One Piece: It All Started When I Found Shanks' Arm

Chapter 40: Five Months Later

The time spent in arduous training flew by like a shuttle. Unknowingly, five months had passed.

Cocoyasi Village had endured several cold snaps and a few heavy snowfalls, but it had finally passed through the harsh winter and arrived at the season of warm spring and blooming flowers.

The wind carried a hint of warmth, grass shoots pushed through the frozen earth, and the expansion of the orange grove was gradually completed. New seedlings were being planted in batches, and there were a host of other tasks like loosening the soil, watering and fertilizing, and pruning branches. Manba and his group were busy every day, so much so that their feet never touched the ground, yet they were happy in their work.

Over the past few months, they had begun to gradually integrate into the local atmosphere, and the villagers had also come to accept this group of outsiders. Compared to the days of fighting for survival in fear and anxiety in the Colubo Mountains, their current life was like heaven.

If only... a certain little troublemaker wasn't so mischievous, it would be even better.

"Hey!"

A small, orange-haired figure suddenly flashed out from behind a coconut tree, scaring Fatty Joe, who was lifting a bundle of orange tree seedlings from the ground, so badly that he nearly threw out his back.

"There you go again, Nami! Scaring people everywhere!" Fatty Joe said angrily, his hands on his hips. "If you do this again, I'm going to complain to Mr. Shane and see how he deals with you!"

Ten-year-old brats are so annoying!

"Nyah nyah nyah~"

Nami made a face and turned to run away. "My brother doesn't have time for that! Why don't you try to catch me yourself, you big oaf!"

Passing by the village entrance, the postman who was delivering letters saw her, and his eyes lit up. He quickly stopped his bicycle and waved. "Wait! Nami, a package has arrived for you! But it's very heavy. You probably can't carry it back by yourself. How about I help you deliver it?"

"A package?"

Nami's face lit up with surprise. She immediately crouched down and tore it open on the spot. Inside was a thick stack of books.

The postman leaned down to look. Atlas of the Four Seas, A Study on the Craftsmanship of Log Poses, Advanced Techniques in Drawing Complex Isobaths, A Tribute to Vegapunk: The Application of Seastone and Navigation in the Calm Belt... They were all huge tomes. Just reading the titles made his head spin.

"Are all these books for you?" the postman asked, stunned. "Or are they for the adults in your family?"

"They're mine! To be precise, my brother bought them all for me!" Nami said with a giggle, patting the stack of books with satisfaction. "The bookstore in the village has too few books; I finished them all a long time ago. My brother often buys me new books from other nearby towns. This batch is very high quality! It'll be enough for me to study for a good while!"

"That's really amazing, Nami," the postman said, giving her a thumbs-up in admiration. "To be able to read this kind of book at such a young age... My daughter just runs around playing wildly all day. If only she could be as sensible as you!"

Sensible?

"Y-yeah..." Nami said, feeling a little guilty as she kicked a stone. "Oh, right, the books are pretty heavy. You'd better help me take them home, Uncle."

"Of course! It's my job, after all," the postman said with a smile. He had been to Cocoyasi Village many times and was very familiar with the area.

Pushing his bicycle, he walked ahead, turning left and right. Before long, a cozy wooden house appeared before them.

"We're home! Belle-mère and Nojiko aren't here. They probably went to the orange grove," Nami said, pointing to the coffee table in the living room. "Uncle, you can just put the books here."

"Alright!"

The postman put down the books and suddenly noticed a pile of hand-drawn sea charts scattered on the sofa next to them. He picked one up to examine it. The first one was of the islands surrounding Cocoyasi Village. It was exquisitely detailed, far better quality than anything one could buy on the market.

"Nami, did you draw all of these?" The postman was truly amazed now. "That's incredible! Your talent is too amazing! You might become a great cartographer in the future!"

"That's a given, Uncle!" Nami said, smugly tucking her hair behind her ear with a graceful flick of her hand. Unfortunately, she hadn't washed her hair in a few days, and her hand got stuck, taking a good while to pull free...

"Ahem... Anyway, my dream doesn't stop there. My goal is to use my own navigational skills to travel this entire sea and then create a world map that I've seen with my own eyes!"

"A world map?" The postman laughed heartily. "Now that's an incredible dream! But Nami, the outside world is very dangerous. There are many powerful pirates. You won't be able to handle them!"

"I can't beat them, but following behind my brother is enough," Nami huffed. "He's the most famous great swordmaster in the East Blue, you know! All those other pirate crews, with one slash of his sword, he'll split their ships in half!"

That young man named Shane?

The postman was slightly taken aback. He remembered that about half a year ago, that name was indeed famous for a while, but then there was no more news, and he had gradually faded from the public eye.

The postman couldn't help but feel curious. "Where is your brother? Now that you mention it, I've come to Cocoyasi Village so many times, but I don't think I've ever seen him in the village."

"He's a training maniac. At least, that's what everyone calls him. It'd be a miracle to see him during the day. As for this time..." Nami poked her head out the window and pointed to the tallest mountain in the northern hills. "Hey, can you hear the sounds from the mountains?"

The postman listened intently. Only then did he notice a low, rumbling sound like distant thunder coming from the mountains. Looking closely, he could even see dust rising from the mountain peak.

He was momentarily stunned. "You mean..."

"It's my brother. He's in that mountain," Nami said with a grin. "Those are all sounds he's making. It's a good thing the village is further south, so we can't hear it much. Otherwise, we'd have gotten noise complaints long ago."

Your brother?

The postman was dumbfounded. Is that a sound a human can make?

BOOM!

A massive boulder, five or six meters high, was suddenly blasted into powder by a single punch.

Amidst the swirling dust, the tall and imposing figure of a black-haired young man was revealed.

Shane stepped over the still-rolling rubble, the quartz particles crushed under his feet sparking with blue fire. He quickly passed the spot where the boulder had been.

He looked up at the devastated mountainside before him. It didn't even look like a mountain anymore. As far as the eye could see, the entire mountain was pitted with craters, as if it had been bombarded by a meteor shower. Countless cross-sections of rock were exposed. A tunnel that could fit several people at once ran diagonally through the peak. If not for the many fist imprints remaining on the tunnel walls, one would think it had been bored through by a giant drill.

"The hardness is still too low."

Shane's face was expressionless as he looked at the rock walls on both sides of the tunnel. "This mountain already has the highest metal content of all the mountains on the island, and the rocks in the deep parts are the hardest, but for me now..."

He shook his head slightly. It was gradually becoming insufficient.

He retracted his gaze, walked a few steps forward, and stepped out from the mountain's shadow. The afternoon sun shone down on his shoulders.

His height had now reached 187 cm. His body was a mass of gnarled muscles that twisted like thick tree roots, yet they were extremely dense, gleaming with the cold luster of iron. His shoulders were terrifyingly broad; to an ordinary person, he looked like a towering small mountain.

With every step he took, the rocks under his feet trembled slightly. As he passed by a large tree, he happened to step on a few mushrooms. Shane didn't notice, but when he lifted his foot again, the mushrooms had already merged with the ground, reduced to a two-dimensional state.

The reason was simple.

His own body weight was now just barely 125 kg, but the black athletic suit he wore was weighted down to 1.6 tons.

Considering the steep increase in pressure due to the small surface area of the soles of his feet, the force he exerted on the ground was even greater than that of a full-grown elephant.