Chapter 40: Five Months Later

Time spent in rigorous cultivation flew by like an arrow, and unconsciously, five months had passed.

Kokoyasi Village had weathered a few cold snaps and survived a couple of heavy snowfalls. Ultimately, it had pushed through the severe winter, and the season of spring warmth and blooming flowers had arrived once again.

There was a hint of warmth in the breeze, tender grass shoots pierced through the frozen soil, and the expansion work of the tangerine orchard was gradually nearing completion.

New saplings were being planted batch by batch. There were still countless tasks to do—loosening the soil, watering and fertilizing, and pruning branches. Scarface and the others were so busy every day that their feet barely touched the ground, yet they found joy in it.

Over these past few months, they had begun to gradually blend into the local atmosphere, and the villagers had slowly accepted these outsiders.

Compared to the days in the Corbo Mountains where they had lived in constant fear and fought desperately for survival, their current life felt practically like heaven.

If only...

—If a certain little prankster hadn't been quite so mischievous, it would have been even better.

"Hey!"

A small orange-haired figure suddenly darted out from behind a coconut tree, giving Fat Cow—who was hoisting a bundle of tangerine saplings from the ground—a tremendous start, almost throwing out his lower back.

"Doing that again, Nami! Scaring people everywhere!" Fat Cow said, puffing out his cheeks with his hands on his hips. "Do it again and I'm going to go complain to Lord Shano, and we'll see how he deals with you!"

A ten-year-old menace was truly annoying!

"Bleh, bleh, bleh~"

Nami made a face and spun around to run. "My big brother doesn't have time for that! Why don't you come catch me yourself, you big dummy!"

Passing the village entrance, the mailman uncle who was delivering letters saw her and his eyes lit up. He hurriedly stopped his bicycle and waved a greeting.

"Wait! Nami, a package has arrived for you, but it's very heavy. You probably won't be able to carry it back by yourself. How about I help you deliver it?"

"A package?"

Nami's face lit up with pleasant surprise, and she immediately squatted down to unpack it on the spot. Inside was a thick stack of books.

The mailman leaned over to look.

Titles like *The Four Blues Latitude and Longitude Atlas*, *A Study on Log Pose Manufacturing Craftsmanship*, *Advanced Complex Contour Line Drawing*, *Tribute to Vegapunk: Seastone Applications and Calm Belt Navigation*...

They were all massive tomes, and just reading the titles made his head spin.

"Are all of these books for you?" the mailman asked in astonishment. "Or are they for the adults at home?"

"They're mine! To be precise, they were all bought for me by my big brother!"

Nami giggled, patting the stack of books with satisfaction. "The bookstore in the village has too few books, and I finished reading them ages ago. My big brother often buys me new books from other nearby towns. This batch is of very high quality; it'll be enough to keep me busy studying for quite a while!"

"That's truly amazing, Nami."

The mailman gave a thumbs up in admiration. "To be able to read books like this at such a young age... My daughter only knows how to run around playing wildly all day. If only she were as sensible as you!"

Sensible?

"Y-Yeah..." Nami kicked a pebble with a guilty conscience. "Oh, right, the books are quite heavy, so maybe you could help me deliver them home, uncle."

"Sure, it's my job anyway."

The mailman smiled and nodded.

He had been to Kokoyasi Village many times and was quite familiar with the terrain. Pushing his bicycle ahead, he turned this way and that, and before long, a cozy wooden house appeared before them.

"We're home! Bellemere and Nojiko aren't around, so they must be at the tangerine orchard."

Nami pointed at the coffee table in the living room. "Uncle, you can just leave the books right here."

"Alright!"

The mailman set the books down and suddenly noticed a pile of hand-drawn sea charts scattered on the nearby sofa.

Picking one up to examine it, the very first chart was of the ring of islands surrounding Kokoyasi Village, exquisitely detailed and far superior in quality to anything available for purchase on the market.

"Nami, did you draw all of these?"

The mailman was truly filled with wonder now. "This is incredible! Your talent is too strong; you might just become an amazing cartographer in the future!"

