After the combat examination ended, Roya went straight home.
He wasn’t particularly interested in his score or ranking.
It wasn’t that Roya was some saint who had completely abandoned worldly ambitions.
Rather… he could already guess what the results and rankings would look like this time.
Besides, this was merely a ranking within the ordinary camp.
There was nothing particularly worth caring about.
At this moment, Roya was sitting alone in his room, cross-legged with the famous sword Engetsu resting across his knees.
He lowered his head in thought.
Although he had practically swept through the combat examination, slaughtering everything in his path with overwhelming momentum, that didn’t mean Roya had become so arrogant that he had lost his judgment and reason.
The reason he had been able to display such overwhelming dominance was simply that the forest environment had been far too suitable for his abilities.
If he had been fighting in an open area, the flames he could currently release wouldn’t have been enough to create such a spectacular sea of fire.
Of course, these weren’t things worth dwelling on.
The thought merely flashed through Roya’s mind before disappearing.
What concerned him more were some of the problems he had exposed during the battle.
For example, he didn’t have any proper techniques.
His swordsmanship was chaotic and disorganized.
He had relied almost entirely on his flames or the sharpness of Engetsu, wildly hacking and slashing at his opponents.
That was perfectly adequate against Ferocious Beasts.
But if he were facing a Swordsman highly proficient in swordsmanship, or a martial artist with exceptional physical abilities who was agile enough to evade his flames, the situation would be completely different.
“Techniques are important.
From what I can tell, there are only two practical techniques I currently have for my flame-type abilities.”
Roya recalled his battles during the combat examination and briefly summarized them.
One-Sword Style: Cremation!
This was the most basic and straightforward technique.
He simply poured all his strength into a single slash, releasing the maximum amount of flame forward in what resembled a flying slash of fire.
Flame Sword: Torch!
This technique was both offensive and defensive.
After sweeping his sword horizontally, he caused flames to erupt around him, creating a curtain of fire that could keep enemies outside—or trap them within.
Put more simply, One-Sword Style: Cremation attacked a single point, while Torch covered an entire area.
Each had its own advantages and disadvantages.
Most of his other techniques were essentially extensions of these two.
For example, Flowing Flame, which split his flames into multiple fireballs, was derived from them as well.
Aside from these two flame-based sword techniques, Roya didn’t have any other moves he could truly rely on.
As for pure swordsmanship, even the simplest and most basic techniques, such as One-Sword Style and Iaijutsu, were still far from being mastered by him.
“This time, I had the advantage of fighting Ferocious Beasts in a forest environment.
If I’m fighting people, and my flames aren’t enough to instantly defeat them, then combat experience and techniques will become extremely important.”
During the previous month, Roya had devoted practically all of his energy to strengthening his physique.
He had never trained through actual combat with Garp.
Now, he no longer needed to devote all his energy to physical training.
He could spare some time to hone his combat experience and swordsmanship.
However, after thinking about it for a moment, Roya suddenly wore a helpless expression.
“That’s true, but if I spar with Garp… wouldn’t that just be asking to get beaten up?”
The moment Roya imagined training through combat with Garp, a scene involuntarily appeared in his mind.
He was being sent flying by Garp’s Iron Fist in every possible position.
The more he imagined it, the darker his expression became.
Roya decisively stopped his train of thought.
Hoo…
He helplessly exhaled.
Just as Roya was wondering how he could find a way to train without getting beaten half to death, the door to his room was suddenly pushed open with a loud bang.
“Uncle Garp, could you knock before coming in?!”
Roya stared at Garp with a speechless expression.
The old man had a habit of barging in without knocking.
If Roya happened to be doing some sort of training that required him to work on his hand speed, wouldn’t he be caught completely off guard?
Observation Haki really is useful.
I need to learn it as soon as possible.
Roya sighed inwardly and stood up.
“If you need something, you could just call me out.”
Garp stood there with both hands folded across his chest and grinned.
“I wanted to give you a surprise.”
“…”
Roya nearly fell over.
Fortunately, he had already become accustomed to Garp’s eccentric personality.
