7 Marine Based - 7

His hand to hand combat for instance, had reached eighty, a week and a half ago. The progress had slowed down a lot.

But he was training just as hard, if not harder and even getting more time sparring in because he was lasting longer. And even managing to train longer the more used to training he got.

'Well at the very least, I know I'm making some progress with haki.' he mused, eyeing the screen as he hobbled on his way.

It was dreadfully slow rising, but each single point increase he saw, drove him on. It didn't help him in anyway beyond telling him, he was on the right path and just had to keep going.

Though considering the progress he'd made so far….

It would take over a year before he reached the one thousand mark.

And so far, all he'd been able to do between the two was dodge a few times between the swinging tree logs.

Beyond that he didn't know why his armament had risen though.

Kaden sighed and then continued on.

Though instead of heading back inside the base, the blonde, bloody and beaten petty officer continued his hobble…towards the back port.

Where they kept the mass of battleships G5 went through because they were absolutely shit at taking care of their equipment. Basically, it was a ship graveyard.

While everyone was busy, he figured he'd go for a little….swim. And maybe take a little peak down below the water and have a looksie at what was going on.

Specifically, at what was underneath the battle ships stationed at said port.

…And maybe scrape off a little shiny green sea stone while he was there.

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Just over an hour later, Kaden burst up out of the roiling sea of the New World, naked as the day the teen marine was born.

He floated in the water for a moment between two massive and heavily damaged battle ships, a large soaked sack held over his shoulder, before swimming back to shore.

Usually, ships like this would be brought onto land and left there until they were slotted to be taken apart and their pieces used for the creation of something new.

G5 were just too lazy though and had simply anchored them in the water, leading them to getting even more messed up by the crazy weather patterns of the New World ocean.

'Their laziness is my gain I guess.' Kaden snorted tiredly. He didn't even have the energy to laugh over it, or the fact he just filled a sack up to the brim with expensive sea stone that would probably go for a pretty hefty amount on the black market.

Once he made it back to the shore, he collapsed on his backside just right next to where he'd dropped his marine uniform, dropping the large sack he was carrying, taller even than he was and stared up at the cloudy, rumbling sky.

"…I fucking hate this place." Kaden groused with a sigh, running a hand through his damp blonde hair.

The novelty of being in the One Piece world and having a body so strong that he could snap a world class body builder from his own world easily with, had quickly worn off.

Within the first week of being there.

If he was in say the East Blue, he'd probably be enjoying himself a whole lot more.

As it was though, he was stationed in the New World, and near every few days he was called to action to take on pirate crews. Just the other day, he was almost squashed to death by a literal half giant pirate captain with a bounty of sixty million and would have been dead right then and there, if not for Commodore Yarisugu zipping in and cutting the half giants arm clean off.

….Said half giants corpse was still strung up outside the front of the G5 marine base like some kind of macabre trophy or flag.

Once more Kaden repeated: "I fucking hate this place." he sighed again. The pay was shit, the living conditions were crap, the weather was trash, he was surrounded by absolute freaks like Commodore Yarisugu and Vergo on the daily, and to top it all off-

The place was a complete and utter sausage fest. The closest he'd gotten to any girls in the month he'd been here, had been a few quite attractive pirate girls.

Who were pretty brutally chopped up by the freaking G5 marine mutts.

And he wasn't anywhere close to leaving this place either. He needed at least Soru and Geppou down before that, preferably more. Yet, he hadn't even gotten Soru down yet.

'Coby went from that tubby little runt not even as strong as an average grown man, to being able to use both Soru and Tekkai within forty days.' Kaden clicked his tongue in annoyance.

At the very least he knew he had a way better starting point than Coby did starting off. And physical ability mattered the most when it came to the Rokushiki, less the skill.

And to use the Rokushiki, one had to cross at least the threshold of super human ability in this world, which was counted at five hundred doriki.

An average fully trained marine soldier had a doriki of ten. Going by that, the average grown man probably had a doriki of around five at most. And Coby would have been way lower, probably at like two or three at most.

Which meant in forty days, Coby had basically speed run his way to five hundred doriki from basically nothing, and was probably higher actually considering he had two of the six powers down pat at that point, which he could only train in properly once he'd hit that five hundred threshold.

