The First Trial

It has been a year now and I have improved by leaps and bounds. While my improvement might not be as crazy as when I first came into this world it was still nothing to scoff at.

That first month where I trained in the jungle and dismantled the Shark Eaters in terms of stat growth in a short period of time probably won't be surpassed for a while.

The constant life and death battles there stimulated my potential. And while the training here is brutal I know in the back of my head this is not a real-life and death situation.

While it was for some of my fellow trainees, for me since was the prized student of Rowan while it was much harder for me, it was also much safer.

After all, you didn't want to lose a talent that you have put months into and believe could one day become one of the strongest CP agents of this generation.

So while my growth wasn't as explosive as I thought I could be I was consistent. Looking at my stats now really showed the improvements I have made.

[Name: Marcus Fulbright

Title/Alias: None

Rank: Initiate

Strength: 40 → 71

Agility: 46 → 73

Vitality: 41 → 72

Perception: 43 → 70

Intelligence: 35 → 62

Willpower: 40 → 72

Energy: 41 → 73

Skills: Renewal Taekwondo Lv. 35 → Lv. 47

Traits: None

Equipment: Sense-Sense Fruit]

It was a massive improvement in each stat with them rising by 30 stat points each over the course of the year.

Other than the fact that I couldn't improve my Renewal Taekwondo as much as I would've liked as the only time I could practice them was when I was getting beat up by Rowan, I was happy.

Now I was confident of getting it by a bullet in the head and surviving. It would still hurt me don't get me wrong it still hurt, but it was more like getting hit in the face with a full-powered hook than a killing blow.

And considering my agility, I was now faster than the human eye could track. If I moved right now it looked more like teleportation to the normal man.

All my other stats had improved as well. My intelligence in particular helped as I learned formal tactics from the lecture in between the normal indoctrination.

In particular, it was incredible how tactics changed when people have superpowers. Back in my world people were just figuring out how to deal with superpowered people here I had a textbook.

Here were perfectly laid out plans of how to deal with superhumans made after hundreds of years of human advancements and innovation from a society that had to deal with it every day.

Just this alone would help me if I wanted to make an organization in the future. This could allow me to use weaker members of my organization to take down people much stronger than them.

Of course, things were 100% applicable. This was only dealing with the power systems of One Piece whereas back home I would have to deal with power systems from across the multiverse.

But still, the basic concepts and ideas were pretty good. Like how to grind seastone to make devil fruit users inhale it and lose their ability to access their powers for a while.

These were some cool concepts that could apply universally. Either way, after the year had passed we were now left with a class of 50 children.

I had finally picked out the other members of the CP9 organization like Rob Lucci. He used his devil fruit after getting into a particular bad 3-on-1 fight.

I did notice the others like Fukuro, Kumadori, and Kaku with their pretty unique features like their circular body, long pick hair, and square nose.

The final pair, Blueno, and Kalifa, I had to ask around before I found them. They didn't have a particularly standout feature. Blueno didn't even have his hair horns right now.

But now the year has ended it was time for our first trial. It was to fight a pirate the world government had captured.

The normal trainees would get a pirate that had a bounty of around 25,000,000 ~ 20,000,000 while I would get a pirate with a bounty of around 50,000,000.

We all knew this test was coming for a while so in the last few months I could see the other trainees train like crazy. Especially the top performers.

The top in the class other than me was Lucci, Kaku, and Jabra. They were given pirates with a bounty of around 30,000,000.

The rest of the future CP9 members did stand out so they got pirates to the higher end of the spectrum given to the normal trainees. Pirates with a 25,000,000 bounty.

We were sent into a different arena and forced to wait. They were classical arenas, circular with nothing in them except a bunch of sand. So it was going to be a straight fight.

We knew nothing about our opponents other than their bounties so this would test our abilities to adapt on the fly.

I heard teacher Rowan's voice blare out from the mics around the arena, "In 3 seconds you will be faced with your enemy. So get ready in 3, 2, 1!"

And out of the opposite gate leading to the arena rushed out a man carrying throwing knives all across his body.