"That's a given, uncle!"

Nami triumphantly brushed a lock of hair behind her ear with a smooth and breezy motion, only her hand got stuck in it because she had been lazy and skipped washing her hair for a few days, requiring a great deal of effort to pull it back out...

"Ahem... Anyway, my dream doesn't stop here. My goal is to use my navigation skills to travel across this entire ocean, and then create a world map drawn with my own eyes!"

"A world map?" The mailman laughed heartily. "That's certainly an extraordinary dream! But Nami, the outside world is very dangerous, with lots of powerful pirates. You won't be able to handle them!"

"I might not be able to beat them, but following behind my big brother is more than enough."

Nami snorted. "He's the most famous great swordsman in the East Blue, you know! Whatever pirate crew this or that is, with a single sword slash, he cuts all their ships right in half!"

That young man named Shano?

The mailman was slightly taken aback.

He remembered that about half a year ago, that name had indeed been famous for a time, but no further news had emerged since then, and he had gradually faded from people's vision.

The mailman couldn't help feeling a bit curious. "Where is your brother? Now that you mention it, I've been to Kokoyasi Village so many times, yet I don't think I've ever actually seen him in the village."

"He's a cultivation maniac—everyone calls him that anyway. It would be a miracle to see him during the day. As for this time of day..."

Nami leaned out the window, poking her head out and pointing toward the highest mountain in the northern hills. "Hey, do you hear that sound from the mountain?"

The mailman cocked his head to listen.

Only then did he notice a dull, rumbling sound like distant thunder faintly echoing from the mountain. Looking closely, he could even see wisps of smoke and dust rising from the peak.

He was momentarily dumbfounded. "You mean..."

"It's my big brother, right up in that mountain."

Nami said with a grin, "Those are all noises he stirs up. Fortunately, the village is further south, so you can't hear it very well, otherwise we would have already been reported for disturbing the peace."

Your brother?

The mailman stared in utter shock. Is that even a disturbance a human being could make?

...

Boom!

A boulder a full five or six meters high was suddenly blasted into fine powder by a single punch.

Amidst the swirling dust and smoke, the tall, majestic figure of the black-haired youth was revealed.

Shano stepped over the still-rolling rubble, the quartz particles crushed beneath his soles sparking blue fire, and quickly crossed the spot where the boulder had originally stood.

He raised his head and looked at the scarred and battered mountain face before him.

This didn't even look like a mountain anymore.

As far as the eye could see, the entire mountain mass looked as though it had been pelted by a meteor shower. It was riddled with craters everywhere, with countless rock cross-sections exposed to the open air.

A tunnel piercing straight through the mountain slanted upward toward the peak, wide enough to accommodate several people walking through abreast. If not for the numerous knuckle prints still lingering on the cross-section, it would have looked as though it had been forcefully bored through by a giant drill.

"The hardness is still too low."

Shano expressionless, gazing at the rock walls on both sides of the tunnel.

"The metal content is already the highest among all the mountains on the island, and the rock deep inside is the hardest, but for me right now..."

He shook his head slightly; it was gradually becoming insufficient.

Withdrawing his gaze, he took a few steps forward, walking out from the shadow of the mountain.

The afternoon sunlight fell upon his shoulders.

He now stood at one meter and eighty-seven centimeters tall, his muscles knotted and coiled like thick tree roots, possessing an extremely high density and gleaming with a cold, iron-like luster. His shoulders were terrifyingly broad, making him look like a towering little mountain in the eyes of ordinary people.

With every step he took, the mountain rock beneath his feet trembled slightly. As he passed by a large tree, he happened to step on a cluster of mushrooms.

Shano didn't notice, but when he lifted his foot again, those mushrooms had already merged with the ground, compressed down to two dimensions.

The reason was simple.

His current body weight alone was a modest two hundred and fifty pounds, but the black training attire he wore added a staggering 1.6 tons of weight.

Considering the sharp increase in pressure caused by the relatively small surface area of the soles of his feet, the crushing force with which he stepped onto the ground was even greater than that of an adult elephant.