To Xie Wen's surprise, even after Meow Jūshirō began the Counter-Ambush Training he had gone through before, he still failed to awaken Observation Haki as quickly as Xie Wen and Sanji Meow had.
After some discussion and analysis, they discovered that the most likely reason for this was that Meow Jūshirō's own perception and reflexes were too strong...
Even relying on Mind's Eye alone, he could evade most of Sanji Meow's and Klee Meow's sneak attacks. The only reason he couldn't dodge Xie Wen's was that Xie Wen was faster than him, not that Meow Jūshirō hadn't noticed them.
So being too talented wasn't necessarily a good thing, huh?
Xie Wen immediately felt better.
Of course, this guess wasn't necessarily correct. There were other possibilities.
For example...
Meow Jūshirō's talent for Observation Haki might not have been as good as Xie Wen imagined.
Or perhaps...
The Counter-Ambush Training Method wasn't particularly suited to Meow Jūshirō.
Whatever the reason, Xie Wen, whose confidence had taken quite a beating from Meow Jūshirō, finally recovered a tiny bit of it.
Compared to his slow progress-or even complete lack of progress-in Observation Haki, Meow Jūshirō's improvement in Armament Haki was much greater. Not only had he quickly learned several Armament Haki techniques, but his reserves also grew by the day. It felt as though he would be able to perform full-body Armament Haki Hardening before long.
Hmph! He's just taking advantage of his size!
Xie Wen maintained that he wasn't jealous! Not at all!
Aside from his daily training and improving his strength, what Xie Wen wanted most at the moment was to find a reliable map of the East Blue as soon as possible, to give his dynamic map some "pre-rendering."
Back in Loguetown, he had actually tried sneaking into a Marine Base