God's Island Upper Yard: The Deep Forest Basin.
Time quietly slipped away over three months of frantic, daily special training.
BOOM!
A deafening muffled bang tore through the early morning silence. In mid-air, a figure wrapped in blue static was sent flying like a boulder from a catapult. His feet carved two deep furrows into the scorched earth, sliding back ten meters before he steadied his stance.
Enel panted heavily, wiping blood from his lip. His once-arrogant face was covered in grime and sweat, showing a new ferocity born from genuine life-and-death combat.
"Again!"
He growled, the sound laced with thunder. He didn't pull away to summon a lightning storm as he once did; instead, he kicked off the ground and lunged forward for a direct physical exchange.
"Good. You've finally stopped hiding behind your elemental body," Sabo said from atop a nearby ruin. His blue tailcoat was gone, replaced by a sweat-stained black tank top. His alloy staff pointed diagonally at the ground, coated in a solid, deep layer of pitch-black Haki.
As Enel's fist approached, Sabo didn't retreat. He tilted his head, his Observation Haki reading the muscle shifts. He parried the strike and launched a sudden straight punch at Enel's chest.
"I won't back down this time!" Enel's eyes widened. For three months, he had suffered under this "black armor." The Logia's pride was useless against it. But even a stone starts to spark when beaten long enough.
"BLOCK IT!"
At the critical moment, something within Enel finally snapped under the pressure. He withdrew the lightning scattered through his body, forcing his will and blood energy down his arm.
Buzz—
With a crisp hum, an invisible force erupted. His skin was instantly coated in a dull, genuine pitch-black luster. The two fists collided with a heavy thud of flesh and Haki. Enel stumbled back, his arm vibrating with bone-shaking force, but his eyes erupted with ecstasy.
Armament Haki: Hardening.
"It looks like you've finally broken through," Sabo said, withdrawing his Haki. Though he had only used half-strength, Enel had finally patched his most fatal weakness: physical durability.
The Edge of the Training Ground.
The clashing of metal rang out incessantly. Urouge, the "Mad Monk," was a moving mountain of muscle. He swung a massive hexagonal iron pillar, creating sonic booms with every strike.
Leona's dark red ponytail fluttered in the wind. Faced with the brutal, wide-range attack, she didn't clash head-on. She kept her eyes closed, her breathing long and rhythmic.
"The turbulence on the left... the angle of the pillar... the flow of his blood..."
Leona discarded her vision. After weeks of "blind" training in the dense forest, her perception was immersed in the microscopic changes of the world.
Whoosh—
The iron staff aimed for her head.
"Found it." Her eyes snapped open, her wild, slit pupils bursting with light. She slid forward, defying gravity, grazing the falling pillar as she closed the distance.
Her silver boning knife flicked upward, using clever leverage to deflect the pillar by a mere half-inch. That was all she needed. Her black steel cleaver swung in a seemingly light strike.
Swish!
Clang!
The thick hexagonal pillar, which had smashed boulders for years, was sliced smoothly in two. The severed half slammed into the dirt, its surface as smooth as a mirror.
The Realm of the Swordsman: Cutting Steel.
"Amitabha... such divine swordsmanship," Urouge laughed, looking at the stump in his hand and the thin line of blood on his chest.
"It's thanks to you," Leona twirled her blades into her scabbards. "A super meat shield like you is the only way to hone my blade sense."
The Open Clearing.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Carina sat on a bluestone, firing a modified long-barreled flintlock. On her shoulder, Berries the macaw acted as a spotter: "Fifteen degrees left! Three meters up! Shoot his nose! Gah!"
In mid-air, a bizarre chase was unfolding. Buggy was no longer a human form; he had split into thousands of irregular fragments the size of cherry pits. The red and blue pieces darted between branches, letting bullets pass through the gaps.
"Hahaha! Can't hit me!" Buggy's mouth, hidden somewhere in the swarm, laughed arrogantly. "Even if it were hailing, I could move through the ice shards! Muskets aren't even worth an itch!"
Carina holstered her gun and rolled her eyes. "Alright, you win. Stop showing off."
Buggy's fragments rushed to the ground and reassembled. "That goes without saying! Don't you know who I am?!"
"It's a good life-saving technique," Carina admitted. "But if you run into a large-scale Haki attack, you're still toast. Get back to practicing your own Haki, Buggy."
High Noon.
Ace sat on a broken log, watching his crew. Over three months, he had consolidated his High-Level Ryuo (Internal Destruction) and was now attempting to infuse his Haki with the Vermilion Bird Divine Fire.
BEEP—WOOO—!!!
A long, industrial steam whistle tore through the forest. It was the signal from the underground shipyard.
Ace stood up, slinging his trench coat over his shoulders. "Let's go see the results of Jeno's labor."
A few minutes later, the crew stood in the shipyard, which was thick with steam and oil. Jeno stood on the scaffolding, his new alloy exoskeleton gleaming.
"Open your eyes," Jeno grinned fanatically. "This is the crystallization of two industrial systems!"
The lights flickered on, revealing the brand-new Eclipse.
It was still the pure black, teardrop-shaped hull, but the Starfall Black Steel was now interlaced with dense, dark-gold circuits. The gold from the Ark Maxim had been integrated like the ship's own nervous system.
"The hull circuits act as lightning rods and charging ports," Jeno explained. "Any lightning strike we encounter is channeled into a massive energy storage compartment in the hold."
"But the main point is here." Jeno pressed a lever. Two rows of heavy valves opened at the waterline. Dozens of modified Breath Dials and Impact Dials were embedded into adjustable mechanical shafts.
"In the sea, we use the black steel paddle wheels. In deep water, we use the Breath Dials as a submarine drive," Jeno's eyes burned. "But when fully charged and running the steam boilers at max... we turn the exhaust ports downward."
He slammed his fist onto the hull. "WE FLY!"
A flying ship. Independent of the Knock-Up Stream. A war fortress that resisted gravity through pure mechanical and Dial-based thrust.
Ace walked up and touched the dark-gold circuits. The metal was cold, but his eyes were hot with ambition. With this ship and this crew, he finally had an invincible base.
"Beautiful work, Jeno." Ace turned to his crew. "Open the sluice gates. Let our partner return to the Sea of Clouds."
He looked toward the sky, his voice booming.
"Target: The Infinite Land! Set sail!"
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