Not seeming to realise Ace’s dilemma, Wukong continued with his analysis. “What about your ability to turn part of yourself or your weapon black, is that part of the same ability?”
“Yeah. I call it Haki.” Ace answered, realising the cat was almost completely out of the bag.
“Haki? That’s a weird name.” Wukong said. “Well, whatever you want to call it, it’s a pretty unique bloodline ability.”
“Bloodline ability? I thought only the four supreme warrior clans had bloodline abilities?” Ace asked, trying to pry for more information.
“They’re definitely the most famous of those with bloodline abilities, but there are others. There just happens to be very few of us!”
“Us?” Ace asked in genuine surprise.
“Yup. It’s a bloodline ability allow that allows the user to copy any technique they see.” Wukong explained casually.
“Is that how you so easily managed to catch up with Alissa regarding your dagger mastery, despite having apparently never used one before?” Ace asked in surprise
“Pretty much,” Wukong answered, casually revealing what most would consider secret information. “This king calls it [Monkey See Monkey Do].”
Ace had heard Alissa complain of Wukong’s monstrous rate of improvement in wielding daggers. “Is that why you haven’t been able to carry on improving any further?”
“Pretty much. It really is a cheat-like ability. As long as it’s a technique that doesn’t surpass this King’s current level of comprehension, this king can copy any technique or ability, be it spell or martial art. But to improve further would require this king to put in additional work.”
“That is a cheat ability!” Ace said with a hint of envy.
Wukong gave Ace an odd look before turning back to face the path ahead. “What about you?”
Ace glanced at Wukong before explaining. “My ability has two parts:
First is [armament haki], which allows me to harden my body or anything I touch by turning it black. And second is my [observation haki]. That allows me to sense the world around me, including everyone and everything in it.”
“And I’m guessing your [observation haki] allows you to sense the path of your opponent’s attack?”
Ace looked at Wukong in surprise.
“It wasn’t hard to guess after your battle with that Baruch brat and your fight today. Despite starting your attacks after the Horned Hippo, your glaive would always manage to intercept its charge at the perfect angle for a battle of strength. Those kinds of calculations should only be possible for a warrior with a tonne of battle experience, and you…
Your battles show that you have virtually no battle experience.”
Ace took that personally. What kind of battle hadn’t he taken part in or seen? He had literally been killed in a war that shook his former world to its core. How could he be said to have no experience?
“Even though you had a much longer reach with your weapon, you decided to engage in a battle of strength with a beast whose power was superior to your own. It’s like you only know how to try and hit hard, even if your opponent hits harder.
Even when you were fighting that Dragon Warrior kid, it may have looked impressive to those weaklings in the crowd as you dodged his punches, but your movements were wasted in each of your dodges. If you were up against someone with more experience, they would’ve easily punished you for it.”
After putting his pride away, Ace realised Wukong might be right. ‘Weather it was against Teach or Akainu, the most I could do was rely on my devil fruit to try and overpower them, even after they proved they were stronger than me in a direct clash.’
After spending a few seconds deep in thought, Ace looked up at the young man who’d become something of a mentor to him over the last couple of weeks with resolve shining in his eyes. “What do I do to improve?”
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Wukong smiled when he saw that. Ace was one of the most talented children he’d ever seen, no less talented than himself. He knew full well that the more talented a child, the more prideful they were, but if Ace genuinely wanted to improve, he had to lower his pride!
“Don’t worry; this king has an idea!”
.
.
.
The next day instead of going hunting like he usually would, Ace followed Wukong to a small clearing in the forest where they could train freely.
“Ok, the first thing you need to work on is your shoddy glaivesmanship.” With a flick of his wrist, a glaive with an emerald pole and a crystalline blade appeared in Wukong’s right hand.
Ace didn’t have to ask to know that Wukong’s was of a far higher quality than his.
“This belonged to a rank seven warrior bandit that was stupid enough to try and rob this king!” Wukong said when he saw the look of longing in Ace’s eyes.
As Wukong neared Ace, he spun the Glaive around his hands in a way that seemed to captivate Ace. ‘It’s almost as if the glaive became an extension of his hand.’
“The thing you need to know about not only the glaive but just about every polearm in existence is that there are three foundational techniques. All the more complicated techniques you will ever encounter are all created based on these three techniques.” Wukong said, bringing the black glaive in his hands to a stop. “Watch carefully; I’m only going to show you each form once!”