The fact that the old man had walked in without smashing the door off its hinges was already something worth being grateful for.
“That brat of yours got a score that was ridiculously high,” Garp said casually, still standing in front of Roya.
“It affected your team’s overall ranking, and there were some other unexpected circumstances as well.
So this combat examination won’t temporarily be used as the final assessment for promotion to the Elite Camp.”
“Instead, a month from now, there will be another full-camp combat assessment based on the results of this examination.
That will determine the overall ranking of the ordinary camp.”
Roya had already been privately selected by Zephyr as his disciple, so Garp naturally didn’t care much about this combat assessment.
After saying this, Garp suddenly scratched his hair and looked as though he had forgotten something.
“What else was there…?
Ah, right.
I remember now.”
As though he had suddenly recalled it, Garp reached into his clothes and pulled out a small booklet.
He tossed it toward Roya.
“Here.
Take this.”
Roya had listened to Garp for quite a while, but he wasn’t particularly interested in the combat assessment a month from now.
As for the promotion assessment for the Elite Camp, that had long since ceased to be something he cared about.
When the time came, he could simply participate and teach a lesson to those recruits who had looked down on him before.
What caught his attention was the small booklet Garp had suddenly thrown at him.
A strange glint flashed through Roya’s eyes.
He casually reached out and caught it.
Seeing Roya catch the booklet, Garp gave a mischievous grin and immediately turned around, leaving Roya’s room.
Roya held the unfamiliar booklet in his hand.
Remembering Garp’s earlier claim that he wanted to give him a surprise, Roya raised an eyebrow and opened it to take a look.
“This really is a surprise…”
The booklet was actually an Essence of Swordsmanship, compiled by extracting and condensing a vast amount of swordsmanship material from the Marine Headquarters’ archives!
As the military organization serving the World Government, which had ruled the world for eight hundred years, the Marines possessed an intelligence and information system that was practically beyond comparison with any private organization.
The Marines’ internal archives contained material on swordsmanship that had undoubtedly been accumulated from the insights, notes, and experiences of countless powerful Swordsmen.
And this Essence of Swordsmanship was undoubtedly the most concise and essential portion extracted from that enormous body of knowledge.
Garp himself wasn’t particularly proficient in swordsmanship.
But that didn’t mean he was incapable of teaching Roya swordsmanship.
Given Garp’s extraordinarily high position within the Marines, obtaining this material was naturally easy for him.
And this was exactly what Roya needed.
For Roya, being able to unleash the power of Ryūjin Jakka, and eventually even Zanka no Tachi, as early as possible was one of his clearest goals.
With the cultivation and enhancement of the Sword Soul as his foundation, swordsmanship training would undoubtedly provide the greatest benefits.
Although this Essence of Swordsmanship had distilled the essence of swordsmanship and extracted only the most concise and essential principles, it was still far more detailed than Roya had expected.
It even contained information about the realm of the greatest Swordsmen at the very pinnacle of swordsmanship, although the information there wasn’t particularly comprehensive.
Roya immediately skipped over the material he couldn’t use yet or wasn’t particularly interested in.
Instead, he went directly to the information he most wanted to understand.
At present, Roya could only be considered an ordinary swordsman.
Although he possessed an ability similar to sword intent that allowed him to imbue his attacks with additional flame damage, he couldn’t truly be called a Swordsman, let alone a Great Swordsman.
The Essence of Swordsmanship clearly explained the difference between an ordinary swordsman and a Swordsman.
Swordsman.
Rather than calling it a realm, it was more accurate to describe it as a state.
For an ordinary swordsman to become a Swordsman, the first threshold was to comprehend the Breath of All Things.
This was the most fundamental state possessed by every Swordsman.
Roya, who was familiar with the original story, was quite familiar with the phrase the Breath of All Things.
In the original story, Zoro defeated the Baroque Works assassin and Supa Supa no Mi user by comprehending what was known as the Breath of All Things.
For a Swordsman, even without using Armament Haki, simply wielding an ordinary rusty iron sword was enough to cut through steel with ease.
That was an insurmountable difference in realm between an ordinary swordsman and a true Swordsman.