As night fell, the clamor of Monster Island gradually subsided, leaving only the crackling sound of the burning bonfire.
Mina sat by the fire, completely disregarding her image, holding a beast’s leg bone thicker than her waist.
She gnawed on it until her mouth was covered in oil, her face radiating satisfied happiness.
Across from her, Rayleigh held his wine gourd.
Looking at this monster before him whose energy seemed limitless, his old face was as dark as the bottom of a soot-covered pot.
“Hey, silly girl, have you had your fill?” Rayleigh spoke up irritably.
“Hmm?
Just about.
Why, Mediocre Teacher, do you have some new tricks?” Mina lifted her greasy face and blinked her big eyes, her tone full of provocation.
Rayleigh suppressed the urge to smash his wine gourd over her head.
Taking a deep breath, he announced the next phase of the training plan in a serious tone.
“Starting tomorrow, the training will be divided into two stages.” “The first stage: Evasion.
I will lure all the exotic beasts on this island over.
What you must do is ensure you remain completely unharmed amidst their siege.
Even a single graze counts as failure, and you must start over.” “The second stage: Defense.
Likewise, facing the attacks of all the beasts, you are not allowed to dodge.
You must stand your ground and use Armament Haki to tank it.
If your body moves even an inch, it’s a failure.” Hearing this hellish training regimen, Mina’s eyes instantly lit up.
She tossed aside the cleaned bone, patted her chest, and agreed boisterously.
“No problem!
Sounds much more interesting than hitting wooden stakes!” Her nonchalant attitude made the corners of Rayleigh’s mouth twitch slightly.
This bratty girl had no idea just how insane he would become to make her feel a sense of “crisis.” The next morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten.
Mina was still snoring away on the Training Field when an earth-shaking roar jolted her from her dreams.
Opening her eyes, she saw a scene that would make anyone with trypophobia die on the spot.
From all directions, a dark tide of beasts was surging frantically toward her position from the horizon.
At a rough estimate, there were hundreds of them.
Flying in the sky, running on the ground, burrowing through the earth—there were all sorts of species.
Each one was massive, exuding a fierce and tyrannical aura.
Most importantly, these beasts all had blood-red eyes and bore various wounds, clearly having been intentionally provoked into a berserk state.
Mina didn’t even need to think to know whose masterpiece this was.
She looked up at the peak of a distant mountain range and, sure enough, saw that familiar figure.
Rayleigh stood there with his arms crossed, shouting from across the vast distance in a gloating tone.
“Girl!
Begin your performance!
I’ve got high hopes for you!” “To hell with you!” Mina, fuming with anger, unhesitatingly raised a massive middle finger toward the mountaintop, sending him a friendly blessing.
However, complaints aside, she still had to face the battle.
The beast tide was already before her, the dust kicked up by their stampede blotting out the sun.
Mina took a deep breath, instantly activating her Observation Haki.
The movements, intentions, and attack trajectories of all the surrounding beasts became crystal clear in her mind.
She moved her sixty-six-meter-long legs, constantly performing extreme evasions through the tiny gaps in the beast tide.
Twisting her waist, sidestepping, crouching, leaning back.
Her giant frame wove through countless claws, fangs, and venom with an agile grace.
Several times, sharp claws grazed her skin, the resulting wind even making her skin feel a bit chilled.
“Boom—!” She sidestepped the charge of a giant rhino, but a scorpion tail immediately followed, striking from behind like a phantom.
The moment Mina sensed it, her body reacted, forcibly twisting in an awkward posture to narrowly avoid the scorpion tail’s poisonous stinger.
However, the barb on the tail still left a negligible scratch on her fair leg.
“Failure!” From the mountaintop, Rayleigh’s devil-like voice drifted down mercilessly.
“Damn it!” Mina curled her lip in annoyance, forced to withdraw from the fray and enter the next round.
She spent the entire morning in this high-intensity evasion training, failing again and again.
In the afternoon, it was time for defense training.
Again, it was the simultaneous attack of hundreds of exotic beasts.
Mina stood her ground and took a deep breath.
Pitch-black Armament Haki instantly covered her entire body, making her look like a demon god cast from black iron.
“Come on!!” Accompanied by her roar, overwhelming attacks fell from all directions at once.
