“AAARGH!!”
Gill suddenly screamed.
His voice had become painfully hoarse, and his body trembled as both pistols slipped from his tightly clenched hands and struck the ground.
He looked as though he were being tortured—as though someone had brutally ripped his soul from his body and dropped it into a vat of boiling oil.
Only after a long time did the strange reaction finally begin to subside.
Gill’s head remained lowered, his entire posture almost resembling a man kneeling in worship before Hua Ye.
Neither of them spoke.
Hua Ye simply gave him time to adapt.
“Haaah…”
Gill slowly exhaled and opened his eyes again.
Beneath his sunglasses, a faint green gleam flashed through his pupils.
He stood, looked down at his own hand, and clenched it hard as if trying to feel what had changed.
“Spiritual power…
So this is the power you were talking about?”
He could sense it now.
Tiny, lively presences filled the surrounding atmosphere.
If the entire world were a vast pond, then Reishi were like countless living fish constantly darting through its waters.
Gill had heard Hua Ye’s explanation to Kaido earlier.
He simply hadn’t believed a word of it.
He had assumed all of it was some unusual ability Hua Ye possessed, a story created to tempt Kaido into becoming his subordinate.
The idea that Hua Ye could literally share power with others had sounded even more ridiculous.
But there was no substitute for experiencing something personally.
Now that Gill had felt it for himself, he understood.
It was real.
Everything Hua Ye had said was real.
“So something like the Quincy actually exists in this world…
That’s really…”
Gill trailed off.
Perhaps he simply couldn’t find a word that properly described how he felt.
“Think of Reishi as another kind of Haki and the Quincy as another race.
That’s enough,” Hua Ye said.
“Reiryoku, huh?
No—Reishi, right?”
“Call it spiritual power if you want.
Call it superpowers if you want.
The name is your choice.”
“Superpowers…
Powers beyond Devil Fruit users?
That’s a pretty arrogant name.”
“Whether it’s arrogance or fact is something you can feel for yourself.”
Gill had no comeback.
His senses really had become sharper, and he could clearly feel an entirely new force flowing through his body and blood vessels.
He took a deep breath.
There wasn’t much else to say.
Better to accept reality.
The power was already his.
With that thought, Gill condensed a spirit bow.
Unlike the bows formed by ordinary Quincy, his was dark green with black lines outlining its edges.
Four limbs extended from the center in an X-shaped configuration.
“My epithet is ‘Gun King,’ you know.
Having to switch to a bow from now on feels pretty weird.” Gill played with the weapon.
“Somehow natural and unfamiliar at the same time.”
He casually pulled back.
A pale green bowstring appeared between his fingers.
Gill turned the bow away from Hua Ye, aimed into the distance, and released.
The arrow shot away.
Gill raised a hand over his forehead and watched it travel an enormous distance, leaving a long tail of light behind it before crashing down like a meteor and destroying a multistory building.
Then he kept playing.
His fingers moved rapidly as he fired dozens of arrows in every direction.
Hua Ye didn’t rush him.
He simply stood to the side and watched quietly.
Gill experimented for quite a while before finally stopping with a satisfied smile.
“Not bad!”
The basic combat methods of a Quincy had entered his body together with the blood wine.
He wasn’t starting from nothing.
He could quickly become proficient with abilities that would otherwise require exploration and training.
The only reason he’d suffered such a splitting headache and screamed earlier was that his brain had received far too much information in too short a time.
“If a bow feels awkward, turn it into a gun,” Hua Ye said.
Gill blinked.
Quincy were a people who fought with bows and arrows.
That was how Gill had understood it.
But Hua Ye’s words made something click.
He stared at the spirit bow in his hand and attempted to break its shape apart, then reconstruct it into something else.
It was surprisingly easy.
The bow separated into two small masses of green light that dropped into his hands.
The light condensed from intangible energy into solid form.
Two flintlock pistols appeared.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG—!
Gill immediately raised both guns and sprayed shots all around him.
Reishi bullets fired one after another without pause.
There were so many that it looked as though he were hurling buckets of water into the air.
Each bullet was a droplet.
Countless green projectiles interwove into what looked from a distance like a vast curtain of emerald rain.
Now Gill was really enjoying himself.
Pistols that never needed to be reloaded?
What could possibly be better?
Naturally, there was still a cost.
Whether he performed simple transformations with Reishi or directly used it for attacks, controlling it required concentration.
And over a prolonged battle, that mental expenditure would still translate into ordinary physical exhaustion.
“Stop playing with the surface-level abilities.” Hua Ye finally interrupted him.
“Awaken the power deeper within you.”
Gill dismissed the pistols.
The two guns merged, compressed down to their limit, and became a silver chain that he casually wrapped around his wrist.
Then he followed Hua Ye’s instruction and closed his eyes.
As though looking inward, Gill sank his awareness deep into his own soul.
There, he saw a gigantic letter.
If his inner world were an ocean, that letter was an island standing at its center, radiating dazzling light like the sun.
Gill’s eyes snapped open.
Two beams of light suddenly shot from his pupils and punched straight through the lenses of his sunglasses.
He jumped in shock.
The ruined sunglasses slid from his face, both lenses now sporting perfectly burned-out holes.
Gill swallowed and looked toward Hua Ye.
“A Schrift.”
Hua Ye gave him a simple explanation.
“I engrave a letter onto your soul.
That letter grants you the ability associated with it.”
Hua Ye’s power to distribute fragments of his soul could be applied in several ways.
One was healing through contact.
When another person touched him, he could give them a piece of his soul that filled the gaps in theirs, gradually repairing physical or psychological defects.
Another application was the engraving of a Schrift.
Anyone who drank his blood wine could have a letter bearing an ability carved directly into their soul.
Once that letter formed, Hua Ye could send far greater power directly into the recipient.
Ordinary Quincy simply couldn’t withstand such a gift.
“A Schrift…”
Gill fell into thought.
“This is power an ordinary Quincy cannot bear.
Since you possess the qualifications, from this moment onward, you are a member of the Sternritter,” Hua Ye continued.
“Got it, Boss!”
Gill grinned.
The cold sweat appearing on his forehead betrayed how nervous he truly was.
“So what do we do now?
Want me to call Kaido back and kill him before he leaks our information?”
Hua Ye looked at Gill.
The man was still joking on the surface, but he was probably terrified inside.
Hua Ye had not consciously chosen which Schrift to grant him.
If someone was compatible with a particular power, the corresponding Schrift would naturally awaken.
Hua Ye himself also possessed a Schrift.
“A.”
The Almighty.
He simply couldn’t activate it yet.
Hua Ye didn’t know the exact condition required to unlock it, but perhaps when all the Sternritter had finally gathered, his own final letter would naturally take its place as well.
A Quincy who received a Schrift became even more deeply connected to Hua Ye.
“Boss?” Gill called cautiously.
“Do whatever you want.
If you can kill Kaido, you’re welcome to try.”
Hua Ye flicked his cloak behind him and leapt from the skull-shaped mountain.
“Can I show people this power?!” Gill hurried several steps after him and shouted toward Hua Ye’s descending figure.
Hua Ye didn’t look back.
He didn’t even answer.
Before long, he disappeared among the tightly packed buildings below.
Gill remained at the summit for a long while before finally releasing his clenched fist with a helpless sigh.
“All right, all right.
I only jumped from one pirate ship onto another.
Not much difference, right?”
It wasn’t clear who he was talking to.
Maybe only himself.
“Either way, I got a new power out of it.
I’d say I made a damn good profit this time!”
Gill Bastar—Schrift “X,” The X-Axis!