Chapter 59: Commencing Seclusion, Azure Thunder Breath

A few minutes later.

Xiano had finished breakfast, watching with great interest as the Alaskan piglet at his feet buried its snout into the bowl, devouring the strawberry milk.

There were only five cartons of strawberry milk in the refrigerator, and all of them had been poured into the basin. In no time, it licked the bowl clean, its tiny, pink tongue lingering, tracing the rim a few times in satisfaction.

Its little belly was rounded and bulging, looking utterly adorable. Xiano couldn't help squatting down to give it a gentle poke with his finger.

Seeing Xiano lean in close, the little creature immediately leaped into his arms, its violet pupils narrowing into crescent moons, while a cozy, purring sound emanated from its throat.

"Hiccup—"

It suddenly let out a sweet, strawberry-scented burp, its fluffy tail freezing in mid-air in embarrassment as it cast a cautious glance at its master.

"Well, look at you, picking up on people's expressions at such a tender age." Xiano couldn't help but chuckle. Wolves and dogs really were cut from the same cloth; no wonder its initial loyalty rating was a staggering 89.

He checked the status panel, where the loyalty had already ticked up to 92.

"Silver hair, natural curls, a penchant for strawberry milk, and those wise, dead fish eyes."

Xiano pinched his chin. "Hmm, I don't even need to rack my brain for a name. How about Gin?"

Gin?

The little thing wagged its tail happily again. It didn't understand what the word meant, but at least it finally had a name of its own!

"No objections? Then it's settled."

Xiano laughed heartily. "Let's go, Gin! Time to head out for a workout!"

Pushing the door open, he found the two parrots kept by his neighbors already perched on the courtyard wall.

"My big brother, the champion!"

"My big brother, the hero!"

Xiano's face instantly darkened.

How mortifying.

The sins Nami committed a year ago were still coming back to haunt him.

"Gin, give 'em a scare!" he immediately ordered his newly acquired little sidekick.

"Grr—Woof!"

Gin bared its tiny milk teeth with all its might, letting out a ferocious growl toward the wall.

To Xiano, it looked purely like it was trying to act cute, but surprisingly, the two parrots instantly spasmed, trembling with fright and daring not to chirp another word.

"Wuwu..."

Another frightened doggy whine came from nearby. Xiano turned his head to look, and right along the shaded path, that large white dog—the one he had nearly offered as a sacrifice years ago—happened to be passing by. At that moment, it had collapsed onto the ground, foaming at the mouth, its four limbs shaking like a sieve in a storm.

So bloodline suppression was actually a real thing?

And it seemed to have a specialized bonus effect against canines.

Xiano was pleasantly surprised, reaching down to rub Gin's belly. "Not bad, little guy. If you can scare Akainu into collapsing like this in the future, I won't doubt your lineage as part of the Silver Wolf royalty anymore."

Akainu?

Gin tilted its head, its small eyes filled with profound confusion. What was that? Was it edible?

...

Up on the mountaintop, the cold wind howled.

Xiano stripped off his outer clothes and trousers, tossing them casually aside to reveal a robust, well-defined physique.

Beside him, Gin diligently picked up the clothes in its mouth, trotting them over to a clean stone pillar not far away.

"Jarvis."

Expressionless, he gently touched his chest.

Ripples instantly spread across his skin, and like a nanoscale battlesuit, pure black combat attire swiftly enveloped his entire body.

...

Of course, this was pure fantasy.

Gin sat obediently beside the stone pillar, looking bewildered as its master pulled out a set of black clothes from goodness knows where, huffing and puffing as he laboriously shoved his legs into the pants...

Flexible though the fabric was, it only automatically adjusted to fit his current physique once fully worn, so the process of putting it on remained somewhat challenging.

"Finally got it on."

Xiano adjusted his weight settings to 2.2 tons, and the long-familiar, crushing heaviness instantly pressed down upon him.

