Passive Skill: Self-Sacrifice.
First Skill: Explosive Double Axes.
Second skill: Feverish Spin.
Third Skill: Justice Potential.
There were also the basic skills Recall and Recovery. During his promotion match, he had brought Heal, focusing on being unbearably hard to kill while constantly harassing the enemy until they broke mentally.
In other words, he had three chances to save himself. No matter when, the advantage was his.
Unless he was instantly killed from the start.
After obtaining this Golden Finger, Wilton immediately went from utterly crushed to fired up. These abilities did not require allocating points, replenishing mana, or completing quests to level up.
They could be strengthened through training.
Those abilities seemed innate to Wilton. As long as he kept training and growing stronger, they would grow stronger as well. The first things that came to mind were the Six Powers' Iron Body and Armament Haki, along with a Zoan Devil Fruit.
Nothing else needed to be said.
With those abilities paired with Cheng Yaojin's powers, he would definitely be impossible to kill.
As for the countless powerful Marines, half of them had supposedly died because of Iron Body. Wilton did not think he would be one of them. With Armament Haki, Justice Potential, Heal, and Recovery, he wanted to see exactly how Iron Body could get him killed.
Besides, he was not an idiot.
Why was he so keen on Iron Body and Armament Haki? Because he only had Cheng Yaojin's abilities. Being hard to kill did not mean he could hit hard. He did not have defensive equipment like Thornmail, Omen, or Phoenix Eye.
So if he wanted to be both tough and impossible to kill, Iron Body and Armament Haki were his only options.
Life Return and a Zoan Devil Fruit were also ways to grow stronger.
Taking all that into account.
He had to find a way to learn Iron Body and the other Six Powers, and the Marines were the best shortcut.
Moreover, as long as one was strong enough in the Marines, one had a great deal of freedom. Just look at Monkey D. Garp and Smoker. More importantly, he could rely on the two rotten, crooked old trees known as the Marines and the World Government, cutting down on early growth time and plenty of unnecessary trouble.
No matter how he looked at it, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.
After many setbacks and much time, Wilton successfully joined the Marines. Then, through his abilities and bravery, he earned quite a few merits within a single year. By a twist of fate, he was assigned under Vice Admiral Dalmatian.
Vice Admiral Dalmatian was a Zoan Devil Fruit User who had eaten the Inu Inu no Mi, Model: Dalmatian. He could also remain in his human-beast form for extended periods.
Over the next four years.
Wilton continued serving under Dalmatian. Because he fought fiercely and feared no death, always charging at the front when battling pirates, his fearless style even inspired the other Marines and greatly increased their combat strength. As a result, Dalmatian kept promoting and valuing him.
During that time, he exchanged his military merits for the Six Powers. Combined with Dalmatian occasionally giving him extra training, Wilton mastered Iron Body, Armament Haki, and Observation Haki within those four years.
He had also barely gotten started with the other Six Powers—Shave, Geppo, Tempest Kick, Paper Art, and Finger Pistol—but his talent in them was so poor it was unbearable to watch.
In gaming terms, he had poured all the skill points meant for the other Six Powers into Iron Body and the two types of Haki.
He simply had no talent in those areas.
Wilton did not feel unwilling to accept it. Instead, he was delighted.
Specialization. He understood that!
Some things thrived while others withered. Besides, with a little ingenuity, the other Six Powers could be substituted with other abilities.
Sometimes, trying to learn too much only left one with nothing. Since his talent for Iron Body and the two types of Haki was greater, why not devote all his time to them?
If he was going to specialize, then he would specialize to the extreme and become a god through it.
He could still dominate the world with one perfected move.
As for the other Six Powers, he could fiddle with them whenever he had time and see whether he could toughen them up. If they remained weak and limp, that was fine too.
Later, he even earned the title of Marine Tough Guy.
Relying on the traits of his Golden Finger, along with his sufficiently tough and mysteriously overconfident Iron Body and Armament Haki, his fighting style was always one of dragging the enemy down to hell with him.
His whole strategy was to see whether the enemy or himself gave out first.
