The Test / Doriki Value

Shuzo looked around, watching the slight ripples of emotion on everyone's faces, and continued, "Of course, none of you should harbor any lucky notions of coming here just to pad your resumes. There will be an evaluation at the end of every year; those who fail will have their graduation postponed by a year, and you only get one postponement. There are also corresponding evaluations upon graduation, and I hope to see the exact same faces of you lot when that time comes."

"Very well, since no one speaks out in opposition, let's start with the first item of today's training—physical conditioning. Now, everyone stretch in place, and I'll give you ten minutes to warm up."

Finished with his speech, Shuzo trotted off to the side to whisper and consult with Zephyr about something. Atlas felt a bit curious, but not daring to use Observation Haki to eavesdrop, he could only obediently start warming up right where he stood.

To tell the truth, Atlas wasn't looking forward to the upcoming physical training, because he usually did his physical training with weights. However, since there was a recruit address today, he hadn't brought them out, so he would just run casually for a bit to get through it.

"Alright, everyone listen up! Today, run fifty laps around the training ground first, and you eat only after you finish!"

The crowd didn't complain either, silently beginning to jog around the parade ground, and Atlas and the others also walked toward the track. These recruits had all put in every ounce of effort, wanting to stand out in this training. Who knows, if Instructor Zephyr took a fancy to them and gave them special private tutoring, wouldn't that mean immediate takeoff?

Naturally, Atlas was not willing to lag behind either, and he had nothing to hide; the earlier he displayed his talent and strength, the more he would be able to win heavyweight assignments.

I have to admit, Atlas's physique already towered over the entire training camp. Everyone felt as if a gust of wind had swept past them, and in just a few short minutes, the laps Atlas had run left the rest of them far, far behind.

"What the hell, where did this ferocious beast come from!"

"Big Brother Atlas really is amazing. Looks like I need to keep working hard too."

This was Smoker.

"Our boss is just fierce, truly worthy of being the boss of me, Grus."

This was that thick-skinned fellow Grus. Ever since he had been taught a lesson by Atlas, this guy had latched onto Atlas and refused to leave no matter how hard he tried to drive him away.

"Ah, Atlas, don't worry, Little Rice Cake, he is definitely not a member of Cipher Pol. This kid's potential is enough to make an admiral..."

In the dark, a Den Den Mushi wearing frog-style glasses and sporting a braided beard on its chin spoke slowly in a relaxed tone.

"Truly impressive, Atlas."

Recalling Sengoku's evaluation of Atlas from last night, Rosinante couldn't help but sigh in admiration.

Chapter 31: The Test

Marineford Recruit Training Camp.

The deep night sky was dotted with a few bright stars, and the slightly cool breeze gently caressed Atlas's sturdy torso. At this moment, he was doing some post-meal extra training on the training ground, but thinking back to this morning's assembly drill made his head ache all over again...

That morning, in order to finish his physical training a little earlier, he could be said to have unleashed his speed to the absolute limit without holding anything back, completing the task in a mere third of the time it took anyone else.

Yet Instructor Zephyr on the sidelines didn't seem to want him to have it so easy, so he put him through weighted extra training, which had tired him out to no end.

Zephyr had adjusted Atlas's weights with near-surgical precision to his current physical limit, causing Atlas to feel both a headache and a vague sense of excitement. He believed that the moment he walked out of the training camp, his strength would undoubtedly undergo a phenomenal leap.

"Whew~"

Having finished his final training routine, Atlas turned around, intending to head back to the dorm to take a shower and wash away the fatigue of the day.

Little did he know that in a brightly lit building in the distance, Zephyr stood quietly by the window, silently gazing at Atlas's retreating back. Zephyr had been standing in the exact same spot for hours, yet Atlas remained completely oblivious.

"Truly a hardworking little brat..."

Atlas dragged his exhausted body into the dormitory and found the other three neatly huddled inside.

"Boss, you're finally here. I've already drawn hot water for you—hurry up and take a refreshing hot bath."

Grus wore the textbook expression of a bootlicker taking pride in his work.

"You've already drawn the hot water for me? Right on time. Many thanks, Grus." Atlas had already grown accustomed to Grus's antics and accepted the goodwill quite naturally.

"It's nothing at all. If you're willing, Boss, I can draw water for you every single day."

