A Dream Beginning in East Blue / "Female Tyrannosaur!"

Pirates: Seeing Proficiency Levels Makes Me a Legend, Author: Ye Jingbuyu

Synopsis:

On the vast and boundless ocean, Aokiji stopped a ship. After an intense battle, Aokiji smiled helplessly, "Hey!

Little brother! Don't waste your energy! I'm a Logia user! You can't hit me!"

Before his voice faded, a flash of Sword Aura swept past, freezing ten thousand miles. The frozen Aokiji's mind completely crashed, and he feared he had eaten a fake Ice-Ice Fruit.

In the second half of the Grand Line, Kizaru hummed an out-of-tune tune, "Little brother!

You say you're faster than me! I'm so embarrassed!"

Before his voice faded, a figure stood atop a Flying Sword, escaping a thousand miles in the blink of an eye, leaving a dumbfounded Kizaru standing there, disheveled in the wind.

Chapter 1: A Dream Beginning in East Blue

Autumn wind swept across fallen leaves, bringing an unspeakable desolation to the entire land. In Shimotsuki Village of the East Blue, under a tree not far from the Isshin Dojo, an ordinary little boy was basking in the sun in boredom, an unspeakable gloom in his eyes.

The boy was named Dongze, and as expected, he was a favored child of heaven.

Having descended into the Pirate world, he originally thought that with his foresight and hindsight, he could make a great show of force, beating the elders' home of Nanshan with his fists and kicking the kindergarten of North Blue with his feet. Oh no, it should be beating Old Whitebeard with his fists and kicking the traitor Blackbeard with his feet.

However, reality was cruel, and he had to admit that cultivation matters came down to talent.

Despite having joined the Isshin Dojo for two years and working day and night without letting up on weight-bearing or sword-swimming, carrying through every single task, up to now not only could he not even beat Kuina, but he was even beaten miserably by the newly arrived Moss Head.

This inevitably made him sigh with emotion that perhaps he truly lacked talent in the field of swordsmanship! The day before, in the dojo's sparring match, he had been beaten miserably by Kuina yet again, which for a time made him doubt in his heart whether he was truly still inferior to a little girl.

Feeling extremely depressed, he therefore seized this brief moment of leisure to run out of the dojo, intending to relax his somewhat oppressed mood.

"Sigh! Going on like this, not to mention beating Whitebeard, by the end I'm afraid I won't even be able to defeat Red Nose!"

"Hehe!"

A small purple squirrel on the tree stared at him, a trace of mischief flashing in its lively eyes, and then it threw the pine nut it had been gnawing on, which still had a couple of bites taken out of it, toward the boy.

Probably because the boy was distracted, that pine nut hit him squarely right between the eyebrows.

In a trance, he seemed to hear a "ding-dong" sound echo in his mind.

"Little Li!"

The boy was dazed for a moment, and then he stood up. An exasperated roar burst out from him, and immediately the boy's gaze began to search among the tree branches, looking for that purple figure.

However, the little squirrel was not afraid of him, squeaked twice, and then vanished in a flash.

The boy swept his gaze around to no avail, shook his head helplessly, and looking at the pine nut nearby, he couldn't help but mock himself.

"Really, good thing it wasn't the pine nut in Monk Xuzhu's hand. If it were that brainless monk, I'm afraid my little life would be forfeit!"

However, whether because his luck was poor or misfortune never came singly, not long after the boy lay down, a fully ripe fruit left its twig under the gentle caress of the breeze and once again plummeted down to smash against his forehead.

Good fellow, this time it was nothing a little pine nut could compare to.

The boy was smashed dizzy on the spot!

"What the f*ck..."

After a dizzying spin, the boy just wanted to burst into a torrent of abuse, but suddenly, the corners of his eyes tightened involuntarily, and his eyes abruptly narrowed.

The boy suddenly discovered that a line of strange characters had appeared within his field of vision.

"Iron Head Skill Proficiency 20/1000!"

Refusing to believe it, the boy rubbed his eyes once more, then looked intently to search again, only to find that line of small characters still there.

Inexplicably, the boy's heart stirred, as if he had thought of something. Then he glanced at the large tree beside him, hesitated repeatedly, gritted his teeth, and fiercely rammed his head straight into it.

Accompanied by a bout of dizziness, it took him a good while to recover his wits. This time he had poured all his strength into it, terrified of failing to verify his guess!

When he looked at that row of small characters once again, he grinned, a trace of inexplicable ecstasy revealing itself in his eyes.

"Iron Head Skill Proficiency 21/1000!"

"Could this be my Golden Finger?"

"If one can see proficiency levels in cultivation and such as well, I won't end up without a direction! But the details still seem to require testing!"

