Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
This was an extremely vast plaza. At the moment, a large number of new Marine Headquarters recruits were conducting physical training—running while carrying heavy loads.
At the very back of the weighted-running formation was a rather handsome, slender youth who was clearly falling far behind the rest of the group. No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not catch up.
Watching the recruits running ahead, Roya, panting heavily, wore an expression of utter helplessness.
"Seriously? I can't even keep up with a bunch of Marine recruits—nameless background characters I don't even recognize? This joke is going a bit too far."
Just one month ago, Roya had inexplicably crossed over into the world of One Piece. Not only that—he had become the nephew of the Marine hero Monkey D. Garp, which meant he was also the uncle of the original protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy.
The time period was eleven years into the Great Age of Pirates.
Roya, who was naturally hot-blooded at heart, was not frightened by this sudden transmigration—on the contrary, he was delighted. The world of One Piece had been one of his favorite worlds in his previous life. Just thinking about the terrifying powers of Devil Fruits, or the sight of great swordsmen splitting mountains with a single slash, was enough to make his blood boil.
Especially since his identity turned out to be Garp's nephew. Being able to come into close contact with the pinnacle-level powerhouses of the One Piece world felt like a perfect starting position.
But who would have thought that not even two days later, Garp would toss him straight into the Marine Headquarters' recruit camp.
Originally, when Roya heard about the Marine Headquarters recruit camp, he—being a transmigrator—thought it was nothing special at all. In his mind, it was probably full of nameless cannon fodder.
The problem was that these so-called nameless, barely recognizable background characters were every single one of them far stronger than him!
He had been in the recruit camp for a full month now. Even though he trained as hard as he possibly could, he still found it extremely difficult to catch up with these Marine Headquarters recruits.
This left Roya feeling utterly helpless.
"Well, I guess it makes sense. This is the Marine Headquarters' recruit camp, after all. Almost everyone here is an elite. If I remember correctly, the Marine Admirals—Aokiji, Kizaru, Akainu, and the others—all trained here in the past too."
As this thought crossed his mind, Roya—still in the middle of the weighted run—let a trace of resignation flash through his eyes.
But still…
If he couldn't stand out even in this recruit camp, then in the future he'd probably end up as nothing more than a background character—a Marine cannon fodder who could be slapped to death at any moment by some pirate with a bounty over tens of millions. That was something Roya absolutely refused to accept.
Still, why was it that he hadn't inherited even a tiny bit of Garp's monstrous physique? Was it really just because they weren't direct blood relatives?
Right now, his older cousin Monkey D. Dragon was the future leader of the Revolutionary Army, a man capable of standing against the World Government. As for Garp himself—there was no need to say more: a peak powerhouse who once chased the Pirate King Gol D. Roger across the seas. And his nephew Luffy would, barring accidents, become the next Pirate King.
Every single one of them was absurdly overpowered.
With a family background like that, Roya felt immense pressure. After all, this family tree included Marines, pirates, and revolutionaries alike. Who knew if, one day, some faction might set its sights on him and decide to vent its frustrations by using him as a punching bag if he remained weak?
Even Marine Headquarters wasn't truly safe. Aside from the future Summit War, there were lunatics like Kaido of the Beasts—someone who loved challenging the Marines head-on and whose hobby was suicide, yet somehow never died. If that madman suddenly went berserk one day and invaded Marineford, and Roya just happened to get slapped to death, that would be one hell of an unjust death.
Shaking his head, Roya threw all those chaotic thoughts to the back of his mind.
"Thinking that far ahead is pointless. For now, I should just train properly and improve my strength."
After the weighted run ended and the recruits were allowed to rest in place, Roya sat down directly where he was. He gently closed his eyes, and with a single thought, a vague, illusory space—visible only to him—appeared before his eyes.
At the center of this hazy void floated a crystal-clear sword.
This was something that had existed in his mind since the very first day he arrived in this world, something that had fused with his soul. It looked like a sword, but Roya preferred to call it the Soul Sword System.
Looking closely, the crystalline sword was not intact. It was covered in shocking cracks that spread across its surface, as though it might shatter at any moment.
With another thought from Roya, something resembling a status panel popped up directly in front of him.
