Three days later, at the Training Ground of Marine Headquarters.
The blazing sun hung high overhead, and scorching heat filled the air.
In the center of the Training Ground, Lipo and Tesoro stumbled left and right, their eyes covered by pitch-black blindfolds.
Beneath their feet lay a specially made vibration grid. Every step triggered faint shock waves that disrupted their balance.
"Left! No... right!" Lipo's furry ears stood straight up, fine beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
Her carrot hair ornament bobbed with her rapid breathing as she tried to pick up the faint sounds in the air.
Bang! Just then, a pale particle beam grazed her shoulder and blasted a tiny crater into the ground.
"That was close!" Lipo cried out after barely dodging it, patting her small breasts.
But another beam immediately came from the exact opposite direction, striking her knee with pinpoint accuracy.
"Aah!" She stumbled and nearly fell, but gritted her teeth, steadied herself, and kept hopping across the grid.
Not far away, beneath a sunshade, Gern lounged lazily in a deck chair, holding an ice-cold watermelon juice in one hand and taking a leisurely sip.
He casually raised his other hand, gathering low-energy vibration particles at his fingertip. A light flick sent another beam flying.
Compared with their high-energy counterparts, the destructive force generated by these low-energy particles had been controlled by Gern to little more than the sting of a small pebble.
After his Devil Fruit Awakening, Gern had discovered that controlling vibrations came far more naturally to him.
Unlike the tremendous physical enhancement of Zoan types or the alteration and assimilation of Paramecia types, Logia awakening mostly manifested in everyday control.
Of course, Domain Expansion was his true awakened form, but he generally had no need for it unless he was fighting