Four days later.
The sky stretched wide and endless, painted a clear, cloudless blue.
The sun burned bright at the horizon, spilling golden rays across the world, its warmth dissolving the last traces of morning mist.
Splash!
A gentle sea breeze rolled over the waves, ripples spreading in concentric circles. A massive Navy warship cut across the vast ocean, its bow splitting the sea, sending glittering sprays of water dancing into the air.
High above its mast, the white flag of the Marines billowed proudly—its seagull emblem gleaming under the sun. The banner of justice, flying where all could see.
But the Grand Line was a dangerous place. Without a log pose to guide the way, a ship could sail endlessly, doomed to wander until its crew withered away. Countless lives were lost each year to the sea's merciless vastness.
And worse still—this ocean was home to the most fearsome creatures of all.
The Sea Kings.
Monstrous beings, born of the deep, tens of meters long, with bodies vast enough to churn storms with the flick of a fin. Their shadows lurked beneath the surface even now, dark masses gliding through the cold abyss below the passing warship. Each one was a calamity waiting to strike.
No sailor could look at the water without fear.
On the warship's deck, however, one man slept without a care.
Vice Admiral Garp.
He sprawled across a sun chair, snoring thunderously, a massive bubble inflating and deflating from his nose. The sunlight poured down on his broad frame, and he basked in it like a lazy old lion.
No one dared disturb him. Not even Bogard, his right-hand man, who stood all the way on the other side of the deck, was careful not to wake his superior.
Only Kai remained in the open space of the deck—training.
"Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-three!
Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-four!
Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-five!"
With each count, his body dipped and rose again.
Sweat poured down his bare torso, muscles taut and corded, his back rippling with the terrifying lines of a demon's visage—his infamous Ghost Back.
On him hung three hundred kilograms of weighted training gear.
And even under that crushing load, in a single hour, he had forced his body through nearly three thousand push-ups.
The Marines aboard could only stare in awe.
Even Bogard, an elite among the Navy, felt his scalp prickle. Such training intensity was something no sane man would even attempt—yet Kai treated it as routine.
He trained like a man possessed. Like one who would rather die than waste a moment.
As though only by pushing himself to the brink of death could he truly live.
No one dared imitate him. But all watched.
And slowly, their awe turned to reverence.
It didn't take long for a nickname to spread through the ship.
"The Hardworking Genius."
For Kai was not merely a prodigy, a once-in-a-century talent destined to shine above all others.
He was a prodigy who never stopped training.
A genius who shed more sweat than any of them.
And that was what made him terrifying. That was what made him worthy of respect.
Because ordinary geniuses often grew arrogant, lazy, resting on their natural gifts.
But not Kai.
He had the talent to stand above the sea's countless warriors—
And still, he worked harder than anyone else.
Talent stacked atop relentless effort.
Gift fused with obsession.
It was a path only monsters could walk.
And so the Marines began to believe:
This boy… this monster… would one day be a name known across the seas. Perhaps even a hero greater than Garp himself.
Day after day, they saw it.
He rose earlier than them.
He trained harder than them.
He slept later than them.
The iron will of his training ground crushed into their bones.
And slowly… it began to change them too.
"Kai has talent I can't even dream of… and yet he still works harder than any of us. How can we dare slack off?"
"If a genius like him doesn't waste a second… then what excuse do we, the mediocre, have?"
"Face it—if even he can't become a true powerhouse, then no one in this sea can."
"This is what a real monster looks like. A genius who refuses to waste his gift!"
Their voices spread like wildfire.
And before long—
the entire warship was caught in his momentum.
Where once laziness lurked, now determination burned.
Where once excuses rang, now teeth were clenched and fists slammed into the deck in training.
Because when even a prodigy worked harder than anyone else—
How could the ordinary stand still?
Bogard, watching this from afar, couldn't help but chuckle bitterly.
"So this is the chain reaction of a genius, huh?"
His eyes slid back to the boy, still grinding through his training, sweat dripping, body straining, but never once stopping.
"This kid… he's going to drive every young man in this sea insane. When even geniuses work this hard… What chance do the rest of us have?"
Even he, a veteran officer, felt pressure mounting in his chest. A gnawing urge to drop everything and train alongside the rest.
In the end, Bogard could only shake his head with a wry smile.
The truth was simple:
The spirit of the entire warship… had been reshaped by one boy.
That was the influence of a true genius.
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