"I have no time to waste. Come."

They were the first words Caine said to Eddie, before he leaped into a hole near the aft end of the ship and disappeared from sight.

Eddie had only just managed to reach the ship belonging to the Caine Pirates from the Ivory's rowboat, and already he was being put to work. It was unsurprising, considering what he had heard of Caine and his personality, but it was still a drag all the same.

The White Rock, which was the name of the ship, was remarkably advanced compared to the others in the fleet. For one thing, the hull was protected by steel, which had been cleverly painted to look like wood in order to appear much more frail than it really was. The sails were made using an extremely light, yet firm material that helped to greatly increase the speed attained by the White Rock.

The masts themselves were actually quite worn out, and we're patched up with iron here and there. The floor on the top deck seemed to have been repaired hurriedly by the shipwrights aboard.

As he walked across the deck towards the square-shaped entrance in the floor towards the back of the ship, Eddie remembered something Whitebeard had told him before he set off here.

"Be careful not to break too much aboard his ship. He destroys things by accident and blows holes through his ship so much, I had to arrange enough shipwrights fit for a separate fleet just for him. Twelve out of the seventy-something people on that ship are shipwrights!"

Eddie had believed Whitebeard was kidding, but from the awkward planks and nails that jutted out occasionally from the floorboards, he now fully believed him.

He stood above the hole in the floor and peered down, past the metal ladder that led itself to what appeared to be a well-lit room filled with people. He took hold of the ladder and slid down with ease, and landed in the middle of a galley.

The first thing he thought of was, who the fuck puts a galley first thing beneath the top deck?

Then he saw the three cooks and immediately got his answer. They weren't just cooks, they were cooks and shipwrights. All three of them. If the people serving you food were also the people who repaired your ship, you'd kind of be forced to listen to any of their demands.

Or at least, Eddie found that to be a rational explaination for it.

The cooks, he thought, looked like a family. All three were quite plump, all three wore the same white shirts stained with flour and something red, and all three had black hair. The older man was tall as well, with a tiny waft of hair standing up over his forehead. He was extremely pale, and his cheeks were a tomato red as he huffed and puffed around the galley carrying several trays stacked on each hand.

The woman was working behind the wooden counter, merrily chopping up vegetables on a cutting board with a sharp knife, twisting her hand at an angle and slamming it down with so much force you'd have thought she was trying to murder those eggplants. Loose strands of black hair fell over her eyes, but she continued on unbothered.

The boy washing dishes in the shallow sink behind her looked strikingly similar to Lee, from his hometown of Cariboa. The same baby-face, the same thinning hair, the same stubby fingers. The only difference was that his hair was black, not blonde like Lee's, and the little smile plastered on his lips. He could never imagine a smile like that on the face of the sour Judge back home.

"Ah, you must be the new visitor, ey?" The man asked, placing the trays on the table next to the boy and stepping away from the counter. "I'm sorry, we just finished up with the food before you got here. You just go on ahead, we'll have a nice and warm soup arranged for you soon enough!"

Eddie said his thanks, and went after Caine, who had apparently slipped back into his lab.

"Caine? Ay, his lab is on the very last deck of the ship. It will be a long run, sonny!" The lady had said, but Eddie paid no heed to her words.

He didn't have time to worry about long staircases and being tired, after all. A long way down some stairs was the last thing he had in his list of worries.

He hurriedly climbed down, ignoring the people walking past him and around the stairs. He did, however, notice a lot of them were white clothing, and realized they were probably Caine's assistants.

By the time he finally made it down, he was completely out of breath. Ignoring his aching legs, he strode forward from the stairs and into a dark hallway. There was almost no light apart from a few sparsely distributed lanterns attached to the ceiling by think ropes. No doors either, except for two at the end of the corridor. One was right in front of him at the end, with the other leading to a room to the left. He walked towards the door in front, assuming it was the entrance to the lab.

As he reached out to open it, he noticed the door was made completely of iron, and the black handle was ridiculously large. "The hell?" He murmured under his breath, and gripped the handle.

"Don't open that door." He almost jumped out of his skin as a low voice suddenly came out from the next room. He turned around and saw Caine standing beyond the doorway to the dark room, his figure only visible because of the white coat and large hat he wore, even indoors. His long coat had buttons all the way to the bottom, but he had them unbuttoned from below his waist.

"Don't open it." He repeated in that same low, emotionless voice. With his lengthy, dark hair partially covering his eyes and wide-brimmed hat casting a gloomy shadow over his face, he resembled a ghost to Eddie. Now, he slowly raised his hand to him and waved him inside. "You're the one Sue sent to me, aren't you?"

His question told Eddie everything he needed to know. Sue had now most probably told Caine about his weaknesses and strengths, as well as given him tips on how to improve him.

Which meant he knew exactly what he wanted to do in order to train him.

"Are you just going to stand there daydreaming, or are you going to get in here already?" He asked impatiently with his hand on the door. Without any further waiting, Eddie walked into the lab, and heard the wooden door slam shut behind him. He was now alone in a room with what seemed to be the strangest of the three fleet captains.

