornly poked out into the air.

Because he had been distracted by the pain of spending Beli and his training issues, Loa had started leveling up without taking off his clothes.

When the Dragon Force within him boiled and the scales grew out, Loa's first reaction, caught completely off guard, was: Holy shit!

Do not blame Loa for his limited vocabulary. When happiness, sorrow, excitement, and grief could all be described with a single "holy shit," why use so many words?

This was a huge problem.

Military uniforms were part of a military force's public image. They reflected the force's military and political nature and were among the most serious pieces of military equipment.

The Navy had always imposed extremely strict requirements on soldiers' uniforms. No matter how distinctive the suits of the three Admirals were, their Justice coats were indispensable on formal occasions.

That was enough to show how strict the Navy was about military uniforms.

For ordinary soldiers, the Navy stipulated that if a uniform was damaged outside of combat, then when receiving a new one, the soldier had to go shirtless, hold the newly issued uniform, run one lap around the fortress, and shout, "I was wrong!" as he ran, to serve as a warning to others.

Because he had blanked out for one second and reacted a little too slowly, Loa's schedule for tomorrow was easy to imagine.

"Ahh... why am I so unlucky?" Loa sighed as he gathered the torn strips of cloth from the ground and put them away.

Opening the panel again, Loa checked his attributes after leveling up.

Name: Christopher Loa

Energy Stage: Second Tier, Sixth Level

Energy: 0/1000

Magic Power: 9000/9000

Magic Power Recovery Speed: 850/

His magic power continued to increase by 1,000 points per level, and that was basically fixed. Loa guessed that unless he crossed from the Second Tier to the Third Tier, his magic power would not experience explosive growth.

After looking over the attribute panel, he found no changes to Dragon Body or Dragon Force on the skill panel. However, beside Ice-Make Magic, another icon extended from Dragon Force. It faintly emitted a golden glow indicating that it could be used.

"This is a new skill!"

Loa stared at the icon in delight. He was certain that no icon had been there before. It had not been grayed out to indicate that it was unusable—it simply had not existed at all!

This was a genuinely new skill!

He quickly clicked the icon to check its details.

Awakening: Pseudo-Dragonification: Upon activation, Dragon Force enters a low-concentration awakened state, temporarily raising Dragon Body compatibility by one stage, stopping before the second critical point. Magic power recovery speed increases, Dragon Slayer Magic strength increases, consumes 0 magic power per second. After the state ends, Dragon Force awakening progress increases according to its duration.

From that description, Loa keenly grasped two key points.

First, he had always believed that Dragon Body improved from nothing through training, allowing him to withstand more and more Dragon Force and raise the percentage. But this skill's description proved that he had been wrong.

It was not that his physical fitness had grown stronger, allowing him to bear more Dragon Force. On the contrary, his physical fitness grew stronger only after his body could adapt to more Dragon Force.

Dragon Body was all about compatibility. Since it was compatibility, there had to be a primary side and a secondary side.

So Loa was adapting himself to the Dragon Force that already existed, not training and improving it to make it stronger.

Come to think of it, the system had clearly stated that Dragon Body represented a Dragon Slayer's degree of adaptation to Dragon Force. Since it was adaptation rather than endurance, he had obviously been heading in the wrong direction from the start.

Dragon Force and Dragon Body—one was a dragon's power, and the other was a dragon's body.

A dragon's power and a dragon's body were naturally perfectly compatible. But because Loa was human, even though his body had been altered by Dragon Slayer Magic, he still could not perfectly inherit that power and needed to slowly adapt to Dragon Force.

He was not building a house from scratch. He was climbing stairs.

This discovery pointed Loa toward the right direction for his future training and could save him a great deal of time.

The second key point Loa discovered was that the techniques he developed could actually affect the system in reverse.

Awakening: Pseudo-Dragonification was a skill that had never existed before and had never been recorded by the system. Yet now it had appeared and even become usable.

Loa thought over what he had done lately, and there was only one answer: he had developed his ultimate move—First Release.

The effects after First Release transformed him were self-evident. Although it still could not compare to Natsu's true awakened form later in the original story, it was far stronger than the state where dragon scales erupted across his body at the Tower of Heaven.

It was precisely because Loa had completed and used this move that, after he leveled up, the system recorded it.

Every time he leveled up, it did not just affect himself—it also affected the system. Like a software update, new functions were added after an upgrade.

Who can tell me what the hell 500 points are? My old account could always reply and make posts. What is going on with new accounts now?

As for updates, being able to manage 5,000 words daily while working part-time means I am already trying very hard, right?