Bab 17: Preparations
Next day.
Leo's mother, Nejiko, Bolt's parents, Sheela, and Mercer, were sitting on the wooden bench under the Giant Tree.
Bolt and Leo were standing in front of them.
"Why did you ask us to meet here?" Mercer asked Bolt in a stern voice because he knew his son was never up to something good.
"Stop it, you scaring him." Sheela tried to calm him.
"You are spoiling him too much. Now he doesn't even fear me, thinking you are always there to protect him. So many times I wanted to teach him about the merchant profession, but he always runs away. He didn't even read a single book I gave it to him." Mercer was frustrated with Bolt, he never listened to him.
"But he is still - " Sheela wanted to argue with Mercer to defend her son, but Nejiko stopped her. "You two can continue at home, let's hear them first."
Hearing Nejiko, both of them stopped.
Now three of them were looking at Bolt and Leo.
Both of them were feeling very nervous because going out to the sea was a very big deal.
Leo was nervous thinking if they will get the permission, and as for Bolt, he was thinking how much of a beating he will get after they asked.
They were pinching each other, hinting one another to ask.
Seeing how much they were hesitating, Mercer thought, "It must not be something good." He frowned more and more.
Finally, Bolt gathered his courage, closed his eyes, and yelled, "We want to go out to the sea."
Hearing this, Bolt's parents were shocked. Nejiko didn't have much of a change in her expression, nobody knew what she was thinking.
There was a pin drop silence for a moment, and after that, there was only chaos.
"What did you say?" Sheela and Mercer, both yelled at the same time in an unbelieving expression.
"We want to go out to the sea," Bolt repeated. He really thought that his parents wanted to hear it again.
Their anger reached the limit. Mercer looked for something to beat this idea out of him.
His loving mother, who always spoiled him, also wanted to beat the hell out of him. "Husband, you can do whatever you want, I will not stop you today."
"Mom." Bolt said pitifully, but this time she was firm.
Mercer found a nice thick stick, he picked it up and approached Bolt.
Bolt was scared, he immediately hid behind Leo. "Leo, save me."
Leo cursed inwardly, "Fuck! Why are you hiding behind me? Do you think I can stop your father?"
Seeing his son hiding behind Leo, he looked at Leo. "I always thought you were a good and obedient kid, I can't believe that you are also supporting him." He was a little disappointed in Leo. "It seems both of you need a good beating to clear your muddle-headed mind," Mercer said angrily.
"Stop! Stop!" Leo backed away while keeping both of his palms in front to defend himself. "We want to show you something, after that you can decide whatever you want."
Nejiko also came to stop Mercer. "Let's wait, we can decide what to do with them after they are done with what they want to show."
Mercer liked Leo, he knew he was a sensible kid. He thought, "There must be something else if they dared to ask such a ridiculous thing."
Mercer only stopped because of Leo, if the same thing was asked by Bolt, he wouldn't have listened to him.
Mercer and Nejiko sat back on the bench.
Bolt took the rod in his hand and threw it in the air, it fixed itself in the space in front of him, and after some time it started moving around in the air, and at the end, it speedily moved toward a three feet tall boulder to pierce it. Boulder broke into many small pieces.
Seeing how the rod moved automatically in the air as if it had a life in it, they were shocked. Its speed and destructive power weren't any less shocking.
They couldn't believe what they were seeing. "What is this?" Mercer asked with a dumbfounded expression.
"This is my devil fruit power," he answered proudly.
"Devil fruit?" He was confused, and just then he remembered something. "I think I heard it somewhere."
"Mmm… It's a magical fruit that gives a superpower to the person who ate it, but that was just a legend."
"It is not just a legend, it's real. I ate the devil fruit, it gave me this power," Bolt explained.
Sheela didn't understand what they were talking about, but one thing she understood is that her son could do magic. While looking at Mercer she proudly said, "Look, how amazing my son is."
Mercer's eyes twitched hearing this, he murmured inwardly, "Why are you saying as if he is only your son?"
"Now it's my turn," Leo said. With just a single hand he lifted an almost hundred-kilogram boulder easily as if he was lifting some feather, and then he threw it so far that they couldn't even see it.
Bolt's parents were again shocked. Nejiko knew Leo was strong, but she didn't know how exactly strong he was, so she was also shocked.
Just then, when Leo's back was facing Bolt, he threw the metal rod at Leo's head with a speed as fast as a bullet.
Seeing this their hearts almost stopped, they knew how destructive that rod was, even that boulder was broken into pieces. Just imagining what would happen to Leo, sent a shiver down their spine.
Before they could stop Bolt, the rod was already near Leo's head.
Leo casually tilted his head and dodged it, and then he turned towards them as if nothing happened.
The reaction on the three's faces was almost exploding. Nejiko was frightened, and Mercer was already on his way to beat Bolt.
"Calm down. Calm down. Don't need to overreact, there wasn't any danger, we planned this to show that I can even dodge a bullet, and that is the same with Bolt." Leo suddenly threw a stone speedily at Bolt's face.
Their hearts again stopped for a moment.
The stone automatically stopped in front of Bolt and fell to the ground.
Mercer yelled angrily, "You brats, are you trying to give us a heart attack. No more throwing things at each other." He warned them.
"Sorry." Both of them apologized.
"We wanted to say is, that we are strong. We can take care of ourselves out in the sea," Leo said.
Sheela and Nejiko were very happy seeing how strong their sons had become. Mercer was also happy but he didn't show it on his face.
Mercer understood that they were strong, but he didn't like the idea of sending them to the sea. After all, they were too young.
