Making Salt

"That's the twenty-first! But this rain has completely ruined my good mood."

Swain looked up at the rain falling from the sky, pattering endlessly against his face.

"I wonder how the old man has been lately?"

As he spoke, he used his knife to dismember the prey before him.

Because of the rainy weather, and because Swain had been too eager for results, he had not found anywhere suitable to settle down.

He could only casually find a large tree that sheltered him from the rain, sit beneath it, and swallow the raw meat mouthful by mouthful.

Swain was still unaccustomed to this. After all, he had always eaten cooked food before. Besides, if he went back for a meal and then returned, Woli would probably laugh his jaw out of place.

Come to think of it, the week of fighting had truly left him exhausted.

"Even the most cold-blooded and heartless person would grow sick of this kind of fighting, right?"

Swain stared blankly ahead as he spoke.

He sat quietly where he was, listening to the rain slap against the ground beside him. In this rare moment of peace, his mood became as dreary as the weather.

He had lived two lives! In his previous life, he had been an orphan, growing up in a place full of deceit and schemes. In this life, he lived in the land of freedom he had once imagined.

Yet he had discovered that, in reality, only strength could grant him everything he wanted in this land. It felt much the same as how money had mattered in his previous life.

But there was one difference: in this life, he had capital. A true chance to turn his life around!

With those thoughts on his mind, Swain slowly fell asleep.

The next day.

What woke him was no longer some troublesome beast, but the first ray of morning sunlight.

"It finally stopped!"

Swain's mood improved considerably as well.

"Armament!" His fist was instantly coated in Armament Haki, much faster than before.

"Enhance!" As his voice fell, two pale-blue rings, one large and one small, wrapped around his arm.

He threw the punch through the air, and the tree before him was instantly snapped in half. The force showed no sign of stopping as it continued surging backward.

"Not bad!" Swain exclaimed in admiration.

"Just as I expected, once the rings stack together, the power can increase several times over."

This was the most obvious improvement he had gained after a week.

Armament Haki and Devil Fruit ability development!

As for the other two, he had yet to learn them. Conqueror's Haki especially—he did not know whether this body of his possessed the qualities needed to become a king.

As for Observation Haki, his understanding of it was probably no better than Luffy's when he first entered the Grand Line. He simply knew nothing about it. He had tried training it himself, but he could never find the right breakthrough point.

Sometimes he could sense something, and sometimes he could not. It left him utterly confused.

Other than that, his greatest gain this week was probably the development of his Devil Fruit ability.

That was also thanks to his overly rich imagination, which always came up with new tricks.

"Then let's try this move again!" he said eagerly.

He spread both hands before him, and two small circles immediately appeared. Concentrating intensely, he said, "Give me salt!"

The first section was still seawater, but salt truly appeared in the latter section. There was only a small amount, though—roughly a pound.

"It worked! I made salt, and quite a bit too!" Swain said in surprise.

The main reason he wanted to make salt with this move was that he had spent the past few days eating bland meat, and it did not keep for long either.

So he had thought of filtering crude salt from seawater.