“Shanks, let me be honest with you about my so-called ‘ghost’…” Liam, having finished a hearty meal and feeling less ravenous, wiped his mouth.
Immediately, a jet-black Stand energy surged from him, and a humanoid figure resembling steel armor with glowing white triangles on its eyes and chest slowly appeared beside Liam.
“…It’s not a Devil Fruit ability,” Liam thought for a moment and told Shanks clearly.
“Ah~” Shanks nodded slowly, leaning back with one hand resting on his straw hat and the other arm draped over the back of the chair.
Liam smiled, “You don’t seem too surprised?”
“Don’t let appearances fool you,” Shanks chuckled nonchalantly. “I have a knack for reading people… I had a feeling earlier that you might be hiding something. Though I’m not particularly interested in other people’s secrets—so, if your ‘ghost’ isn’t a Devil Fruit ability, ‘Tunneling’ is the answer, right?”
Shanks activated his Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki) and gazed at the jet-black phantom at Liam’s side, especially the glowing triangular area on its chest.
After appearing, the B.I.B. didn’t shy away from Shanks’ gaze. He directly extracted the Devil Fruit core chip and implanted it into Liam’s body.
“I noticed that you never avoided my meaning… So your ‘spirit’ can actually grant you Devil Fruit abilities?” Shanks remembered when Liam’s mind had touched the glowing triangle on the ice mass.
“To say it grants abilities, that’s a bit bold.”
Liam waved his hand and pointed to the B.I.B. next to him.
“Not only can it serve as a clone, allowing me to grow twice as fast through training, but it can also extract, store, and implant Devil Fruit abilities… This core chip comes from a Devil Fruit I saw some criminal organization hoarding on this island… I thought it was interesting, so I took it for a spin.”
With that, he gestured to『B.I.B.』.
Understanding the signal, 「B.I.B.」 extended its left hand decorated with blue flame patterns and reached directly into Liam’s chest to extract the core chip of the Devil Fruit.
It grasped the triangular white chip with tube-like patterns and transferred it to its red flame-patterned right hand. The jet black armored phantom ghost-like figure crossed the dining table and stood in front of Shanks.
Leaning back against the chair with one long leg resting on the edge of the table, Shanks used his Kenbunshoku Haki to observe the jet black phantom directly in front of him.
When the red flame-patterned right hand of the “B.I.B.” with the white triangle reached out, he made no move to reject it, even refraining from invoking Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki).
Observing this, Liam couldn’t help but silently praise him.
Truly worthy of a future Haoshoku-leaking Emperor of the Seas, such magnanimity and boundless spirit were rarely seen!
Feeling trusted by someone with such a charismatic personality, Liam felt that if he had even the slightest inclination to run with Shanks, he’d probably already bow down and accept him as Captain.
“Oh… I see,” Shanks remarked, his realization dawning as “B.I.B.” implanted the Devil Fruit core into his body.
He lightly tapped his heel on the table, mimicking Liam’s earlier action, using his ability to create a circular tunnel-like hole in the tabletop.
“An ability even more incredible than a Devil Fruit!” Shanks exclaimed, marveling for a moment. “But I think I’ll give it back anyway. I like to swim!”
Liam waved his hand and motioned for B.I.B. to remove the Devil Fruit core chip from Shanks’s body.
He said, “Based on the information I’ve gathered, this could be considered a kind of… hmm, a special innate ability that arises from the vital energy after a unique stimulation! I think that what I possess, this so-called ‘Life Return’ talent that even I became aware of only later… it must be because of this.'”
Shanks nodded in agreement and asked with a curious expression on his face, “But why tell me all of a sudden?”
“Because I can’t continue to seek your advice without explaining the setup,” Liam crossed his legs on the chair, “I found it quite tedious to explain it before, so I thought it best to keep it under wraps.”
He chuckled sincerely, “And… I feel like I have a talent, however insignificant, for reading people.”
“Hā hā hā hā hā!” Shanks burst out laughing, throwing his head back, “You’re quite amusing, boy! What do you want to ask?”
Liam continued, “I’m curious… You mentioned that I can compensate for the immense strain on my body from my reckless training methods by consuming large amounts of food and digesting it quickly. You said this is a typical manifestation of a Life Return ability user… But I’m not particularly strong, am I?”
Confused, he looked at his fist before speaking, “Apart from eating and sleeping well, I don’t seem to have any outstanding abilities. At least I know I can’t be as fast or as resilient as that doe-like big sister on the deck earlier…”
Shanks leaned forward, lowered his legs, and tapped the table lightly with his finger, smiling, “I think you’ve got a few things mixed up… I never said that having Life Return necessarily equates to powerful strength.”
Finally, a question mark appeared above Liam’s head.
“Take Haki for example…”
With a sharp tap of his finger on the table, Shanks intertwined his table with jet black Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki).
“You see, Haki, this kind of energy, exists in everyone’s body. And in this world, there are those who are born with the innate ability to use Haki without any learning or rigorous training… And those people, they definitely possess strong power, or shall we say, martial prowess?”
Liam was a little dizzy from this counterintuitive statement, but – soon – he remembered a character from the Skypiea arc in the manga.
The little girl who was born with enough Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki) to cover the entire Skypiea.
“Haki is just an energy that is inherent in everyone, and it only equals a strong fighter when combined with powerful martial arts skills,” Shanks continued slowly, “Similarly, Life Return is just an understanding of one’s body, of oneself. In fact, it’s said that the first person to realize Life Return was just an ordinary person who had lived in the mountains for a long time and endured hardships… Only through rigorous physical training, such as mastering Rokushiki, can a formidable expert be developed… Of course, I’ve heard of places where it’s the other way around, where years of mastering Rokushiki deepen one’s skill in Life Return.”
……
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