"Even with your strength going out to the sea is dangerous, I am not talking about the pirates, but the sea itself. Uncountable bones of people are lying at the bottom of the sea. Your strength will be useless in front of the cruel and unfeeling sea." Mercer after all was in the merchant profession for almost twenty years, he knew exactly how treacherous the sea was.
"Look at me, I am just a normal person, even then, I am still fine after traveling the sea for so many years. What does it mean?" Mercer stopped for a moment and then continued. "It means a person can still be fine without the strength, but without the knowledge of the sea only a certain death will be waiting for them."
"Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Yes." Bolt and Leo nodded.
"So from now on you, two will learn from me. Only when I find you are good enough, you are allowed to go to the sea."
Nejiko and Sheela also agreed with this.
Bolt and Leo were also okay with this. They also told their parents to not tell anyone about their power.
From here on they started learning from Mercer.
He taught them daily for three hours in the afternoon.
First, he started with geography.
He opened a large map of the East Blue and taught them how to read it. The map was divided into several regions by dotted lines. These regions were numbered from one to twenty. Number one was for the calmest sea, you don't have to worry much about the weather in this region, and number twenty was for the most dangerous sea, in this region weather was very bad, typhoons were frequent in this region.
There were also three spots on the map which were called forbidden zones, some also called them death zones. Mercer warned them, again and again, to never go there.
Their island was in region number one. "So that's why I never saw any drastic change in the weather on this island," Leo thought to himself.
The map was similar to what was shown in the manga, the difference was there were too many islands on the map he was seeing, and Mercer even told them that this map was incomplete, many islands weren't shown in it.
Another thing Leo noticed was that the Goa Kingdom wasn't far from their island.
Mercer also taught them how to use the compass.
After Geography he taught them about the basics of weather prediction.
"One of the easiest ways to predict the weather is to look at the clouds. There are many different types of clouds in the sky. Different shapes of clouds, and how high they are in the sky give the idea of the weather. Different clouds mean different types of weather."
The higher the clouds the better the weather.
High clouds indicate fine weather will prevail.
Lower clouds mean rain.
"Navigators always look for signs of weather at sunrise and sunset. This is when they try to predict the weather for the next 12 hours."
Red sky at night, sailors' delight.
Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.
"Looking at the sky is just a basic weather prediction. Navigator doesn't just rely on this, they also take notice of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and its direction."
After the weather, he started with ships.
He gave them a blueprint and told them to build a boat. He also provided all the tools required.
Leo and Bolt cut some large trees, for the timber required for boat building.
Mercer instructed them in every step of the building boat, from the reading blueprint to the finishing touches, but he never touched anything, everything had to be done by them.
While building the boat Leo noticed another use of his second brain, measurements, he can do measurements without any instruments.
With his perfect control over body movement, high dexterity, and powerful strength, boat building felt very easy. In just ten days they were done with it.
The boat was almost perfect, identical to the blueprint, there were very few errors.
The overall length of the boat was eight meters, and the width was four meters. In the center was a mast with a rectangular sail made of white fabric. From the top view boat looked rectangular, except being curved at the bow. The height of the hull was two meters. Three by three meters cabin was built on the stern side, it had round glass windows on the door and its sidewalls, two wooden beds near each side of the cabin walls, and the round table between them.
Leo very much enjoyed boat buildings.
On the other hand, Bolt rarely helped, he was just playing with his ability. Only when Leo asked, he would come to help.
Mercer liked the boat so much that, he asked Leo to build another one for him. He was amazed at Leo's workmanship, looking at the boat it felt as Leo was working with the boats for many years.
Leo had a perfect photographic memory, because of the second brain. This time he built the boat without even looking at the blueprint. As he experienced building one time, the next boat only took five days.
Bolt didn't like studying, most of the time he was sleeping when mercer was teaching them. So, many times he got beaten by his father.
Half the way he gave up on Bolt, and only taught Leo.
Mercer liked Leo more and more, because of how attentive he was during his teaching.
Whenever Mercer caught Bolt sleeping, he would say, "You good for nothing, learn something from Leo, see how hardworking he is."
It took Mercer four months to impart all his experience of the sea. It would have taken even more time if it wasn't for Leo. He was so intelligent that, he could grasp anything in just single teaching, Mercer never had to repeat anything.
Mercer was proud of his intelligent student, as for Bolt, he was just a good for nothing.
Even though Bolt almost learned nothing, Mercer wasn't worried, because Leo was there to help him, he had absolute confidence in Leo.
Today, Bolt and Leo were leaving for their first voyage on their newly built Bolt.
There was still some time before the sunrise.
Only their parents came to shore to send them. They were sending them secretly, if the elders in the town had got wind of it, they would have surely stopped them, as it was ridiculous to send such young kids to the sea. That's why they didn't inform about this to anyone.
"Remember you have to return in three days, or else you will be banned to go out to the sea again," Mercer warned them. "And keep in mind, don't venture out of our region." As this was just their first time, he wanted them to travel in region one, which had the calmest sea.
"Okay, I know what to do," Leo assured Mercer.
Before they climbed the boat, their mothers hugged them and told them to take care and eat properly. They had given them so much food that their cabin was almost filled with it.
Mercer also hugged Leo and told him to take care.
On the side, Bolt was speechlessly looking at his father, who never bothered to even glance at him. "Dad what about me?"
"What about you?" Mercer said in a stern tone. "Just done trouble Leo on the journey."
Bolt almost felt like crying, he inwardly mumbled, "Dad did you forget that I am your son?"
But seeing how stern his dad looked, he did not say anything further, he quietly climbed the boat.
After saying their final goodbyes they left for their first voyage.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone