Her last excursion to Illusia had been pretty troublesome... Yet for all the Marine presence this island was far from being under martial law or anything of the sort. Thus, it wasn't really hard for pirates to get around so long as they didn't make that many waves or announced themselves. For a pirate who didn't really mind going incognito as the situation required (quite the opposite; the Uroboros Captain was rather shy and actually prefered it that way). For now, she just wanted to train. It had been a good long while since she had her last training session, and thus it was time to see if she could take it up a notch. Training Mea didn't really do much to boost her own skills, the two of them weren't really on the same level, not yet. If anything, Linnea was a teacher. There was a lot she could learn by teaching, mostly by taking notice of her own student's mistakes, but even then she couldn't exactly increase her power level. And that's exactly what she planned on doing today.

First off, she announced her intention to train to all of her crewmates, as well as giving them an idea as to exactly where would she be training. This would allow them to get close enough to her that she could always go meet them if she found them seeking her out. She had been around all of them with her Kenbunshoku activated to be able to recognize the size, shape, and color of their aura, making the process of finding them a lot easier. With this in mind, she stepped off the de-flagged Melusine, activating her Kenbunshoku. In an instance, she was flooded with the sight of each and every aura within forty meters of herself; mostly her crew's, but everyone else nearby too. Hell, even the fishes swimmming underwater, the birds flying overhead... She could see everything. This was more than enough to overwhelm a poorly trained practicioner and keep them from seeing everything they should be able to.

Yet Lin was far beyond that level now. More importantly, she was at a level such where training with a blindfold was no longer that useful. She needed something else and for once she figured out exactly how to go about it. First off, she tried to focus on the edge of her sensory range. Just like working a muscle, or training her archery, constantly pushing herself to and at the edge of her limits was the best way to grow used to working with those limits, and finally growing past them. Haki shouldn't be any different from that.


Training Haki - Words: 443

Used B-rank Kenbu Haki (35/50 stamina)

For her second time in Illusia, she had found the Western part to be not nearly as hostile to Pirates as the rest of it, thanks to the Revolutionary attacks who kept the Island's Marine forces mostly distracted. That didn't mean she could go around causing trouble and running wild as even the Revolutionaries wouldn't take kindly to that. Fortunately, Linnea wasn't that kind of pirate, so she could simply pretend to be an average explorer unless asked directly, which probably shouldn't happen anyways. For all her sneakiness and cunning, she could still be pretty honest on a regular basis, a rather impressive contrast. Then again, her arrows too were pretty honest in their intent. If her intentions were to kill her target, then he most likely would not be able to even acknowledge how he had been shot with an arrow. Linnea was straight to the point like that...

Regardless, she wasn't really interested in the civilization of Illusia, not today anyhow. Today she was here to train. She ventured far from any of the cities, taking the quickest path away from the people and into the wilderness. Her notion of how and where to start her training gave her a pretty good idea of what should be doing, and that was just about all she needed. Her sensory range using Observation Haki was akin to a sphere, and all she needed at this point was the sphere's surface area. With is, she felt the trees, the animals going about their lives, even the tiny bugs that occasionally wandered through that sphere. She could see a lot more clearly if she tried to pay attention to everything else inside this sphere, but for the most part she just shut it all out and focused on the blurry sights right at the edge. The results were slow, but steady. Even as she wandered the wilds of Illusia island, she could feel that flimsy edge of her Observation range gradually becoming clearer and clearer as time went on. Soon, the bugs she could only recognize as tiny little dots beacame distinct enough for her to tell legs for body.

But then, as forty meters gradually turned into a clear distance she could pick up on, she pushed it further. As always, whenever she attained perfect clarity within what was once the limit of her maximum range, there would be something else further she couldn't yet quite see. This effect was even more remarkable if she struggled to see while standing still, but then doing so while walking required an even greater effort. She was more than willing to put in that effort, perfectly aware that getting used to operating while under a greater strain would allow her much greater prowess once that strain was removed. Yet she still had one more plan to further increase her training efficiency...