“Boom boom boom boom boom—!!!” The sounds of explosions, impacts, and biting were incessant.
Mina endured this concentrated fire that could level the earth, her armor of Armament Haki indestructible.
However, the massive impact still caused her feet to slide back uncontrollably half a meter on the ground.
“Failure!” Rayleigh’s voice rang out again.
…
And so, time flew by, and a month passed.
During this month, Mina repeated the cycle of failure and starting over every day.
However, with the addition of Garp’s template and its insane combat talent, her rate of progress was equally terrifying.
One day, at dawn.
The same beast tide, the same siege.
But this time, the expression on Mina’s face had become one of ease.
Just as the beast tide was about to submerge her, the cluster of never-extinguishing flames on her back suddenly went out.
The moment the flames vanished, her entire aura changed abruptly.
If she was a heavy mountain before, now she was the invisible wind.
With a flash, Mina instantly vanished from the spot.
When she reappeared, she had already charged into the beast tide.
Her speed was at the extreme, leaving only a series of blurred afterimages as she wove between hundreds of giant beasts like an elf dancing on the edge of a blade.
Countless attacks landed where she had just been standing, yet they couldn’t touch even a corner of her clothes.
The entire process was smooth and fluid, filled with an elegant beauty.
Minutes later, when the momentum of the beast tide’s charge passed, Mina stood unharmed in the center of the herd, without a speck of dust on her.
Stage one: Passed.
Immediately after, the extinguished flames on her back flared up again, and a gold-red light soared into the sky.
Stage two: Begin!
The surrounding beasts launched their attacks once more.
Mina neither dodged nor avoided them.
Covered in Armament Haki, her feet were rooted firmly into the earth.
“Boom—!!!” The world-destroying attacks descended once again.
This time, Mina’s body did not move an inch.
Relying on her ultimate defense and Armament Haki, she withstood the full force of hundreds of giant beasts.
The ground beneath her feet cracked inch by inch, yet she didn’t even wobble.
Stage two: Passed.
Having finished the two training items, Mina looked down, her gaze sweeping over the surrounding beasts that were still roaring.
Her eyes became calm and profound.
The next second, an invisible, tempered will radiated from her.
This Conqueror’s Haki was no longer as wild and overbearing as before.
Instead, it was like a gentle ripple, precisely covering every rampaging beast on the island.
There was no earth-shattering commotion, no lightning tearing through the sky.
The eyes of every beast swept by this will instantly turned docile.
Then, one by one, as if hypnotized, they quietly lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
Precise area control, perfect intensity adjustment.
She had essentially mastered Conqueror’s Haki.
With this, Rayleigh’s month-long hellish teaching officially came to an end.
That night, on the same familiar coast, the nightly bonfire burned.
Mina, Rayleigh, and Hancock—who still ran over to play every few days—were gathered around the fire eating roasted meat.
“Uncle Rayleigh, thanks.
Even though you’re a Mediocre Teacher, what you taught was actually quite useful.” Mina said indistinctly while gnawing on meat.
Rayleigh’s eye twitched, but he decided not to argue with this simpleton.
“I plan to set sail,” Mina said suddenly.
Rayleigh nodded, seemingly unsurprised.
With her current strength, staying in this tiny Calm Belt would indeed be a waste of talent.
“What about you?
Going back to Sabaody to continue being a Coating Mechanic?” Mina looked at Rayleigh.
“More or less.
I’m old; I can’t fight anymore.” Rayleigh took a swig of wine.
Mina then looked at the little girl Hancock beside her, who was watching her expectantly, and suddenly remembered something.
“Little Hancock, big sister has some advice for you.” She reached out and poked Hancock’s chubby little cheek with a greasy finger.
“When you’re twelve years old, whatever you do, do NOT go out to sea.
Otherwise, you’ll be caught by human traffickers and sold into slavery.” These words were spoken nonchalantly, yet they caused the expressions of both Rayleigh and Hancock to freeze.
“Why would you…” Rayleigh was about to press for more.
“Ahahaha, I’m just joking!
Look how scared you both are!” Mina suddenly laughed it off, using an exaggerated laugh to brush past the heavy topic as she went back to focusing on the roasted meat in her hand.
Leaving only Rayleigh to look at her guileless profile, his gaze becoming incredibly deep.