In the blink of an eye, the night passed.
But Rosinante had not slept for even a moment.
After obtaining the chakra cultivation method, he immediately began studying it.
And not long after...
He started practicing.
With his immense spiritual power, he very quickly succeeded in extracting chakra, leaving Hatake Ikko, who had been standing guard nearby, utterly stunned.
One had to understand...
Even Ikko himself was considered a genius within the Hatake Clan.
And yet even for him, it had taken a full week of trial and error before he successfully managed to extract chakra for the first time.
But Rosinante?
He had succeeded in a single night.
And that was after receiving the chakra cultivation method from Ikko only moments before.
Hatake Ikko could only feel that this new General was something monstrous.
At the very least, when it came to first-time chakra cultivation, Ikko had never seen anyone faster than him.
In fact, he even began to suspect...
Had Rosinante already known the chakra cultivation method long ago, and only asked him for it on purpose just to mess with him?
After cultivating chakra through the entire night, Rosinante carefully felt the changes within his body.
A look of relief and joy slowly appeared on his face.
Just as he had guessed.
Chakra...
No.
To be more precise, any kind of energy could serve as fuel for Devil Fruit powers.
In the One Piece world, using a Devil Fruit consumed physical stamina.
That was only natural.
Power did not appear out of thin air.
To use power meant to expend something.
And because the One Piece world did not possess a formal energy system, what was consumed there could only be the most basic thing: physical stamina.
Or more accurately...
Biological energy.
Chakra, however, was the perfect fusion of spiritual energy and physical energy.
Naturally, it could also be used as the resource consumed when activating Devil Fruit abilities.
Rosinante felt that this principle probably applied to all energy.
Whether it was biological energy or any other form of energy...
Devil Fruits weren't picky.
Looking at the faint light beginning to rise beyond the window, Rosinante didn't bother trying to catch up on sleep.
Today, he still had to inspect the military camp.
And today's inspection was extremely important.
It would determine whether the Saito household could continue to survive.
Even after staying awake all night, Rosinante remained completely energetic.
With his powerful mental strength, even going three days without sleep would not be a problem.
And if he had the monstrous body and vitality he once possessed in the One Piece world...
Then even fighting nonstop for ten days or half a month would have been nothing.
When he arrived at the military camp, the commanders were all visibly surprised to see that Rosinante had truly come to inspect it in person.
But despite that surprise, they still didn't take him seriously.
Judging from their expressions, some of them were even openly impatient.
In their eyes...
Rosinante was nothing more than a general who would last a hundred days.
"I didn't expect him to actually come to the camp. He really is a newborn calf that doesn't fear the tiger. A military camp isn't a place some little brat like him can control."
"You can't say that either. Didn't you see what happened yesterday? That kid... maybe we really underestimated him before. Or maybe he's just been hiding too deeply."
"At the end of the day, he's still just a kid. Let's see how he cleans this up after a hundred days."
"Come on, since he's here, we should at least meet him. No matter what happens after a hundred days, right now he's still the General. He should still be given the proper respect, otherwise people will gossip."
As they talked, several commanders stepped out of the command tent and went forward to receive him.
"Greetings, General," the commanders said as they stepped up.
"Everyone," Rosinante said lightly, "why does it feel like a few people are missing today?"
The commanders looked around.
And sure enough...
A few were indeed absent.
The atmosphere instantly turned awkward.
In truth, they all knew exactly where those missing commanders had gone.
The Saito household currently had twelve commanders in total, overseeing roughly fifteen thousand soldiers.
But yesterday, one had been killed by Rosinante.
So now only eleven remained.
And among those eleven, three commanders had close ties with the Second Young Master, Saito Ze.
After Rosinante publicly declared yesterday that if he could not take General Fujimitsu's head within a hundred days, he would give up the general's seat...
Those three commanders, who had already been close to Saito Ze to begin with, immediately felt that the Second Young Master's time to rise was approaching.
So early this morning, they had rushed off to curry favor with him.
Of course...
No one could say that out loud.
After all, they were still colleagues.
And who knew?
One day they themselves might need those same men to pull strings for them.
Finally, Commander Uchida stepped forward and said, "Reporting to the General, Commanders Kimura and the other two had some matters at home, so they requested leave and are not in the camp today."
"I remember saying yesterday that no leave was permitted," Rosinante said flatly.
"This..." The commanders all exchanged uneasy glances.
"The order I gave yesterday in the name of the General was a military order," Rosinante said coldly. "In a military camp, the greatest taboo is disobedience to military command. Kimura and the other two treated military orders like a joke. Strip them of their positions as commanders."
The moment those words fell, the faces of every commander changed drastically.
Only now did they truly remember.
Rosinante was currently the General of the Saito household.
It didn't matter if he might step down in a hundred days.
As long as he held the seat for even one day...
The General was still the General.
And the General had every right to strip them of their command.
Only now did they remember that their glory had been bestowed upon them by the General.
And their lives and deaths...
Could also be decided by the General in a single thought.
And the current General...
Was Saito Tsubasa.
Even if he were only a "hundred-day General," he still had enough authority to replace every single commander present.
"Isn't that... a little too severe, General?" Commander Uchida asked hesitantly.
"Oh?" Rosinante's gaze turned icy. "Commander Uchida believes that treating military orders like a joke is something insignificant?"
As his words fell, a terrifying pressure surged toward Uchida like a mountain collapsing.
"N-No! I wouldn't dare! We obey the General's command!" Uchida said, cold sweat pouring down his face.
What a terrifying presence...
It was so overwhelming that it made him feel he could not defy it.
Seeing that even Uchida had yielded, the other commanders no longer dared to say another word.
"Beat the drums," Rosinante ordered. "Summon all soldiers to assemble."
"Yes!"
Several commanders saluted at once.
But as they bent their waists and lowered their heads, hidden from others' sight...
Mocking expressions appeared on every one of their faces.
They were waiting to watch Rosinante make a fool of himself.
Commanding before tens of thousands of soldiers was not something just anyone could handle.
Even they themselves, the first time they had stood before an army of over ten thousand men...
Had nearly been so terrified they almost wet themselves.
The aura and killing intent gathered from more than ten thousand soldiers who had seen real battle...
Was not something just anyone could endure.