Early the next morning, Will was just about to head to the back mountain to begin that day’s training when Niss stopped him.
“Will, you’ve been at the dojo for more than a year now, and you’ve become considerably stronger.
But if you keep training like this, you won’t achieve any qualitative improvement.”
Niss paused, as if considering his next words.
“And no matter how strong your training makes you, it’s still just empty form without actual combat experience.
What you need now is real combat.”
“Yes, Master.
I’ve felt the same way.”
Will wholeheartedly agreed.
“Even if I make my swordsmanship and physical abilities as strong as possible, without actual combat experience, the moment I face a real enemy, I’ll probably be the first one to die.”
He had actually been thinking about gaining real combat experience for quite some time.
“Good.
Since that’s the case, I’ll give you two options.”
Niss explained,
“The first is to go to Loguetown and the surrounding islands and challenge the various swordsmanship dojos there.
You would do it under your own name.
This method is relatively safe, but the results won’t be particularly significant.”
“The second option is to first learn wilderness survival skills.
That should take about two months.”
“After that, you’ll go to a nearby uninhabited island and fight and survive against the wild beasts there.”
“It will improve your combat ability, build your courage, help you adapt to the sight and smell of blood, and teach you how to survive.”
“Think it over.
When you’ve decided, come find me.”
Having made his suggestions, Niss said no more and turned to leave.
“Master, please teach me wilderness survival skills.
I choose the second option.”
Will answered without the slightest hesitation.
Niss turned around and looked at Will with an expression Will had never seen before.
“Come with me.”
He continued walking.
Will followed him into the central room of the dojo.
After entering, Niss didn’t sit on the cushion in the innermost part of the room as he normally did.
Instead, he placed one foot on it and lightly tapped it several times in a particular rhythm.
Then he stomped down hard.
Click.
Two metal bars sprang out above the doorway and locked into concealed grooves on both sides of the door.
The door was now sealed shut.
The wall opposite the entrance slowly split apart from the middle, revealing a secret room of roughly thirty square meters.
The room was sparsely furnished.
There was a large round table and six high-backed chairs.
One chair was considerably more luxurious than the others.
It was obviously Niss’s seat.
Will followed Niss into the secret room.
Niss pressed a circular mechanism embedded in the wall.
The two sections of wall behind them slowly closed again.
Niss sat at the head of the table and gestured for Will to sit wherever he liked.
Then he spoke.
“Will, when you first came to the dojo, I didn’t particularly like you.”
“You immediately took away one of my apprentices who used to handle errands for me.”
“But over the past year, you’ve proven your character and your talent.”
“As for where you came from, what your true identity is, and how you can use lightning without being a Devil Fruit user…”
“I don’t want to ask about any of that anymore.”
“I only want to ask you one thing.”
“Are you willing to become my disciple?”
Niss looked at Will and revealed his true name.
Throughout the East Blue and even the first half of the Grand Line, only three people, including himself, knew his true name.
Today, Will became the fourth.
Because in Will, Long Ounce had seen the hope of accomplishing the dream that he himself would probably never be able to fulfill.
“Master, ever since you began patiently teaching me swordsmanship every night, you’ve already been my master.”
“You are the only master I will ever have, no matter what your name is.”
Will looked at Long Ounce.
The old man already had a head of white hair, yet he still possessed an imposing presence.
Will answered sincerely.
“Hahahaha!
Hahahahaha!
Good!”
“From today onward, you are my disciple, Long Ounce’s disciple.”
“A disciple—not merely an apprentice of this dojo.”
Niss—no, Long Ounce—was visibly delighted.
“My true name is Long Ounce.”
“I come from Wano Country in the New World.”
“Later, I accidentally learned a secret concerning the Kozuki Family of Wano.
The Kozuki Family is the royal family of Wano, and Kozuki Oden pursued me because of what I had learned.”
“So I had no choice but to flee to the East Blue with that secret.”
“As for the exact nature of that secret, you’re not strong enough to know yet.
Learning it now would only bring you a fatal disaster.”
“The Kozuki Family are a bunch of stubborn fools.
Sooner or later, Wano will be destroyed because of their stubbornness.”
“My family were retainers of the Kozuki Family.”
“And one of my ancestors was the legendary dragon-slaying swordsman, Ryuma.”
“Unfortunately, my family has fallen into decline.”
“Kozuki Oden wasn’t really trying to kill me.
Rather than calling it a pursuit, it would be more accurate to call it an expulsion.”
“He drove me out of the New World.”
“I know that my own talent with the sword wasn’t particularly impressive among my family.”
“And a lot happened along the way, leaving me without even the opportunity to work hard and improve.”
“So I came to the East Blue, opened a swordsmanship dojo, taught swordsmanship, and searched for talented young people whom I could take as disciples.”
“I wanted to nurture them in the hope that one day, one of my disciples might help me accomplish my mission and fulfill my dream.”
“Counting you, I’ve taken five disciples so far.”
“Two of them have already died.”
“The remaining two are people you already know.”
“Rom Roy and Olivia An.”
“They’re husband and wife, but they’re also Senior Brother and Senior Sister.”
“Originally, I wanted to train Roy into a top-tier swordsman, but unfortunately…”
Long Ounce sighed.
“Forget it.
I’ll tell you about that another time.”
“That’s enough for now.”
“I’ll tell you the rest after you return from the uninhabited island.”
“For the next two months, I’ll personally teach you wilderness survival skills and broaden your horizons.”
“After all, I’m from the New World.”
“My strength may be nothing special by New World standards, but when it comes to experience and knowledge, I still have plenty.”
Long Ounce spoke as though he were both recounting memories and confiding in Will.
Will was stunned by everything he’d just heard.
He was about to speak when Long Ounce waved his hand.
“Go back for now.”
“I need to prepare some things.
Come back tomorrow morning.”
With that, Long Ounce activated the mechanism and opened the secret room.
“Master, then I’ll head out first.”
Will turned and left the secret room, returning to his own room.
“Don’t disappoint me, Will.”
Long Ounce watched his departing figure and murmured,
“I’m entrusting my last hope to you.”
“I no longer have the energy or time to raise another disciple.”
Back in his room, Will lay on his bed, his mind unable to settle for a long time.
He had casually chosen some dojo to learn swordsmanship from, and he’d somehow ended up meeting such an extraordinary master.
Although Master had said his own strength wasn’t particularly impressive, his background was astonishing.
Could transmigrators really have the legendary ‘transmigration halo’?
No.
It must be a coincidence.
Being a descendant of Ryuma was already impressive enough.
But knowing a secret concerning the Kozuki Family?
That was on an entirely different level.
What was the Kozuki Family’s true background?
Most people would probably think only of their status as the royal family of Wano.
But they had another identity that was far more dangerous.
Eight hundred years ago, the Kozuki Family had not been royalty.
They had been a clan of highly skilled stonecutters, renowned for possessing the most advanced stone-processing techniques of their era.
Their most famous creations were the indestructible books known as the Poneglyphs.
Their ancestors were the ones who created the Poneglyphs.
Could the secret Ryuma had accidentally discovered have something to do with their creation?
The more Will thought about it, the more interesting it became.
Whatever happened in the future, he would deal with it when the time came.
For now, he should continue developing his Thunder Core.
Will had discovered that the lightning intensity produced by his Thunder Core wasn’t actually fixed.
Rather, the stronger Will became, the stronger the lightning became.
It was closely connected to his physical abilities.
Will sat up and continued researching the Thunder Core and its derivative abilities.
The next morning, before dawn, Will arrived at Long Ounce’s room.
He was immediately stunned by the enormous pile of books and casually arranged documents covering the room.
What the hell?
Am I preparing for the college entrance exam?
And so began the greatest ordeal Will had experienced since arriving in the One Piece world.
For the next two months, he immersed himself in learning and practicing all kinds of survival skills.
The practical training wasn’t too bad.
The truly painful part was memorizing the environment and climate of different islands, the appearances of countless plants and animals, their danger levels, whether they were poisonous, whether they were edible, and countless other details.
He also had to learn how to avoid dangerous animals on uninhabited islands, especially insects and reptiles, as well as how to find wild herbs and seasonings.
There was an enormous amount of information to memorize.
If Will hadn’t already survived the brutal experience of preparing for the college entrance examination in his previous life, he genuinely didn’t know how he would have endured it.
And if he memorized something but couldn’t remember it later?
He got beaten by his master.
According to Long Ounce, this was “strengthening his memory while conveniently training his ability to withstand blows.”
After two agonizing months, Will finally graduated from his survival training.
At least, he had graduated from the theoretical portion.
From this point onward, he would have to rely on his own experience to put all that knowledge into practice.
That was something he could never accomplish in Loguetown.
Will was going to an island somewhat far from Loguetown.
Arabella Island.
There were far too many wild beasts on Arabella Island, and many of them were extremely powerful.
If someone used cannons to wipe out the beasts on the island, setting aside the expense, the land itself would be devastated by the bombardment and lose practically all of its potential value for development.
After all, it was merely one of the countless small islands scattered across the sea.
So it had simply been given the name Arabella Island, preceded by the designation Uninhabited Island.