The next morning, I was up before the gulls.
The docks were still cloaked in mist, the planks slick with dew. My muscles ached from yesterday's experiments, but the ache was a good sign — proof that the Moa Moa no Mi's tenfold training was real.
If tenfold was this effective, then I needed to test the boundaries.
I started with push-ups. One… two… three… by the time I hit twenty, the burn had spread from my arms to my chest. Every fiber screamed for me to stop. I pushed harder, channeling the fruit's strange hum into my muscles.
Thirty… forty… fifty.
By sixty, my vision was swimming. Sweat dripped into the dirt below me, each drop darkening the ground like tiny bloodstains.
I rolled onto my back, gasping. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
"Still standing," I muttered to myself. "Good. Again."
This time, squats. Then sit-ups. Then a hundred-meter sprint up and down the empty street until my legs trembled like they were made of jelly. Every motion was multiplied — tenfold resistance, tenfold exhaustion, tenfold results.
I was grinning through the pain.
---
Around midday, I staggered toward the market for water. The streets were livelier now, the mist burned away by sunlight. Stalls were open, merchants barking prices, the scent of fresh bread mixing with the salt in the air.
That's when I saw him.
White hair, even though he couldn't have been more than sixteen. A long jacket thrown casually over his shoulders. A cigar clamped between his teeth, its smoke curling lazily around his face.
He was leaning against a wall near the Marine outpost, watching the crowd with sharp, hawk-like eyes.
Smoker. Younger, leaner, but already radiating the kind of presence that made people step aside without realizing it.
Our eyes met.
He took the cigar from his mouth. "You. Kid from the docks, right?"
I paused mid-step. "…Yeah?"
"You decked Rallo yesterday." It wasn't a question.
"Word travels fast," I said, sipping from my water skin.
Smoker pushed off the wall, walking toward me with the steady, deliberate pace of someone who'd never lost a fight. "You fight clean?"
"Cleaner than him," I said, tilting my head. "Why?"
His lips curled into the barest ghost of a grin. "Good. I hate arresting people I might respect."
I frowned. "Am I supposed to thank you for that?"
"Not yet." He flicked ash to the ground. "You've got power, but no discipline. The sea chews up people like you."
The words hit harder than I expected — not because they were cruel, but because they sounded exactly like something I'd say to someone else. I didn't like it.
"Guess I'll just have to prove you wrong," I said.
Smoker's grin widened just enough to show teeth. "We'll see. Don't die before you get strong enough to be worth chasing."
And just like that, he turned and walked back toward the outpost, leaving only the faint smell of cigar smoke in the air.
---
That night, I trained harder.
His words weren't an insult — they were a challenge.
And if there was one thing I couldn't resist in this life or the last, it was proving someone wrong.
I dropped into a push-up, channeled the hum of the Moa Moa no Mi, and pushed. Tenfold wasn't enough anymore. I wanted more. I needed more.
Somewhere out there, the seas were filled with monsters — and I intended to be one of them.