This was Mantra!
It could predict physical movements in advance through body language, changes in facial expressions, and shifts in the mind.
It seemed that the Observation Haki he had learned this time through the Talisman of Insight had fully reached the intermediate level.
Anything the system produced was guaranteed to be top quality. That was the fucking truth.
"Oh, right, there's still a Talisman of Awakening. Using it releases the potential within the human body. This is the perfect chance to check whether I'm a one-in-a-million possessor of Conqueror's Haki!"
Bai Yu remembered the talisman still lying in the system. He was still missing one of the three types of Haki.
When it came to using cheats like this, he acted as soon as the thought struck.
A proper cheat user had to do things like a badass!
"Bai Yu! Where's that brat Bai Yu?"
Garp charged out of the tavern door in a single stride, unleashing his Observation Haki without restraint.
He had only one goal now: find Bai Yu as quickly as possible and resolve his shock.
"Over by the rocks!"
Garp quickly picked up Bai Yu's figure.
Facing the figure hiding behind the rocks several dozen meters away, his back turned toward him,
Garp had only one thought: to verify Bogard's words.
When someone faced a lethal attack, they would absolutely unleash every means at their disposal without holding anything back.
Now he needed to force Bai Yu to use Armament Haki.
That meant this punch had to be fast, precise, and ruthless!
Bang!
A sonic boom abruptly rang through the air.
Garp vanished from where he stood like a phantom.
In another blink, he was already behind Bai Yu.
His five fingers clenched, and a thick layer of Armament Haki rapidly coated his iron fist.
Without the slightest flourish, he raised it and hammered it down toward Bai Yu's back with all his might.
In Bogard's eyes, that punch could absolutely smash a Sea King apart with ease.
If Bai Yu did not use Armament Haki at this critical juncture, he would probably end up dead or severely injured.
He would be sent flying far away by that one punch.
However, just as that thought flashed through Garp's and Bogard's minds,
Bai Yu, seated on the rocks, merely gave his shoulders a slight twitch.
As though he had foreseen it, he instinctively turned sideways, narrowly slipping past the incomparably fierce iron fist covered in Armament Haki.
Garp was dumbfounded.
That precise misjudgment left him unable to pull back his iron fist, which had burst forth at full speed in his urgency.
A deafening explosion rang out.
Garp crashed headfirst through numerous rocks, his entire body smashing into the sea like a depth charge.
He blasted up an enormous wave through sheer force.
Bai Yu looked utterly stunned.
He had just been using the Talisman of Awakening, trying to feel whether a little cosmos would erupt inside him.
After awakening Observation Haki, his perception of danger had undoubtedly been amplified a hundredfold.
Faced with Garp's sudden sneak attack,
before he himself could react, his thoughts and body had already moved first.
By the time he thought of his earlier plan to play dumb and soothe Bogard's fragile heart, it was already too late.
Watching Garp smash headfirst into the sea like a depth charge, blasting countless fish belly-up,
Bai Yu could not help giving a dry cough.
"Old man, can we discuss something? To keep Mr. Bogard's fragile heart from getting hurt again."
"Could you not tell him that I accidentally learned Observation Haki too?"
Bang!
Garp burst straight out of the water.
He landed right in front of Bai Yu, all sorts of expressions rapidly alternating across his old face.
Joy, anger, excitement, exhilaration, and more flashed across his face in quick succession. His control over his expressions completely collapsed.
Only after a full five or six seconds did Garp finally burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! My grandson is a genius! No, a born monster! Accidentally learning Observation Haki too-only you have the right to say something like that!"
"Never mind Bogard's fragile heart. Even this old man's heart nearly couldn't take it. I almost passed out from excitement!"
"But I've got some bad news for you. Bogard is standing right behind you. Even if I don't tell him, he probably already knows."
Bogard's chest kept heaving.
As he gasped for breath, his body trembled slightly too.
On his way out of the tavern, he had indeed been fantasizing that Bai Yu had not mastered Observation Haki.
That he could still salvage a little of his dignity as an instructor.
Now it seemed a fantasy was indeed just a fantasy.
If Mr. Garp had not been unable to resist launching a sneak attack to test him,
he would still have been kept in the dark by this monstrous brat's little performance.
He might even have ended up suffering the ultimate public humiliation later.
"No, brat. I still have to test whether you really learned Observation Haki after hearing about it just once. If you can't dodge my attack, you'll die."
Bogard came back to his senses and immediately lost his composure.
His body flickered, bursting into extreme speed as he appeared in front of Bai Yu first.
His right hand reached toward his waist, and his Famous Sword instantly left its sheath.
"One Sword Style: Starlight!"
Bang!
With a single thrust, sword light filled the sky, seeming to transform into a myriad of stars as it poured straight toward Bai Yu.
The density of the attack would have left any target caught beneath it-even Garp-with a sense of suffocation.
Bai Yu took a swig of liquor, looking somewhat helpless.
He had originally planned to hide it from Bogard and protect his fragile heart.
He had never expected things to develop to this point.
But now that things had come to this, Bai Yu could only put those thoughts aside and push his Observation Haki to its limit.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Bai Yu dodged the thrusts filling the sky like countless stars, one after another.
With those beautiful predictions, some attacks missed him by no more than a hair's breadth.
Once Bai Yu had dodged every attack, only Garp and Bogard remained there with stiff expressions.
"Bogard, do you think Bai Yu cultivated his Observation Haki to the intermediate level as soon as he started? Why do those predictions look nothing like a beginner's?"
Garp was the first to break his silence.
After learning from Makino that Bai Yu mooched drinks every day,
Garp had completely accepted that Bai Yu was a self-taught genius swordsman.
For some people, even spending their entire lives refining a single thing to its utmost was already difficult.
For Bai Yu to have reached the level of Swordmaster in swordsmanship at the age of twenty was already heaven-defying.
So Garp did not believe Bai Yu had also had the time to comprehend two types of Haki on his own.
There was only one explanation.
Bai Yu had just learned two types of Haki, while also bringing his Observation Haki to the intermediate level.
Bogard also wore an expression as though he had seen a ghost as he spoke.
"Such precise predictions, that way of moving second yet arriving first-those are absolutely the hallmarks of intermediate Observation Haki."
"If people outside found out that someone learned two types of Haki after hearing about them just once, and even reached the intermediate level in Observation Haki, who knows what expressions they would make?"
"The only consolation is that the remaining Conqueror's Haki isn't something you can comprehend through training. It's an innate... disposition!"
At this point, Bogard instinctively glanced at Bai Yu, an exceedingly strange expression spreading across his face as he stammered.
"Mr. Garp, do you think Bai Yu could have the disposition of a conqueror too?"