Ever since defeating Arlong, he had given himself a vacation to relax his mind and body, and having gone without weighted training for quite a while, he felt a bit unaccustomed to it all of a sudden.

While doing handstand push-ups to warm up his muscles and bones, he browsed through the three secret manuals laid out before him.

The other two manuals had strict prerequisite conditions, so he had no choice but to start by mastering Paper Art, while Tempest Kick could be postponed for later.

For the coming period, his plan was to practice Paper Art every morning and temper his Armament Haki every afternoon.

When dinnertime rolled around, he would head home to eat with his younger sisters, having no intention of going out at night. Training for such a long stretch of the day already exceeded ordinary people, and there was no need to push himself desperately the way he had before Arlong's arrival.

Having spent just over a year in a state of extreme tension, his mental state was already starting to fray.

If he kept that up for a few more years, by the time he reached adulthood and set sail, the world would only be greeting a lunatic.

...

Roughly half an hour later.

His warm-up was complete, and he had pretty much finished skimming through the manuals. Xiano sat cross-legged on the ground, deep in thought.

To put it simply, Paper Art was a martial art technique used to evade physical attacks by perceiving the subtlest shifts in airflow. It shared similarities with Observation Haki, yet possessed fundamental differences.

If one could manage to dodge enemy attacks with minimal movement—light as a leaf drifting in the wind—entirely without relying on vision, and even achieve the seemingly "intangible" evasion effect of the body...

Then that could be considered near-mastery.

"Iron Body is about hardness, while Paper Art seeks flexibility..."

Xiano muttered to himself. Back when he practiced Iron Body, it was achieved by having Savage Scar and the others take turns relentlessly pounding him with spiked clubs.

Trying to practice Paper Art by himself was equally unfeasible; he needed a sparring partner capable of unleashing moves that would generate enough pressure to force him into evasive action.

A sparring partner...

His gaze drifted slowly, involuntarily landing upon Gin.

"Awooo?"

Before Gin even realized what was happening, it was hoisted into the air by the back of its neck as Xiano coaxed it persuasively, "Tell me, Gin, do you have any offensive skills? The kind with pretty fast speed? Try unleashing one at me and let's see."

"Awooo—"

Suspended in mid-air, Gin had been unhappily swinging its tail in grievance, but upon hearing this, it tilted its small head in thought. Suddenly, it let out a low growl, every single strand of its silver fur standing on end.

Xiano felt a tingling numbness shoot across his palm, and the moment he instinctively loosened his grip, dazzling blue-purple lightning violently burst from the little creature's throat.

Crackl—!

A bolt of thunder roughly as thick as a rice bowl grazed past Xiano's ear, slamming into the rock face a dozen meters behind him and blasting out a scorched, pitch-black hole several meters deep.

Amidst the billowing smoke, Gin landed on all fours, arcs of electricity still crackling across its body while its violet pupils took on the glowing sheen of a silver moon.

"Awoooo?"

It seemed to be discovering this ability for the first time as well, curiously raising its electricity-crackling little paw and flipping it back and forth.

"Holy crap!"

Xiano stood dumbfounded, looking back at the still-smoking mountain wall before glancing down at the slightly numb webbing between his thumb and index finger.

Was this the kind of lethality a newborn cub was capable of?

That blast it had just spat from its mouth—had it landed squarely on him without Iron Body activated—would probably have torn a massive chunk of his flesh to shreds.

As for an ordinary person, they would likely have been instantly reduced to a charred corpse.

A sudden realization struck him, and he hurriedly opened the system interface, navigating to the pet column.

Sure enough.

Several newly refreshed notification prompts materialized before him.

[Pet "Gin" has awakened the elementary bloodline innate skill: "Ashen Thunder Breath".]

[Pet "Gin" has awakened the elementary bloodline innate skill: "Arcing Lightning Shield".]

[Note: The power of all innate skills will increase as the pet's strength grows.]