Schrift

"Aagh!!!"

Keel suddenly let out a scream. His voice was excessively hoarse, his body trembled slightly, and the pistols clutched in his hands fell to the ground one after the other.

He seemed to be undergoing some kind of torture, as if his soul had been forcibly dragged out and thrown into a pot of boiling oil.

After a long while, the strange phenomenon finally subsided somewhat. His head hung low, his whole posture making him look as though he were kneeling in worship before Kaya.

Neither of them spoke. Kaya was simply giving him time to adjust.

Hoo~~

Keel slowly breathed out and opened his eyes again. Beneath his sunglasses, a dark green gleam flashed in his eyes.

He stood up, looked at his hands, then clenched them into fists, as if feeling for something.

"Spiritual Power. Is this the power you were talking about?"

He could sense the little lives active in the air around him. If the whole world were a vast pond, then Spiritual Power was leaping without pause like lively fish.

He had indeed heard what Kaya and Kaido said, but he had not believed Kaya at all.

He had assumed it was some kind of ability Kaya possessed, which he intended to use to trick Kaido into becoming his subordinate. Sharing power was even more absurd.

But as the saying went, without firsthand experience, one had no right to speak. Once he experienced the truth for himself, he understood.

It's true! Everything Kaya said is true!

"So beings like Quincy actually exist in this world? That really is..." Keel trailed off, perhaps unsure how best to describe how he felt now.

"Just think of Reishi as another kind of Haki, and Quincy as another race," Kaya said.

"Spiritual Power? Oh, Reishi, right?"

"It doesn't matter if you call it Spiritual Power. It doesn't matter even if you call it a superpower. You're free to call it whatever you like."

"A superpower... a power that surpasses those of Devil Fruit Users? That's pretty arrogant."

"Whether it's arrogance or fact, feel it for yourself."

Keel had no answer to that. His senses really were sharper, and he could feel that entirely new power flowing through his body, through his veins.

He took a deep breath. There was nothing else to say about it; he might as well accept reality. He already had the power.

With that thought, he formed a Spirit Bow.

This Spirit Bow looked different from those of ordinary Quincy. It was dark green all over, with black lines along its edges and four limbs crossing at the center to form an X.

"My nickname is the Gun King, but now I have to switch to a bow and arrow. It's a strange feeling-natural and unfamiliar at the same time." Keel toyed with the Spirit Bow and gave it a casual pull, drawing out a pale green bowstring.

He turned the bow, aimed past Kaya at the distance, and released it. An arrow shot out.

He raised a hand to his forehead and looked out. He could see the arrow flying far away, trailing a long tail of flame before crashing down like a meteor and destroying a multistory building.

He continued playing, flicking his fingers rapidly and firing dozens of arrows in every direction.

Kaya was in no hurry and watched quietly from the side.

Keel played for quite a while before stopping and saying with a smile, "Not bad!"

The Quincy's way of fighting had entered his body along with that cup of blood wine, so he did not have to figure it out from scratch and could master it quickly.

His head had felt as though it were splitting, causing him to scream, only because his brain had received too much information in such a short time.

"If the bow doesn't suit you, why not switch to guns?" Kaya said, making Keel pause.

Quincy were a race that fought with bows and arrows... That was what Keel had thought, but Kaya's words made him understand something.

He stared at the Spirit Bow in his hand, trying to break down its form and transform it into another.

He succeeded easily. The Spirit Bow split into two small masses of green light, which landed in his hands. They gradually became solid, taking the form of two flintlock pistols.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang~

He suddenly raised his guns and fired wildly in every direction. One Reishi projectile after another flew out, so many that it was like several basins of water being thrown out all at once.

Each bullet was a drop of water. The Reishi bullets intertwined in a dense mass, forming a great expanse of green raindrops when viewed from afar.

Keel had finally had his fun. What could be better than pistols that never needed reloading?

Of course, there was a cost.

Whether manipulating Reishi into simple shapes or using it directly to attack, it took mental effort, and a prolonged battle would consume stamina as usual.

"Don't just play with those. Awaken the deeper power within you," Kaya advised.

Keel put away the pistols. They came together and compressed to the utmost, becoming a silver chain that he casually fastened around his wrist.

He followed Kaya's advice and closed his eyes, delving deep into the power within his soul as though looking inward.

He saw it: a gigantic letter!

If his inner world were an ocean, then that letter was an island at its center, giving off a dazzling light like the sun.

His eyes snapped open, and a pair of light beams shot out of them, piercing straight through his sunglasses!

He jumped in fright. Looking at the sunglasses as they fell from his face, their lenses now reduced to two empty holes, he swallowed and could not help looking up at Kaya.

"A Schrift. I inscribed a letter on your soul, and you'll possess the ability associated with that Schrift," Kaya explained.

The ability he possessed to distribute pieces of his soul had multiple uses, such as healing through contact.

When someone touched him, he could split off a piece of his soul to fill a gap in the toucher's soul, gradually healing their existing psychological or physical defects.

Another use was inscribing a Schrift. The soul of a person who drank the blood wine would be marked by him with a letter bearing an ability.

Once the letter took form, he could send an even greater power directly into the body of the person who had drunk the blood wine.

It was just that ordinary Quincy could not withstand it.

"A Schrift?" Keel looked thoughtful.

"This is a power ordinary Quincy can't bear. Since you're qualified, you're a member of the Sternritter from now on," Kaya continued.

"All right, boss!" A smile appeared on Keel's face, though the cold sweat on his forehead gave him away. "So what do we do? How about calling Kaido back and killing him, so he can't sell us out?"

Kaya glanced at Keel. Presumably, Keel was chatting and laughing on the surface, but was terrified inside.

He did not actively grant anyone a Schrift. As long as someone was suited to possess that power, the corresponding Schrift would naturally awaken.

Come to think of it, he himself had a Schrift too: "A." He just could not activate it yet.

He did not know what the unlocking conditions were, but he imagined that when all the members of the Sternritter assembled, his would fall into place as the final Schrift.

A Quincy who had been granted a Schrift had a deeper connection to Kaya.

"Boss?" Keel called cautiously.

"Do as you like. If you can kill Kaido, go ahead." Kaya shook out his cloak and leaped down from the skull-shaped rocky mountain.

"Can I reveal this power?!" Keel hurried after him for a few steps and shouted at his retreating figure.

Kaya did not look back, or even answer him.

Kaya soon disappeared among the rows of buildings below. Keel stood where he was for quite a while before his clenched fist opened in resignation.

"All right, all right. I only jumped from one pirate ship to another. There isn't much difference, right?"

It was unclear whom he was talking to, or perhaps he was talking to himself. "Anyway, I got a new power, so I can say I made a big profit this time!"

Keel Bastar-Schrift "X," The X-Axis!