Chapter 60: Time Flies

He awakened two skills at once, and even in its cub state, their power was already this great.

And this was merely a primary bloodline talent.

Comparing humans to wolves was truly infuriating; Siano looked at the little one before him and felt a twinge of envy.

He couldn't comprehend them directly; he had to rely on arduous cultivation to improve his strength.

"We'll use this move, but if you keep spitting like that, you'll probably shut down after a few tries, right? So just use the minimum power to conserve stamina and maintain speed. Do you understand?"

"Awooo!"

Ah Yin nodded vigorously, then tried again, shooting a finger-thick strand of pale blue electricity from its mouth.

This time it didn't even pierce the nearby tree trunk, but its speed was still far greater than that of a flintlock bullet.

"That's it, clever!"

Siano smiled, giving a thumbs-up in praise. "Then let's officially begin!"

Where else could one find such an excellent and obedient sparring partner, whose daily wage cost only a dozen boxes of strawberry milk?

A cold wind carrying shattered snow swept over the mountain peak, but in an instant, a warm spring breeze brushed against his face.

In the blink of an eye, six months had passed.

With Ah Yin's assistance, Siano successfully cultivated "Paper Drawing" to the stage of Great Completion.

At the same time.

His Armament Haki also made significant progress; from initially only vaguely sensing that power by recalling his battle with Garp.

To now, where he could already preliminarily achieve small-scale wrapping and hardening.

Mountain peak.

—Boom!

The thick steel plate before him was suddenly blasted into a huge deep crater; Siano slowly withdrew his fist, which was still wreathed in black Haki.

"The destructive power added by Armament Haki wrapping is indeed terrifying."

Siano grinned; without the enhancement of Armament Haki, this thick special steel plate would have been dented by at most a few dozen centimeters under his strike.

Two or three months ago, he had gradually felt that the hills of Cocoyasi Village could no longer withstand his training.

So he had sent Man Ba and others to nearby towns to purchase a batch of steel plates; once they were completely scrapped, they would be transported back, recast into heavier and thicker ones, and the cycle would repeat.

Siano glanced at his system panel; in the skill column, his Armament Haki had already been judged as "Entry Level."

Over the past half-year, he had spent only his afternoons cultivating and studying Armament Haki, so reaching this stage was already quite impressive.

However, to cultivate it to "Minor Completion" and truly master Haki, Siano estimated it would likely require a very long period of arduous practice.

He was not in a hurry, however; he was already very satisfied with this pace of progress.

After all.

Even that laughing maniac Nika, under the one-on-one specialized instruction of the master Rayleigh, had taken two years to master the application of Haki.

As for the "Two-Hundred-Percent Effort King"...

That was purely a top-tier genius found once in a thousand years, ultimately too rare.

In the following months.

Several more items that caught Siano's eye appeared in the System Trading Market.

The first was—

【Enhanced Occlumency】

【Type: Cultivation Manual】

【Price: 4000 Points】

【Description: Through meditation cultivation, greatly enhances mental power; upon successful cultivation, an invisible barrier automatically forms around the consciousness, isolating all abilities related to mental control, mind probing, or body manipulation.】

【Seller's Note: Stolen from the Headmaster's office. I'm unfamiliar with this world; a teacher named Quirrell has invited me to his room tonight for a late-night talk. Should I go?】

This was, since obtaining the System.

Apart from those wonders, the most expensive item Siano had ever seen.

But undoubtedly, it was worth the price; no, it should be said it was more than worth it!

For a transmigrator full of secrets, this was simply one of the most coveted skills.

Especially in the world of One Piece, which was rife with Devil Fruit abilities capable of influencing others' thoughts and bodies.

Not to mention the Puppet-Puppet Fruit he had already witnessed firsthand; just counting on his fingers.

There was Big Mom's Soul-Soul Fruit, Violet's Glare-Glare Fruit, Pudding's Memo-Memo Fruit, Sugar's Hobby-Hobby Fruit, and Doflamingo's String-String Fruit...

Numerous types, with bizarre methods.

Even experts who had cultivated Haki to its peak would find it hard to guard against them.

He immediately purchased it without hesitation, and after flipping through it once, he was pleasantly surprised to discover that the threshold for mastering this skill was not high.

One only needed to wake up early every morning, while mental energy was at its peak, to meditate and practice for one or two hours; continuing this for a few months would lead to Great Completion.

Besides this.

Following "Copper Head" and "Iron Bone," Siano spent another 1200 Points to purchase the third volume of the Flesh and Blood Smelting Method, titled "Thick Skin."

As the name suggested, once mastered, the defensive power of the skin's surface throughout the body would increase dramatically, acting like an invisible membrane that could greatly blunt blunt-force trauma.

Its versatility in actual combat was very high, after all, there were countless experts in this world who used various blunt weapons, or simply fists and feet, as their primary means of attack.

Siano mused that once he cultivated this to Great Completion and combined it with his increasingly robust physique, by the time he set sail...

Tsk.

Perhaps he could even withstand Teacher Kaido's Thunder Bagua.

In short.

Siano formulated a new plan, elevating the priority of the enhanced version of Occlumency to the highest level; every morning at dawn, he would run to the mountain peak to sit cross-legged in meditation.

Next came beginning the cultivation of "Thick Skin," as well as "Life Return," which he had been longing to learn for a long time.

Nor was the plan to strengthen the intensity of his Armament Haki left behind.

The priority for Storm Leg, however, remained at the very end.

In Siano's plan, once his cultivation of Life Return reached great success and there was a gap period where no desired skills had appeared for him to cultivate,

it would not be too late to then spend a few hours each day cultivating it on the side.

The gears of time turned slowly.

Siano's cultivation continued day after day without cease; except for going out once a year in late autumn and early winter to shear some "wool," he had hardly ever left Cocoyasi Village.

As the day for setting sail upon reaching adulthood drew nearer, besides continuing to temper his body during the daytime, he also began to set aside increasingly more time to accompany his family.

Sometimes, just like in those years past, he would help Bell-mère pick tangerines or clumsily assist in the kitchen;

other times, he would squeeze together with Nami, laughing heartily as they pored over nautical charts or played games of geography trivia;

then the scene would shift, and he would already be at the seaside, wearing a stern expression and pretending to be serious as he guided Nojiko's cultivation hand in hand...

Time, ah, slipped away quietly, drop by drop.

Unknowingly.

More than two years of time swiftly passed.

From the autumn of 1513, it arrived at the late spring of the Sea Circle Calendar year 1516.

In the vast, boundless seas of the outside world, one major event after another occurred in succession; some were reported in the newspapers, while others happened silently.

And all of this

seemed to have absolutely no connection to such a remote village in the East Blue as Cocoyasi Village.

In this season where a scorching summer was about to arrive, the black-haired youth named Siano also welcomed his eighteenth birthday.

According to the common perception of the East Blue, and indeed the entire world, he had officially reached adulthood.

(End of Chapter)