Grus said with a hint of delight, acting as though he was so thrilled by gaining Atlas's approval that he could barely contain himself, which caused both Smoker and Rosinante to shiver involuntarily.

This guy...

Could he perhaps have some kind of special fetish?

"Well then, I'll have to trouble you in the future, Grus."

Atlas didn't mind at all, saying with a smile.

"Then from now on I'll be counting on you to cover me, Boss! I asked around, and we've got about a hundred and sixty heads in our batch of recruits.

There are around thirty holdovers from the previous batch who had to repeat a year. According to the intel I gathered, this batch of ours has a total of three monster rookies..." Saying this, Grus cast a meaningful glance at the others, then exclaimed excitedly.

"Well, let's wait until the boss finishes his bath before you go on."

Grus was also a bit of a tease; just as he reached the crucial part, he stubbornly decided to leave them hanging. Instantly, Smoker and Rosinante felt the frustrating, itch-inducing urge of someone trying to scratch an itch through their boots.

"Stop spouting nonsense and spit it out!" Atlas casually threw a punch at his big head to urge him on.

"Hehehe, out of the three monster rookies, two are right here in our dorm, and you, Boss, rank right at the top of the list." After finishing, Grus even glanced sideways at Smoker.

"Huh? Me? Did they get it wrong?" Smoker was so used to being battered by Atlas on a regular basis that he was practically losing his self-confidence, never expecting that he would actually have the honor of being ranked alongside Atlas.

"Still, who is the other person?" Smoker asked, a bit curious.

"Bet you didn't know this, but the third person is a woman, and it seems she's also a Devil Fruit user. I didn't manage to dig up her exact ability, but I do know her name." As he spoke, a lewd smile broke out across Grus's face.

"It's Hina, right?" For some reason, Hina's name suddenly flashed through Smoker's mind.

"Huh? How did you know?" Grus was clearly a bit startled; he had spent ages sniffing out this piece of intelligence, so he hadn't expected this guy Smoker to know it ahead of him.

"Well, didn't I tell you last time that I got into a fight with a Paramecia Cage-Cage Fruit user? That person's name is Hina." Smoker was also somewhat surprised, not expecting such a coincidence.

"Still, though, I still reckon the boss is the strongest rookie. He's the real monster!" Grus had already learned from Smoker's own mouth that Atlas was a man who could pin a Logia user like Smoker to the ground using purely physical prowess!

"Yeah, yeah!!"

Smoker and Rosinante felt deeply the same way, nodding in agreement.

"Alright, you stinking brats, get some rest early. Tomorrow is the camp-entry test, after all."

Atlas timely interrupted their gossip. If they kept chatting away like this, who knew how long it would take before they finally managed to fall asleep.

The rest of the dormitory had already grown used to Atlas's old-fashioned, pompous phrasing. After all, in the world of pirates, powerhouses always had behaviors that were more or less out of the ordinary.

The night passed without incident...

Recruit Training Camp Training Ground.

Before dawn had even broken, the recruits had already lined up in a long queue. It wasn't because they were particularly diligent, but rather because they had been thoroughly spooked by yesterday's elimination method.

Atlas, having just wrapped up his morning training, hurried over and silently found his spot from yesterday to stand in.

Yet his arrival stirred up quite a commotion among the crowd.

After all, that solitary figure leaving everyone else in the dust during yesterday's physical training had left a deep impression on them.

Furthermore, the title of top monster rookie secretly circulating among the recruit camp had made Atlas a household name.

The time for the test arrived swiftly. Zephyr and Shuzo appeared before the crowd right on schedule, accompanied by a machine roughly 4 meters tall and 3 meters wide, which was planted firmly down beside the two of them.

"Very well, it seems there are no latecomers today. Today's test uses a machine introduced by the World Government's Science Division for trials, and the value it measures is called the Doriki Value!"

"Of course, the Doriki Value is merely a static display of your physical data and cannot completely determine your combat power. There are many factors that influence combat power, including your mindset on the battlefield, willpower, and so on."

Shuzo explained slowly as he looked at the curious expressions on the faces of the fresh recruits.

With that, Shuzo picked up the namelist in his hand and began calling them up one by one in order to prepare for the test.

"Grus!"

Hearing his name called first, Grus looked somewhat surprised, but still quickened his pace to step out of formation and walk forward.

"Go ahead, hit the machine with the attack that packs your highest current power. Hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship are both fine."

