"Oh? A Devil Fruit power? Alex, you've got a Devil Fruit too?"
At that moment, Rear Admiral Bastille, striding across the battleship's deck, overheard Smoker's exclamation and turned to Alex, his curiosity piqued with a spark of intrigue.
Devil Fruits, rare treasures of the sea, each granted a unique ability. Some, especially the mightiest, were coveted by all who sailed.
As a rear admiral, Bastille was well aware of their mission's goal: to seize the Smoke-Smoke Fruit, a Natural-type Devil Fruit that the Donquixote Family had offered to the Beasts Pirates.
"Well, my Devil Fruit lets me control magnetic forces…" Alex nodded, his tone casual. Since Garp already knew, he saw no need to conceal such a power.
"Magnetic control? That's a strong ability. If honed well, it could be a swordsman's worst nightmare," Rear Admiral Bastille remarked, his seasoned insight evident as he nodded approvingly.
His gaze flicked to the White Dragon sword at Alex's waist. A swordsman himself, he couldn't help but note the irony.
"So, Vice Admiral Garp gave me this chain mail and told me to use my magnetism to adjust its weight daily for training," Alex explained.
Nearly two months had passed since he arrived in the One Piece world. Except when sleeping, when his ability deactivated, Alex constantly bore the chain mail's weight, accelerating his fatigue during training.
This relentless regimen fooled Smoker into thinking Alex's workouts were light, yet his rapid growth told a different story.
"Then how about using your power to add weight to my sword? I want 110 kilograms!" Smoker, now grasping Alex's training intensity, refused to be outdone. He demanded a weight heavier than Alex's, his competitive spirit flaring.
"Sure, add some weight for me too!" Rear Admiral Bastille chimed in, his voice eager.
In regular training, lugging heavy weights was cumbersome. Alex's magnetic ability offered a seamless solution, and Bastille wasn't about to miss out.
This magnetic control, beyond its combat potential, proved a game-changer for everyday training.
From then on, Alex not only managed the magnetic pressure for his and Lily's chain mail but also juggled weights for Smoker and Rear Admiral Bastille. Days blurred into a cycle of intense training. As he practiced, Alex's mastery of his Magneto-derived ability surged.
He bore the weights during meals, rest, and even personal moments, weaving training into every facet of life. The results of this constant strain were undeniable.
Through their shared training, Alex, Smoker, and Rear Admiral Bastille grew closer, their camaraderie strengthening with each sweat-soaked session.
During this time, Alex seized every chance to probe deeper into physical training techniques.
Most crucially, he posed questions about mastering Haki, eager to unlock its secrets.
He had copied Garp's Armament Haki skills, a massive 13G file, but without Haki in his body, it sat unused on his D drive, a mere trophy. Alex was determined to cultivate Haki himself.
When Alex asked about Armament Haki training, Rear Admiral Bastille cautioned that his current physique was too weak for Haki cultivation but shared the methods and principles openly, holding nothing back.
From Rear Admiral Bastille's explanation, Alex finally grasped what Haki was—a latent power buried deep within the human body.
More precisely, it was a fusion of one's spiritual will and physical strength, a harmony of mind and body.
"Not just physical strength, but spiritual power too?" Alex mused silently, absorbing Bastille's words.
It made sense. In the One Piece world, Natural Fruit users' elemental forms dodged physical attacks. If Armament Haki were purely physical, it wouldn't counter them. Spiritual power bridged that gap.
"Wait a second—internal force is born from the body. Could it substitute for Haki's physical component? If I blend spiritual power with my internal force, using Haki's cultivation method, could I forge Haki faster?" A sudden spark of inspiration flared in Alex's mind.
The Yi Jin Jing touched lightly on spiritual training, as Buddhist practices often emphasized mental clarity, though not deeply.
In the days that followed, Alex shifted his focus to honing the Yi Jin Jing's spiritual exercises, particularly the sea of consciousness, while also pursuing Haki cultivation.
As Alex dedicated himself to Haki training, both Rear Admiral Bastille and Smoker noticed. They shook their heads, voicing their doubts about his approach.
In their view, Alex's physique fell short of the threshold for Armament Haki. Based on his training, he'd need two or three more years to even qualify.
But Alex brushed off their warnings.
People in this world focused solely on physical strength, but Alex, steeped in the martial arts world, trained both internally and externally—a massive edge. Their conventional wisdom didn't apply to him.
Thus, after a week of relentless effort and countless attempts, Alex sensed his internal force begin to shift, transforming subtly.
