Chapter 7: Becoming Friends
"Luffy, the way you're training is wrong," Leo said in the afternoon. They are still in the forest. In the sky, the sun is covered by some floating clouds.
Luffy is sitting down on the grass while concentrating on the lesson Leo is teaching him. He had decided that if he wanted to be the next Pirate King, he needed to get stronger, and he decided to learn from Leo.
"I'm training wrong?" Luffy scratched his head in confusion.
Leo picked up a short twig from the ground, used Haki to make it as tough as a blade, drew a circle on a tree, and marked the inside of the ring with an X.
"You have first to enhance your ability to control the direction of the punch," Leo said to Luffy. "Training is about being able to control it to the level it is instinctive."
"Ah! I get it now," Luffy said, smacking his fist lightly on his palm. "I'll try my best!"
"If it is hard at first, you can start by walking closer to the target. Then slowly moving further and away when you get better," Leo added as Luffy's arm escapes the tree and hits back at his face.
Leo gives a slight grin as he watches Luffy's enthusiasm. Then, not too far away, he pulled out his blade and practiced his sword skills.
Throughout the day, Luffy would focus on landing his fist on the marked X. By the evening, Luffy was already able to control his fist much better than before.
When he notices Leo practicing behind him with concentration, he sees that the direction in which Leo is slicing the knife down is producing a profound mark on the tree in front of him. Probably because of the energy projectile from the blade.
"Wow, Leo is powerful," Luffy says with a smile. He picked up some meat that Leo fried for him and the morning and started eating again to fill up his stomach. Finishing up the food, he goes back to practice.
The two of them practiced like this every day for the entire month. And besides gathering food and going to sleep, every second is spent practicing.
One day as Leo practiced his regular blade slice while concentrating on his Haki, he heard a scream from behind, "Leo!!! I finally got it!
Turning around after opening his eyes, he noticed that Luffy snapped the tree in half right at the spot where he drew the X mark one month ago.
"Good job, Luffy," Leo says, smiling broadly, "You finally did it."
Luffy's eyes glowed with light as he looked at the tree. In the X mark, there was a deep hole because of the countless punches he made.
"Yeah!!" Luffy jumped up and down in the air with joy. At the same time, Leo watches him and laughs, seeing how weird he is.
"Huh? Who are you?" A sound came from the direction in front of them. The two of them looked up and saw a significant figure walking toward him. The man seems to be in his 50s and is poking his nose to clean out some nose boogers.
He looked at the broken tree and then at Luffy, "Luffy-Did you do this?!"
"Yeah! I told you I'm strong, Gramps, haha. So one day, I'm going to be the Pirate King, and nobody will be able to stand in my way, haha," Luffy said with a big smile. But that didn't last long before Garp punched him on the head.
"Who said you're allowed to be a Pirate? That damn red-haired Shanks," Garp says with annoyance. Luffy already has a big bump on the top of his head.
Suddenly, Garp notices the boy not too far away, watching both of them and looking at the knife he is holding. His Observation Haki tells him that the boy is not as weak as he may look. "Boy, do you want to be a marine?"
"Huh? Marines?" Leo wasn't expecting that Garp would ask him this kind of question. He awkwardly smiles, "Sorry, I'm not interested. I plan on exploring the sea without any restrictions."
Hearing that the young boy rejected his offer, Garp gave a large smile like Luffy's, then said in his loud voice, "So you want to be a pirate, too?"
Before Leo could reply, he saw Garp launching a fist in his direction. He knows that Garp is just trying to test out his skills. Otherwise, he wouldn't have just used his bare fist to fight with him.
"I was itching for a fight, too," Leo says as he uses Armament Haki to reinforce his fist before the punches touch. The force of their punches created enough pressure that a massive gust of wind blew in four directions.
"Not bad," Garp says with a huge smile as he watches Leo fly off until he hits a tree. The force of Garp's punch is still so incredible even without Haki. He was sure Garp didn't use more than a third of his strength.
"Let's go again," Leo says, using his blade and cutting toward Garp. It creates a flying force that easily cuts apart a dozen trees in half.
Garp, who dodged away the attack before it even approached him, looked back at the trees that were destroyed by that blade's power with amazement.
"You shouldn't be wasting your talent sailing the sea. If you be a marine, I will train you myself," Garp said to him. The two exchanged attacks close up. The attacks from the blade could hardly even touch Garp's clothes. "You will be the next marine admiral!"
"Damn it," Leo tries to use the multiple air strikes simultaneously to block off all the directions that Garp could dodge.
"Your attacks are still not strong enough," Garp says, jumping high into the air and landing in Leo's direction with his fist.
He didn't think he could handle that punch, so he moved away. When Garp landed, his fist created a massive hole with a large diameter on the ground.
"Wow, Leo is so strong. But he still can't even make Gramps serious from the attacks," Luffy commented as he watched without blinking an eye.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone