Pirates: I Became a Legend by Seeing Proficiency

"It's fine! It was just an experiment!"

Hearing Dongze's words, Robin felt as though a seasoning jar had been knocked over inside her, leaving her with a jumble of emotions.

Thinking back to what he had said to her last night, Robin couldn't help lowering her head. Her eyes instantly turned red.

She didn't know when his image had taken root in her heart. After everything that had happened over the past few days, it had grown increasingly clear. She knew that she cared about him.

"Maybe I should still get off the ship!"

"Dream on!"

Dongze had just suffered serious injuries, and his whole body was weak. His vicious retort was completely undermined by his condition, coming out feebly instead. Robin's nose tingled, and tears immediately streamed down her face.

"..."

After a while, Robin wiped away her tears, slowly helped Dongze up, and escorted him back to the cabin.

She then began preparing medicine. This was a new skill she had mastered on her own during this period. With her genius-level intellect, preparing some simple healing and nourishing medicines was well within her abilities.

Seeing Robin leave him aside without even sparing him a glance,

Enel, lying on the deck, couldn't help feeling an inexplicable desolation.

Having just arrived and already being treated differently, anyone would easily develop such feelings. This was even more true for the God of Sky Island, who wasn't very good at dealing with people.

"Hey, hey! Miss, there's another injured person here!"

"No time! Dongze was injured by you just now, wasn't he?"

"Don't joke around! Injure him? I was only following orders. Besides, I was seriously wounded by the Sword Intent he left inside me earlier. I can't even stand up now!"

"Oh! Sorry! I don't know much about Logia users. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do!"

"No, no, you can help me. Just make me something to eat!"

"Isn't the lightning man supposed to eat lightning? I don't know how to make that!"

Although she had no idea what had happened between him and Dongze, the current situation was that Dongze was seriously injured, and Robin had no desire to pay attention to the culprit before her.

Thus, Robin delivered her deadpan sarcasm, displaying her dark side to the fullest.

Enel was dumbfounded. Was a lightning man's food really lightning? He couldn't help shaking his head. If that thing could be eaten, he wouldn't be human anymore.

"Miss, Boss really isn't my—"

"Shut up! I don't want to talk to you!"

The scene shifted. When they met again, it was already the third day. After three days of recuperation, Dongze and Enel had both nearly recovered.

With Enel joining them, the voyage had become much more interesting.

No one had expected this guy to be so talkative. A few days ago, after Robin had given him a taste of her dark side, he had latched onto her. Every time they met, he would provoke her, and Robin showed him no mercy either.

Every one of her sentences made him jump with rage.

As for Dongze, he was familiarizing himself with the newly activated Thunderclap Sword Intent. Because of that, Enel ran whenever he encountered him these past few days!

Perhaps because of this Sword Intent, however, Enel hadn't dropped anything else. This left Dongze sighing with emotion. His old grandfather really was a little stingy!

Well, his body hadn't fully recovered, yet the proficiency-grinding addict had started working again. There were only tears to speak of. Enel declared that he might as well have died back then.

That afternoon, Enel suddenly froze and looked into the distance. Through his Observation Haki, he saw a young man riding a bicycle across the sea toward them at a leisurely pace.

"Who is that guy?"

First Encounter, the Coming Battle

"Marine Admiral!"

"Aokiji, Kuzan!"

Dongze had somehow arrived beside Enel, his expression turning extremely serious.

"An enemy?"

"Don't know!"

"Should I go say hello?"

"Are you itching for a beating again?"

"I can't beat you, but I can't beat him either?"

Dongze gave the eager God of Sky Island a strange look.

He now understood Enel's strength. He was considerably stronger than an ordinary Vice Admiral, roughly on par with Kizaru back when he had served as a Vice Admiral, and equal to a Shichibukai. However, he was still some distance away from an Admiral.

As for Aokiji, although they had yet to fight, based on what Garp had told him earlier and the deeds associated with him afterward, Dongze estimated that he was probably an Admiral at his peak.

In the original story, this man didn't seem to have displayed much mastery of Haki, so Dongze wasn't entirely sure whether he could defeat him now.

Every move of an Awakened Logia user possessed extraordinary power. When he fought Whitebeard, a simple tactical lean backward had even turned Marineford's entire inner harbor into an ice-skating rink.

It was truly terrifying.

"If you don't believe me, you can go try. He's a Logia user too. You can see how different you are from him!"

"Logia?"

The corner of Enel's mouth curled upward. He was the strongest Logia user. Was he really supposed to fear someone who was also a Logia user?

Thinking about venting the anger he had accumulated over the past two days, Enel ignored Dongze's tone. His lightning had suddenly become ineffective as Dongze's Thunderclap Sword Intent grew stronger. On top of that, there was that dark-bellied Xiao Yi, so he had been simmering with anger.

"100 Million Volts—Raigo!"

Sure enough, this world's strong fighters all greeted people this way. Garp did it, Crocodile did it, and this guy was no exception.

He opened with a 100-million-volt ultimate move—Raigo straight to the face.

Dongze still found this way of greeting somewhat difficult to accept.

However,

Aokiji was no ordinary man. Not only had he developed his Devil Fruit to the point of Awakening, but his physical strength and Haki cultivation had also reached an extremely profound level.

The instant Enel launched his attack, he had already noticed it.

