'The water constantly erodes my skin.' He concluded.
At first, it was just wrinkling. His fingers and toes would pale and prune like they had been left in a bath too long. Then, as his time submerged extended without mercy, the sensation had changed.
And the fact that he had not performed 'Full Body Heal' was evidence of his intentionality in his training.
The outer layer of his skin softened.
He had felt it before, when he scraped against rock, the stone would bite deeper into him and a raw sting would bloom in places where the skin 'surrendered' in thin lines.
Now it was just evidently obvious, everywhere. His shoulders, his sides, the tops of his small feet…
'Alright, that should be enough for a partial heal', he mused.
[HEAL – Skin, 20%]
It might have healed but it was not enough to erase what his 'even more developed nerves' had learned
[Defense: 0.18 → 0.22]
'Continue.'
At some point, a very considerable point, counting heartbeats stopped being guesswork. He knew his own rhythm by now; how his heart felt at rest, how it felt under water, how it changed when he tensed even a little.
Time passed, with not even a second wasted on 'not training'.
Soon, he began to layer more onto his training.
While holding his breath, he would; curl a specific finger, flex a specific toe, turn his head one way, then the other, all at one instance while still keeping the count steady in his mind. He now trained mind-muscle coordination by doing multiple things at once.
His Spirit complained as usual…
[Spirit: 0.19 → 0.23]
… But less than before.
'You're learning,' he almost looked at the spirit stat and said.
'Good, but still, continue…'
The first time he truly felt like he was 'swimming', it took him by surprise. Yes, even he, was surprised.
He hadn't meant to, he had simply decided to reach a particular area— usually called a stone outcrop in his previous world— under the surface, a darker shape just a few body lengths away.
He had curled his toes against the bottom, counted two heartbeats, and then pushed himself.
As he did so, his legs straightened and his arms made a small, clumsy scooping motion without him consciously plotting it.
SWOOSH—
His body slid through the water for a brief, clean moment,
'I actually glided', he thought, an imperceptible smile actually creeping on his tender baby face.
His chest tightened a little, not from lack of air this time, but from something dangerously close to excitement.
He closed his eyes and a part of his memory lodged onto him. He could usually control his emotions on demand, 'well, this excitement comes from something I actually love doing, embrace it.' He told himself while a wider grin stretched his little face…
He opened his eyes and noticed the stone outcrop was closer. He had already done it once so it was easier this time. Just two more weak kicks, 'half-instinct—half-practice', sent him the rest of the way.
He let his hand hit the cold, rough stone, feeling the texture and everything. He clung to it, with his fingers barely curling over the edge, and let himself hang there while his heart pounded.
[Defense: 0.22 → 0.24]
[Agility: 0.14 → 0.18]
'Although it has only been a couple of my own body lengths, ridiculous on any meaningful scale, progress is progress.'
He smiled anyway, unseen in the now murky water— murky by his own waste products… mostly urine.
Luckily, he had learnt to ignore it and just considered it as part of… training. Furthermore, the waterfall's constant flow ensured the water didn't remain stagnant.
'Walkers learn to take steps,' he thought. 'Swimmers learn to cover body lengths, basically the same thing.'
'Continue.'
He pushed off the rock and let himself drift back toward the center. The basin changed slowly in his perception due to his ever increasing Spirit.
At the beginning, it had been chaos, just a combination of sound, cold, weight, blur…
But now, he had compartmentalized them in zones.
Firstly, the violent throat below the waterfall where the flow smashed anything foolish enough to hang there, then the soft slope on one side where the bottom rose gently toward the shore, also, there was the deeper pocket near the center where his toes couldn't find the ground at all.
He steadied his heart, ready to use them all.
On the shallow side, he would perform leg pushes, face-surfacing and practice his breathing while moving.
In the deep pocket, he practiced floating on his back, letting go fully, then forcing himself to regain direction without healing himself too early.
At the waterfall zone, although not really there yet, each day, he let the edge of its descending chaos lick at his limbs a little more, feeling pain if he drifted too far.
He used this to his advantage, along with the human instinctual nature of avoiding pain, as his 'precision training', aiming to swim not too close, but also not too far.
'Continue.'
Days passed, but he did not count them in sunrises but in thresholds and heartbeats.
Days passed where his heart-count reached thirty beats before the drowning-reflex fired.
Days passed where he could keep his face above water for ten breaths, paddling in the shallows.
On another day he finally caught that drifting leaf he had spotted precisely by the stem instead of crushing it in his little palm, and on one day, when he finally called the panel again on one of his "rest" floats near the surface, it greeted him with something still insulting, but less insulting.
[Haki]
[Trait: Immortality]
Strength: 0.2
Speed: 0.18
Agility: 0.25
Defense: 0.4
Spirit: 0.35
'Defense is out in front as expected.' He thought.
His whole body had been living in a continuous low-grade wound, being eroded consistently by water and waves.
Spirit came next, hard-won from refusing to ever let go and focus so sharp it could…well, not do anything that meaningful yet…
Agility crept up from all the tiny, precise movements and maneuvers his body managed underwater.
Strength and Speed lagged.
'It makes sense, buoyancy makes even gravity feel weaker here.' There hadn't really been anything he could use to propel his strength here. No heavy loads yet, no runs, no nothing. Only water's cool embrace.
'When I feel like, I'll fix you two,' he promised his Strength and Speed bars. 'But for now, this is water's turn.' His stats were the only thing he could talk to in this watery environment.
'Alright,' he always sought progress so he didn't dull. He rolled, took a deliberate breath, and sank again.
'Continue.'