Shuzo gave Grus a brief explanation and then stepped aside.

"Bang!" Grus mustered every ounce of strength he had left to slam his fist into the testing machine.

"Doriki Value: 550!"

A cold, synthetic electronic voice drifted out from the machine.

"Next! Kirkland!"

Shuzo continued reading names, his face neither sorrowful nor joyful, making it impossible for anyone to tell whether the score was good or bad.

"Bugra! Doriki Value: 230!"

"Berenguer! Doriki Value: 180!"

"Smoker!"

"Doriki Value: 800!"

"Hiss~" Everyone drew a sharp breath. Through the previous rounds of testing, they had gained a rough understanding of what a Doriki Value represented.

One could say that reaching a Doriki Value above 520 meant truly transcending the limits of the human body and entering a superhuman level. Meanwhile, Smoker's Doriki Value of 800 genuinely terrified them—not to mention that Smoker was also a Logia Devil Fruit user.

Chapter 32: Doriki Value

"Hina!"

"Doriki Value: 750!"

Another big shot! The crowd was practically growing numb to it. Their own Doriki Values generally hovered around 300, and only a tiny handful of exceptionally talented individuals managed to break 500. Yet Hina, a girl, possessed a Doriki Value so much higher than theirs, which left them feeling slightly disheartened.

"Hina is most displeased!" Seeing that her Doriki Value seemed to lag behind that guy Smoker, Hina couldn't help muttering under her breath, then cast a sideways glance at Smoker back in the formation before returning to her spot.

"Why is this chick glaring at me? Is she trying to provoke me or something?" Smoker felt a surge of gloom as he noticed Hina shooting him a somewhat displeased look.

"Next! Kanos Atlas!"

Hearing this name, the crowd—who had been waiting until they were somewhat bored—perked up a little, and even Zephyr off to the side cast an attentive gaze.

Atlas stepped forward with composure, took a deep breath, dug his toes into the ground, sank his weight, and erupted with force!

"Iron Body: Shatter: Bird Thorn!"

Atlas let out a shout, the technique derived from Tekkai combining with a thrusting punch to smash fiercely into the machine!

"Doriki Value: 5000!!!"

"Boom!!!"

When the cold synthetic electronic voice announced Atlas's score, the crowd instantly erupted into an uproar, and even Zephyr experienced a fleeting moment of distraction. The recruits might have anticipated that Atlas's Doriki Value would be slightly higher than the other two so-called monster rookies, but they never expected the gap to be this massive!

A Doriki Value of 5,000—Atlas's actual combat power might even surpass this number!

As for Atlas himself, he remained quite calm; this outcome was well within his expectations, seeing as he was, after all, a Steel-Cutting Swordsman!

"Alright! Quiet down! Next, continue!" Although Shuzo was also startled, he still stepped forward in a timely manner to halt the recruits' discussion and resumed presiding over the tests.

Marine Headquarters, Admiral's Office.

Beneath the plaque of supreme justice, Sengoku—wearing his frog-style glasses—was buried in paperwork, occasionally tossing discarded documents to the goat to deal with.

Suddenly, his hand paused. He picked up a certain document, scanned it carefully from top to bottom, and then handed it to Vice Admiral Tsuru beside him.

"Tsuru, take a look at this report."

Vice Admiral Tsuru took the document from Sengoku's hand with a puzzled look, then burst out in a helpless chuckle: "We truly didn't misjudge this kid. A Doriki Value of 5000—what a terrifying little monster."

Once the recruit testing concluded, Shuzo informed the recruits with a Doriki Value under 500 to begin foundational physical tempering training first, while those with a Doriki Value above 500 would undergo Shuzo's specialized hand-to-hand combat training starting tomorrow. Fortunately, everyone in Atlas's dorm had passed; even Rosinante, who looked relatively frail, had a Doriki Value of 520, just barely clearing the bar.

"You must be Atlas, Hina would like to make your acquaintance."

Just as the dismissal was called and Atlas prepared to head to the cafeteria with Smoker and the others to feast, a young woman with a striking, breezy bob of pastel-pink parted hair and purple-tinted sunglasses blocked their path.

"Ah, oh, hello, my name is Atlas."

Atlas was momentarily stunned, but quickly recovered and replied.

"Hina wishes to spar with you. I've been hearing Smoker talk about how strong you are for ages."