Night fell.
In the clearing before the castle, everyone sat around the bonfire once again, celebrating the day's battle.
"Mihawk did well today. To perform like that in his first real fight-he's certainly worthy of being Senior Saga's disciple."
Hawk Eyes's face reddened slightly, and he turned away. "I'm still a long way off."
Bullet took a large bite of roasted meat. "Those pirates were too weak. They weren't nearly enough of a fight."
"It's not that the pirates were too weak. We've gotten stronger. If we'd fought them when we first set sail, it would've taken us a lot more work."
"Tesoro's right. We really have improved a lot lately..."
Roy nodded in agreement, then changed the subject, his expression turning serious.
"This also reminds us that there's never a shortage of enemies on the sea. We have to keep getting stronger. I don't want us to be unable to take even one attack the next time we meet an enemy like Golden Lion."
"So I've decided. We'll train on the island for four years. When I turn sixteen, we'll officially set sail and form a real pirate crew. We'll make our names known throughout the world."
No one objected to Roy's decision.
The bonfire crackled, lighting up the determination on each of their faces.
"Four years..."
"That's enough time for our bodies to fully mature, and we can improve our strength more systematically, too. I don't want to hide behind the boss and Bullet in every fight."
Bullet patted Tesoro on the shoulder to comfort him, then grinned.
"When the time comes, I'm going to try my luck against Golden Lion again!"
Savi excitedly took Pea's hand and bounced up and down.
"That's great! Then we'll be a real pirate crew."
Stella opened the notebook in her hands and quickly wrote something down, her eyes shining with anticipation. Even Hawk Eyes, sitting nearby, unconsciously tightened his grip on Black Blade Yoru.
Saga sat to one side, listening to the young people's bold declarations, and couldn't help feeling happy for them.
Early the next morning, everyone gathered in front of the castle.
Roy had drawn up their training goals for the coming period.
"Our goal for the first year is to keep strengthening our bodies and training both types of Haki. When it comes to fighting, we'll go find the apes on the island."
"I'll cover a three-thousand-meter radius with gravity zones. Find the level that suits each of you."
"There's also developing your Devil Fruits. We're almost all Zoan users, so you just need to keep fighting."
"Got it!!"
Seeing that no one had any objections, Roy activated Gravity Domain and set up four separate zones.
There was triple gravity at the outermost edge, five times gravity in the second ring, eight times gravity where Roy stood, and a ten-times-gravity zone that Bullet had strongly insisted on.
The training that followed could only be called brutal. Every day before dawn, they each went to the gravity zone that suited them and exhausted their stamina like mad. Once they were completely drained, they found opponents for basic combat.
Sometimes they fought one-on-one; other times, Tesoro and the others "dueled" Bullet as a group.
While training his body, Roy also had to work on his swordsmanship and develop his fruit.
He was no longer satisfied with using Observation Haki to probe others' minds. He wanted to develop it toward Future Sight.
As for gravity, Roy already had area-wide gravity suppression and the single-target attack Singularity. Further development was too complicated, and he had no idea where to start.
For future development, he focused on manipulating external objects, aiming for finer control, a greater range, and a longer duration.
Ideally, he wanted to reach the level of Tatsumaki from One Punch, who could pull a meteor straight down from the sky or drag the Monster Association headquarters directly to the surface from several thousand meters underground.
After all, in a world covered in sea, being able to control seawater would be the ultimate cheat.
When the time came, every attack he made would send seawater surging, thousands or tens of thousands of meters of it crashing toward his enemies. What despair would that bring to those who lacked strength or were Devil Fruit Users?
Just picturing it made Roy happy.
At night, after the young people finished training, Saga would join them and recount his experiences traveling the seas in his youth or share his understanding of Haki.
"The highest level of Observation Haki is the ability to see the future, while the pinnacle of Armament Haki is making it flow to cause internal destruction..."
After experiencing Saga's internal-destruction attacks with Armament Haki several times, Roy and Bullet also began trying to make their Armament Haki flow.
With Roy's help, Hawk Eyes also experienced the sensation of Observation Haki and Armament Haki several times and successfully awakened them. All that remained was to hone his Haki.
In the second year, everyone began specializing in their own paths.
After breaking through to the swordsman level, Roy also began trying to perfectly integrate his fruit ability with his swordsmanship.
According to Saga, every great swordsman took a different path to breaking through. Only by finding one's own way of the sword could one reach that realm of swordsmanship.
Roy had no good solution for that. He could only fight more in the future and figure it out for himself.
As for his fruit ability, he activated Gravity Domain and used all his mental power to lift the entire island out of the sea, keeping it suspended in the air.
Whenever he could no longer hold on, the enormous commotion as the island fell back into the sea would send the apes into an uproar. They would then attack everyone training around the castle.
Roy was happy to see it.
Bullet continued training his body. During a conversation, he heard about Garp's training method.
He too began punching the mountainside every day without using Haki.
He had also adapted to ten times gravity and asked Roy to set up a twelve-times-gravity zone.
He never tired of it, day after day.
Since Tesoro had yet to eat a Devil Fruit, he could only focus on training his body and physical techniques. He had even managed to master Life Return.
Both types of his Haki had also improved markedly. All that remained was to hone them.
As Bullet's little fanboy, Savi gave Roy no cause to worry. Bullet had already laid out his training requirements for him.
He also had it the "worst" of everyone. After every physical training session, Bullet would "work him over," leaving him bruised and battered every time. Even Roy felt a little sorry for him.
Stella spent more of her time developing her fruit ability, integrating her magnetic field sensing more effectively with navigation.
Pea had the most leisurely time of all. Roy had set aside a separate gravity zone for him, where he cultivated all kinds of seeds and developed his ability. He had even created a small garden.
Saga would occasionally have tea and chat with the little fellow who resembled Roy.
Time flew, and the third year of training was drawing to a close. Everyone's strength had undergone a qualitative leap.
Early one morning, Roy stood atop the castle, his eyes closed in concentration.
The entire island, along with the seawater within three thousand meters around it, slowly rose under his control. It hovered silently two hundred meters above sea level, remaining steadily in place without the slightest sway.
Control on that scale had long since become routine. What he now sought was an improvement in precision.
Bullet was drenched in sweat in the fifteen-times-gravity zone. Every punch left a human-sized hole in the mountainside.
After three years of grueling training, his physique had grown frighteningly strong. One could imagine how much power he could unleash without the gravity weighing him down.
Deep in the forest, Roy and Hawk Eyes could now spar for an entire day.
Each had his own strengths in swordsmanship. Roy incorporated his fruit ability into his swordplay, while Hawk Eyes's sword techniques grew ever sharper.
"It's not enough!" Hawk Eyes said after one sparring match. "I'm going to create my own way of the sword!"