Time flew.
Day and night swapped in cycles.
In the blink of an eye—
Three days had passed.
Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
Inside a small villa—
Kai had just finished today's quota of devilish training. He grabbed a towel, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and checked his status panel.
"System. Pull up my attributes."
[Host: Kai]
[Strength: 36.9 (+1.1)]
[Speed: 29.7 (+0.8)]
[Stamina: 38.3 (+1.2)]
[Mental Power: 18.1 (+0.8)]
[Ghost Back Completion: 11.19%]
[Current overall training effect boost: 100x!]
These were Kai's results from the last three days.
Overall, the growth didn't look dramatic.
But Kai was satisfied.
Because beyond raw stats—
His Rokushiki, advanced applications, and Haki proficiency had all increased by a noticeable margin.
Especially the two colors of Haki he had just awakened.
Since his proficiency was still relatively low, each training session gave a larger bump than usual.
By now—
Only three days later—
Kai's control over Armament and Observation had already reached a level comparable to someone who'd trained hard for at least five years.
Three days… matching five years.
Naturally, Kai had no reason to complain.
His physical stats were climbing slowly—
But his combat techniques were exploding forward.
At this point, the status panel alone could no longer accurately measure his true combat power.
"At my current level…"
"I've probably already broken into the 100,000,000-Berry combat threshold."
Kai smiled brightly.
A 100,000,000 Berry bounty was a massive dividing line.
Across the sea—
Pirates at that level were rare.
Even among the future Seven Warlords, a few wouldn't even reach that number.
Which meant—
For Kai to already have "100,000,000-tier combat power" now…
Even across the entire sea, he was already a terrifying existence.
Ignoring the New World for the moment—
In the first half of the Grand Line, he could practically walk sideways.
As long as he didn't run into a handful of ancient monsters.
Kai let out a light breath and lowered his gaze from the panel, thinking about what came next.
These past three days, his strength had surged—
And Marineford itself had also seen changes.
The tens of thousands of Marines he'd knocked out with Conqueror's Haki had already fully recovered two days ago.
That farce was considered "officially over" from that point.
No one pursued it too aggressively.
The whole thing was quietly smoothed over.
Besides that—
Three days ago, after Kai mastered Armament and Observation, Zephyr had no choice but to admit, with helplessness, that he could no longer teach Kai anything.
That had made Kai a bit troubled.
He'd thought coming to Marine Headquarters would let his strength skyrocket.
And it had—
But not through raw stat growth.
Instead, it was the transformation brought by mastering the two colors of Haki.
After Zephyr's admission, Kai stopped training with the camp trainees.
Zephyr also told him something else:
The Marine top brass had held a small meeting over the last few days, centered entirely around Kai.
The core topic was simple—
How to help Kai train more effectively.
That meeting gathered the majority of Marine leadership.
Zephyr told Kai to wait a few days.
Sooner or later, they'd come up with a plan to break through Kai's current training bottleneck.
Kai waited—
And it had been three full days already.
He was starting to lose patience.
"Don't tell me the top brass still hasn't found a solution?"
Kai's expression turned odd.
If even they couldn't solve it, then he could only rely on himself.
Daily devil training was boring, sure—
But for strength, he could grit his teeth and keep going.
Even if each session's improvement was tiny, it was better than wasting time.
Besides—
That "tiny improvement" was only tiny by Kai's own standards.
Compared to everyone else…
His growth rate was still monstrous.
Almost constantly changing.
Kai might not be fully satisfied—
But in other people's eyes, what he was doing was already beyond absurd.
"Whatever."
"If they can't find a plan, I'll just keep grinding day after day."
"Or…"
"I'll keep sparring around Marineford."
Kai narrowed his eyes, thinking.
He didn't have to rely only on devil training.
A fierce battle could boost him too.
But with his current strength, choosing opponents inside Marineford was tricky.
Rear Admirals were already high-ranking.
Above that were Vice Admirals.
Kai wasn't about to spar with Vice Admirals.
That would be asking to get crushed.
He was confident in his current power—
But he knew the truth.
Right now, he didn't have the capital to shake a true Headquarters Vice Admiral.
So if he wanted sparring—
Rear Admiral-level opponents were the only realistic option.
And most Rear Admirals were sent out on missions.
If Kai wanted to find them, he'd have to wait until they returned.
During this time, Kai had become more and more familiar with Marineford.
He'd even met quite a few future famous Marine powerhouses.
Such as—
Onigumo, Momonga, Doberman, and Strawberry.
These men—future Vice Admiral-level fighters—were still only Rear Admirals right now.
Meaning…
Kai, at four years old, already possessed combat power capable of challenging them.
Future elite Vice Admirals, at this stage, could at best go fifty-fifty with Kai.
Kai was confident—
He wouldn't lose to any Headquarters Rear Admiral.
At worst…
A draw was absolutely possible.
After all—
He was only four.
"Vice Admiral-level combat power…"
"Not far now."
Kai's eyes narrowed, filled with expectation.
The "Vice Admiral level" he meant was the standard Vice Admiral tier.
As for Kuzan, Sakazuki, and Borsalino—
That was a different category.
They were "Vice Admirals" in title at this time, but in reality—
They were likely even stronger than Zephyr.
Kai didn't think he could reach Kuzan's level immediately.
"But…"
"Give me another two years."
"That might not be true anymore."
Kai smiled.
As his thoughts drifted—
Knock knock knock!
A sudden knock pulled him back.
Kai looked at the door, confused, then walked over and opened it.
Creak.
The moment the door opened, he saw Zephyr standing outside.
"Brat."
"After three full days of intense discussion…"
"We've come up with an initial plan for your next stage of training."
Zephyr didn't waste words.
He stated his purpose immediately.
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