14 5 years later

AN: This chapter is a bit more of an info dump. I wanted to progress the story, but thanks to the info dump, I could not (it's almost 3k words - A.N.). But this info cannot be ignored, because the explanation of some techniques is needed or else if explain things in between the fights it will probably break the immersion.

BTW, here are the images of how MC, Thor, and Hodur will look at the start of the canon. Since they are younger now, just imagine them looking younger.

Jai [img here]

I have made it myself, by taking references from the cover photo (Wayfarer from Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag) and the face is generated using the character design feature of nioh 2, since I am very poor at drawing human faces. Just that he looks better than this, but my drawing skills are not that great.

Height: 6 feet. Will increase to 7 feet max

Thor [img here]

His looks are like Bjorn from the Vikings TV series, the actor being Alexander Ludwig. (can google him for more images)

Height: 9 feet. Will increase to 11 feet max

Hodur [img here]

His looks are straight-up Zenon from Black Clover. Minus the '+' sign tattoo on the face. (can google him for more images)

Height: 6 feet. Will increase to 10 feet max

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<Timeskip 5 years, Jai is 15 years old now>

Today is a very special day for us.

We are allowed to go to the sea and adventure. But there are a few rules.

We cannot cause any trouble with powerful organizations like marines, underworld, germa66, etc.

We have to return back once a week. If we want to extend that time, we have to call the grandmas for permission.

We can hunt bounties but we have to be completely discrete about it. We plan to use masks and cloaks for that. And if we need to visit some marine base for it, we will use a rowboat.

To not draw any unwanted attention, for now, we will use Artur's ship instead of the submarine, which is modified beyond recognition. The modification mainly included cosmetic changes, so that it looks more like an adventurer ship than a pirate ship. We also removed a few cannons since we do not have enough people to man them.

Speaking of bounty hunting, we are only allowed to show our face to the marines only when collecting bounties. Marines check the faces since they do not allow any criminal to encash bounties of other criminals.

Some of them still manage to encash a few bounties if they have a new member who does not have a record.

Surprisingly, many bounty hunters stay masked, especially those who have families.

With marines knowing our faces, there is a chance of our identities leaking out, but that chance is low since marines respect such privacy even if they dislike bounty hunters.

Bounty hunting is not a very reputable job. Marines and the public dislike them. There are mainly two big reasons

Firstly, some hunters do not take general public safety into consideration while hunting. Marines do evacuate people before engaging pirates. They even evacuated Ohara civilians in another ship, just that Akainu killed them based on his own decision.

It is because of that reason, that both marines and civilians do not have a high opinion of bounty hunters. However, the above is done by some bounty hunters, but not all. This leads to the second reason.

The second reason is speculation, but I believe that some government organization that is responsible for spreading the government propaganda, willingly defames the bounty hunters. Like spreading their evil deeds of them more and hiding their good deeds.

This is done so that people will have more faith in marines than bounty hunters. It was not shown much in the series, but, in total, bounty hunters do take care of a huge portion of criminals. Those criminals are nowhere near the powerful ones. After all, in this great age of piracy, there are many pirates, and many of them have a very small bounty.

When I told Wolf and grandmas about this speculation, even they thought it was possible. Grandmas probably know it, or might not know.

This time, we also had to complete an act of revenge. Revenge against Loki and Zabuza. Zabuza is the pirate who killed Thor's parents and he is the owner of the logia Mist-Mist fruit. I was shocked to see the coincidence, but then probably all-father was lazy so he copy-pasted the character. He even looked the same and his right hand is still Haku, but this Haku is actually female and she wears quite revealing clothes. I guess some of my fellow weebs would be very happy to see this.

We also studied his exploits throughout the years and found that he never attacked any Valhalla trading group's ship after Loki took over. In fact, he attacked the competitors more. This was more than enough of us to join the dots.

Also, Valhalla's revenue skyrocketed after Loki took over, and opened many other small businesses which according to the public were nothing special or garbage, but made very good revenue on paper. This also proved that the group was doing some shady business, and the other companies are like shell companies, just to legalize the illegal profits.

Grandmas told us not to attack the Valhalla group for now. We must gather pieces of evidence, try to expose them, and then take action. If we directly attacked, then we would be the ones getting bounties.

As for attacking Zabuza, it is ok since he is a pirate.

And, why can we attack Zabuza when he ate a logia you ask? You got it right. We have learned armament haki.

In fact, everyone in our crew can use at least one type of haki properly, and everyone has awakened both types. The most efficient method for awakening both types of haki is similar in a way.

There are certain exercises that we have to do regularly, like, dodging stuff blindfolded for observation haki, punching hard surfaces with the intent to manifest it for armament haki, etc. There are many more such exercises.