As soon as he saw me hit grab one of his throwing knives and it was launched in my direction at the speed of an anti-tank round, cracking the air in its passage.

I moved before he even touched his knife Bo-buping to the left of where he was aiming. Good this for me too as that was not an attack I could've dodged.

He hadn't even thrown the knife, once it was in his hand it launched in my direction with no movement on his part.

It must have been a devil fruit ability. Did it let him control knives? Maybe launch this he touches at incredible speeds? I didn't know just yet.

So I test my theory. I had brought 4 heavy metal balls into this fight. By now me throwing these things was deadlier than a bullet, so when I hurled one at him I wanted to see his reaction.

He noticed it and as soon as the ball touched him it immediately halted and hurtled in my direction at the same speed as the knife he previously threw.

So ok, now I think I know what his devil fruit ability is. He can change the speed of any object only as long as he is holding it.

It seems to make him some effort to change the speed as I noticed the ball moved his arm slightly back before stopping.

So that pretty much made him invincible to ranged attacks, unless ... Did he have to see the attack for him to block it?

I mean I think he needed to prepare before the ball hit him. If not I think it would blow right through him. So after dodging the ball he sent it back to me.

It was pretty easy to do as while the shots he was firing were incredibly dangerous he seemed to only aim center mass at where he last saw me.

I think that he never really had to deal with people that were as fast as I was. I assume his shots would always kill them, with him not needing to lead how to predict where a target would be.

Good for me because as soon as I dodged the ball I did a Ground Drawer that immediately launched all the soft sand straight into the air making a cloud that no one could see through.

I immediately threw the ball I had in my hand at him. With my perception training, I learned to figure out where people were based on the sound of their breathing.

And he seemed to be hyperventilating, terrified of his potential death. I hit him but at the last moment, I don't know if got luck or not he moved left.

What would have been a ball that hit him center mass and killed him only ripped his right arm off. I immediately heard him scream so I knew I did some damage.

Then I heard him yell out, "Rogue Technique: Fan of Knives." I immediately jumped up into the air, but one of the knives still grazed carving a trench into my left leg.

But now the sand had settled down and I was stuck in midair, with no way to maneuver. He noticed me and immediately took 4 knives in this one remaining arm.

He yelled out, "Rogue Technique: Flight of the Crows!" and the 4 knives launched at me.

Good thing that he announced his technique as before the fired I the both of the remaining steel balls in front of me.

It deflected all of the knives coming and I sighed in relief. As soon as I reached the ground I Bo-buped to close the distance as I had no ranged weapons remaining.

As soon as I was in range I did a Front Kick that I felt crush ribs. But I felt an odd sensation before I managed to fully blast a hole right through his torso.

I was barefoot, as it helped me feel the winds better and improved my Taekwondo and he was bare-chested his shirt being ripped apart when he launched his fan of knives.

He was touching me directly and had slowed down my blow. Before I could move away he smile and announced, "Rogue Technique: Full Counter!"

I felt my body accelerate I was launched backward toward the walls of the arena. It didn't hurt as my whole body moved as one, but I knew if I hit the wall I would become a bloody stain on it.

So I tried something crazy while, my Renewal Taekwondo wasn't good enough that I could do some of the crazier wind things with it yet, I think that would be at level 50, I could still manipulate it.

So I tried to do a Geppo, pushing off the air to slow my speed. I knew this was possible and I had pushed off winds in the past like when I put out that village fire, so it should be doable.

I did it, slowing me down just enough that when I landed on the wall instead of turning to a chunky salsa I merely felt some of my leg bones break.

I stood up in immense pain from the effort of doing the movement and I looked at my opponent. He was face up on the ground looking up to the sky barely breathing.

I saw him draw a knife one last time and with my broken legs, I couldn't move out of the way. But he couldn't seem to even lift his head to look at me so the knife missed me completely.

He did that 2 more times before I saw his chest still and he died. Damn, that was a lot harder than I expected. I immediately crumpled to a boneless heap.

I saw the doctors rush in to save and I passed out blissfully knowing that at least for now, I had passed the test and was safe.