"Nii-san, you're back!"
"Nii-san, that was so fast!"
After obtaining the training method for the Spear of Elbaf, El returned to the ship without any delay.
But as soon as he stepped on deck, Carina's teasing tone made the smile on his face stiffen a little.
Reaching out and pinching her nose, El said with a smile,"Yeah. I care about you that much. Once I got what I wanted, I came straight back."
"Nii-san, I was wrong…"
With her nose pinched, Carina's voice came out nasal and funny. Realizing her little scheme had been seen through, and seeing El's "dangerous" smile, she immediately threw herself into his arms like a puppy trying to please its master, rubbing her cheek repeatedly against his chest.
"When you grow up," El murmured, holding her, "I'll settle the bill with you properly."
Understanding exactly what that meant, Carina's cheeks flushed bright red.
Kuina, watching El with a small smile, couldn't help sneaking a glance at the boy who could say such ambiguous things with a straight face.
After a little teasing, the four of them raised anchor and left the ancient island behind.
Because of everything that happened on Drum Island in the original history, El had no desire to linger on Little Garden—not even to capture dinosaurs or taste the meat of long-extinct creatures.
After leaving the Island of Ancient Times, their next destination was the Kingdom of Alabasta, known as both the Desert Kingdom and the Cradle of Ancient Civilization.
Alabasta, one of the top fifty kingdoms that regularly attended Mary Geoise's World Conference, sat atop one of the world's rare super-large islands: Sandy Island.
However, the next island after Little Garden on their natural route was not Sandy Island. If they wanted to go there, they had no choice but to rely on an Eternal Pose.
Fortunately, one of the Eternal Poses El had purchased earlier pointed exactly to Sandy Island.
The time it would take to reach Sandy Island from Little Garden was at least as long as the time required to go from Drum Island to Little Garden. For most sailors, that kind of voyage meant hardship.
For the four of them, it was just another kind of fun.
Every morning at six, they got up, ate a simple breakfast, drank a bottle of nutritional supplement, and then dove straight into high-intensity physical training.
After warming up, Carina and Nami worked on improving their coordination, while El coached Kuina one-on-one. By the time he was done with her, Kuina's white training clothes were shredded into ragged strips hanging off her body.
He could clearly see both Carina and Nami's faces turning red as they watched.
Sometimes, after finishing with Kuina, El would call all three of them into the training room and take them on in a one-versus-three battle.
From 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., their entire morning was spent like this.
Once the effects of the nutritional supplements had been fully absorbed, the starving four would hunt a few Sea Beasts and eat them without caring too much about flavor.
Eventually, to save time and water, and under Carina and Nami's persistent "attack," Kuina finally gathered up the courage to bathe with them at the end of the year.
Even wrapped in a bath towel, the first time she shared a bath with El and the others, Kuina nearly fainted on the spot.
It was then El realized that the once-cold, serious Kuina was actually such a shy girl.
But no matter how shy someone is, if they experience something enough, they'll eventually get used to it.
Although she nearly passed out the first time, once she'd taken that crucial step, Kuina adapted surprisingly quickly.
For some reason—perhaps because of her Wano blood—Kuina also turned out to be incredibly capable at taking care of others.
When she shampooed El's hair or scrubbed his back, she was more meticulous than Nami and Carina, making him unconsciously relax and show a look of pure enjoyment.
Seeing this made Carina and Nami regret dragging Kuina into the bathroom in the first place.
After eating, drinking, and bathing, the four would take a midday nap on the deck or in their rooms, depending on the weather.
When they woke up, afternoon training began.
This time, they didn't stay in the training room—everyone trained out on the deck.
El practiced the Hakoku Sovereignty of the Spear of Elbaf, while the three girls fused into their "Three Heads and Six Arms" form, working on their coordinated movements and shared senses.
Their second daily training block lasted until dusk. Almost every hour of daylight was devoted to training, with only small breaks in between.
In the evenings, they used games to unwind and relieve the stress and fatigue of the day.
The best form of entertainment, of course, was gambling. But because every single time they gambled, El would "wipe them out," Carina and Nami had learned their lesson even back when they were still in East Blue.
They no longer gambled for money against El.
