After entering the Grand Line, the warship spent most of its time sailing at sea, following the Log Pose. It only stopped at islands when supplies ran short. Sometimes it restocked at Marine Bases; other times, the Marines aboard hunted or bought what they needed.
Whenever they went ashore, Vic would head out and wander around, seeing the local sights and customs, collecting rare metals, and sampling the local food. If they reached an island where pirates had landed, he would rob them of their gold, silver, and jewels and exchange them for money. He needed a lot of rare metals now, so he needed money badly.
Most of the remaining time was spent facing the monotonous ocean. There was nothing worth looking at; he had long since seen enough of it.
When boredom struck, he could only pass the time by training. Vic seemed welded to the deck. Through wind and rain, snow and frost, he never moved from his spot.
He contemplated nature, felt the Breath of All Things, and strengthened his body. Neither Garp nor Tsuru made a fuss over his actions, and they told everyone else not to disturb Vic without reason.
Garp and Tsuru now knew how Vic trained himself. He treated his body not as flesh and blood, but as steel, hammering and tempering it until it was fit for use.
The others, however, were astonished by Vic's behavior. They had never heard of such a training method, and ordinary people simply couldn't endure it. The Grand Line's weather was unpredictable, and an ordinary person would fall ill after two or three days. Yet Vic hadn't even changed his clothes, looking like an old monk deep in meditation.
"How many days has Vic been in that position?" a voice asked.
"Close to ten or twenty days, I think. He doesn't move except to eat. What kind of monster is he?" another voice replied.
"It's not that he hasn't moved. You just didn't see him when he did! One night, I woke up needing to pee, and when I got up to go, I saw..."
The voice trembled a little, though it was still rough. It was just hard to tell whether the trembling came from needing to pee or from fear.
"What did you see? Spit it out! Quit dragging it out like a woman..." Someone was growing impatient.
"I fucking am a woman! Can't you tell men from women? If you don't need those eyeballs, why not scoop them out and feed them to the fish?" the rough voice rang out again.
Everyone stared at her, looking her up and down, left and right, but they still couldn't find a single sign that she was a woman. That build, that dark skin, that broad square face, that rough voice-it really wasn't their fault nobody had recognized her as a woman. Once every impossibility had been eliminated, whatever remained, however improbable, had to be the truth.
"Forget whether she's a man or a woman. Hurry up and tell us what you saw," someone said, bringing the conversation back on track. They couldn't tell anyway, so why dwell on it? The conversation had gone completely off course.
"I'll settle the score with you lot later. Hmph... I saw Vic pull a Sea King out of the water-a Sea King with no head..." The memory of the scene almost made her need to pee again. It had been too shocking: he had sliced it up and eaten the raw meat, just like a wild beast.
Actually, Vic simply wanted to replenish his Primal Spirit, speed up the recovery and growth of his Observation Haki, and improve his physical condition.
Vic could still enter the sea, and he went down into the depths to train his body. This could also give Garp and Tsuru the impression that he hadn't eaten a Devil Fruit.
Whenever Vic entered the sea, he used Observation Haki to sense large Sea Kings. If he detected one, he would hunt it down. If there were no Sea Kings, he would go after large sea beasts instead.
Sea Kings were far too huge, and cooking them aboard the ship at night was difficult, so he could only resort to the most primitive method: eating slices of raw fish.
He could eat so much now that he had practically trained his stomach into a bottomless pit. Apart from some he saved for Rebecca and Garp, he swallowed it all, converting it into energy stored in his body.
"Is Vic really that strong? He can even hunt Sea Kings? I saw him in action when we hunted on the islands. He was quick and efficient, but those animals weren't very strong. I could have killed them too," someone said doubtfully.
"Tch, some people's strength is beyond your understanding. He could hunt those animals because there was nothing stronger around. You could hunt them because that's your limit. You even came back with injuries. What about him? He was as relaxed as if he were sightseeing, strolling around like he was visiting his own chicken farm. How can you compare?" It was the woman who had wanted to pee again.
"Look, I think you should stop talking so much. I heard from a veteran on the warship that Vic once fought Vice Admiral Garp for several hours. Could an ordinary monster do that? He's a major monster," someone revealed.
"Tch, I thought you were going to say he was a freak of nature, you bastard!" someone grumbled.
Vic naturally sensed all of it with his Observation Haki, but it didn't stir any emotions in him. He had been able to fight old man Garp for several hours because Garp wanted to test his strength. Otherwise, it would have taken only one punch. One-Punch Man wasn't just an empty title.
Vic was currently building up his strength, saving it to unleash at a crucial moment. Although he didn't know the secret to awakening Armament Haki, he knew a strong body was surely the most basic requirement.
He had asked Garp how to awaken Armament Haki, but Garp had merely scratched his head and said with a foolish grin, "I don't know either. I awakened it by accident while beating up Roger. Hitting people with that stuff hurts quite a bit, so I like using it."
Vic thought Garp was just showing off. Why didn't he mention that he had beaten the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, to tears?
Vic knew that expecting someone like Garp to study the theory before awakening Haki was utterly unnecessary. He didn't need any of that. When the time came, he would punch it right out.
Vic thought he should be that sort of person too. He had simply been in too few fights, and there was no one to knock open the door to Armament Haki for him. When would he finally break that door down? It troubled Vic greatly.
If others knew what was troubling Vic, they would probably drown him in spit. A well-fed man didn't know how hungry a starving man was. What a scumbag.
Garp couldn't guide Vic at the moment either. He wasn't very good at teaching theory; his way of guiding someone was through actual combat. But the ship couldn't withstand the two of them going at it, so Garp could only practice throwing cannonballs occasionally. He was bored and kept hoping to run into a few groups of pirates to play with.
Rebecca was now being taught by Granny Tsuru, whose instruction was much more thorough. Much of what Vic had told Rebecca before was based only on a general understanding, so he could teach her only about swordsmanship and physical conditioning.
Now Granny Tsuru's teaching was far more comprehensive. Rebecca was a young woman and couldn't stay out in the wind and sun with him, and he didn't want her to either. So Rebecca spent much of her time in the cabin, coming out onto the deck to practice swordsmanship.
Finally, a month later, the warship reached the waters around Sabaody. From a distance, they could see the towering Yarukiman Mangroves and the large bubbles reflecting multicolored light. It looked quite dreamlike.
The warship would stay here for a day, and everyone was free to go about as they pleased. The clerk warned them not to venture too far inland, then dismissed them.
The warship docked on the stretch of land from 51GR to 60GR, also known as Area 60. A Marine Base and government offices were stationed here, making it one of the safer areas in the Sabaody Archipelago.
This was where the islands of the Grand Line's first half converged-the Sabaody Archipelago. Everyone who wanted to reach the New World had to pass through here.
Those with the connections and means took the route across the Red Line. It was troublesome but safe. Pirates mostly took the underwater route through Fish-Man Island. That route was dangerous, and most ships would disappear into history.
The powers on these islands were a complicated mix. It could be described as a hotbed of all sorts, good and bad, human and otherwise.
Marines, the World Government, pirates, human traffickers, underworld forces, merchants, Pirate Hunters... and more. It could be called the single most tangled and complicated place in the entire pirate world.
Even the Marines couldn't control it, and Celestial Dragons came here from time to time to throw their weight around and make the rounds.
Vic had a poor impression of the place, but he still wanted to see whether it had any rare metals. After all, there was likely a better chance of finding them here. If nothing else, gathering some information about metals would be good too.