23. 2 Years later

3rd person PoV

Year 1502

Inside a bar of For Village on Firto Island.

„Did you hear? The Gatekeeper destroyed another crew. This time it were the Big Bear pirates. I heard their captain ate one of those Devil fruits. The Kuma Kuma no mi Model: Black Bear. It is said, he was a hot contender for the strongest pirates, who emerged in the last two years, someone sure to make it big in the Grandline."

„Yeah I heard about it. The Gatekeeper sure is strong. In the last two years he continuously challenged and defeated all the strong emerging new pirate crews."

„I also heard that he would only challenge those who were strong and deemed worthy. So if you want and to go to the Grandline and were not challenged by him then you knew, that you probably weren't good enough to sail those seas."

„I also heard that rumor. Some of the pirates who weren't challenged thought themselves special, and that they were to strong to be challenged and went to the Grandline never the less. But the results were, that all of them were either destroyed or fled back here in less than a week. His judgement is frightfully always right."

„I headed something even more frightening. As you should know the Gatekeeper doesn't always win. And when he lost once. His opponent seemed to be really arrogant and wanted to kill the Gatekeeper. But guess what. The Gatekeeper suddenly erupted with a frightening power and instantly annihilated the whole pirate fleet."

„I heard that too. Rumor is, that the Gatekeeper always matches your strength and only challenge you on you skill. So only those who are better in skill than him can win."

„Yeah I also heard that. And it seems that all those people who won against him made it big in the Grandline later on. I also heard that some of the people who won against him were weaker in overall strength than some of those who lost against him."

„That's true. For example the Captain of the Big Bear Pirates that lost recently against him was way stronger than the Captain of the Blue Fox pirates from half a month ago, who was one of the few who won against the Gatekeeper."

„I wonder what the Gatekeeper is doing?"

„I think he is training."

All eyes gathered on the man who spoke the last comment.

„What do you mean?"

„Didn't you notice? The Gatekeeper was way weaker in his early years. He lost way more often, at least 2 or 3 times out of 4 challenges, he lost. People say, that this is because, the quality of pirates at the beginning were higher, but as someone, who was sailing the seas since even before the Great Age of Pirates I tell you this wasn't the case. Some of them were way weaker than the Captain of Black Bear Pirates, even in terms of techniques. But they still won, why? Because the Gatekeeper was weaker back then. But in these two years, he grew tremendously. To the extend, where he now only looses once or twice in 10 challenges and the quality of the pirates, didn't drop but if any, it even grew. This clearly indicates, that he has grown way stronger than in the past."

…..

MC PoV

That middle aged Uncle was right. I grew tremendously in the last two years. Only now that I went through this training period I could say just how much my lack of combat experience hindered me. If I had the same strength and stats as myself from two years ago, then I could now defeat my old self with the same ease as Mihawk did two years ago, if not with even more ease.

If I previously could only bring 60 percent of my strength into the fight then now I would be able to bring out 110 percent of it.

And as the rumors went, I matched my strength and speed to around the same level as my opponents every time. And if he were stronger than me, then I would use my domains, to match our parameters again.

This resulted in me getting maximum combat experience and even let me gain a way better control of my devil fruit.

Of course fighting wasn't the only thing I did in the past two years.

Let me first mention, that I have outgrown my old training suit. Not only in terms of strength, but also in terms of height, it now felt like a feather to me, making no difference, if I wore it or not. I was now around 489 cm tall. And I stopped growing even more, luckily. As I didn't want to reach the same height as my father. Around 5 m were already tall enough. Just how am I gonna find a girl. Sigh.

Anyways my training suit wasn't the only thing I had outgrown. Even my sword was now a bit too short for my liking. I had switched to a new 5 meter long sword now. To find one was a real bother. As I at least wanted skillful grade sword. But to find one that was 5 meters long and on the narrower side of blades was nearly impossible.

So I went with the next best option, having one made for me. But to find a blacksmith with such skill was also nearly impossible. At least here in the East Blue.

So I settled for a Graded one. But even finding a graded sword, that fullifiled my requirements were still nearly impossible. So I had to find a blacksmith again.

