Chapter 16 – Respite
He found the girls on the deck; by the looks of it, Elis asked Robin to train her.
Alexander watched them quietly for some time, he felt happy seeing them.
The squeals of the seagulls were faintly heard, Alexander admired the view while leaning on the railing, watching as a gentle breeze blew Robin’s hair.
Elis was trying her best to follow Robin’s instructions, but she looked awkward as this was just the beginning of her training.
Alexander, despite his mistakes, believed that he wasn’t stupid, he knew that Elis made up her mind to join his crew seeing her behavior recently, thinking of that, he had to plan for her development, while haki wasn’t a good idea for now, a devil fruit was needed or she may not survive long, even under his protection he can’t fully guarantee her safety.
Thinking of this, he planned to check the devil fruit shop later.
A yawn escaped his mouth, the warm sun on his back made him feel sleepy, at this moment he felt like basking in the sun all day.
But he had work to do, so he walked towards the girls.
Robin saw Alexander and stopped Elis’ training, then she faced him.
“How was it?”
Askes Robin, she was obviously curious about his rewards.
“Not bad.”
Alexander told her this battle’s bounty.
Hearing him, she was speechless.
If other people heard of this, they will curse him even in their sleep because of envy.
“Let’s go and explore, we should stay on this island for the time being and train.”
Seeing as this was a good hiding place, this being a small uncharted island, they had to take this opportunity and train in peace.
With Alexander ability, he could directly fly them to the nearby shore.
Elis was awed by the ability and she couldn’t help but tightly hug Alexander’s arm when he levitated them.
Feeling the soft sensation, he maintained a calm façade, but on the inside, he focused on that sensation.
He didn’t see the dirty look he got from Robin on the side.
Landing with them on the small sandy beach, their feet sinking slightly in the hot sand, there were some small logs in the sand brought by the waves.
“This is nice.”
Said Robin, she also loved the beach, feeling the warm sun on her skin improved her mood, those moments when she could bask in the sun and just relax were possible only after she joined Alexander, in the beginning she still couldn’t relax, she had to be always alert of her surroundings but now she trusted him more.
Elis, seeing that she was hugging Alexander’s arm, let go in a hurry, flustered, but seeing the sand she forgot of that and took some sand in her hands.
“It’s hot!”
She was surprised at the hotness of the sand, but it wasn’t hot enough to be painful.
“Haha, of course it is! How is it, do you like this place?”
Alexander was amused seeing Elis behaving like a child.
“Hmm, it’s very beautiful!”
Answered Elis, she was indeed a very energetic girl contrary to how she was when he first had meet her, he didn’t ask how she got in that situation because she will tell him that when she was ready to talk.
“I will start clearing an area there.”
Indicating towards where the beach meets the forest, Alexander left the girls on the beach and walked towards that spot, it wasn’t far from them so he could see them playing around.
They gave the impression of a mother with her daughter if not for the fact that Robin was too young to have a daughter her age, but she had a motherly temperament.
As Oda, the creator of One Piece said, “Robin is the ‘mother’ of the crew.”, and that indeed was true.
He also planned to scout the small island but that could be done once everything was in place.
Getting in the shadow of the trees, Alexander started to ponder on how to best clear a small area.
After some pondering, he chose the method that would also train his control, and that was, attaching an electromagnetic field to an object.
He also had an intriguing idea, what if he used electromagnetic fields to boost his speed and strength, an example would be when punching he could attach a electromagnetic field to his elbow, or on another spot of the body depending on the punch, and boost his attack.
That could result in a very strong strike, but that required very good control and accuracy from his part, or he may damage himself more than the enemy.
He also had to see if this can be used the other way around to slow down and weaken his enemy.
For now, that was only a theory and he needed some live experiments to understand if it was feasible and if it could be applied to real combat.
“Let’s try this.”
Concentrating, he formed magnetic fields on the upper part of the trunks on all the trees close to him, then he made the field become part of the tree, it was the same as gluing them, it was hard to explain the process because he had an instinctual knowledge on how to achieve that.
The trees shock, making cracking sounds.
Seeing that the power wasn’t enough, he increased the intensity, and after that, the trees started to bend, it was hard for him to control many separate electromagnetic fields but at the same time he felt constant improvement, after all, he could learn everything 3x faster.
Increasing the power once again, the trees no longer could resist and started to fall, their roots surfaced together with soft dirt, some split at the base as they weren’t strong enough to force the roots outside.
Robin and Elis stopped what they were doing and watched Alexander uprooting the trees without even moving.
But at that moment, something strange happened.
“Shit, what is happening?!”
They heard yells and shouts coming from the forest where the trees were falling.