Now if we keep doing those exercises every day for years, we will awaken both of them eventually. The amount of years needed depends on talent.

But the most efficient method is, after a certain point of training, you fight someone or something dangerous. Even if we did not know this for sure, I and Thor did something similar with the forest lord and Conney, respectively.

Catherine, once took us to an isolated island like Ruskaina, but a lot safer and stable than Ruskaina. In there we trained for 2 months, just for haki. Probably it was because of our previous training in haki, every one of us awakened both the types properly in 2 months and became that island lord.

It would be impossible for me, Thor, and Hodur to awaken armament haki with that forest lord normally, so Catherine bought us different weights to make things difficult for us. The weights obviously varied from person to person, where I had the heaviest of weights followed by Thor, Hodur, Drake, Law, Bepo, and lastly Sachi and Penguin who had no weights. Drake and Law obviously did not have permission to use their devil fruits.

We had already harvested the maximum we could from the island (haki-wise, not resources). We could increase our weights and keep improving, but that would not be a very fast improvement.

I must say, if I had to quantify my current talent that is with the system locked, I would say it is slightly more than [SS] grade in all.

Hodur's observation haki is better than mine and he has [SSS] grade talent. Similarly, in weapon arts, Thor's hammer-wielding with [SSS] grade talent is better than my sword arts. But in every other thing, I am better than them. Like, my sword arts is better than Hodur's [SS] grade spear mastery and my armament haki is better than Thor's [SS] grade armament haki.

Also, I got to know why haki is called "haki". Haki means willpower, but it is not exactly a manifestation of willpower. It can be classified more as some sort of spiritual energy. But it is called willpower because, for any breakthroughs in any haki, the will to improve is needed. The will to improve strengthens much more in adversity, giving better improvements.

So even if Hodur has [SSS] talent in observation haki, if he does not have the will to improve, he will have no progress in observation haki. But even if someone has [C] talent in haki, they will still improve in haki if they have the will to improve.

Once haki improves it does not deteriorate. But the haki quantity and regeneration can deteriorate with the deterioration of the physical body. So in the war, Whitebeard's haki did not get weak, but the haki pool and regeneration decreased by a lot. So he could use his peak strongest haki, but only for a very limited time.

I must say, ROB did a great job at not making me system-dependent. I might have a very high talent for everything, but hard work is needed. Even Zoro, who has SSS grade talent in swordsmanship needs to train his ass off.

At the same time, I am excited to see my progress with the system. But, even then I can't get complacent as the system will not improve my physique, haki strength, or quantity.

If it works like the gamer, it might still give me some skills like [Physical Resistance] but even that will not break the world laws blatantly. I will have to wait and see it with my own eyes.

Overall, our haki is still nowhere strong enough for new world. It is not even strongest for the top powerhouses of the blues. Like Chinjao in west blue and Germa in North Blue. That is counting the known characters, not even considering hidden experts like ex Roger pirates, who can be chilling anywhere in the world.

It should be noted that, even though a crew of haki users sounds very dangerous, it is nothing special either. Like Kuja pirates are a crew full of haki users, but it is not that the crew is overpowered if we exclude Hancock herself.

¸Currently, all of us who had the talent of [A] and above in any haki are able to use it decently, making only Bepo and Penguin weak in observation haki and Sachi in armament haki with their [B] rank talent, respectively. Nonetheless, the B rank is not bad at all, just that in our current crew, others have extremely strong talents. They will progress eventually.

Sachi and Penguin felt low because, when compared to others they were weakest, especially since they are the oldest. But, we cheered them up. Grandmas even told that their talents were not bad at all, and easily surpass more than 90% of people, and they will understand this once they go out to the sea, and see the world.

Eventually, they came to terms with it and started working harder.

As far as the progress of other fields is considered,

I can do all of the rokushiki techniques, other than Rokuogan, which I have no idea how to proceed with, and grandmas did not guide us in it either. Probably they can't perform it as well. Moreover, I can't just go and ask them about it, since I am not supposed to know anything about that technique.

My marksmanship improved a lot as well. I can do bullet bending and hit targets now. Also, I have developed a `Bullet Bounce style technique` where I can deflect bullets off surfaces to hit others at different angles, inspired by a certain red-eyed shuriken master.

I have also practiced this technique using other bullets as the "surface" and I was successful at that.

My marksmanship was actually improved by two techniques a lot, one of which I did not expect to work. It was `breathe of all things` or `cut what you want to cut`. This technique was not just limited to swordsmanship, but other things as well. So the more appropriate phrase was `damage what you want to damage` instead of `cut what you want to cut`.

So as you have guessed, I could `will to pierce what I want to pierce` using the bullet, and `spare what I want to spare`.

