Seaside System - Chapter 2.2 (Patreon)

Not long later, Kaden decided to leave his bedroom and get down to business.

He had to get out of that room and stop thinking at the very least because at some point, everything just went in circles and sitting around wouldn't accomplish anything.

Though, instead of making his way down to the areas where he could train freely. He made his way up and up, straight to the top floor of the G5 marine base.

And stopped in front of the door to the office of the Vice Admiral.

…He bit the bullet. As much as he would rather not be around Vergo, the man was his best chance to get anything done quickly.

So he took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"…Come in." the deep, almost emotionless voice of his current leader echoed from behind the door.

Soldiering his emotions, he plastered a grin on his face and opened the door, casually making his way inside.

He caught sight of Vice Admiral Vergo almost immediately, the tall, broad man over eight feet in height and dressed in all white casually sitting on a soft couch at the side of the room before a table, a cup of tea and an empty plate sitting on it.

….And a stick of dango stuck to the side of his face.

How the hell did he not even notice that.

He couldn't see Vergo's eyes because of his dark sunglasses that he constantly wore, but the slight tilt of his head towards Kaden let him know he had the mans attention.

"…Who are you?" Vergo asked, blankly.

Kaden resisted the urge to sigh as he kicked the door shut behind him, "It's me, Kaden, remember? I got assigned here after I was too violent five months ago?" he reminded him.

"Oh…okay," Vergo just shrugged uncaringly, "What do you want? I was busy eating a steak."

"It was dango." Kaden corrected him.

Vergo's head tilted to the other side, "Ah…so it was," he nodded, remembering…maybe? "Okay, but that doesn't change why you're here."

Why were there so many people with odd quirks in this world?

"I wanted to ask you for some tips," Kaden got straight to the point, honestly the quicker he was out of here the better, "I want to learn how to do that Rokushiki stuff you higher up guys can do and Haki as well. I think I know how to train the Observation one, but no idea how to train the Armament one."

"….I'm too busy to train you kid." Vergo replied.

"Figured, I did say just tips after all, that'll be enough for me to learn em, I'm a prodigy after all," Kaden boastfully claimed while internally rolling his eyes, "Just tell me what to do and show me them and I'll be able to figure it out."

Vergo stared at him blankly.

Or…he thought he did.

Again, he couldn't tell what the man was looking at with his eyes with those stupid sunglasses on.

Who even wore sunglasses on inside?

"Whatever, if it'll make you leave me in peace, I've got to go visit my wife late." Vergo shrugged and stood up, cracking his neck.

Vergo in fact, did not have a wife.

The Vice Admiral lifted his fist and then a spark of black erupted and covered it up to his forearm in a shiny black, ebony like armour, "Armament is simple. Punch stuff hard."

"….Punch stuff?" Kaden's eyebrows rose.

That…that was his advice?

"Punch stuff, hard," Vergo corrected, "Punch stuff you can't break. Punch it till' your hands hurt so much you wanna stop and cry. And keep punching until it breaks. Haki is all about willpower. Even if you aren't strong enough, you will that target to break, you will your body to be stronger. With observation you will yourself to see it coming and dodge. The stronger the will, the stronger the haki."

That…was decent advice he supposed and profound really. But, while the instructions were simple in theory once more like the Rokushiki, it did not at all mean they were simple in practice.

Fucking One Piece.

"….Right," Kaden resisted the urge to grimace, "What about Rokushiki?"

__________

"….Instructions, unclear." Kaden grimaced, pulling his hand back from the tree he'd just finished…beating up.

His knuckles were torn, raw and bloody and the tree had fallen over. There was a gouge in the middle of it, from where he'd punched it over and over repeatedly.

He hadn't broken it though. Just loosened its grip in the soil from his repeated punches and forced it to collapse.

This was the fourth tree so far to suffer the same trait since he'd left Vice Admiral Vergo behind, six hours ago.

It was already night and dark outside and rain was falling gently.

Again. And would soon turn into another downpour.

He was pretty much soaked to the bone at this point, both from the rain and his own sweat.

He'd spent three hours training his body using the equipment of the G5 marine base. If…it could be called that. Most of it was broken and never fixed properly. Like the pulley system, instead of weights, it was now literally just a series of boulders of varying sizes with holes in them to thread ropes through.

The dumbbells and weights for benching and the like were gone. And in their place? Boulders of varying sizes.

There…were a lot of boulders of varying sizes instead of equipment. It was a little awkward to be honest to use them, but again, honestly, crude as it was, it was probably better.

Simply because…crafted equipment had real limits. Limits that did not faze people of this world nearly as much.

Take himself for example. He was fourteen, only turned it a few months ago even. And he could lift boulders easily over four hundred pounds in weight without much problem.

