Malakai spent hours getting used to his new power.
He had spent the better part of this time learning how to use his body effectively. His evolution had brought about so many changes that it was hard to keep track of them all.
Malakai had trained for years to reach his current level of battle prowess, and had shaped his body through pain, repetition, and discipline.
But this sudden boost in power forced him to retrain and refine three essential aspects of his body.
The first was his muscle memory and combat rhythm.
His body had been calibrated for a specific level of strength and speed. With this sudden increase, his strikes, movements, and reactions became too forceful, too fast, threatening to throw off his balance and accuracy.
The bursts Malakai had gained from the Devil’s Fruit were always temporary, and even those had taken time to master. But this? This was his new baseline. And he had to master it all over again.
This was solved by repeatedly moving, over and over, until every motion felt right. Until his body moved not from careful thought, but from instinct.
The second was his senses.
His evolution had granted him a staggering increase in sensory awareness, his perception.
Malakai had always been observant. In battle, he paid attention to every nuance: the tightening of a fist, the slight shift in weight before a strike, the subtle patterns in breathing.
He had reached this level by constantly replaying battles in his mind, dissecting every movement until they became predictable.
But now, he could feel the vita in the air.
That came with something else entirely, an intensity of perception he never thought possible.
‘Five meters.’
That was his range. Within that radius, Malakai could perceive everything. Every flicker, every breath, every shift in vita.
But this ability was a double-edged sword. The flood of information was overwhelming, and it threatened to drown out what truly mattered.
He needed to recalibrate and train his mind to distinguish, prioritize, and respond only to what was essential.
The third and final aspect was entirely new: learning to utilize the vita within his body efficiently.
Before now, vita had never stayed in his system. Malakai’s body had never contained active vita. But now, it was flowing within him.
But more power didn’t mean unlimited use. The vita in his body was finite, and if he wasn’t careful, he could burn through it quickly or apply too much force in situations that required less.
To solve this, Malakai began training with precision in mind, scaling his output to match the situation.
He practiced throwing normal strikes, then vita-infused ones, checking his stats panel after each movement to measure the cost.
He needed to know what consumed the most energy, and what didn’t. To Malakai, fighting wasn’t just about strength. It was about control.
And Malakai had his past battles to prove this notion.
In this area, he made steady progress. He had managed to assign a rough estimate of vita consumption to each type of action.
When strengthening and attacking with just one limb, the drain was around 10–20 V/s, depending on intensity. Using his entire body in a fully strengthened state shot the consumption up to 80–120 V/s.
And the most extreme form, fully empowering his body with vita to its maximum extent, cost him about 150 V/s.
That last one would be reserved for only critical moments. Still, Malakai had made sure to practice it, just to understand how it moved through his body, how it felt, and how to fight with it.
After all his trials, he’d come to one conclusion:
‘A mixture of the first and second levels is the best.’
In battle, being able to last long was everything. His vita had to last, not just for a brief period, but for whatever came next. He had to be ready.
‘The last one will be for critical times… and I’ll switch between the first and second,’ Malakai decided.
Aside from those three aspects he had refined, Malakai had also trained his blood abilities. He hadn’t learned anything new, but he’d pushed his mastery of [BloodFlow] to an acceptable level, one he could reliably use in combat without hesitation.
Done, Malakai exhaled heavily, his chest rising and falling. He opened his eyes and swept the training hall.
‘He’s been staring at me since.’
His gaze landed on Valentine, who was standing quietly in the far corner of the hall.
He was clearly trying his best to stay out of the way, but his eyes hadn’t left Malakai for a second.
Malakai narrowed his gaze.
“Are you just going to keep staring at me?”
Valentine flinched, visibly startled. “Ah, no, no! I just didn’t want to be a bother.”
He scratched his bald head awkwardly, then took a few steps forward, his stomach jiggling with each movement.
“You’re really good at fighting,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Did you take classes or something?”
Malakai threw him a long, unreadable look.
Valentine blinked, confused by the silence.
“Wh-what?” he stammered. “Is it… a sensitive topic?”
“We all take fighting lessons from childhood,” Malakai finally said.
Valentine perked up a bit. “That’s good. Uh, how old did you start?”
Malakai’s stare sharpened again. Valentine instinctively gulped but relaxed slightly when the answer came.
“Four years old.”
Valentine froze.
“Wait… what?”
Malakai didn’t respond. He simply stared.
Valentine’s face changed slowly. “Four years old? Isn’t that… too young?”
“That’s how it is,” Malakai replied. “Everyone has to learn to fight early. There are academies for this. It’s compulsory.”
Valentine’s mouth dropped. He stood there, mouth open, struggling to process the information.
Then finally, he registered Malakai’s words.
“Academies?” he repeated. “How? Where?”
The world was still in ruin when the Dome was formed. Where did an academy come from?
As he realized this, one question slammed into his mind.
“Wait… how long has it been since the Dome was formed?”
“Three hundred and ninety-five years.”
Valentine’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
“Three hundred and ninety-five years…?” he repeated under his breath, as if trying to convince himself it wasn’t true. “How is this possible…?”
His voice trembled. “I only created the Dome moments ago. It’s been 395 years?”
And then it all crashed down on him.
He had watched the entire trial, seen the way Malakai fought. His equipment had been different from what he knew. And aside from Malakai, none of the descendants’ weapons or clothing looked familiar. He had brushed it off before, thinking it didn’t matter.
But it did.
Greatly, in fact.