Saiyan Talent?

"You could say that."

Xia Le nodded.

"That's simple enough, then. I'm quite good at painting on a blank canvas."

Garp laughed.

Then, he tossed one end of a thick rope in his hand to Xia Le.

The latter caught it instantly, a puzzled expression on his face.

"We're setting off for the New World, and time is tight, so your training starts right now!"

After that, Garp stepped forward and arrived in front of Xia Le.

"Make sure you hold onto that rope tightly, or you'll be left behind by us!"

Accompanied by a loud laugh, Garp kicked Xia Le right in the rear. The thick rope instantly went taut, and the black-haired youth plummeted into the open sea hundreds of meters away like a shooting star.

"Bogard, speed up the warship!"

"We don't have time to waste here!"

Garp shouted.

Bogard silently beckoned to the marines nearby.

In an instant, the warship accelerated.

As for Xia Le, he was currently experiencing a fatal crisis. The sudden influx of seawater nearly suffocated him, and Garp had never even asked him whether he could swim.

"This is murder!"

"This isn't training!"

Only when placed in the middle of the boundless ocean did one truly feel this bone-chilling fear and one's own insignificance.

He glanced at the fifty points on his panel, hesitated, and gave up on allocating them; raising Conqueror's Haki seemed to be of no help to his current situation at all.

"Hang in there, Xia Le!"

"No one has ever managed to pass Vice Admiral Garp's training yet!"

In the distance, Kuzan shouted with a smile.

Is this supposed to be encouragement? Why does it feel more like discouragement to me?

Xia Le's heart sank.

As the warship sped up, his entire body was dragged along, sliding rapidly. The pounding of the waves battered his body like iron fists, coupled with the seawater rushing down his throat.

This pain was indescribable; it felt like death was a possibility at any second.

Then, one hour and eight minutes into the start of the training.

Xia Le snuffed it.

His system points jumped to 51.

He had drowned.

Yet this brush with life and death taught him how to swim.

Sure enough, a person's potential was stimulated in desperate, life-or-death situations.

At the same time, Xia Le felt that the muscles and strength all over his body had become much more coordinated and powerful.

He clenched his teeth fiercely and gripped the rope for dear life.

What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger.

Let the storm rage even harder!

Saiyan Talent?

The warship sped across the ocean, dragging a long rope behind it.

Kuzan's eyes were filled with excitement as he looked at that figure hundreds of meters away, his admiration for the youth growing in his heart.

He knew very well just how insane and cruel Garp's training was; it was a demonic method that completely disregarded human endurance limits and could literally torture people to death.

Yet those who managed to endure it all ultimately became formidable powerhouses.

"That guy Golden Lion has been restless again lately!"

"Roger has also dropped out of sight for a while."

At that moment, Garp paid no attention to the youth he had just taken in, instead reviewing the intelligence Kong had transmitted to him not long ago.

His brow furrowed as he caught a hint of almost intuitive information from the brief message.

"Edd War Waters."

Muttering the name of this place, Garp's expression grew solemn.

The time was Sea Circle Calendar year 1497, the peak era of the three legendary pirates, and the entire world was going crazy over them. At the same time, quite a few Great Pirates destined to be talked about in later generations were active on the seas, running amok everywhere.

"Vice Admiral Garp, shall we pursue them?"

Kuzan asked with a smile.

In his youth, he was full of hot-bloodedness and vitality; the boy's sunshine contrasted sharply with the lazy demeanor he would have later when he became an admiral.

"Of course!"

Garp laughed heartily.

"We are heading to the New World to rendezvous with those two fellows, Sengoku and Zephyr!"

"However!"

After a slight pause, he looked at the next piece of intelligence, which described a distress call sent out by an island not far from Sabaody Archipelago.

"For now, this matter is more important."

Unawares, the warship altered its course, and Xia Le, being towed behind, was flung high into the air before falling back into the sea with a loud splash.

It was a thrilling sensation, akin to being dragged along the ground by a car, though the pain was actually much worse.

Because apart from the impact of colliding with the turbulent currents that caused him agonizing pain all over, he also had to deal with the countless fish in the water.

To make matters worse, these fish were man-eaters!

"Damn it, has that bastard ever considered the survival rate of this training?"

Xia Le cursed loudly.

The answer was undoubtedly no; almost the next second, the seawater pouring into his mouth forced him to shut it.

Two hours after the training began, he was buried in the bellies of piranhas and died once more.

Yet he quickly revived.

