From the very beginning, Alex stuck to his grueling training routine: seventy push-ups a day, three hundred standing frog jumps, and ninety minutes of horse stance. In just half a month, he had adapted to a training regimen so intense, it bordered on self-abuse.
At one point, Alex was so exhausted he couldn't even lift his chopsticks. Luffy responded by shoving heaps of meat into his mouth, nearly choking him to death in the process.
Luffy watched Alex's relentless training without saying much. But sometimes, seeing Alex drenched in sweat, his clothes soaked through, Luffy would just stand there grinning like an idiot.
To put it simply: for as long as Alex trained each day, Luffy played his self-invented game of scooping barrels out of the sea with a fishing net.
But this hobby affected their travel speed. While Luffy's homemade whirlpools did help intensify Alex's training, they drastically slowed down the fishing boat.
Neither Luffy nor Alex steered the ship; they just let it drift with the wind. Ironically, the boat seemed to move faster at night—when both of them collapsed from exhaustion and slept.
In the first few days at sea, Alex was still puzzled about what power he had gained after eating the Devil Fruit. No matter how he tested it, nothing conclusive emerged. Eventually, he stopped obsessing over it and focused fully on his physical training.
"Alright, that's enough fun for today," Luffy called out cheerfully, seeing Alex collapse onto the deck, gasping for air after ending his horse stance. Luffy moved to reel in the barrels caught in his fishing net.
But just as he hoisted the net full of barrels, a giant fish suddenly leapt out of the sea. In one swift gulp, it devoured the entire net—barrels and all.
With a splash, the fish disappeared into the ocean as quickly as it had appeared.
Both Luffy and Alex stared blankly. All that was left in Luffy's hand was a torn scrap of the net.
"Hey! Give me back my meat! I'm gonna be the King of the Pirates! If you dare steal from me, you'd better be ready to face the consequences!"
Luffy tossed away the ruined net and stood at the edge of the boat, planting one foot on the railing like a proper pirate, shouting fiercely into the open sea.
But the ocean remained silent. The fish had vanished, ignoring Luffy's rant.
Alex dragged his weary body over to Luffy's side, intending to calm him down. But when he saw Luffy's serious expression—devoid of his usual goofy grin—his heart skipped a beat.
"You have a plan to catch that oversized thief, don't you?" Alex asked cautiously.
Eyes fixed on the sea, Luffy answered solemnly, "We're pirates. We don't just let our stuff get stolen. I don't care if it's a fish—I'll fight it with everything I've got!"
Then Luffy turned to Alex, his face lighting up with passion.
"Besides, it ate all my meat in one bite! Even I couldn't bring myself to eat that much meat all at once. I'm never forgiving that fish!"
Alex facepalmed. That last sentence? Yeah, that was the real reason. All the righteous speech before it? Just dramatic buildup.
With dozens of barrels now gone, the remaining meat on the boat was scarce. Given Luffy's bottomless appetite, it might only last another four or five days. Just as Alex opened his mouth to respond, something suddenly launched into the air from the sea.
On closer inspection—it was the same giant fish that had stolen their food! As it dove back into the water, its blue tail fin swished, and it let out a strange sound—eerily similar to a human laugh, as if mocking Alex and Luffy.
"That thing's taunting us? I'm gonna punch it to the moon!"
Luffy, ever the simple soul, was instantly fired up and ready for a showdown.
"That's a Mockfish," Alex said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "They can mimic human laughter. First time I've seen one myself."
He had read about the species in a marine biology book back when he was learning fishing techniques. Adult Mockfish grow up to fifteen to twenty meters long, lack scales, are sea-blue in color, and use their gill sacs to make human-like laughing sounds. They're notorious for toying with fishermen, and many find them a real nuisance.
"I can probably catch it—but it'll take some effort," Alex muttered.
Twenty days ago, he wouldn't have dared say such a thing. Now, fresh from training, his soaked clothes clung to him like he'd fallen into the sea. He swung his sore arms, flinging droplets everywhere—proof of just how hard he'd been sweating.
"Then hurry up and do it! I've never tasted that kind of fish before. If it's delicious, maybe I'll forgive it—hahaha!"
Luffy's casual remark made Alex wince. "You're planning to eat it? Then what's the point of forgiving it..."
Alex narrowed his eyes at the sea. "A lowly fish dares mess with us? Maybe it thought we were just regular fishermen, not pirates—since we didn't raise a Jolly Roger."
He reached into the boat and pulled out two spare fishing nets, grinning darkly.
"So, my first real opponent at sea… isn't even human. This ocean really is full of surprises."