Beginning the Training

For the rest of the trip, I didn't do much except train my Renewal Taekwondo. Even then I had to be careful not to train some of my more destructive moves for fear of destroying the submarine.

So for the most part I trained by trying to increase my speed in performing the attacks and refining them so I could get my attacks to be in perfect form.

Bartholemew, Edward, and Gregory seemed to be doing their own things, probably planning their missions to kill world leaders or whatever jobs they are expected to do.

It didn't take long however before we arrived at our destination. When we surfaced and got out of the submarine the first thing I noticed was where we were.

It was not a massive marine base but an island just covered in mists. I could see that there were massive cliffs that made it hard to access.

There were many husks of ships that had crashed into the unforgiving shores. But we were in a small cove, with stairs carved into the rock leading upwards.

When we finally reached the top, it looked relatively normal with grass fields, a jungle in the distance, and a small settlement.

I could see that there were already children in the settlement training to become a member of the CP9 organization.

There was 1 man leading their training, he had graying hair and was yelling at the kids like a drill sergeant. He was an obvious CP9 agent with his tailored suit and strong frame.

When we arrived the man looked at us and then greeted my companions, "Hello Bartholemew, Gregory, Edward, what brings you to these parts?"

Bartholemew replied, "As you have no doubt noticed, Rowan, we have a child with us. He has truly extraordinary skill and strength and we think he is the perfect candidate for this program."

Rowan raised his eyebrow and turned in my direction and said, "Show me."

Not missing a beat I Bo-buped straight at him and executed a Baekdu, trying to cave in his chest with my knee. It didn't work but I did push him back a little.

Rowan looked impressed and complimented me, "Well that was a lot better than I was expecting. I was a good thing that you found him."

Rowan and the rest of the CP9 agents exchanged so pleasantries before they left with Bartholemew saying, "Good luck Marcus, if you make it big, remember who helped you reach the top."

Now I was alone in front of Rowan. He said, "You're strong kid, impressive for your age but you aren't strong enough just yet to do the Rokushiki."

"Since you are so far ahead of everyone else I will expect you to do harsher training than everybody else, and that starts now."

He then rushed me, hitting me center mass before I could react. He continued his assault on me dodging with Bo-bups and some quick head movement.

I could see that he was sandbagging but he was still making sure that he was just slightly faster and stronger than me to keep me on his toes.

When I countered with a Hwechook he easily dodged and continued to attack. This one-sided fight lasted for 3 hours before I collapse in exhaustion and immense pain.

He said, "You have good stamina and a great chin. Though I'm sure that mask helps with that. Well get up and head to the dorms and rest. We are going to start your real training tomorrow."

He tossed me a set of keys and pointed to a set of buildings. I slowly dragged my sore and aching body there, noticing that I was going to have 3 other roommates.

I couldn't bring up the energy to care at the moment. But before I went to sleep I wanted to check my stats. A lot had happened since I had last checked them.

[Name: Marcus Fulbright

Title/Alias: None

Rank: Initiate

Strength: 32 → 40

Agility: 35 → 46

Vitality: 33 → 41

Perception: 34 → 43

Intelligence: 27 → 35

Willpower: 33 → 40

Energy: 33 → 41

Skills: Renewal Taekwondo Lv. 22 → Lv. 35

Traits: None

Equipment: Sense-Sense Fruit]

Looking at my new and improved stats I smiled happily. Well at least all that pain and torment helped me somewhat and with that comforting thought, I went to sleep.

---

I woke up instinctively dodging a punch aim direct at my face. I rolled out of bed and looked at the person who had attacked.

I was a kid, around 13 years old with long back hair and a wicked grin on his face. "Oh ho ho, looks whose awake. Looks like sleeping beauty has some skills after all."

I looked at him, he was probably one of my roommates. I asked him, "Who are you and why shouldn't I break your arm for the attack you just threw at me?"

The kid said, "So confident eh? Well, my name is Jabra, remember it!" And he charged at me with little to no form.

Jabra, wasn't he a member of the CP9 organization we meet in the Water 7 arc. The one who is a wolf and had the Fu Manchu mustache?

I ignored his swipes at me dodging his weak, unskilled blows. That seemed to enrage to no end as he said, "Stay still you little shit."

He then activated his zoan fruit, the Canine-Canine Fruit, Model: Wolf becoming half wolf half man. His speed and strength drastically increased to match.

Before he had around 10 stats for his physical characteristic, now it was around 20. I continued dodging him before getting bored and hitting him with a controlled Arang that doubled him over.

I then walked out of the building and towards the training field I remembered. Even now I could see it start to fill up with kids, around 100 of them much more than I would've expected.

I mean didn't only like 7~8 agents appear in One Piece. Are there a lot more agents that just weren't shown in the manga?

No, I find it more likely that couldn't meet the mark and were eliminated from the program. I looked around and noticed that Jabra had finally joined the group.

I wanted to see if I could find any other familiar faces, but with the difference in age and the fact that they were now looking like real people instead of cartoons I couldn't find them.

Either way, Rowan, got on the stand in front of the massive crowd of kids and announced some exercises for them to do. Ignored it as I knew it probably wouldn't apply to me.

I was right as soon after he asked for me to follow him somewhere else. Here we started the real training. This time we did an actual exercise instead of a beating.

He had massive weights here and made me lift them in different ways to target every muscle group in my body for optimal training.

We also did cardio, him telling us to run before chasing me. If he caught up to me he would kick my ass and yell at me to run faster.

We did all types of crazy training after that like resistance training, where he attacked me with multiple things like fire, poison, and ice to get me to adapt to the extreme circumstances.

We also did perception training where he trained by senses. Sometimes by blindfolding or pulling my ears and forcing me to dodge incoming projectiles, or by just noticing clues around the arena.

I honestly think that this was just an early stage of him trying to teach me observation haki. I hoped that I managed to get it down before the end of the mission.

After the grueling training, he left me to go down to the mess hall. There I saw my fellow trainees just as tired as I was.

We were served a strange glowing soup that tasted like trash. But it did recover my stamina incredibly quickly. Must be a training food that is exclusive to Marines.

We were then shepherded to a medical facility. There the doctors checked on each of us to make sure we were good. We got some treatment to heal the worst of our wounds.

Other than that we got injected with some weird chemicals, and when I asked the doctor administrating it said that it would make me stronger.

So I guess some type of steroid or something of that nature. It probably didn't have too bad of side-effect or I would have noticed it in the One Piece manga.

But after lunch, we had to sit in on some incredibly boring lectures on why the marines and world government were good and the information we were expected to know by the time we graduated.

The lecturer was actually pretty good at his job, making very convincing arguments and manipulating the feelings of these children like it was clay. Classic indoctrination.

Then came the sparring. While the rest of the trainees sparred with each other, I had to spar with Rowan. Let's just say, not much changed since we last tried this.

After I was bruised and beaten I went back to the mess hall to eat dinner and then back to the medical room to receive healing and those mystery chemicals.

Then I went back to my door and collapsed beyond tired from all of the training I went through.

The next day was more of the same, Jabra trying to wake me up with an attack and me dispatching him than a full day of some of the most torturous training mankind has ever developed.

As so the days passed. I noticed as time went on that fewer and fewer kids were appearing for training and the training got decidedly more brutal.

Now instead of bruises in a fight, there were broken bones, and instead of carefully crafted exercise routines, there were gauntlets that pushed us to our max, causing many to fail each day.

I just hope I can survive this hell. At least for the normal trainees, they don't have to deal with Rowan's personal attention, but sadly for me, I do. Fuck.