The biting of the piranhas was unimaginably painful, tearing his entire body apart ruthlessly like a thousand cuts. That heart-wrenching agony drove Xia Le to fight these creatures to the death.

Each one was about a foot long, with a huge head and sharp teeth. Their chewing power was astonishingly formidable, capable of even biting through steel.

With one hand gripping the rope, Xia Le used his other hand and both feet to fight back desperately.

Tempered by this brush with life and death, he quickly discovered another trait of his own.

That was, every time he died, the injuries on his body would completely heal, while his strength, reflexes, and speed would all increase to varying degrees.

In other words, he possessed a talent similar to a Saiyan's; after dying and reviving, his combat power would increase.

In the time that followed, aside from fighting the ocean, Xia Le also found himself plunged into a battle to the death with the piranhas.

With an astonishingly high mortality rate, his system points reached 60 once again in just a brief moment.

This also meant that ever since Garp kicked him into the sea, he had already died a full ten times.

Yet these ten deaths brought him tremendous improvements.

Every bout of sheer exhaustion, traded at the cost of countless agony, ushered in a sweet harvest; he was growing stronger and stronger.

Subtle changes could already be clearly seen on his exterior; the lines of his muscles had become more angular, with full pectoral muscles and distinct abdominal muscle cutlines that instantly revealed the immense explosive power hidden within them.

Death increases system points, and it can also multiply and enhance comprehensive strength based on one's current physical foundation.

This improvement will become even more pronounced once my strength is greater.

At the same time, I can't abuse the system bug; suicide won't increase system points.

Nearly ten hours had passed, and through experiencing death and pain, Xia Le gained a deeper understanding of his golden finger and made a preliminary summary.

Perhaps there were other undiscovered functions, but for now, it was already extremely useful.

Immortality guaranteed that he remained undefeated, while death could also make him stronger.

Gradually, when his system points reached 65, his strength had been reinforced to a certain extent, allowing him to calmly deal with the surging ocean and the continuously attacking and biting piranhas.

Willfully dying did not increase his points, and furthermore, letting the piranhas bite him was a lingering torture that was difficult to endure.

With a fierce strike, Xia Le swung his fists, smashing those annoying creatures until their bodies burst open, thoroughly beating them back.

Afterwards, in the middle of this vast ocean, he grabbed the rope with one hand, leaped lightly, and landed barefoot on the surface of the water, letting out a long whistle as he actually began to surf.

This scene formed a sharp contrast to his disheveled state at the very beginning.

"That's great, Xia Le! You've already adapted to this tempering!"

On the warship, Kuzan noticed the youth behind him, and after a brief moment of astonishment, he let out an admiring shout.

Garp, who had fallen asleep while standing on the deck, suddenly popped a snot bubble, abruptly opening his eyes with a look of surprise and disbelief.

"He adapted so quickly?"

As someone who had personally tested this kind of training, he knew very well that the towing speed of the warship and the impact of the seawater were only part of it; the danger posed by those marine creatures was even harder to guard against.

Once upon a time, he had accidentally trained a fellow right to his death. Because of that, he had been chewed out more than once by Sengoku, Fleet Admiral Kong, and others.

This kid's talent exceeds my expectations!

Garp thought to himself.

He grabbed the rope with his right hand and pulled hard.

Immediately, the youth hundreds of meters behind the warship was yanked into the air, rapidly closing in on the vessel.

When he reached the stern, the fellow executed a flip and landed steadily on the deck, shedding sea spray.

Kuzan scanned him with excitement, keenly sensing that the other person was completely different from just a short while ago.

"Does he seem stronger?"

"How is that possible?"

A trace of surprise and shock welled up in his heart.

How could anyone transform and grow this powerful in such a short amount of time?

"Vice Admiral Garp!"

"This is like murder training! I drowned in the sea three times and was bitten by piranhas twelve times!"

Xia Le raised his head and said in a deep voice.

Although he was immortal, the agony of those deaths was like a nightmare; no one would willingly endure it.

"Ha, I saw it."

"But you're still alive in the end, aren't you?"

"Besides, you're stronger!"

Garp grinned widely.

He didn't care at all about the pain Xia Le had suffered; instead, his eyes held growing appreciation.

"It seems the training regimen I've always wanted to try and fantasized about can actually be given a shot now!"

Xia Le's expression changed as he caught the flash of excitement flickering in the other man's eyes.

He could predict with certainty that this imagined training regimen was definitely not going to be anything good.