One Piece: My Immortality, Maxing Out Conqueror's Haki First

"It could be said that way."

Xia Le nodded.

"That does make things simple. I'm also quite good at drawing on a blank sheet of paper."

Garp laughed.

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

The latter caught it in one motion, wearing a puzzled expression.

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

Then Garp strode over to Xia Le.

"Make sure you hold on tight, or we'll leave you behind!"

With a loud laugh, Garp kicked Xia Le in the butt. The thick rope snapped taut, and the black-haired youth shot away like a meteor, plunging into the sea hundreds of meters away.

"Bogard, speed up the warship!"

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

Garp roared.

Bogard silently waved to a Marine nearby.

In an instant, the warship accelerated.

At that moment, Xia Le was experiencing a deadly crisis. The sudden seawater nearly suffocated him, and Garp had never even asked whether he could swim.

"This is murder!"

"Not training!"

Only when surrounded by the boundless sea could one truly feel this bone-deep terror and their own insignificance.

He glanced at the fifty points on the panel. After hesitating, he gave up on spending them. Increasing his Conqueror's Haki seemed completely useless in his current situation.

"Hang in there, Xia Le!"

"No one has ever passed Vice Admiral Garp's training so far!"

In the distance, Kuzan shouted with a laugh.

"Is that supposed to be encouragement? Why does it sound more like a demoralizing blow?"

Xia Le's heart sank.

As the warship accelerated, his entire body was dragged rapidly along. The seawater struck him like iron fists pounding his body, while seawater poured into him.

The pain was indescribable. It seemed he could die at any moment.

Then, one hour and eight minutes after the training began.

Xia Le died.

The system points rose to 51.

He had drowned.

However, this brush with death taught him how to swim.

Sure enough, a person's potential would be stimulated when facing a life-or-death crisis.

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

He gritted his teeth fiercely and clung tightly to the rope.

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

Let the storm come harder!

Chapter 5: Saiyan Talent?

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

Kuzan's eyes shone with excitement as he watched the figure hundreds of meters away. His admiration for the youth grew even stronger.

He knew exactly how insane and brutal Garp's training was. It completely disregarded the limits of human endurance and could torture someone to death through sheer demonic methods.

But those who endured it would eventually become formidable fighters.

"That Golden Lion guy has been causing trouble again lately!"

"Roger has also vanished for a while."

Garp wasn't paying attention to the youth he had just taken in. Instead, he was reading the intelligence Kong had sent him not long ago.

His brows furrowed. From the brief information, he sensed something almost instinctively.

"The Edd War Waters."

Murmuring the name of the place, Garp's expression turned solemn.

It was the year 1497 of the Sea Circle Calendar, the peak era of the three legendary pirates. The entire world was going mad over them. At the same time, many great pirates who would become famous in later generations were active at sea, running rampant everywhere.

"Vice Admiral Garp, should we pursue them?"

Kuzan asked with a smile.

In his youth, he had been hot-blooded and energetic. The sunshine of his younger years stood in stark contrast to his lazy manner after becoming an Admiral.

"Of course!"

Garp laughed heartily.

"We'll head for the New World and meet up with Sengoku and Zephyr!"

"But!"

After a slight pause, he looked at the next intelligence report. It described a distress signal sent from an island not far from the Sabaody Archipelago.

"For now, this matter is more important."

The warship unknowingly changed direction. Xia Le, being dragged behind it, was flung high into the air before splashing back into the sea.

It was an intensely stimulating sensation, like being dragged across the ground by a car, except the pain was even worse.

Besides the impact of colliding with the raging current, which made his entire body ache unbearably, he also had to deal with countless fish in the seawater.

Worse still, these fish were man-eaters!

"Damn it, did that bastard even consider the survival rate of this training?"

Xia Le cursed furiously.

The answer was undoubtedly no. Almost in the next second, seawater flooded into his mouth, leaving him unable to speak.

Two hours after the training began, he was buried in the mouths of piranhas and died again.

But he soon revived.

The piranhas' bites were excruciating. His entire body was brutally tugged at, as if he were being cut by a thousand blades. The heart-rending pain drove Xia Le to fight these creatures with all his might.