Then, a faint, invisible aura materialized across his skin, intangible yet undeniable.
"Haki! It worked!?" Feeling the change, Alex's heart surged with exhilaration.
Though this Haki was still feeble, he had Garp's copied Armament Haki skills to wield it.
If Red-Haired Shanks boasted the strongest Conqueror's Haki in One Piece, Alex believed Garp's Armament Haki might rival it as the pinnacle of its kind!
Garp's Armament Haki file was 13G, while Bastille's, which Alex had checked days earlier, was a mere 3G—a stark gap.
With Haki awakened, Garp's copied skills now had a purpose.
Activating the skills, Alex effortlessly guided the Haki, compressing and channeling it to his fingertips.
Visibly, the tip of his index finger darkened, as if dipped in ink, a clear sign of Armament Haki's hardening effect!
"It worked, hahaha…"
After a week of training, using the Yi Jin Jing's internal force as a catalyst, he'd sparked a trace of Haki and wielded it with Garp's skills. Seeing his blackened fingertip, Alex burst into joyful laughter.
"This… this can't be! He actually did it, mastering Armament Haki in just one week?"
Rear Admiral Bastille stared at Alex's finger, frozen in shock, his jaw dropping like a stunned statue…
The index finger has three segments, and though Alex's current Armament Haki could only blacken the very tip, this faint Haki was fragile.
Yet, condensing Haki at all marked a monumental breakthrough.
As his training deepened in the days ahead, his Haki would grow fiercer and more formidable.
Truth be told, Armament Haki was a hallmark of One Piece's world, a versatile power. Coating fists or weapons with it amplified their destructive force, while cloaking the body bolstered defense. Best of all, it could strike the elusive elemental forms of Natural Fruit users—a truly indispensable ability.
"Is this what a genius looks like?" Smoker stood slack-jawed beside Alex, stunned to see him awaken Armament Haki in just one week.
He was still grappling with mastering the Navy Six Powers, yet Alex had already forged Haki? Armament Haki was a skill even lieutenant-grade officers might lack!
"With your physique, you actually cultivated Haki? I clearly underestimated you…" Rear Admiral Bastille said, his face alight with astonishment.
First, Alex had mastered Haki in a mere week—an unheard-of talent. Had anyone in the Navy's long history ever achieved such a feat?
Second, in Rear Admiral Bastille's estimation, Alex's physique fell short of Haki's demands, yet he'd triumphed against all odds.
Naturally, the news that Alex had learned Armament Haki in just one week sent shockwaves through the entire battleship, igniting a frenzy.
The Navy Six Powers were notoriously tough to learn, but could they compare to the challenge of Armament Haki?
To master Armament Haki in a single week? Was that even humanly possible?
Not just the rank-and-file soldiers on the battleship, but even Vice Admiral Kuzan himself was roused, seeking out Alex personally to witness his Armament Haki in action.
Alex focused his Haki to his fingertips, and instantly, the tips gleamed pitch-black, like polished obsidian.
"Well, well, that's definitely Armament Haki. Your talent is a once-in-a-century marvel in the Navy…"
Kuzan, gazing at Alex's darkened fingertips, showered him with unreserved praise, bestowing an extraordinarily high.
Perhaps some in the Navy could grasp Armament Haki swiftly, but those were titans—officers of general or colonel rank—whose robust strength made Haki second nature, yielding results with half the effort.
But for a Navy rookie like Alex, to learn Armament Haki in just one week was unprecedented. Calling him a genius rare in a hundred years was no overstatement.
More strikingly, Kuzan's keen eyes discerned that, despite Alex's faint Haki, he already wielded masterful control, condensing and shaping it with precision—a feat that left Kuzan reeling.
Haki, an intangible force, was notoriously hard to tame. Even those who awakened it often needed years to compress and darken it into its signature form.
Yet Alex, with barely a wisp of Haki, displayed elite control from the start. That was the most jaw-dropping aspect of all.
"You slackers! Get your ass together and train harder! Double the drills today! A rookie's mastering Armament Haki faster than you—aren't you embarrassed?" Spurred by Alex's feat, another rear admiral on the battleship bellowed at the soldiers, his voice booming with fiery urgency.
"Yes…" the Navy soldiers replied, their voices feeble and deflated.
Part was the dread of doubled training, and part was the crushing awe of Alex's genius, which shook their very sense of reality, as if their worldview had crumbled.
"This kid's a prodigy beyond measure…" Kuzan's eyes gleamed with wonder as he gazed at Alex, his esteem for the young Marine's talent surging higher in his heart.