After setting sail with Luffy on the small fishing boat, Tom's emotions shifted from initial excitement to calm, followed immediately by extreme boredom.
Yes, it was boring.
For a full twenty days, Tom stayed on the small fishing boat, facing the endless sea. Along the way, they didn't encounter any other ships or islands. Apart from Luffy on the same boat, he hadn't seen another soul.
Compared to Luffy, Tom was slightly better, possessing a tiny bit of navigation knowledge. At least in the first few days, he could still discern their direction.
But after a few more days, even Tom couldn't figure out which direction their wind-and-current-driven boat was heading.
At first, Tom thought about rowing, but Luffy told him not to bother. Just let the boat drift with the currents; they'd run into an island sooner or later.
After thinking it over carefully, Tom felt Luffy made a lot of sense. They had set out in a hurry, without even the most basic navigational tool—a compass. They had truly sailed out fueled by sheer passion.
The small fishing boat the chief prepared for them was similar to the one Tom used before, but this one was stocked with plenty of food and water.
Even with Luffy's enormous appetite, it was enough to last them a while.
Because of this, Tom didn't need to fish and led a rather idle life on the boat.
To Tom's surprise, there was also a large treasure chest on the boat. He'd seen the contents—shining gold so bright it could blind you.
When Luffy saw the treasure inside, his eyes lit up, saying he'd use it all to trade for a giant human-shaped bronze statue.
Tom was speechless at Luffy's willingness to trade gold for bronze.
The boat was small but more than enough for two people. However, staying in such a limited space for a long time with nothing to do could drive anyone mad.
Tom, who had never been on a long voyage before, now truly understood the loneliness and hardship of sailing.
Thinking about Luffy sailing alone in a tiny boat before, this energetic guy could actually endure that kind of solitude. Tom found it rather incredible.
After enduring for several days, to give himself something to do, Tom began training his body like crazy on the boat, day and night. He pushed himself to exhaustion every day, collapsing to sleep as soon as he stopped, then waking the next day to continue.
For these sixteen days, apart from taking care of daily needs, Tom spent all his time training like his life depended on it.
To keep Luffy from bothering him, Tom gave him a task: to make the boat rock as much as possible without capsizing.
The reason was simple: Tom found that practicing his stance on a rocking boat was more effective than on stable land.
"Alright! Watch my Fishing Net Frenzy!"
Luffy said excitedly, holding the fishing net Tom gave him. He cast it into the sea, then standing at the boat's edge, began spinning rapidly, the net whirling with him.
As Luffy spun faster and faster, the net's speed through the water multiplied.
Soon, the several dozen food-filled barrels Luffy had earlier tossed into the sea were caught in the net. The weight of the barrels created drag. With Luffy spinning furiously and dragging the barrels in circles around the small boat, he soon created a small whirlpool.
Caught in the whirlpool, the boat rocked violently—perfect for Tom, who wanted precisely this environment for his training.
Doing his stance on the violently rocking boat, Tom remembered how Luffy, seeing him toss barrel after barrel of food into the sea, had asked if he was "sun-drying" the food because the weather was nice. It was pretty funny.
When Luffy saw the barrels starting to sink, he'd been ready to dive in after them without a second thought. Tom was speechless. This guy really would risk his life for food.
Tom handed Luffy the net to retrieve the barrels.
As Tom expected, Luffy threw himself into the task with gusto—after all, the barrels contained his beloved meat. This was precisely why Tom threw the food-filled barrels overboard: it kept Luffy busy, prevented him from causing mischief that would disrupt Tom's training, and even created the training environment Tom needed. A perfect solution.
And so, every day, Tom would toss dozens of food barrels into the sea, and Luffy would fish them out with the net.
What left Tom most speechless was that Luffy seemed to get addicted to it. On their tenth day at sea, Luffy started tossing the barrels in himself and playing the "net the barrels" game, having a blast while incidentally creating Tom's training whirlpool.
After sixteen days of relentless training, Tom could clearly feel his body had become stronger and his strength had increased significantly. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to toss dozens of barrels without getting winded.
Even though every day ended with sore muscles and utter exhaustion, Tom would force himself through the fatigue and resume high-intensity training the next morning.
He'd progressed from seventy consecutive push-ups, three hundred frog jumps, and ninety minutes in a horse stance daily, to doubling that intensity—all within half a month. He was gradually adapting to this疯狂近乎自残的锻炼方式.