Fortunately after a few weeks of searching I finally found one skilled enough, but his prices to make me the blade were really over the top. And my founds at that point were nearly entirely spent. So j had to somehow make money.

How?

Well I decided I would start becoming a pirate hunter. So I used my identity as Gatekeeper and turned the pirates with bad attitude in. For example my most recent hunt. The Captain of the Big Bear Pirates. John Mart, worth 27.500.000 berry.

It was really easy at the start of the pirates era to find good prey even in the Four Blues.

I made around 400 million Berry, in these last two years. And that was even minus the price for the blacksmith which  were around 50 million. But that prize, even though high was worth it, as my sword was at the peak of Graded swords. And like I said, it was 5 meters long and around 16 cm wide. And normally one would expect a sword to be slightly unstable when its so narrow, but mine was very stable and very sharp. So I was very satisfied with it.

Since my growth spurt seemed to have ended, I took all the clothes, which are too bid or small for me and threw them over boat. Then I bought new ones, the same as I already had, a lot of them actually. As it was already proven, that my clothes were prone to getting destroyed. Either during my fights or during training.

The cloak I was currently wearing was my tenth one too by the way.

As for how my swordsmanship training went? Well I already got an idea of what I wanted my Core Technique to be, but it would still take a while to form even the first move. I still lacked an inspiration. As even in these two years of fighting I couldn't find one.

In contrast my Devil fruit made some massive improvements.

First my old domains, all of them grew stronger, but since I lack a real opponent I don't know yet how strong.

I can now teleport for 50 times, hold the Gravity in the Constrict Domain for a whole minute and the Compress Domain can now last for 5 hours, if I don't we anything else.

For my normal single domain I can now bring it to an radius of 290 meters, the double for 220 meters and triple for a hundred.

For duration, single domain 35 hours, double, six hours and triple 2 hours.

The Explosion Domain could be used 6 times.

And the Loop Domain, would now only use around 3 percent of my stamina.

And normal attacks in the Attack Domain could now be transmitted for around 1000 to 1200 times.

The Disguise Domain would still only last for around an hour at most, but it was useful when I tries to get the bounty for the pirates I turned in, as they wanted to see my face, before giving me my money. So I had to disperse the fog, but I then used the Disguise Domain to look  like a young man in my early twenty's but with many hideous burn scars all over my face. This also got me good excuse why I was a bounty hunter, as I said it was done by a pirate attack.

Since observation Haki is pretty much impossible to see in these seas, no one would see through my disguise or my mist.

The Push domain, I used before my fight with Mihawk two years ago, I developed too. First the principle. I think of this domain, as the opposite of the first half of my Explosion Domain. Instead of attracting all matter into a single point, this single point is now rejecting everything. Like two magnets.

This helped me in group battles, as I could throw many weak enemys outside my domain. Of course this also works on the stronger enemys, but they could normally resist it. So it isn't that useful, only if I suddenly stop using it, then they would normally loose balance.

I made this even more potent after developing a Pull Domain. This uses only the first half of the Explosion Domain as principle. But this left the mass of particles concentrated in the middle, which if not used soon, will result in a explosion. As such I developed another new Domain.

The Windblade Domain. This Domain is best used after the Pull Domain, but can also be used without it. As I didn't always wanted to release the stored particles as an explosion, I started to guide these Particles in a special direction. And to further strengthen it I shaped these ejected particles then in the form of a blade. I'm also able to use this domain without the Pull Domain, but then the Windblades that formed would be way weaker, but they would also use less stamina.

As for the Stamina depletion of these three domains.

The Push Domain could be maintained for three to four hours at the maximum output,

The Pull Domain, would use exponentially more and more Stamina. And if I wanted to use it without break I would already be drained after 15 minutes. But if I were to take a break every 10 seconds and discharge the gathered Particles I could use the domain for three to four hours too.

For the weak Windblade Domain, I could use it for 1000 to 1200 Windblades, the same as my Attack Domain, but the strong Windblade Domain, with prior use of the Pull Domain, I could only fire 50 Windblades at most.