After a round of experimentation, he also roughly figured out how to wield this power.

Carefully calculated, it boiled down to two major uses.

First, it allowed him to know the bits and pieces of his cultivation, breaking cultivation down into every single point, which was enough to give him more determination and courage to stride toward the distance.

Second, it could unlock cultivation in unknown fields ahead of time. Speaking of which, this matter was also because of Little Li.

Feeling the heedless Little Li sitting on his head, he was also somewhat helpless. He had no idea what it had done to provoke that group of monkeys deep in the back mountain; a barrage of stone attacks had come down like hailstorm, almost burying it alive, and in order to save it he too had suffered a brutal fate, aching all over his body right now.

Fortunately, however, it had ultimately allowed him to unlock the basics of Observation Haki, Mantra, enabling him to escape with it.

Now he understood the temperament of that power: it would never let him get something for nothing. Summarizing it himself, wanting to unlock cultivation in unknown fields in advance most likely carried a high probability of needing to take a beating in order to have a chance to trigger it.

However, as for the growth of proficiency, he still did not fully understand it yet. Not every operation would add a point of proficiency for him, just like the proficiency of the Iron Head Skill, which simply stopped increasing by a single point during his subsequent stubborn head-butting experiments.

Then he looked around and found a bluestone half the size of a person right beneath him, which immediately made his eyes light up, but unfortunately, before he could put his plan into action, he let out a yelp and flew out!

"Dongze!!"

"Are you out of your mind!!"

As the words faded, a-orange-yellow figure abruptly darted over and kicked the boy flying. Watching the massive bluestone subsequently slide off the tree branch and cause the ground near her feet to tremble slightly, her little heart was quivering—thank goodness she made it in time.

"You idiot, do you really think your head is harder than bluestone?"

Perhaps the young girl's kick had been too forceful just now, as the boy took quite a while to recover, still lying on the ground in a thoroughly ungraceful posture.

"Kuina!!"

"You bastard!"

"Female Tyrannosaur!!"

"What did you say?"

Hearing this remark, which clearly carried a mocking intent, Kuina clenched her fists, producing a cracking sound, and walked toward Dongze with an unfriendly expression on her face.

The boy turned around with some difficulty. Looking at the somewhat fierce yet cute young girl, his skin tightened. After comprehensively weighing the current gap in their strength, he said in a deadpan tone, "Kuina, don't get me wrong!"

"I was just praising you for your great strength!"

Upon hearing this, Kuina's footsteps paused slightly. Dongze's remark had truly struck a chord within her heart.

She was a girl, the only daughter of Koshiro at the Isshin Dojo, and she desperately wanted to gain her father's recognition, yet Koshiro did not look favorably upon her precisely because she was a female.

To achieve good accomplishments in swordsmanship, girls needed to put in much more effort to make up for innate disadvantages. There were naturally few women who used swords in this world, let alone those who excelled in swordsmanship. Therefore, all along, although Kuina fiercely denied her father's words and intended to prove that even as a girl she could become a Swordmaster and a pinnacle powerhouse of swordsmanship, deep down she still somewhat resented being born female!

Now, hearing Dongze praise her for having great strength felt rather delightful to her at the moment.

However, she was not stupid either; Dongze's current tone was clearly wrong. Yet since the opponent had just been kicked flying a dozen meters by her, it was not convenient for her to act up again.

"Hey! Weren't you just beaten up by that Moss Head? Is there any need to come here and seek your own demise?"

Seeing Dongze try to sit up several times only to fail, a trace of a blush swept across Kuina's little face—her kick from earlier had indeed been a bit too heavy!

"Hey! Are you alright!"

A wry smile crossed the corner of Dongze's mouth!

"If I suddenly gave you a kick like that, would you be alright!!"

Kuina pursed her little lips, furrowed her brows, put her hands on her hips, and sternly said, "Don't you dare!!"

Dongze shook his head and let out a helpless, bitter smile. As expected, their thought processes were simply not on the same wavelength!

"Give me a hand! I can't muster any strength!"

"Got it!"

"Still, with a puny frame like yours, don't spar with that Moss Head in the future. That bastard is like an untamed bull, and even I feel some pressure. If you spar with him, you're just asking for trouble!"

As she spoke, Kuina pulled Dongze up and could not help sighing with mixed emotions.

Zoro, who had entered the dojo as a disciple, had already begun that inhumane training, and the swords in his hands kept multiplying—from one, to two, and now to three.

His physical strength had also grown greater and greater, and his offensive momentum was so fierce that even she sometimes preferred not to clash with him head-on, relying solely on her proficiency in sword techniques to outflank and defeat him from the side.

