The cultivation system of the One Piece world was primarily based on physique.
Whether focusing on Devil Fruit abilities or the three types of Haki, swordsmanship, or martial arts—
All were based on physique as the foundation.
The strong in the One Piece world had powerful physiques and correspondingly large consumption.
Without Sea King meat and various other fantastical beast meats to support them, no amount of food would be enough.
Sea King meat was quite expensive.
One hundred yuan per pound.
For a poor orphan like Lin Chen, using this kind of meat as daily consumption was somewhat too extravagant.
However, Lin Chen planned to use Sea King meat as his daily consumption for the entire next two months.
There were only two months left until the college entrance exams.
With the Martial Arts Panel, he naturally wanted to consume all his resources on hand and rapidly increase his strength.
Once his strength increased, resources wouldn't be too scarce.
The student period was the easiest time to obtain resources—as long as one could demonstrate talent, obtaining resources was easy.
Once this time period passed, once this platform was gone—
Wanting to obtain resources so easily would be very difficult.
While waiting for the food delivery to arrive—
Lin Chen picked up the wooden sword at the head of his bed and began swinging.
His breathing was quite rhythmic. The heavy wooden sword in his hand was raised high, then brought down steadily.
This could also train his breathing technique and swordsmanship.
Of course, the effect was definitely somewhat worse than normally practicing breathing technique swordsmanship.
However, with the Martial Arts Panel, every drop of sweat would inevitably transform into breakthrough results.
Under this extremely strong positive feedback mechanism, even Lin Chen, who wasn't particularly diligent, became hardworking.
Exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale.
Swing the sword, swing again.
Sweat had already fallen like small water droplets, then shattered the instant the sword was swung.
His muscles were already quite fatigued, but driven by willpower, he continued swinging the wooden sword in his hands.
Knock knock.
After about half an hour—
A delivery person knocked on Lin Chen's door.
Handing ten pounds of frozen Sea King meat to Lin Chen.
Lin Chen closed the door, somewhat impatiently opening the packaging bag.
He'd had a breathing technique breakthrough in swordsmanship class today, then practiced an extra half hour after returning home at night—he was already starving.
The Sea King meat was frozen rock-solid.
Lin Chen was too lazy to defrost it. He took out a chunk of meat, about two pounds.
Placing the frozen meat on the cutting board—
Hiss.
Breathing technique activated. A large amount of air entered his body, driving physical enhancement.
The sharp kitchen knife in his hand produced afterimages. Within a few breaths, the frozen meat on the cutting board had become uniform small pieces.
Start the pot, boil water, meat pieces in the pot.
After cooking, Lin Chen made a simple sauce and started eating directly.
Sea King meat was indeed excellent—no wonder people in the One Piece world ate meat with such relish every time.
He just didn't know what level this excellent ingredient would reach combined with a Food Wars chef's culinary skills.
Lin Chen thought while quickly finishing two pounds of meat.
Sea King meat contained quite high energy. With two pounds in his stomach, Lin Chen already felt quite full.
Adjusting his breathing rhythm—
He could quickly feel the food being rapidly digested within his body.
Breathing techniques were quite versatile in physique cultivation.
When it came to digesting food, it wasn't as fast as Life Return from One Piece, but it excelled in comprehensiveness.
After that sense of fullness decreased slightly—
Lin Chen put the remaining meat in the refrigerator and directly headed out the door carrying his wooden sword.
The space at home was too small. The practice effect wasn't very good.
Coming to the residential complex's plaza, he found a somewhat quiet and secluded spot.
Lin Chen began holding his wooden sword, practicing Water Breathing swordsmanship.
A few old men and women chatting nearby saw Lin Chen start practicing swordsmanship but weren't surprised.
In the high-martial-arts era, this kind of situation was all too normal.
"Water Breathing: First Form: Water Surface Slash."
"Water Wheel."
"Flowing Dance."
"Striking Tide."
In the spacious area, Lin Chen used Water Breathing swordsmanship over and over.
From the First Form's Water Surface Slash all the way to the Fourth Form's Striking Tide.
This was also all the Water Breathing swordsmanship he had currently learned.
Using them over and over—the old saying goes, practice makes perfect.
And with the Martial Arts Panel, Lin Chen's efficiency in becoming proficient was truly too high, and the speed of perfection was also astonishingly fast.
Half an hour passed.
[Water Breathing Technique Proficiency +1]
[Water Breathing Swordsmanship Proficiency +1]
The panel appeared, reminding Lin Chen he had become stronger by another step.
"Very good."
Lin Chen casually wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Honestly, he was already quite tired at this moment.
If not for the Sea King meat supporting him, he probably couldn't have persisted to this point.
But at this moment, though his chest was heaving violently, his eyes were extremely bright.
Water Breathing swordsmanship was just one experience point away from LV2.
Breathing technique and swordsmanship both at LV2—the increase to combat power would definitely be significant.
Lin Chen continued swinging his sword. Sweat in the air was shattered by the wooden sword.
Lin Chen tried his best to maintain his breathing rhythm.
Breathing techniques could excavate the body's potential. When nutrition kept up, one could completely get stronger the more they practiced.
Tanjiro's father was thin as a rail, terminally ill with disease.
Relying on Sun Breathing, he could still dance in heavy snow for a day and night.
The key was breathing.
Practicing swordsmanship over and over was quite monotonous, but that feeling of becoming stronger at every moment was quite intoxicating.
Finally—
The Martial Arts Panel appeared.
[Water Breathing Swordsmanship Proficiency +1]
At the same time, information seemed to surface in Lin Chen's mind, then recombine.
His body naturally leaped high.
His body glided lightly in the air, like a flying bird.
"Water Breathing: Fifth Form: Blessed Rain After the Drought."
Whether it was the falling speed or the sword-swinging speed, both looked quite gentle and slow.
But by the time Lin Chen landed—
Behind him, a section of tree trunk as thick as an arm had fallen.
Clearly cut by a wooden sword, yet the cut surface appeared quite smooth.
Water Breathing Fifth Form.
Lin Chen was now soaked through, gasping heavily, but his face was full of excitement.
Water Breathing swordsmanship became stronger the further along it went, and also more difficult to master.
His predecessor had studied for three years, stuck at the Fifth Form unable to break through, just like how he was stuck at the first stage of breathing techniques unable to break through.
Now he himself had only used one afternoon—at most four or five hours—
And broken through both major bottlenecks that had trapped his predecessor to death.
Especially swordsmanship—from six proficiency points to now LV2.
The improvement couldn't be described as anything but swift and fierce.
Breathing technique had also increased by one proficiency point.
Now it was:
[Water Breathing LV2 (3/20)]
Looking at the panel, at this rate of improvement, in just three to five days he could break through his breathing technique to LV3.
Which was what the school teacher called the third stage—focusing on improving Total Concentration Breathing's maintenance time, slowly approaching Total Concentration: Constant.
This stage was when physique improved quite rapidly.
If in the Demon Slayer world, one could barely be called a small expert.
Just like the Demon Slayer protagonist Tanjiro who killed the Hand Demon and then defeated the Lower Rank demon at Mount Natagumo—he was at this stage.
Learning Total Concentration: Constant, before the Taisho-era Pillars, could basically be considered having Pillar-level strength.
Incidentally, as far as Lin Chen knew, Teacher Dai Ye's current public status was the third stage of breathing techniques.
In other words, reaching this stage, he would most likely be able to obtain school resources.