9. Training with Master

Three years have now passed since I accepted Master as my Master.

And since that day my daily routine changed a bit.

First after waking up I still did my running, but now after running I had to run, but on my hands. And my normal workout routine of push ups, squats, and sit ups also changed. I was now finally using the training equipment that gathered dust until that day on the training field.

The equipment was the same as those, that one could find in a gym of my old world.

And now that I was using those equipments, I also started to train my body by muscle group and no longer my whole body every day.

Well after this normal muscle training, I had breakfast and then came my fruit training as usual, but my fruit training now lasted only two hours instead of the three, the missing hour went to my new sword training with Master. Afterwards was lunch and some strategy lessons, but those were also reduced, as I was increasingly familiar with the theory, and I had to simply turn the theory into something practical, but that needed time and experience.

Following those lessons was more sword training until dinner. And after dinner were the chess and shogi matches with granny.

Then sleep and repeat.

As for how my sword training went?

Well it went very well.

First master taught me the basics. Chop, Stab, Slash, Hook, Parry, Block, Lift and Sweep.

It took me six month to Master them all and another three let these moves truly become part of me, so that they became muscle memory.

Afterwards, mater taught me what he called advanced techniques, but were in reality, just the smooth flow and combination of all these moves.

It was like before I learned these advanced techniques, these moves were like some scattered gears, although they are very perfectly made, they couldn't show their full potential on their own, but with these advanced techniques, the single gears came together to form a powerful machine, my strength had a qualitative leap.

The day I mastered these advanced techniques, which was nine month ago, was the day I killed the King of the Forest, which was a ape by the way.

Even though I could already beat that ape since the day the basics became truly a part of me, but until the day I mastered these advanced techniques, I could never kill him, as I lacked a bit in my offensive power.

But something that's worth mentioning, and also the reason why only today I am able to finally start learning the real inheritance from master, was that since the day I had the advanced techniques mastered, something felt wrong.

And during the time of fully integrating these techniques into my being, which master termed as Completion, that feeling grew stronger, until it reached the peak on the day, three months ago when I reached Completion.

That was also the day I finally consulted Master about that feeling.

And he is truly amazing, after hearing about my feeling, he directly knew what was wrong and started to find the solution with me.

The problem?

It seemed that the type of sword I was using before is wrong.

I had used the same type of sword as my master before. A single-handed broadsword.

But after a bit of testing we came to the conclusion, that I was more suited for a doubled handed sword, with a long, narrow, double sided blade.

This also resembled the sword I used on that day, where I first met Master. Seems like I already knew what was most suitable for me then, and had subconsciously taken such a sword back then.

And now finally after three months of adjusting to my new sword I reached Completion in both my basics and advanced techniques. So today would also be the day that Master would teach me some real sword techniques.

But before that I was still currently training my fruit.

I also made quite a lot of progress.

Now I could hold a single domain with 30 meters in all directions for around eight to nine hours and if I used two it would shorten to around one to one and a half, depending on which domains were in use.

For the issue of not being able to really ‚see' in my domain after I can't see physically, the solution was actually pretty simple. I simply integrated the principle of the Attack Domain, that the domain is an extension of my body, into all my other domains. But as this time I didn't use it to project my attacks to a distance, the consumption of stamina was negligible for this addition.

Speaking of the Attack Domain, I managed to allow my sword attacks to be projected anywhere in my domain too.

But this was actually quite tricky. As I integrated the principle of the domain being my body, as the fundamental of the Attack Domain, I couldn't integrate my sword attacks into it at the start. As a sword was not part of my body.

The solution?

Well I simply accepted the sword as part of my body.

But even though this sounded simple, but it actually took me over a year to accomplish that.

And it seemed as if I accidentally entered the first realm of swordsmanship on that day, Sword-Man Union, which is also the benchmark for one to be considered as an official Swordsman. And if one doesn't reach this state, then one wouldn't be recognized as one, no matter how long one used a sword to fight.

When Master found out, he was quite shocked and nearly chocked to death on his wine,that he always drank in the evening.