As soon as Wukong said that, he felt Ace’s [observation] cover him, but unlike his usual night-time training sessions where he spread his condensed haki simply to tire himself out, this time Ace was focusing his attention solely on his instructor. Wukong felt as if his body, both internal and external, was laid bare before Ace’s haki. ‘Interesting. Since he’s paying so much attention, I guess I should take this seriously.’
At that moment, Ace sensed Wukong’s leisurely aura disappear, only to be replaced with one of unyielding confidence as he walked over to the nearest tree. ‘So this is the real Wukong!’
“The first form you’re going to focus on is…” Pausing just long enough to give the tree before him the faintest of taps, Ace saw five leaves fall from their respective branches before he heard Wukong call out. “The [Thrust]!”
Wukong thrust his glaive towards the first leaf, perfectly piercing its centre before moving his body, so he was facing the next leaf and performed another perfect thrust.
Ace gave Wukong his undivided attention as he engraved everything about his demonstration into his mind. ‘It’s almost impossible to tell where one attack ends, and the next begins. There’s no hesitation, no gaps, and every move flows perfectly into the next!’
Before long, Wukong had finished his demonstration of the thrust. Ace noticed that each leaf was attached to the tip of the glaive, having been pierced through their centre.
Wukong then proceeded to thrust his glaive towards the sky. Each of the leaves stuck to his glaive flew into the sky in unison, but before they had the chance to separate, Ace heard Wukong’s voice once more.
“The second move; [Chop]!”
Ace watched as Wukong raised the glaive above his head with his hand now holding the glaive from the base of the shaft. In Ace’s eyes, Wukong had become an indomitable God of War.
As the glaive came down, the air itself seemed to move aside. If that wasn’t enough, Ace noticed that the leaves seemed to halt in mid-air as the glaive cut them in half.
‘There it is again. It’s the same thing he did to Brutus!’ Ace replayed the shocking scene of space compressing over and over in his head, hoping to gleam something as the leaves, now cut in half, fell slowly to the floor.
“The third move; [Slash].”
As each half-leaf entered his range, Wukong would deftly swing his glaive. No slash was particularly fast, nor was there any aggression in his movements, but Ace felt a sense of serenity wash over him as he saw it.
“Each move is free of flaws, but it's more than just that…”
It was at that moment that Ace’s eyes glazed over as if he had been possessed. He crouched down and raised his glaive to his chest as if to perform a thrust.
Wukong was about to scold Ace for being too impatient, but when he saw the look of emptiness, he immediately moved back and said nothing for fear of disrupting him. ‘This brat couldn’t even wait till this king finished his demonstrations to gain enlightenment!’
Ace held his position for over 20 minutes. He didn’t say a word. In fact, he was barely breathing. It was as if every fibre of his being was in an extreme state of focus.
Wukong watched in surprise as Ace subconsciously fixed his form over time until it was virtually perfect. It was as if Ace had become a carbon copy of him, albeit smaller.
He then closed his eyes, and as if he wanted to commit the feeling of the form into his muscle memory, he held that position for another hour, not moving so much as a muscle.
Suddenly his eyes jolted open. Wukong felt Ace’s aura become similar to the glaive in his hand, unbending, heavy, and sharp.
“First Form; [Thrust]!” The glaive in Ace’s hand shot forth like a meteor piercing right through the centre of the trunk. “Second Form; [Slash]!”
As Ace’s glaive tore through the tree trunk like a knife through butter, Wukong’s face turned to one of shock. ‘This brat!’
“Third Form; [Chop]!”
Ace was already in the perfect position for his next attack as the tree toppled over. His glaive descended, cutting it cleanly in two, and the shock on Wukong’s face had become one of excitement. ‘One with the Glaive… He became one with the glaive after one demonstration?’
As Wukong was lost in thoughts staring at Ace as if he was some sort of monster, Ace just snapped out of his enlightenment.
“That feeling…
How did I…?
What was that?!” Ace remembered everything that happened, he knew it was him making each move, but at the same time, he felt as though if he tried to do it again, he wouldn’t be able to.
“It’s called sudden enlightenment,” Wukong said to clarify Ace’s doubts.