This especially works well with my `Bullet Bounce style technique`. For example, if I want to pierce a piece of steel, but for that, if I need the bullet to bounce off a piece of wood, I could simply `will the bullet to pierce steel`, and `will the bullet to not damage the wood`. This will allow the bullet to bounce off the wood and pierce the steel.

The second technique that improved my marksmanship ability is armament haki. Armament haki also works well with the `Bullet Bounce style technique`. The main thing about armament haki that I was impressed with is the ability to enhance the explosion that will shoot off the bullet, resulting in a faster traveling bullet. This is the reason why even the top-tiers can use guns since for them haki-less bullets will be slow as snails for them.

To use armament haki safely, it is best if the entire gun is infused with haki, or else, parts of the gun have a chance to be damaged or destroyed.

My swordsmanship has also improved and using the `breath of all things`, I can selectively cut stuff. After practice, I could also cut flames with it. I also tried cutting things like gravity and space, but it did not work out at all. Guess, I was expecting too much.

I can also do decent flying slashes with haki and breathe of all things. I have also developed a zero sword style and my rankyaku works well with it.

Next is Thor. He is made good progress with both of his haki, and his armament haki is better than his observation haki, but that does not mean he neglects his observation haki. Among the rokushiki, he has mastered soru, geppo, tekkai, and kami-e. He did not proceed further with shigan and rankyaku, since he was poor in them, and decided to use the time and effort that he would have put into shigan and rankyaku into other skills, which worked very well with him.

He can also use the `breath of all things` and can selectively smash things. As a testament to that, he can hit an egg like a baseball with his hammer and the egg will not break by the strike, but be launched like a ball. Of course, if it hits any other thing post that, the egg will break.

Thor can also do decent flying blows with haki and breathe of all things, and his hammer skills are also very good. If I and Thor were to fight using only sword and hammer and no other skill, he would even defeat me. He can also use a `zero hammer style` with his fists.

After Thor, Hodur comes next. His observation haki is even better than me and Thor, but he still loses to Thor and me for we have other skills to make up for it. He is also very good with armament haki, just below me and Thor.

In Rokushiki, he has mastered soru, shigan, and geppo, since like Thor, practicing others will just waste his time and effort

Like us, he has also mastered the `breath of all things` with his spear and he can both selectively pierce and cut things. His spear end also has a blade with which he can do slashes. He can also do both flying slashes and stabs. His zero spear style is more like shigan tricks, but its essence is slightly different than traditional shigan.

In fourth-ranking comes Law. Both of his haki is good, only weaker than us and equal to Drake. The same goes for his swordsmanship but it is better than Drake's weapon mastery. And he has mastered breath of all things and also flying slashes, but not zero sword style.

He focused his rokushiki on soru and geppo, and are good at them, discarding the others.

His main development was in surgery, medical science, and his devil fruit. He did well in all of them. He can do all the techniques of his devil fruit shown in canon minus the awakening ones.

Since his stamina drains a lot while using the devil fruit, he trained in that as well. Even though he will not use his devil fruit publicly until and unless it is necessary, but in the seas, it is inevitable that someday he will face that adversity to use his devil fruit.

Drake ranks fifth. His haki is equal to Law, but his weapon mastery is lower than Law. Drake too can launch flying attacks, but it is weaker than Law's slashes. But to compensate for that, he has worked on all of the rokushiki techniques and mastered them. His devil fruit currently does not need much work, since it is very simple to use, but he can still use all his transformations effectively, especially the tail.

His personality too changed, both in real and in the [observe]. I am glad that, [observe] updates the personality.

[ Personality: Brave, Confident, Decisive ]

Bepo had the best progress in martial arts, second to only me. 5 years back, he was not able to show this progress due to his limiting physique, but once his physique supported it, he progressed very fast.

Unlike the others, his observation haki is still very weak and mastery is low. He can call it forth and sense presence perfectly, but he has to proceed further to accurately sense intent, strength, and emotion.

Bepo has read books on navigation and uses his skills to predict the weather from the island for practice, and he is very accurate.

Sachi and Penguin as usual come last. But their determination is commendable. Probably because once they had some amount of inferiority complex, but after moving on, they were much more determined. As a result of which, they improved a lot.

Even their personality changed in status like Drake

[ Personality: Loyal, Hardworking, Persistent, Loud ]

Their main breakthrough is rokushiki. Like Bepo, once their physique got better, they improved decently fast in Rokushiki and they have also mastered all the techniques, minus Rokuogan. Their swordsmanship and spearmanship also improved and they too can do flying slashes and stabs.

Their haki as mentioned earlier, is not that great, but I am sure with their will to improve, they will make decent progress in haki.