Each one was about a foot long, with a huge head and sharp teeth. Their bite force was astonishing; they could even crush steel.

Xia Le clung to the rope with one hand while fighting back with his other hand and both feet.

Under this baptism of life and death, he soon discovered another trait of his.

Every time he died, all the injuries on his body would completely recover. At the same time, his strength, reflexes, and speed would increase by varying degrees.

In other words, he possessed a talent like that of a Saiyan. After dying and reviving, his combat power would increase.

For the rest of the journey, Xia Le had to fight not only the sea but also the piranhas.

His astonishing death rate caused his system points to reach 60 again in a short time.

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

But those ten deaths had brought him tremendous improvement.

After each bout of exhaustion and countless agonizing sacrifices, sweet rewards would follow. He was growing stronger and stronger.

The subtle changes in his appearance were already clearly visible. His muscle lines had become more sharply defined, his full pectoral muscles had grown, and the distinct lines across his abdomen revealed the tremendous explosive power within.

"Death increases the system points, and it can also raise my overall strength by a certain multiplier based on my current physical foundation."

"This increase will become even more obvious after my strength grows."

"At the same time, I can't exploit a loophole. Suicide won't increase the system points."

Nearly ten hours had passed. Through experiencing death and pain, Xia Le had gained an increasingly thorough understanding of his cheat and made a preliminary summary.

There might be other functions he had yet to discover, but for now, it was already extremely useful.

Immortality ensured that he would remain undefeated, while death could make him stronger.

Gradually, when his system points reached 65, his strength had already been enhanced to a certain level. Facing the raging sea and the constantly attacking and biting piranhas, he could now deal with them calmly.

Deliberately dying would not increase his points. Besides, allowing the piranhas to bite him subjected him to the agony of being slowly dismembered, which was unbearable.

Xia Le struck with force, swinging his fists and smashing the annoying creatures until their bodies burst apart, driving them back completely.

Then, in the middle of the sea, he gripped the rope with one hand and lightly leaped up. He stepped barefoot onto the surface of the water and let out a long cry, actually beginning to surf.

This scene stood in sharp contrast to his miserable state at the beginning.

"That's amazing, Xia Le! You've adapted to this trial!"

On the warship, Kuzan noticed the youth behind them. After a moment of surprise, he exclaimed in amazement.

Garp had fallen asleep standing on the deck. The snot bubble from his nose suddenly burst, and he opened his eyes wide, his gaze filled with surprise and astonishment.

"He adapted this quickly?"

As someone who had personally tested this training, he knew very well that the speed at which the warship dragged someone and the impact of the seawater were only part of it. The danger posed by the fish in the ocean was even harder to guard against.

Once, someone had accidentally died during his training. Because of that, he had been scolded by Sengoku, Fleet Admiral Kong, and the others more than once.

"This kid's talent exceeds even my expectations!"

Garp thought.

He seized the rope with his right hand and gave it a fierce pull.

The youth hundreds of meters behind the warship was instantly yanked into the air and rapidly drawn toward the ship.

When he reached the stern, he flipped through the air and landed steadily on the deck, bringing seawater with him.

Kuzan excitedly looked him over. He keenly sensed that the youth was completely different from before.

"He seems stronger?"

"How is that possible?"

Surprise and shock surfaced in his heart.

How could anyone undergo such a powerful transformation in such a short time?

"Vice Admiral Garp!"

"This was training like murder! I drowned three times in the seawater, and I died twelve times from the piranhas' bites!"

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

Although he was immortal, the pain of death was like a nightmare. No one would willingly endure it.

"Ha, I saw that."

"But you're still alive, aren't you?"

"And you're even stronger!"

Garp grinned.

He didn't care in the slightest about the pain Xia Le had endured. Instead, admiration gleamed even more strongly in his eyes.

"Looks like the training program I've always wanted to try—the one I came up with in my imagination—can be tested too!"

Xia Le's expression changed. He saw the excitement flickering in Garp's eyes.

He could already predict that this imagined training program definitely wouldn't be anything good.