Turned out, that reaching the status of a swordsman was quite a big deal, and not even more than 300 people in the whole world could be considered real swordsmen.

At least on the surface, in actuality my Master guessed that there should be around a 1000. But this was without the people of Wano, as it is currently still closed off of the outside world and they were even more secretive as the members of the hidden clans, at least to the people of hidden clans, so my master didn't know the state of swordsmanship there. But still it were only a thousand on the surface, or the surface for hidden clans. And I who was nine at the time was considered one of them.

But well if one really thought about it then it was kinda understandable, that there were only those few. Currently there weren't that any pirates out there, so it was still relatively peaceful times. And the normal swordsman, wasn't like me, who simply awakened the Sword-Man Union through training. Most swordsmen awaken this state through life and death battles. And in times like this it was relatively more difficult to find people with enough strength to fight, and even if there were, find the reason to fight.

After all life and death battles were no joke, just one mistake and it meant death. So in these times there was no real reason to fight such battles only to awaken the Sword-Man Union.

In the future, when Luffy will sail the seas, I bet that there will be at least ten times as many real Swordsmen as there are now.

The Sword-Man Union was after all not that hard to reach, not like the next realms.

That was also something Master taught me on the day he found out I reached the first realm.

Although he at first really didn't want to tell me, but after thinking it may hinder my progress in the realms if I didn't know what came next and my relentless questioning, he finally gave in and told me.

The first realm, Sword-Man Union, is when man and sword become one, and the sword is no longer considered an external thing but part of your body and allows the Swordsman to freely use his Sword.

The second realm, Sword Force, after gaining the first insights into why and how one wield the sword, one will gain their very own Sword Force, allowing to make ranged attacks with their sword.

The third realm, Sword Intent, after fully understanding Sword Force one will gain Sword Intent and their power of attacks will be strengthened to unimaginable levels.

The fourth realm, Sword Heart, After fully understanding Sword Intend and ones own heart, one will gain a sword heart. After gaining a Sword Heart one will never again be let astray, and ones will will become indominatable, cutting through all obstacles with just a thought.

And lastly the fabled fifth realm, that no one has ever reached, and as such is only speculated to exist, Sword Dao, after one can see past ones self, and fully focus on the pure meaning of the sword, one may gain enlightenment into the Dao of the Sword.

My Master has reached the fourth realm a long time ago, even before becoming part of the Big Sword Clan, which was also the reason, why he was even given the opportunity to surrender, else the strength of my Master wasn't really valued much by the Big Sword clan, as the have 5 Protectors, their powerful Clan leader and even a more powerful Patriarch, who was the past clan leader behind them. So one more or less combat power of this level didn't matter to them. But they valued my Master as he has reached the fourth realm, which only the Patriarch of their clan has reached.

That was also the reason why he mentioned the fifth realm, as he was sure it existed, his instincts were telling him that there existed a higher Realm. And the instinct in such things are normally accurate, the same as with my instincts told me that something was wrong with my practice of the on handed broadsword.

I really feel glad, that the one piece world isn't so shallow as in the manga. Don't get me wrong the manga was amazing, but if one looked at it objectively, then the power system is indeed a bit shallow. I mean Luffy reached near the top power level after around 3 years. And the time he spent on his journey was simply less than a year and he was already about to finish three fourth of the perquisites to reach the final island, Laughtale.

And I didn't want such a short adventure.

Sure Whitebeard, Kaido and BIG MOM spent more than twenty years on the see, but I think they simply spent their life without suspense or the thrill of the unknown. As they believe that here are only 3 other pirates and maybe 3 or 4 people on the marine and world government side on their level. And no I don't acknowledge the Admirals as equivalent of the yonko. I mean look at Akainu vs Whitebeard. Whitebeard at the time was old and way past his prime, he was also sick and already injured, but he still wiped the floor with Akainu. And fought even the other admirals for some time. So no the admirals are not as strong as the Yonko.

So I'm truly glad that the waters here are deeper than imagined