Not that he gave a damn. The room he had just wandered into was just that enthralling. There was so much ridiculous nonsense everywhere that Eddie couldn't bring himself to decide on what to focus on first. The vice-captain of Caine's ship, Allen, passionately making out with Dorothy, Sue Cotton's right-hand woman (or perhaps girl would be more appropriate) while sitting on a table in a corner of the lab almost completely occupied by horrific clay vases of all shapes and sizes was one of the least entertaining of oddities in the lab.

The room seemed to be rectangular, but with all the stuff in it, Eddie just couldn't be sure. In the corner directly across the two kids was a large statue of Isaac Newton that he was sure had been stolen from an English library near Linconshire years ago. It was sculpted from marble and depicted Newton holding an apple above his head, staring at it with a look of deep concentration in his eyes that Eddie found to be quite comical.

There were two long tables that spanned the width of the room in the center, each of them covered with beakers, small wooden containers, and an assortment of glass jars filled with all sorts of oddities like tree roots, shriveled fruit, and what appeared to be chopped mushrooms.

Before the tables, against the wall, was a massive blackboard with several pieces of chalk resting on the floor underneath it. On the blackboard itself were dozens of diagrams of fungi, with writings beside each one seemingly depicting their properties and different parts of each one. Truth be told, Eddie had absolutely no idea what the hell they were saying, because the handwriting of whoever wrote them was atrocious despite the extremely well-drawn and detailed diagrams they described.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"Allen. How many times do I have to tell you to stop inviting her into the lab?" He growled at the boy, who pulled away from Dorothy's lips and frowned at Caine. "But you said she could come in. There's no way you forgot already!" His words were indignant, but his tone was...insolent.

He walked to the corner and tugged Allen away from the girl by the scruff of his neck. "You know full well that I don't pay attention to anything anybody says when I'm writing something. Now get back to work."

Dorothy jumped down from the table gracefully and twirled around in her blue dress, which stood out even in the semi-darkness of the room. "You forgive me, right Uncle Caine? I just wanted to spend some quality time with Allen, that's all!" She said, looking up at him with widened, puppy-eyes. They were a sparkling blue, and practically shone despite the lack of light in the lab.

No, wait. That's not right. Her dress...her eyes...they shouldn't be sparkling or glowing at all in this light. How the hell is she doing that?

Whatever she was doing, it worked. Caine looked at her for only a few seconds with those dull brown eyes of his, before surrendering to hers. "Well...fine. You win, kid. Go ask Martha for a meal, on me. And for a meal, mind you. I have no interest in you getting drunk again, after what you pulled off last month."

She gave him the sweetest of smiles and ran off, making sure she gave a sly wink to the helpless Allen as she left...a wink that Eddie deciphered as "We'll pick up where we left off next time". He turned and saw Caine drop the boy back to the ground as if nothing had happened.

He was about to start checking out the lab again when Caine spoke up. "I don't give free help to people. So you better be worth my, and that twerp named Sue's trust and time." He muttered, pushing the table back towards the wall with his leg. It slammed against wood and made a loud THUD that shook the floor.

Eddie shrugged. "I don't know why I was sent here either. But I'd love to know if it's going to be worth it myself." Caine eyed the long-haired man intently. His hair was nowhere near as long as his own, which reached all the way to his lower back and had to be tied up by a black ribbon that criss-crossed across the end to form an X shape. In this dark room, however, the blonde colour in his hair darkened and he saw himself in the man.

It was just for a second, but it was enough to interest him as to what he was like.

"Why wouldn't it be worth it when I'm the one who will be watching over you? Do you have such little faith in my capabilities?" He asked, slightly discouraged by the remark.

But Eddie only corrected the assumption. "You've got it wrong. I'm not sure I'm good enough." He said, looking down to his feet. "It's always been hard for me to learn how to fight properly. Studying the physical and biological parts of a battle...that's always been what interested me."

And suddenly, Caine fully understood why this one had been sent directly to him. With views like that when it came to fighting, there was no doubt Sue couldn't possibly help.

So he walked forward, pulled one of the wooden chairs behind the tables back and took a seat to the opposite of Eddie. "What is your age, Eddie?" He asked, glaring at him with utmost seriousness.

Huh? What happened? He just changed mood all of a sudden. Eddie wondered, automatically taking a step back. Unsure and slightly embarassed at his reaction, he chuckled to himself nervously.

"Me? 27." He said, and was alarmed when Caine fell silent. It was like a breeze blowing out a candle. His face darkened, his normally tired eyes suddenly seemed to lose what little life they had left, and he clasped his hands together tightly. After a moment more of this silence, he asked Eddie a question. "Why do you think kids like Allen and Dorothy are so high-ranking in their crews?"

"Well...to be vice-captain you'd need to be clever in battle, sensible, and-"

Before he could finish, Caine raised his hand and cut him off. "Yes, yes, character and leadership. I've heard all that. But before any of that, you need power. Power is what earns you respect, what makes those underneath you in rank be willing to trust and believe in you." He stopped for a second, and Eddie thought he saw his eyes flash down to his hands, which he was still clasping together.