What he played was a mutual-destruction game.
There was no helping it. Since he was not particularly skilled at the other Six Powers, his combat style was limited. The simplest and most effective method was to wait for the enemy to attack, take a hit head-on, and then counterattack.
Otherwise, if the enemy kept dancing around him, they could annoy him to death.
This time, he had come to Loguetown under Vice Admiral Dalmatian's orders to escort Arlong to Impel Down, because the matter involved the Shichibukai Sea Knight Jinbe and Fish-Man Island.
To avoid further complications, the higher-ups had decided to send a rear admiral to East Blue for the escort. Since it was such an easy assignment, Dalmatian had secured it for Wilton.
It counted as a modest achievement.
Very soon.
About ten minutes later, Wilton was still working out in the reception room when a tall figure entered from outside. Before the man even arrived, cigar smoke had already drifted into the room.
It was Smoker.
His white hair was slicked back, and he wore a large coat bearing the word Justice on its back. Goggles hung around his neck, and a Seastone Jitte was slung across his back, greatly suppressing Devil Fruit Users.
Just like in the original story, Smoker looked wild and unruly, with three cigars clenched between his teeth.
He really was not afraid of smoking himself to death.
"Major General Wilton!"
Although Smoker did as he pleased and refused to be restrained, he still showed the proper respect when meeting a superior. Seeing Wilton still working out, he immediately gave a military salute.
Wilton stopped and wiped away sweat that did not exist on his forehead. This sort of simple warm-up training was as easy as drinking water for him now.
He was only doing it to pass the time.
"Colonel Smoker, have a seat!"
As though this were his own office, Wilton picked up the tea Tashigi had prepared earlier and drained it in one gulp. Then he sat in the main seat and casually set the two dumbbells on the floor.
Smoker did not say anything. He merely sat in a nearby chair and puffed furiously on his cigars.
He had heard some rumors about Major General Wilton, but he had not taken them to heart. As a Logia-type Devil Fruit User, he possessed a certain sense of superiority and pride.
"I believe you already know why I came to Loguetown this time."
Wilton went straight to the point. Arlong was currently imprisoned in the Loguetown Marine base's jail. All Wilton had to do was take him away and escort him to Impel Down.
"Yes."
"I have already received orders from Headquarters. Arlong is currently in the base."
"Then make the arrangements. I'll escort Arlong to Impel Down first thing tomorrow morning."
"You're leaving so soon, Major General?"
Smoker was slightly taken aback. He truly had not expected Wilton to arrive in Loguetown today and leave the next morning. His efficiency was a little too high.
"A real man should act decisively. Besides, this place is too boring. It is nowhere near as lively as the Grand Line."
Wilton rolled his neck. He still preferred roaming the Grand Line, or split-pushing into pirate forces and taking their bases.
More importantly, he wanted to visit Impel Down, the World's Greatest Prison, as soon as possible.
"Understood."
After talking for a while.
Wilton took a stroll around the base. He also went to see Arlong in his cell, as well as Luffy, who was unconscious and hanging by a thread, and the heavily injured Zoro, Sanji, Nami, and Usopp.
If someone died, they could only blame their bad luck.
If Monkey D. Dragon did not show up in the end, he would not mind escorting the Straw Hat Pirates to Impel Down as well. They would end up there sooner or later anyway, so they might as well get in early and experience prison life.
Monkey D. Garp's bottom line was probably that Luffy could not die. Sending him to Impel Down or beating him half to death probably would not make that old man want to kill Wilton.
Besides, Wilton held the moral high ground. There was nothing wrong with what he had done. As a Marine, capturing or killing pirates was only natural.
I'm still not strong enough.
If I were strong enough, why would I need to be so restrained?
Reform the clown Marines that abet evil, overthrow and rebuild the World Government, wipe out the Celestial Dragons and pirates responsible for massacres and the destruction of nations, eliminate them all, and unite the world under a single voice—my voice. That would make things much more convenient.
One planet, over a thousand languages, tens of thousands of kingdoms. Wasn't that division? Wasn't that a betrayal of Mr. Win?
Before you continue