In the world of pirates, there is never a shortage of ambitious people. And in the frozen hell of Level 5, ambition had found a new focal point.
Everyone was watching Kai.
They watched him train. They watched his terrifying, inhuman progress. Many of the prisoners, who had long since given up on their own lives, now followed his every move, silently committing his growth to memory.
A dangerous thought began to take root in their minds. If Kai continued to improve at this horrifying rate, it wouldn't take many years for him to reach the level of a Marine Admiral. And if that happened, a prison break wouldn't just be a fantasy. It could be a reality.
There was just one critical question.
Could he actually keep this up?
Everyone has potential, but that potential is always limited. They reasoned that Kai must have an incredible natural talent for training, and this explosive growth was just him rapidly tapping into that initial reserve. It was also possible that because Kai started off relatively weak, this early progress seemed much faster than it really was.
They told themselves that once he reached a certain level of strength, his progress would have to slow down. It would become more and more difficult for him to improve.
For now, all they could do was watch and wait.
…
Time dripped by, each day indistinguishable from the last in the endless twilight of the prison. Before anyone realized it, a full month had passed since Kai was thrown into the Freezing Hell.
For Kai, that one month was a lifetime. With his 100-times multiplier, thirty days was the equivalent of more than three thousand days of effort.
His one month of training was equal to over eight years of hard work for a normal person.
The benefit of his unique ability was terrifyingly effective. He was in a state of constant, ceaseless improvement. And as he progressed, his accumulation of practical training experience was also multiplied by one hundred.
This allowed him to do more than just grow strong quickly. It allowed him to grow smart. He could instantly tell if one training method was more effective than another, discarding what didn't work and perfecting what did. With a hundred times the speed and a hundred times the feedback, he was constantly refining his own personal path to power.
Many warriors, after reaching a certain point, find their progress slowing to a crawl. They get stuck on a plateau, unable to break through for three years, five years, sometimes even more than a decade.
But for Kai, those plateaus barely existed. With his accelerated rate of experience, a bottleneck that would trap a normal person for years was something he could smash through in a matter of days.
…
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The air in Kai's cell was alive with motion.
Prisoners from his cell and even from the cells nearby were packing snow into hard balls of ice and hurling them at him.
In the center of the storm stood Kai, his eyes closed. His entire being was focused on the act of evasion. His body seemed to lose all its weight, becoming like a single sheet of paper drifting effortlessly on the wind.
Each chunk of ice that flew at him was avoided with a gentle, almost lazy sway of his body.
He had mastered one of the Six Powers, Paper Art. And he was already using it with practiced, instinctual skill.
Bang!
As his cellmates increased the speed and number of projectiles, Kai's foot suddenly stomped down on empty air. A powerful burst of force erupted from the point of impact, as if he had kicked off a solid wall, launching his body high into the frozen air.
This was Moon Step. While a normal person is vulnerable and unable to change direction after jumping, Moon Step allowed him to kick off the air itself, giving him complete freedom of movement.
In a single, fluid instant, he combined the Six Powers. He used Paper Art(Kami-e) to sense and evade, Moon Step(Geppo) to maneuver in the sky, and Shave(Soru) to move at blinding speeds. The hailstorm of ice couldn't touch him.
Then, he went on the offensive. Still airborne, he whipped his leg around in a vicious arc. The sheer force of the kick compressed the air, forging it into a sharp, invisible blade of wind.
This was Tempest Kick (Rankyaku).
The vacuum slash flew through the air, intercepting the volley of ice balls. It shattered them all into a fine, glittering dust that rained down from above.
Kai's body landed gently on the ground, not a single scratch on him.
He had done it. In just one month, he had learned and mastered the fundamentals of the Six Powers. For him, it had been the equivalent of more than eight years of dedicated training. He wasn't just familiar with the techniques. He was proficient enough to use them seamlessly in real combat.
Unfortunately, no one in the cell was willing to spar with him. They didn't want to move. Moving meant burning energy and wasting precious body heat. No one would agree to a real fight.
But throwing ice balls from a seated position? That, they were more than happy to do.
With his martial arts practice complete, Kai walked to the side of the cell. He pulled a long, sharp blade of ice from where it was embedded in the ground and took his stance. It was time for his swordsmanship training.
"Haaaaah!"
He focused his mind, his spirit, his entire being into a single point. Gripping the ice sword, he slashed at the massive iron bars of the cell door.
Shing!
The blade cut through the air, creating a wave of sword pressure that slammed into the door. The resulting clang echoed through the cavern, and a fresh cut appeared on the thick metal.
The gash on the door was now more than ten centimeters deep. If he kept this up, given enough time, he could definitely cut his way out.
But nobody cared.
They all knew that there were plenty of ways to get out of the cell. In the Freezing Hell, ice was abundant. You could easily take a block of ice and slowly, carefully carve a key. The extreme cold actually slowed the rate at which the ice would melt upon contact with the metal, making it surprisingly easy to shape. Opening the door wasn't the hard part.
The hard part was what came next.
What was the point of escaping the cell? To run out into the frozen forest and become food for the wolf packs? Staying in the cell was, in a strange way, a form of protection. It saved them from wolf attacks and conserved their precious energy.
Kai knew this too. His endless attacks on the door weren't about breaking out. They were just part of his training.
BAM!
After a dozen more powerful slashes, the ice sword in his hand finally gave out, shattering under the strain.
'It would be so much better to have a real sword,' Kai thought, sighing. 'Or if I just knew how to use Haki, training would be a lot more convenient.'
The thought solidified into a new resolve.
'I have to learn how to use Haki!'
He had come down to the lower levels of Impel Down hoping to find systematic ways to train his martial arts and swordsmanship. In that, he had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
But the final piece of the puzzle, Haki, remained a mystery. He had no idea where to even start.
He tried to search his memories of his past life, recalling the scenes of Rayleigh teaching Luffy. He tried to mimic the methods described in the story, focusing his will, trying to feel the presence of others, trying to coat his fists in an invisible armor.
But the results were frustrating. Nothing was working.