History seemed to return to its established track once more—two powerful rivals clashing at the Isshin Dojo, with one perishing prematurely while the other shouldered the former's unfulfilled will to march toward the strongest. Yet this time an extra person had been added; where the future would lead could no longer be predicted!

Chapter 2 "Female Tyrannosaur!"

"Dongze!"

"I really envy Moss Head's talent!"

To be frank, for Zoro to have such a brilliant performance later on and even grow to the level of the Right Hand of the Pirate King Luffy, besides his unyielding and tenacious willpower, one simply had to mention his exceptionally high innate talent.

Being valued by Koshiro and Hawkeye, who successively accepted him as a disciple and spared no effort in nurturing him, could prove one thing: Zoro's own talent was dazzling even across the entire vast ocean.

These two were hardly ordinary figures; one was the world's greatest Swordmaster, while the other was a descendant of the Shimotsuki Family from the latter half of the Grand Line.

Viewed purely through the eyes of swordsmen, the two of them could even be said to stand among that elite handful at the pinnacle of swordsmanship in this world.

Naturally, precisely because of this, it conversely illustrated just how formidable Roronoa Zoro's talent truly was.

Looking at the slightly youthful young girl before him, Dongze also sighed softly in his heart. In the young girl who had utterly suppressed Zoro during their adolescence, he felt her talent was not a whit inferior to Zoro's, and to a certain extent, even surpassed Zoro's.

It was just a pity that she never got to grow up.

Over these years, as he entered the Isshin Dojo and interacted with Koshiro daily, he came to know that the man was not someone who discriminated against women.

Therefore, Koshiro's obviously purposeful attitude toward his own daughter made Dongze extremely puzzled. Recalling the preachings he usually directed at Kuina, perhaps the man simply did not want his daughter to walk down that path!

After all, a swordsman's duel meant either you die or I live.

The ocean was hardly a safe place either. Even in the East Blue, widely considered the safest place in the world, pirates, bandits, and the Revolutionary Army frequently roamed about. He himself was hiding away in the East Blue, so how could he possibly feel at ease letting his daughter go out to wander the world?

Of course, this was merely his own speculation.

Kuina supported Dongze, steadying him as they slowly walked back toward the Isshin Dojo.

Halfway there, perhaps tugging at his wound, Dongze winced in pain. Seeing this, Kuina softly asked, "Hey, Dongze, are you really alright?"

Dongze touched his lower ribs and said tremblingly, "Two ribs are broken, I'll have to lie down for ten days to half a month! (Of course, this is in the pirate world; if it were changed to the real world, it might not even heal in a year or half!)"

Hearing this, Kuina's pretty face flushed. The situation had been urgent at the time, and she hadn't thought about holding back her strength at all. You must know that Kuina was already no match for some adults, and in terms of physical strength, she wasn't even inferior to those adults.

With Dongze's small and frail frame, if he hadn't been in trouble after taking Kuina's full-strength blow out of nowhere, that would have been strange!

Just at that moment, Dongze and Kuina paused their steps and exchanged a glance. Then, their gazes naturally drifted toward the training ground to the side, where a Moss Head was holding a bamboo sword in each hand, launching a frantic assault against a wooden stake.

"1005, 1006, 1007..."

There were also two stone piers to the side, clearly used to increase arm strength. Looking at the numbers marked on them, Dongze couldn't help but violently twitch the corner of his mouth!

I bought a watch last year! he cursed inwardly.

Is this fucking even human? He must be an animal!

This Moss Head was, of course, Zoro. Seeing Kuina and Dongze passing by from the side, his movements didn't stop; instead, they became a bit more ferocious.

It seemed that the wooden stake in front of him was Kuina, who had always suppressed him so much that he couldn't lift his head. As for Dongze, he naturally ignored him, because in their usual spars, Dongze had never defeated him once.

Toward someone weaker than himself, Zoro couldn't be bothered to cast much attention, although the other party's effort was not a bit worse than his. Still, he didn't believe the other party could catch up to his pace.

However, at this moment, he still didn't know that Dongze had awakened a bug at this time.

They always say, "If you haven't seen a scholar for three days, you should look at him with new eyes!"

There is good reason for saying this.

When seeing this future emperor's right-hand man of Luffy again, Dongze's gaze became very calm and very poised.

After an afternoon of experimentation, he had also initially figured out that ability. Now, he also had confidence that, with the help of this ability, he would forge ahead with determination in the time to come, and even surpass everything to stand at the very peak of this world.

In fact, for everyone, the hardest part of making progress is not persistence, but rather persisting as always while never seeing the direction of the future or being able to see clearly the path beneath one's feet.