Instead, the loser would accept a small "punishment" from the winner.
Even so, El still used his ability to win far more than he lost.
Whenever he could, he would aim his victories at Nami and Carina.
Especially Carina—El's favorite "punishment" was making her sing, so he could enjoy the voice of a future world-class singer.
With a voice like that, El thought, once she grew up, even her screams in battle would probably sound beautiful.
That was their daily life.
Time flowed by, and the year 1510 of the Sea Circle Calendar finally flipped over into 1511.
In this new year, the world that had favored El since his birth gifted him with yet another blessing.
Boom!
A jet-black arc of cold light flashed.
In the next instant, the sea ahead of them erupted, a trench dozens of meters wide and deep blasting open and then racing outward for three miles.
Reaching a mile-long flying slash had been something El needed to go all-out for just last year.
But now, this three-mile slash was just an ordinary swing.
Well… not quite ordinary.
More precisely, it was a sword strike wrapped in Armament Haki.
That's right—Armament Haki.
In the new year, El had finally awakened it.
Only now did he truly understand how vast the gap was between a flying slash with Armament Haki and one without.
The Sandai Kitetsu had always been sharp.
Even before he mastered cutting steel, with Sandai Kitetsu's help he could cut rocks and metal.
After grasping the Breath of All Things, iron and steel were no different from thin paper before his blade.
But that sharpness still wasn't Sandai Kitetsu's true limit.
Coated in Armament Haki, Sandai Kitetsu turned into a black blade, and with just a single swing, El could cleave the air itself and send out a flying slash that tore both sea and sky apart.
The trench-like slash just now had been drawn with that black blade.
With that one blow, El took another massive step on the path of the sword.
Now that he had mastered two types of Haki, among all the rising stars of the past two years, aside from Boa Hancock's spectacular debut, El genuinely couldn't think of anyone who could stand as his opponent.
Even Nami, with her Logia-type Devil Fruit, could no longer match him.
Once her elementalization stopped being effective, her physical endurance alone simply wasn't enough in El's eyes.
After firmly reclaiming his position as the strongest in the crew, El intensified Nami's training to help her awaken Observation Haki.
Once one of the three girls awakened Observation Haki, the other two would inevitably benefit.
If Baku Baku no Mi could even share Devil Fruit abilities, then sharing Observation Haki was only natural.
(El himself avoided combining with them; he didn't want them to discover his 24/7 mind-reading.)
On January 10, 1511 of the Sea Circle Calendar, after more than a week of sailing, the ship finally reached Sandy Island.
"Wooow… this is really an island, not a continent?"
Even from far offshore, the four of them could already see Sandy Island's massive outline.
As the ship drew closer, the three girls realized they had still underestimated its size.
As one of the rare super-large islands in the world, only the Sabaody Archipelago and Charlotte Linlin's Totto Land could compare to Sandy Island's sheer scale.
If it weren't for the island's poor natural resources, it would have been targeted by countless forces long ago.
Even so, millions of people lived here, forming the ancient and sprawling Kingdom of Alabasta.
The royal family ruling this desert nation was the Nefertari line, descended from one of the original Twenty Kings who founded the World Government hundreds of years ago—and the only royal line that refused to migrate to the Holy Land.
Even without the official status of World Nobles, that bloodline alone meant Alabasta's status as a "Celestial Dragon descendant" could not be denied. As a result, the kingdom had never once missed a World Conference.
At this point in time, the Kingdom of Alabasta had not yet been targeted by Crocodile, nor had Dance Powder been used to plunge the nation into drought and rebellion.
Alabasta was still a world-renowned military powerhouse.
Just its 600,000 active soldiers were enough to deter most forces without any need for naval support.
Should any outside power attack Alabasta proactively, the Navy Headquarters would respond immediately.
Even without a Marine branch within its borders, there weren't many pirate crews reckless enough to provoke this kingdom.
Alabasta had six major cities (seven if non-canon material is included), and only two of them were coastal: the oasis city Erumalu on the lower Sandora River, and the nearby port city Nanohana.
Anyone wishing to reach the capital had to start from Nanohana.
And the place where the four of them chose to dock—
Was precisely the port city of Nanohana.
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