"Oh? There's a little lightning boy too. What a hassle!"

Although he called it a hassle, his actions were not slow in the slightest. With a flash, the bicycle beneath his feet instantly transformed into a spaceship, and he vanished in the blink of an eye.

Seeing the person before him disappear, Enel immediately pushed his Observation Haki to its limit. At the same time, he couldn't help feeling a trace of unease.

When he had fought Dongze earlier, he had already been tormented by his speed. Wasn't it ridiculous for a person to be faster than lightning?

He had thought there wouldn't be many people like that, but not long after leaving Sky Island, the first person he encountered was exactly that sort.

It genuinely left him feeling unsettled.

A short while later, he slowly let out a breath of relief. Fortunately, this guy's speed wasn't as absurd as Dongze's. His Observation Haki could still track him.

Then he swung his arm, rapidly changing Raigo's course and locking onto Aokiji once more.

"Oh? Observation Haki?"

"Are kids these days all this ridiculous?"

Aokiji knew his own speed well. Without Observation Haki, there was no way his opponent could have tracked him.

Knowing that dodging was useless, Aokiji stretched out a hand, and cold air instantly gathered.

"Ice Block? Pheasant Beak!"

A cold shout exploded in midair. A giant ice bird formed entirely of frost shot into the sky, its size even comparable to the ship Dongze and the others were riding.

At the same time, a freezing current swept across the area, dropping the temperature of the nearby sea by dozens of degrees.

Robin, in the cabin, couldn't help shivering. As if she had remembered something, she hurriedly ran outside.

The moment she looked up, she saw Raigo collide with Ice Block: Pheasant Beak. Lightning raged, the ice bird surged upward, thunderclaps boomed, and ice shards flew everywhere. Pheasant Beak wasn't shattered by Raigo's first impact. Instead, it locked into a stalemate with the lightning.

"A move like that..."

She then seemed to guess who it was. Her gaze swept rapidly across the nearby sea in search of that person's figure. Finally, beneath the enormous ice bird, she saw the man who often appeared in her nightmares!

A trace of fear flashed through her eyes. Her lips trembled. "Aokiji..."

Of all the people in the Marines, the one who had left the deepest impression on her wasn't Fleet Admiral Sengoku, Garp the Hero, or even Akainu, who upheld Absolute Justice. It was the man standing before her—Aokiji, Kuzan.

"He finally came..."

Seeing that the attack had achieved nothing, the corner of Enel's eye twitched. He had used a full 100 million volts in that strike. Let alone ice, even steel should have been no stronger than paper before it. Yet reality was so cruel: his Raigo had been blocked.

"Hey, hey! Boss, what the hell are people in the Blue Sea made of?"

Enel turned toward Dongze with an expression that seemed to ask who he was, where he was, and what he was doing.

"That's a Marine Admiral. There are only three in the entire Marines right now! Did you really think he wouldn't be strong?"

"Do you really think it's not ridiculous that ice can block lightning?"

"Mm! I can block it too!"

"Uh... you're not human!"

"Your Devil Fruit development isn't as advanced as his. He probably... seems to have awakened it!"

"I can't beat him?"

"Still want to try?"

Enel helplessly shook his head. That first strike had been a greeting. If he launched another, it would mean making an enemy of him.

Of course, that was only Enel's own interpretation. He had opened with Raigo to the face, yet he wanted to tell people that was a greeting? Even the legendary Pirate King Luffy probably wouldn't agree.

Before long, Aokiji arrived in front of the ship and stopped his puncture-proof bicycle.

"So it really is you, Nico Robin!"

Hearing Aokiji's words, Enel froze. Who was Nico Robin? There were only three people on the ship: Dongze, Xiao Yi, and himself.

Where had this extra Nico Robin come from?

Seeing that neither Dongze nor Robin spoke, he stepped forward and was just about to explain when a woman's voice suddenly came from behind him. He awkwardly stopped in his tracks.

"Aokiji!"

"You're the kid who was recklessly throwing lightning around just now, right? If I'm not mistaken, you should be the user of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"

"That's right, Ice Man!"

"Then the young man beside you must be the swordsman Vice Admiral Garp mentioned!"

"Pirate Hunter, Dongze!"

Aokiji then shifted his gaze to Dongze and slowly looked him over.

Dongze didn't shy away either. He began examining the man before him.

Nearly three meters tall, with languid, lifeless eyes and his trademark curly hair, he had the eye mask Dongze could never forget resting on his forehead. He wore a dark blue shirt, a vest over it, and a Marine Admiral's cloak on top.

At that moment, both his hands were tucked into the pockets of his standard Marine trousers.

By chance, their eyes met, and both men raised the corners of their eyes in unison.

"Strong!"

Aokiji had initially thought Vice Admiral Garp was exaggerating. He hadn't expected Dongze to truly be a powerhouse no weaker than himself.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kuzan!"

"I'm Dongze!"

"I came this time to see what had happened to Nico Robin, who had suddenly vanished from the East Blue. But now it seems I'll have to test myself against you as well. Someone of your strength shouldn't be taking her around the sea recklessly!"

Aokiji's Words Reveal the Truth

"Nico Robin is a savage beast born cruel and vicious, one no one can handle. If you let her follow you, you're destined only for destruction!"

Dongze froze. He hadn't expected Aokiji to say the words he had said to the Straw Hat Pirates to him.