Which probably meant…Coby got two of the six powers down in maybe like a week or two at most.

Was that just because he was being trained by Garp, or-

'Am I just that freaking inferior to Coby talent wise?' Kaden grimaced at the thought.

Thinking on Coby though….

Kaden's eyes glanced to the battleships floating in the port bay and eyed them speculatively. 'Garp trains every day by punching battleships. He even trained Aokiji that way and Coby copied him.' he mused.

Of course that wasn't even an option for him, because he was not capable of pulling those damn ships onto land himself, he lacked the strength. And he wasn't too keen on the idea of asking anyone else at the G5 base for help.

Quite frankly, he couldn't stand the people here.

They were absolute sick freaks, they honestly weren't that much better than pirates really. Which honestly made sense considering their leader was a fucking undercover pirate himself for one of the most ruthless and degenerate pirates there was.

Kaden found his teeth grinding as he thought of that sick fuck Doflamingo, which inevitably led to him thinking about Wano and Kaido, and all those poor people like cute little Tama starving right now.

And it grated all the more that he was absolutely powerless to do absolutely anything at all about shit like that.

Even if he was fucking strong enough to do something about it, he literally would not be allowed to. Doflamingo was protected by his status as a Shichibukai and the fact he was a former Celestial Dragon with tons of dirt on them, and the marines refused to face off against any of the Yonkou, because they were too chicken shit.

The second he tried to do anything about monsters like them, he'd be cast out of the marines and branded a pirate himself.

So much for being a fucking marine that stood for justice and protected the innocent, huh?

Kaden shook his head, putting it out of mind for the moment, it wouldn't do to dwell on stuff like that right now. He could worry about it when he wasn't a no name weakling piece of trash.

This was a world where might made right, and he currently lacked might.

'I suppose I could steer one of the ships onto land myself once I got Soru down.' He mused, taking his thoughts back to where they started.

He wondered idly, if Vergo could measure doriki?

He'd really rather not deal with him unless absolutely necessary, but as it was, getting a measure of his doriki, was one of the few ways he could see where he stood in the world currently.

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He found Vergo where he usually was when he wasn't out 'hunting pirates', which was probably more of an excuse for him to meet with Doflamingo and others of his crew.

Sitting in his office, an empty plate of food in front of him and a piece of a steak stuck to his cheek.

Vergo stared at him blankly, not at all asking why he was there. Honestly, the guy was a weirdo.

"Can you measure doriki?" Kaden asked bluntly, getting right to the point.

"Mmm, yes." Vergo nodded.

And said nothing more.

Kind of annoying really, but Kaden wasn't too annoyed, in fact he was rather pleasantly surprised.

It was far easier to find someone who could measure his doriki than he thought it would be.

"Can you measure mine?" Kaden asked, "Right now?" he added, just to make sure he wasn't left hanging with a simple yes and the man just sitting there blankly.

"I suppose," Vergo nodded, "Make it quick though, I'm busy playing golf with my brother right now, you see."

Vergo in fact, did not have a brother. And since he was sitting behind his freaking desk, he clearly wasn't playing golf either.

"I'll be quick." Kaden replied, instead of calling him a retard like he wanted to.

"Okay," Vergo nodded and stood up, walking around his desk to stand in front of the blonde teen and held one hand up, palm facing Kaden, "Punch my palm." he instructed simply.

Quick as a flash, Kaden did as bid and struck out with a rapid blurring punch with all his strength.

It slapped meatily into Vergo's palm, which barely budged. And then his palm glowed with a soft green light.

"570." Vergo said a moment later after the soft green light faded away.

Kaden's eyes widened.

…That was actually way higher than he expected.

But beyond that, something else occurred to him. It was specifically ten times the number of his strength stat.

'Which means, my doriki is specifically ten times that of my strength stat on this stupid screen thing.' Kaden realised happily.

Before that sudden joy was doused with realisation.

The max number his strength stat could go to on the screen, was five hundred. Did that mean…his strength was capped at five thousand doriki?

Only a thousand higher than pre time skip Lucci?

"Well….that sucks." Kaden spoke aloud, shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Yes quite middling," Vergo agreed, "You should really train more."

…Fuck this guy.