[Stage One: Damaged Soul Sword +10
(Enhancement Conditions Not Met)
Attributes: Attack Power +30
Enhancement Energy: 10/10]
"Why is the enhancement energy already full, yet I still can't continue enhancing it? Could it be that +10 is the enhancement limit?"
Staring at the status panel, Roya murmured to himself.
No system spirit suddenly popped out to explain his confusion. This Soul Sword System seemed to have no autonomous consciousness—or even if it did, it had never spoken to him.
Roya had always been figuring out its functions on his own.
At the very beginning, its state had been:
[Stage One]: Damaged Soul Sword +0
Later, Roya discovered that training or combat could increase enhancement energy points. Once the enhancement energy reached its maximum, he could enhance the Damaged Soul Sword.
After enhancement, it would go from Damaged Soul Sword +0 to Damaged Soul Sword +1.
At first, Roya didn't feel any noticeable change. But once it reached +5, he discovered that the destructive power of his punches had increased significantly.
By the time it reached +10, although Roya was still at the bottom of the recruit camp, he was no longer in the situation he had been in when he first arrived—where anyone could instantly defeat him with a single move.
Roya had originally thought that he could rely on this system to improve endlessly, then casually beat up Marine Admirals and Yonko alike…
But who would have thought that once it reached +10, even with full enhancement energy, it could no longer be upgraded!
Behind "Damaged Soul Sword +10," the words "Enhancement Conditions Not Met" had suddenly appeared.
Roya instinctively felt that if he could continue enhancing it, the Soul Sword would likely undergo some kind of qualitative transformation.
Unfortunately, up to this point, he still hadn't found a way to enhance it beyond +10.
"This so-called enhancement condition… what exactly is it?"
Looking at those words again, Roya fell into deep thought once more.
The rest period quickly passed. Roya still hadn't come up with any answers when the voice of the Rear Admiral instructor called for training to resume. He opened his eyes, returned to the formation, and began training once again.
Before long, another full day of training came to an end.
Roya had no common ground with the Marine Headquarters recruits and couldn't be bothered to deal with these people who would occasionally act smug in front of him while casually looking down on his poor performance.
After the recruit camp's group training ended, Roya left the training grounds directly.
Marineford wasn't just home to an enormous harbor and a plaza capable of accommodating a battle between a hundred thousand people—it also had a town beneath the fortress where the families of Marines lived.
Of course, Roya didn't live there.
He had been brought to Marine Headquarters by Garp, and everything had naturally been arranged by Garp as well. Garp's home was currently his home.
Garp didn't seem to be around again—who knew where he'd gone off to mess around. Roya couldn't even be bothered to complain. He habitually went to take a shower, then planned to continue studying the Soul Sword in his mind.
However, just as Roya finished showering and walked out of the bathroom, he saw that on the sofa in the living room sat Garp—who had been missing for an entire week. Somehow, he had already returned and was sitting there.
This guy…
Roya shook his head helplessly.
Disappearing for a whole week without a word—if he didn't know Garp was a Marine hero standing at the pinnacle of the seas, he might have already reported a missing person.
At that moment, Garp was fiddling with something. When he saw Roya come out, he grinned broadly at him.
"Bwahahaha! How have the past few days been for you?"
"How I've been doesn't really matter," Roya muttered, then put on a smiling expression as he looked at Garp. "But Uncle Garp… I was really worried when I didn't see you for a whole week. Seeing that you're still alive really puts my mind at ease."
Pfft!!
Garp's expression froze instantly, and he almost spat out a mouthful of old blood.
That line was viciously effective—there wasn't a single curse word in it, and paired with Roya's smiling face, it dealt a full ten thousand points of internal damage.
The corners of his mouth twitching, Garp stared at Roya with veins popping and gestured with his massive fist.
"Roya, you little brat—are you itching to taste this old man's Fist of Love again?!"
"I'll leave that for you to enjoy yourself," Roya said with a curl of his lips. He shrugged at Garp, then turned and walked toward his bedroom.
But just at that moment, Garp suddenly called out to him from behind.
"Hey, brat—wait!"
He's not actually going to hit me, is he?
That thought surfaced in Roya's mind. To be honest, since coming to this world, he had already experienced Garp's "fists of love" more than a few times.
However, to Roya's surprise, when he turned around, what appeared before his eyes was not Garp's fist, but instead—
A sword.
A simple yet exquisitely crafted sword.