For a girl of only thirteen or fourteen years old like Hina, being able to finish thirty laps in the first group was quite surprising.
Among this first group, Zephyr admired Lucas and Hina the most.
Because both of them were hardworking enough; of course, that is not to say that Smoker, Vergo, and the others were not hardworking.
However, compared to the others, Hina was a girl, and during this period, Hina had not yet eaten a Devil Fruit.
Moreover, Lucas’s foundation was clearly much weaker than that of Smoker, Vergo, and the others, yet Lucas would still put in extra training every night.
One day, Shuzo was so curious about why Lucas disappeared every night that he secretly followed him out.
Only then did he see that Lucas was actually practicing continuously with a wooden sword.
Besides that, Shuzo was surprised to see someone else watching from not far away, and it was none other than Shu.
Shu had woken up to use the bathroom before bed yesterday and had inadvertently seen Lucas leave the dormitory with a wooden sword, heading toward the back mountain.
He had been curious, so he followed, but he hadn’t expected him to be doing extra training.
Seeing that there was another person watching, Shuzo slowly crept over.
“What are you peeking at?” Shuzo asked.
The sudden voice clearly startled Shu, and his instinctive reaction was to swing a punch backward.
“Ah!”
Only after landing the blow did he realize he had hit Shuzo, even giving him a black eye.
Shuzo’s cry of pain interrupted Lucas’s practice.
He turned his head to look at Shuzo and Shu and asked, “Why are you here?”
“Oh, the moon is so round tonight.
The night is long, so we came to enjoy the moonlight,” Shuzo said.
Hearing this, Lucas glanced at Shuzo’s burly physique, then looked up at the gloomy, overcast sky.
His expression carried a hint of helplessness.
Do you think I believe that?
Do you take me for a fool?
“You keep practicing, we’re leaving,” Shuzo said, covering his eye with one hand and dragging Shu with the other as he walked toward the dormitory.
On the way, Shuzo sighed.
“Big guy, what are you sighing about?” Shu asked, confused.
“I am sighing for my dream; it’s feeling a bit shaky right now!” Shuzo said.
“What is your dream?” Shu asked curiously.
“I want to be an Admiral!
At the very least, a Vice Admiral.
Vice Admiral Garp is my idol,” Shuzo said with a gleam in his eyes.
But immediately after, the light in his eyes quickly dimmed.
Who could have thought that this class would run into three monsters: one who is always in first place, one who is a Logia Devil Fruit user, and one who is still this hardworking.
“Actually, we can do extra training too,” Shu said after thinking for a moment.
“How?
I don’t like swordsmanship; it’s like being a sissy.
I want to be a tough guy like Vice Admiral Garp and Admiral Zephyr,” Shuzo said, flexing his muscles.
If Hawkeye heard him say that, he would definitely make him taste the power of the Black Blade Yoru.
In fact, Shuzo did eventually become a representative of the Marine’s radical tough guys and even became a Commodore, while Smoker was still just a Captain at that time.
“We can train our physical fitness and other combat abilities,” Shu, who was quicker-witted, said.
In the following days, Shuzo and Shu also began extra training.
Half a month later, when Lucas and the others finished their thirty laps and sat on the ground to rest, Zephyr shouted, “You six, no resting!
Run another twenty laps.”
This sentence enraged the troublemaker Smoker.
That purple-haired old turtle, can’t he let anyone rest?
“Isn’t it supposed to be thirty laps?
Why do we have to run more?” Smoker couldn’t help but shout angrily.
“You don’t have to run!” Zephyr said calmly.
At this moment, Lucas stood up, picked up the water nearby, drank it in big gulps, and then started running.
Vergo also stood up afterward.
This couldn’t help but make Smoker’s expression change.
“Let’s run, Smoker!” Hina whispered to Smoker, then also started running.
Smoker snorted softly, had no choice but to stand up again, and also started running.
Watching the six people running again, a hint of a smile appeared on Zephyr’s face.
He was forcing Smoker and the others to push past their limits in the shortest possible time.
Back when he trained Akainu, Kizaru, Aokiji, and the others, they had all gone through the same thing.
It was exhausting.
Lucas once again experienced the feeling of his body refusing to obey him, but at this moment, Lucas’s consciousness was very clear.
He had to overcome the signals his body was sending.
Run!
Run hard!
Only by being strong would he never despair again.
Although my eyes are in total darkness, there is still light shining in.
Strength, strength—only strength can protect oneself, and only by possessing strength can one crawl out of hell!
At dusk, Lucas, whose heart felt like it was about to burn out, finally finished fifty laps, then collapsed to the ground.
This was the second time he had fainted.
Zephyr had long since had the school doctor waiting nearby.
After Lucas fainted, the doctor immediately checked his body.
“It’s nothing serious, he’s just overdrawn.
Admiral Zephyr, I suggest letting this child rest for a few days.
He has overdrawn himself too severely; this is overdrawing his life force,” the doctor said to Zephyr seriously.
Zephyr said noncommittally, “I understand.”
Afterward, he said to the others, “Shuzo, Smoker, carry Lucas to the dormitory.”
When Shuzo and Smoker carried Lucas to the dormitory, because the school doctor had checked his body earlier, Lucas’s clothes had been unbuttoned.
They accidentally saw the slave mark on Lucas’s back and the scars covering it—scars left by whips or other things.
What kind of treatment must one have received to leave behind so many dense scars?
And what was Lucas’s childhood like?
Seeing that slave mark and the scars all over his back, Smoker and Shuzo both fell silent.
The suffering Lucas had endured was far greater than theirs, and perhaps this was the root of why he worked so hard!
“Smoker, that…
that’s a slave mark, right?” As Smoker and Shuzo walked out of the dormitory, Shuzo asked in a low voice.
“That’s right, that’s the mark of a slave ship,” Smoker said with a complicated expression, recalling the newspapers he had read.
Lucas usually appeared calm and indifferent, and he wasn’t aloof, but who could have guessed his past?
Actually, this slave mark was different from the slave mark of the Celestial Dragons; it could be cut off, but Lucas had not done so.
He wanted to keep it as a memento, and then make everyone pay the price.
All evils shall be punished.
…
The next day, when Lucas woke up again, it was already early morning.
The first thing he did upon waking up was to eat, and then practice swordsmanship; he had to make up for the work he missed yesterday.
Not long after Lucas woke up, Smoker, who lived not far away, also woke up.
Seeing Lucas practicing swordsmanship, he said, “That’s not how you practice the sword!”