"Hey, Captain. You don't have to bring me into this, you know." Allen muttered as he seated himself back on the table. He had a cigar in his hand, and lit it up using a small match. The lit cigar cast a warm, orange light over his face, reflecting the light off his round glasses to make his expression almost unreadable.

"No smoking in the lab." Without warning, he swiveled his left arm back and pointed at Allen. Eddie watched in stunned surprise as a long, thorny vine suddenly grew on his index finger and swiftly whipped around inches from the boy's face to snatch the cigar with terrifying ease. The vine was covered with leaves and the occasional red, circular flower.

As if it was sentient, the vine moved on its own and dropped the cigar into Caine's palm, and crumbled into pieces.

"As I was saying, power is something that you gain at a faster pace when you're young. Being a doctor yourself, you should understand this doesn't only apply for Ley, either. Whether it is physicality or mental strength, nearly everyone must watch their potential be sapped away with time." He held the cigar up in his fingers as he said this, watching the smoke quietly rise and drift off into the cold air of the lab.

"We all have an origin of power, an origin that comes with youth. For your younger crewmates, they will find a vast amount of untamed potential yet to be realised...but what about you?" He waved the cigar in Eddie's face, causing his eyes to sting from the smoke. "Are you going to find a gentle flame yet to be harnessed...or are you going to find dying embers and ashes of what could've been?"

"And do you have the will to move forward? Even knowing you may end up being weak fodder?" He threw the cigar to the floor and stomped on it, snuffing out the flame.

It's no problem if you're weak. But it isn't okay to give up on yourself. Someone had told him that a long time ago, in a little island called Cariboa.

Her face flashed across his eyes for a second, and he smiled. "I can't afford to fall behind the others." He said, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'm not much of a leader, but I'm still their senior...aren't I?"

Caine looked at Eddie again. His blue eyes were clear, unlike Sue's.

And unlike his own. This almost made him chuckle. Takes one to know one.

"Fine." He muttered, and got up from the chair. "But before we start any training, I want you to help me out with my research. The more hands I have, the better." He glanced at Allen as he said this, and the boy noticed immediately.

"Hey, now, Captain! Are you saying I'm not helpful enough for you?" He asked, and Eddie could see he was already upset about his cigar. "Settle down, you dumbass. Nobody said that." Caine replied, and started shuffling through the papers on the table with one hand, the other one firmly holding a jar of the strange fungi Eddie had earlier seen.

The papers fluttered around the table, and some flew off and fell to the floor. "Its not like you're a bad assistant. You know your stuff, and I know you're going to be my equal someday." He said, and Allen suddenly felt bad for doubting Caine.

He lowered his head. "Sorry."

Caine bent down, pretending to pick up the papers from the floor while hiding a small grin. "No need for that." He said, and replaced his notes back on the table in a somewhat neat stack.

"What I need your help with," He said, picking up the jar and placing it in front of Eddie, "Is in processing this fungi."

Eddie stared at the contents in the jar. They were fungi alright, just not any kind of fungi he had ever seen before. There were dozens of these small growths, all irregular in shape, and all seemed to be black with white spots that seemed to glow in the darkened room. Some were stuck to the sides of the jar while others grew on top of one another, almost like parasites.

Except almost all fungi were not parasites, Eddie knew. At least, not the kind of parasites he had in mind. There was something more to these than met the eye.

"Intriguing...what's so special about these?" He asked, gently picking up the jar to observe the contents. At this question, Caine actually smiled. "Those little things are parasitic fungi that feeds off Ley. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

He waved his hand at the pile of paper on the table. "For a year, I've been studying these critters. They're annoying pieces of shits if they're anywhere near where you might be fighting or using Ley, but invaluable for research." Eddie noted how bright he suddenly seemed, how his eyes lit up like lanterns as he spoke. Like he had gained back ten years of his life.

"My hypothesis is that these fungi can be made use of as a sort of medicine to aid in accelerating the use of Ley. Make a sort of substance that can help in the process of mastering Elemental Ley and attaining Primis, both of which can take at least two or three years for even the most skilled." But then, the light in his eyes disappeared and he sighed.

"But...well, its been a pain in the ass trying to find the right balance of chemicals to add them to in order to make a safe medicine that won't poison you. I have about eight assistants on the ship and they've all given up on it. Allan here is the only one still helping out." He motioned at Allan, who pushed his glasses up his nose in a smug sort of way.

Caine didn't see this, and turned back to Eddie. "So as you can see, I'm screwed if I can't get any further in this research. Care to lend a hand?"

It was certainly some task. Must've been damn hard for eight assistants to give up on it. But it was something that could be revolutionary to all Ley users across the world, including his crew, and there was no way Eddie could turn that down.

Well. I guess training can wait.

He raised his hand to Caine with a slight grin.

"Let's cook, boss."

"Caine. Just Caine."

"Let's cook, Caine."