Once, Tom was so tired he couldn't even lift his arms to eat. Luffy ended up shoving meat into his mouth, nearly choking him to death.
Luffy watched Tom training like a maniac every day. He didn't say much, though sometimes when he saw Tom drenched in sweat, his clothes soaked through, he'd just laugh goofily to himself.
You could say that for over ten days, however long Tom trained, Luffy played the barrel-netting game.
This, however, affected their sailing speed. Luffy's man-made whirlpool enhanced Tom's training but greatly slowed the boat's progress.
But neither Luffy nor Tom were steering; they just let the boat drift. In fact, at night when they both fell asleep on deck, their boat probably sailed faster than during the day.
In the first few days at sea, Tom was still fixated on what ability his Devil Fruit had given him. But no matter how he tested, he remained completely clueless. In the end, he simply stopped thinking about it and poured all his energy into training.
"Alright! That's enough for today."
Seeing Tom collapse onto the deck, panting heavily and no longer holding his stance, Luffy announced cheerfully and began reeling in the net full of barrels.
But just as Luffy was hauling the net with dozens of barrels out of the water, a large fish suddenly leaped from the sea and swallowed the entire net—barrels and all—in one gulp.
Splash! After swallowing its prize, the big fish quickly dove back into the depths and vanished.
Staring at the small, tattered remnant of the net in his hand, Luffy was dumbfounded. Even Tom, sitting on the deck, was stunned.
"Hey! Give me back my meat! I'm the man who's gonna be Pirate King! You stole from me! You prepared yourself for this, right?!"
Recovering, Luffy tossed the ragged net aside, strode to the boat's edge, planted a foot on the gunwale, and shouted with great气势 toward where the fish had disappeared.
But the fish was long gone, deep under the sea. No matter how much Luffy shouted, the sea surface remained calm.
Dragging his exhausted body over to Luffy, Tom was about to say something consoling when he saw Luffy's unusually serious expression. The usual goofy grin was gone, replaced by a sharp glint in his eyes. Tom felt a jolt.
"You have a way to catch that fish that stole our stuff, right?"
Luffy stared intently at the water, his face solemn. "We're pirates! We can't just watch our things get taken and do nothing. Even if the opponent is a fish, I'll go all out!"
Then, looking at Tom, Luffy said excitedly, "And it ate all the meat I really liked in one bite! Even I wouldn't dare eat all that meat at once! I won't forgive that fish!"
Hearing this, Tom felt a headache coming on. So the last thing you said is the real point. The earlier stuff was just preamble.
With dozens of barrels of meat gone, their remaining supply was indeed low. By Tom's estimate of Luffy's appetite, it might only last four or five more days. Just as Tom was about to respond, he saw something fly out of the water not far away.
Looking closely, it was the very fish that had stolen their food. As it dove back in, it flicked its blue tail fin and let out a sound eerily similar to human laughter, as if mocking Luffy and Tom.
"Ah! It dares to come back and挑衅 us! I'll knock it flying!"
The single-celled Luffy was quickly riled up, ready to settle things with the fish.
"It's a Laughing Fish. They can make sounds like human laughter. It's my first time seeing one too."
Tom stroked his chin, looking thoughtful, and said to Luffy beside him.
Tom had read about Laughing Fish in a marine book while learning fishing techniques. When fully grown, they are sea-blue, scale-less, fifteen to twenty meters long. Their bulging gills produce human-like mocking laughter. They love to taunt fishermen, and many anglers find them a real headache.
"I should be able to catch it. Might take some effort, though."
The Tom from twenty days ago wouldn't have had the confidence to say that. Having just finished his training, his clothes were soaked through as if dipped in water. He shook his slightly sore arm, and water droplets flew from his sleeve—proof of how much he'd sweated.
"Then hurry up and do it! I've never eaten this kind of fish before. If its meat is tasty, then I'll forgive it! Hahaha!"
Luffy's offhand comment made Tom cringe. If you're going to eat it, what's the point of 'forgiving' it?
"A mere fish dares to cause us trouble. Does it not know this is a pirate ship? Maybe we don't have a Jolly Roger up, so it mistook us for fishermen."
Tom found two spare fishing nets on the boat and grinned to himself. Who would've thought my first opponent at sea would be non-human? The sea really is full of surprises.
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T/N :
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