Choosing a path

As much as he would like to be positive and filled with hope for a happy future. He knew that it was simply not possible in the world of one piece.

One piece world can be simply described as a world of power and influence.

If you are born intelligent with a lot of knowledge, you will simply be forced to work for someone more powerful.

If you are born with a lot of money, someone stronger will simply come and take it away.

If you are somewhat unique than others, you will simply be turned into a slave forced into unknown suffering.

One piece is a beautiful world filled with exciting adventures and unknown mysteries.

But to achieve anything, a relative amount of strength is needed.

Without strength, one will simply die in an adventure or disappear through some mystery.

Thinking about all this Gem decided to raise his strength.

He felt uncomfortable just thinking about being so weak when there are people powerful enough to blast islands to smithereens with just one attack.

Done with his mental motivation Gem decided to choose a path.

There were multiple paths to power in the one piece world.

Some of the famous ones include :

Haki

Martial arts and weapon mastery

Devil fruit

Strong weapon

Body modification

Although there are some other unique powers that people possess, there isn't much information regarding such subjects.

Among the available options Body modification was rather impossible as there was neither material nor knowledge for such modification.

The second hardest to acquire after body modification was probably haki or strong weapons.

He didn't have any great weapons in his arsenal of weapons. The only notable weapon he had was the cane. Other than the came there wasn't much to consider in regards to weapons. And he was no blacksmith or inventor to make himself a new strong weapon.

Talking in regards to haki he didn't know where to start.

He couldn't get armament haki because well there was nothing to hit. And even if he hits something the chances of his bones damaging are quite high, and he didn't have a healing factor with him.

And he couldn't simply get conqueror by simply shouting something like, "I am not like the others, I'm stronger, I'm smarter I'm better"

'I AM BETTER'

If it was as simple as that everyone would have conqueror haki.

Though there was a chance he could get observation haki he didn't know how to do it.

The only available option is to either choose to increase his devil fruit mastery or to learn how to use a weapon.

After contemplating for a while. He eventually decided to learn how to use a weapon first. Because unlike when using a devil fruit he didn't get physically tired because of his skeleton body.

Also, unlike Brook who was a veteran pirate with a lot of battle experience and a sword style of his own. Gem is a complete novice in the field.

So, having made up a decision he went to retrieve a weapon. Looking at the various weapons he decided to choose the knives first.

Among all the weapons available he had a bit of experience while using the knives, to butcher animals.

First, he decided to swing the knife horizontally and vertically. He continued this action for a while and observed that there was nothing he could discern by simply swinging the knife. It was simply a pointless action.

Deciding to change his approach he went to the upper deck where the broken mast was. He went near the pole of the mast and drew a cross with the knives.

Going further away from the mast he threw the knife, the knife went in a straight arc while slanted, and crashed with the pole. The knife bounced back and fell in front of the pole. He continued the action with the other knife, and the result remained the same.

He then picked up the fallen knives and continued repeating this action.

An unknown amount of time passed as Gem continuously repeated the same action again and again.

Eventually after what seemed like a very long time he was standing in the furthest possible part of the ship from the poll. He threw the Knife with all his force. The knife flew straight to the poll and got embedded in the center of an 'x' he had drawn.