Training Haki - Words: 922

Active B-rank Kenbu Haki (35/50 stamina)

She might be walking through the woods to increase the difficulty of her training but there were also two other purposes to this little stroll. One of them was somewhat simple and straightforward: Walk around, see the sights! This was the very reason why she left Amazon Lily in the first place, and even if she moved to the West Blue to hunt for Raziel, no way she was gonna let that greazy oiled up has been to step all over her accomplishments. She found her way into that temple, she found that treasure even if had to snatch it off pirates. She wasn't going to let the fruits of her labour be permanently stored into a vault for all eternity. But that was a problem to settle at another time. To stand up to Raziel she had to grow much stronger in more ways than one, and that spurred her second reason: She wanted to find a clearing to serve as a proper training ground.

There would be no Sengoku to help her scout today, she would have to find it by herself, it was her training, not his. It wouldn't have taken nearly as long to find a large enough clearing to suit her tastes but in the effort to further her training she wound up being a lot more selective than she might have been. She forced herself to use information gathered only from the edge of her sensory radius, and by constantly straining it to the limit she was pushing herself a great deal. Maintaining her Haki active at all times was exhausting, especially something of this size, but she did it anyway, and steadily felt her mental energy getting lower and lower... She gritted her teeth as she felt the first signs of psychological strain, but rapidly shrugged it off; it was merely a sign that she was doing what she should. Besides, for Linnea, this level of strain was something very easily manageable, she still had a lot more energy to go. Eventually she found a clearing of the right shape and size, with plenty of sunlight beaming through the canopy. This... This was perfect. It even had plenty of knocked down trees, the perfect target for the next stage.

Concentrating all of her willpower into her four limbs and started a mighty rush of punches and kicks against that broken tree stump. She didn't even feel pain from hitting the splinter filled, rugged surface, instead blowing off more splinters with each impact. Yet this wasn't even enough.

At all times she was still focused on the edge of her sensory radius, multi tasking by splitting her attention between each attacks and the blurred sight she was trying her all to see clearly. Predictably it made enhancing her Kenbunshoku Haki much harder, but the bulk of the difficulty came from pushing her Busoshoku to its limit as well... And Soon, she felt something else... As she pushed every part of her Haki to the limit and then some, she felt a change, and power up in her Busoshoku. Before she knew it, her whole body felt immensely harder, clad in a completely black coating of Armament Haki!!

What is this...? Even among the Kuja in Amazon Lily, she count with her fingers the amount of times she had seen her fellow tribeswomen employ a full body Busoshoku Haki, it was an ability requiring a rather advanced skill and talent. And she'd just done it! But the question plaguing her thoughts was, would she be able to do it once again, intentionally, on the fly? In the heat of battle of all things?! That question begged to be answered, but for all she wracked her brain she'd never be able to answer it right now. It would have to come soon.

For now, however, she wanted to test this Kenbunshoku Hardening... Ceasing her striking rush, she finished it with a mighty shoulder tackle, something one would likely expect from a burly rugby player than an elegant female ranger. Yet despite this contrast between her size and her chosen attack, she completely obliterated the splintered tree stump she'd been using as a training dummy, sending off splinters flying everywhere; of which none managed to even scratch her. She looked on, wide eyed at the at the destructive result of the improbably powerful attack before she went back to scanning her surroundings. Indeed she could now tell how she could see a good bit further than when she first arrived at the clearing and started pounding away at the tree, replacing the straining exercise of using Kenbunshoku Haki with the even more straining of using both her Haki colors at full power.

At this point she was breathing heavily, her dress soaked in her own sweat as the jet black coating of Haki slowly wore off, revealing her pale skin and platinum hair, stuck to her dripping body... It would be hard to keep training like this, but she had to. There was still a long way to go before truly mastering her Haki the way her teachers back in Amazon Lily did.

Training Haki - Words: 1780; Enhancing Haki from B to A-rank

Used B-rank Kenbu and Buso Haki (5/50 stamina)

haki approved

[Thread End]