19 Chapter 19

19

A week later,

In a forest clearing, one could see a strawhat-wearing young man training under the hot sun.

Luffy's body was drenched with sweat as he disappeared from his spot, appearing a bit far from his initial position. Before again disappearing from his spot and appearing elsewhere. It looked as if he was blitzing from one place to another in quick succession.

From his bulky muscles, it was obvious he was in his in-gear one state.

"And… 500." With that Luffy almost collapsed to the floor.

He panted looking down as he pulled out the small stopwatch, which he paused. "Almost one-minute improvement for last time… That's quite a lot. And to top it all off, I only failed seven times… okay maybe eight." He said while he panting, a grin plastered on his face. "If I keep this up, my soru will get even faster…"

Luffy sat down on the ground, as he took the water bottle from the bag with his stretched arm.

His legs burned with lactic acid because of the insane workout. He wiped his sweat as he gulped down the water bottle… It was also a good thing that he could keep up in his gear one state longer.

The thing about his devil fruit was that he could… even now go gear second and third if he wanted to. His body was that of rubber, the original Luffy didn't have those concepts in him till much later.

But he did from the very beginning. But that didn't mean he could use them in combat. He was willing to try gear third if he felt like it, but gear second needed him to be much better.

If his gear one was anything to go by, the rapid increase of blood flow would might knock him out instantly. Too much blood flow for a brain was bad, even if he had a rubber brain. There was something telling him that he needed to be a bit more strong, before he could use gear second. But mastering would take time.

But that didn't mean he hadn't improved. No… he definitely did.

It's been what… over a year since he came to this world, and by his estimation, he was over Luffy's level when he started his journey. And that was a milestone for him. Bogard's training really pushed him a lot.

He was actually glad that he was getting such results. But it also made sense.

The Canon Luffy only trained with forest animals and basic training. While he had been pushing his body to the brink of exhaustion from day one. Using the sea weakness method, he gained a tremendous amount of strength. And the training with Bogard covered the experience part.

"Training smart is really is the key, even in the one-piece world." The boy mused. "Well, it's good to be smart then…"

He got up from the ground and he stretched his hands to his bag, bringing a used-looking book with a marine symbol on it. This book was the rokushiki book.

And no it wasn't a gift from Bogard or Garp. It was actually from Shanks.

When he spoke to Shanks over the transponder snail Luffy boldly asked the yonko to send him to marine techniques or any other techniques if was willing to share. What? He was going to take shortcuts to strength if the opportunity arose.

He had a bigger dream than the canon Luffy. He just didn't want to be the pirate king. No, he wanted to be the strongest man or creature alive, he wanted to have the strongest possible crew that would shake the seas. He wanted much more… and so he was going to take every opportunity he gets.

Shanks was a bit surprised by the request, but agreed. In the new world, that type of technique wasn't cheap, but the man would pull some strings for him.

Actually, he wasn't going to lie, he actually asked for a training manual for Haki at first. Which made the yonko laugh his ass of, it seemed there was no such thing there.

It seems that all the fanfics he read in the real world was wrong. Haki needed to be learnt. As most Haki users learned it themselves or were taught by someone.

That's why Luffy asked Shanks for the Rokushiki manual. And thank god Shanks knew a person in his crew who could help with that. And so Luffy would need to wait a month for the delivery to arrive in secure lines.

He actually got the book a few days later after Bogard and Garp left. And this book was a lifesaver. He was sure he could have figured out all of the rokushiki techniques over the years but this book skipped the trial-and-error process.

When all things are considered, in the future this thing was more valuable than gold. His crewmates would need this if they wanted to survive in the grand line.