From there, he'd…taken some of Vergo's clipped advice about the Rokushiki and put it into play.

His success was…middling to say the least.

Though, he one piece of advice Vergo left him with he found sounded…actually smart.

'Stick with just one of them. You'll understand the others better after getting one down and with each new one, they'll get easier.' the traitorous marine had told him.

So he decided to focus all his efforts on Soru first.

Which led him to now, well, an hour ago when he decided to try out Vergo's advice when it came to Armament Haki.

By punching the crap out trees.

Plus he couldn't find an axe anywhere in the equipment storeroom to cut down the trees to use for his idea for training Observation Haki.

So he'd put that off for the moment.

"Though maybe I don't need to." Kaden couldn't help the grin that spread across his face as he stared at his bloody and raw knuckles.

It hadn't really occurred to him before.

But…he was strong.

Like, stupidly fucking strong. Even as his knuckles throbbed and stung, he couldn't help but relish in the fact that…

He'd literally punched multiple large trees, each over twenty feet in height easily and made them fall over.

Sturdy trees with thick, powerful bases and filled with sharp, hard and rough bark. But….he'd felled four of them just by punching them over and over.

That was impossible in his old body. Forget his old body, not even the strongest of strongmen back home could do anything like this.

He was…literally superhuman and could tear even the greatest strongman in his old world apart with his bear hands.

He was trash right now, fodder really compared to anyone of note in this world. But…wasn't Zoro once? Wasn't Luffy?

Hell, Coby.

That kid went from scrawny wimp to using the Rokushiki in just a few months of training and come the time skip was a complete beast.

He at the very least, had a much better starting body than him to go on from, even if the situation around him wasn't at all ideal.

"Yeah…I can do this." his grin widened as he stared at his bloody fist.

No, not just could, but would do it.

He had power right now.

A tiny fledgling spark of power, but he had it. And he liked it.

And he wanted more.

He had a year.

How high could he climb on up the ladder in that time frame? If he could match Coby's pace and get at least a few of the Rokushiki down, he might just be able to survive, possibly even thrive.

If he trained hard enough actually, he might just be able to make something of himself.

Power, wealth, prestige. Gol D. Roger had it and everything the world had to offer at his fingertips.

He didn't specifically desire the One Piece at all, but, there was plenty more in this world to attain if one had but the strength for it.

"Heh, a nice thought." Kaden shook his head in exasperation at his own tall day dreams.

He put it out of mind. That didn't matter right now. The greatest wealth he had right now, was an entire year of time and his own memories.

That was what mattered, everything else beyond growing strong enough to escape this position he was stuck in currently and live freely as he pleased, was secondary.

"The grind awaits." he cracked his neck.

…Yeah, that was a good creed for him right now. He had to throw himself into the grind and train himself into the dirt and take advantage of every precious second he had.

This world was simply too dangerous for him to remain weak.

He cast an eye at the fallen tree at his feet, before bending down and wrapping his arms around its wide frame.

And then he gritted his teeth, grunted and heaved up. "Rah!" he all about shouted as he rose to his feet, lifting the large tree thick three multiple hundreds of pounds in weight above his shoulders.

And he walked further into the forest he found himself within, his eyes searching out as he moved.

Deeper and deeper into the forest he walked until he found one.

An even larger tree. With thick sturdy branches. Thick sturdy branches that could support a lot of weight.

"Four should be enough for now." Kaden mused to himself as he dropped the thick tree and stretched out his shoulders, eyeing the tree branches above him.

Well, eight really since he'd break all four of the trees he'd felled in half at least to make them a bit lighter and to make more…hazards.

Now he just needed to find a blindfold. Well, the bandana tie thing of his marine uniform could work for that.

'What is this thing even called anyway?' he wondered, toying with it with his fingers as he about turned and walked back out of the forest the way he came, heading back towards where he'd fell those three other trees.

He grabbed the three other trees and one by one, relocated them with the last one at the tree he'd be using for his training.

And then stomped his boot clad feet down upon each one, right centre where he'd been hammering his punches into them, using all his weight and strength as he launched himself up and landed on them over and over to break them in half.

And when that was done, he headed back towards the G5 marine base to pick up some nice sturdy rope to use to hoist the eight tree…bludgeons into the air and create his very own training thingamajig.

'Haki Pendulum?' he thought, cupping his chain as he stared up at his handiwork, 'Yeah, that fits.' he nodded to himself.

His muscles ached and his stomach rumbled with hunger, but he couldn't fight the smile on his face.

Right now, he felt…not great, but better than he had in a lot of ways since he first woke up this morning.

It was amazing how simply having a goal in mind and taking the first steps towards it, could be so….liberating.