In his previous life, Zesi had been a bartender at a distillery, so brewing alcohol was naturally no challenge for him.
After joining the Roger Pirates, he brought some equipment aboard, and all sorts of fragrant, mellow drinks soon appeared.
On top of that, Zesi knew how to mix cocktails, so he could serve different drinks every day.
Before long, Zesi had become close with everyone in the Roger Pirates.
"Zesi, you're a Devil Fruit User, aren't you?" Rayleigh asked with a smile after taking a sip of the drink Zesi had served him.
"Yes, I ate the Tremor-Tremor Fruit!"
"The Tremor-Tremor Fruit? That Devil Fruit known as the suicide fruit?" Rayleigh asked, a little surprised.
"Zesi, you mustn't die!"
"If you die, what'll happen to my booze?"
"I can't do without your drinks anymore. Without them, I can't go on living!"
Several members of the Roger Pirates spoke with mournful faces.
"I'm not going to die!" Zesi said, rolling his eyes.
"That's good!"
"Great! Zesi isn't going to die, so I'll have booze to drink!"
"All right! Just in case, Zesi, brew some more good stuff and stockpile it!"
Everyone laughed and egged him on.
"Although the Tremor-Tremor Fruit is known as a suicide fruit that brings death to its user, I firmly believe it's a powerful Devil Fruit. I'll change everyone's current views. Because of me, this Devil Fruit will shake the world!" Zesi said.
"Haha, now that's bold!"
"Well said, Zesi!"
Everyone voiced their praise.
"That said, it's an undeniable fact that the Tremor-Tremor Fruit hurts its user while attacking the enemy. Although I've spent the past few years training to adapt to it, frequent, high-intensity use will still cause injuries to keep accumulating in my body. Once they finally flare up, I'm afraid even the best doctor won't be able to do anything!"
"So I have another purpose in setting out to sea this time: to find more ways to fight, as well as powers that can protect me from vibration damage, such as Haki. So, Captain, Mr. Rayleigh, I'd like you to teach me Haki," Zesi said.
"Hahaha! Why so formal, Zesi? We're crewmates! Don't worry, it's just Haki. Leave it to me!" Roger said with a laugh.
"Do you know how to teach it?" Rayleigh asked from beside him, rolling his eyes.
"Wahaha! Isn't that what you're here for?" Roger laughed.
Roger's Haki was very powerful.
But just because Roger could use it himself didn't mean he could teach others how to use Haki.
Roger's use of Haki relied more on feeling, more on bodily instinct.
Getting him to explain those feelings and instincts systematically in words was almost impossible.
It was like something that could only be understood, not conveyed in words.
So, if someone wanted him to teach them Haki, they would have to understand the feelings he described.
Rayleigh, however, was different.
Knowledgeable and thoughtful, Rayleigh could neatly sum up Haki's characteristics, along with some of his experiences using it.
He could even convey them to others through spoken and written words.
"All right. Starting tomorrow, I'll teach you how to use Haki!" Rayleigh readily agreed as well.
As they had said, since Zesi had joined the Roger Pirates, they were crewmates.
To them, nothing was more natural than crewmates helping one another and growing together.
After that, Zesi trained in Haki with Rayleigh every day whenever he wasn't brewing.
Three months passed in the blink of an eye.
Over those three months, Zesi, who had originally known nothing about Haki, had become quite proficient at using it, giving even his teacher Rayleigh a considerable shock.
In fact, Zesi's three years of constant vibration training with the Tremor-Tremor Fruit had already brought him to the point where he could awaken Armament Haki.
He simply hadn't known how to draw it out.
Now that Rayleigh was teaching him, he quickly learned Armament Haki.
As for Observation Haki...
Because Zesi was a transmigrator, his soul was already much stronger than other people's, making Observation Haki even easier to awaken.
It was just that his usual sensory abilities were already very strong.
On top of that, while developing his Tremor-Tremor Fruit abilities, he had used the principles of radar to develop a Vibration Sensing Radar using vibration waves.
With this Vibration Sensing Radar, he could sense places far, far away.
So, in practice, he hadn't had much need for Observation Haki. Otherwise, with the strength of his soul, he would have awakened it long ago.
Now, with Rayleigh's guidance and instruction, he set aside his usual senses to train his Observation Haki, and it soon awakened.
But from awakening Haki to becoming reasonably proficient at using it, Zesi had taken only three months.
Not only Rayleigh but everyone else in the Roger Pirates was shocked. Even Roger was surprised.
After all, reaching this level would take an ordinary person at least three to five years. Even Roger himself had taken over a year.
Yet Zesi had taken only three months, and he hadn't even spent all of those three months training his Haki.
Instead, he had trained while brewing drinks for them.
He also went to bed on time as usual and joined them in having fun whenever they gathered for meals and banquets.
So he had only spent about half that time actually training.
As though it were a game, he had easily gained control over Armament and Observation Haki.
If they hadn't watched Zesi learn to control Haki step by step from scratch, they would have thought he was deceiving them and had actually learned it long ago.
What they didn't know was that Zesi had learned to divide his attention between two tasks back when he first started using the Tremor-Tremor Fruit to train his body.
After his vibration training reached a certain level, to better adapt to the damage caused by the vibrations...
He needed to use the Vibration Fruit to vibrate his body twenty-four hours a day, further improving his body's tolerance for vibrations.
To subject his body to the same intensity of vibrations while eating, walking, and even fighting...
Zesi had gradually mastered dividing his attention between two tasks for training.
Eventually, he had even reached the point where he instinctively used the Vibration Fruit to vibrate his body, never stopping his training even while asleep.
So, although he might look as though he was brewing, eating, or even playing around, his Haki training never stopped for a moment.
Armament Haki in particular, once he became proficient in it, became instinctive to train, circulating through his body almost twenty-four hours a day.
That was how he had managed to become proficient in controlling Haki within three months.
After learning Haki, Zesi also asked Rayleigh to teach him swordsmanship.
Besides having powerful Haki, Rayleigh was also a top-tier great swordsman.
Zesi had long since decided that swordsmanship was something he had to learn.
Swordsmanship would not only give him more ways to fight and improve his combat strength.
Using his Devil Fruit in conjunction with weapons such as swords could also alleviate the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's recoil to some extent.
So, given the chance to learn from Rayleigh, he naturally wouldn't pass up the opportunity to study swordsmanship.
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