On the playground of Marineford Military Academy, more than two hundred naval soldiers were panting. Some were standing, some sitting, and some lying down. Even some with relatively poor physical fitness had fainted and were carried away on stretchers by the medical team waiting on the side for emergency treatment.
Out of the three hundred cadets, only Kaji and Tsuru (formerly known as Zhiyuan) completed the task five minutes ahead of time. The rest were punished to run a hundred laps, and over ninety of them were still at it...
When Sephiroth reached the 186th lap, an hour was up.
Although he was muttering curses under his breath, he still had to spend another half an hour to finish the three - hundred - lap run.
If it weren't for the vampire fruit's incredible recovery ability, which allowed him to maintain his peak physical condition all the time, he didn't know how he could have kept sprinting at high speed for more than an hour...
Shuzo, a major and Instructor Zefa's adjutant, stood on the playground and roared at the top of his lungs:
"Fall in!"
Swish! Swish! Swish! ...
Although these cadets were dog - tired, they still managed to pull themselves together and quickly lined up.
"Everyone, you've had a tough morning. Now..."
As he was speaking, Shuzo suddenly paused, which made the cadets present feel a sudden uneasiness in their hearts, fearing that he was about to come up with some crazy idea.
"Those who have completed the task, come with me to the canteen for a meal! After the meal, come back to the playground for assembly.
And... those who haven't completed the task, keep running! You're not getting any lunch!"
"Phew!"
Hearing this, everyone heaved a sigh of relief in unison and secretly cursed Shuzo in their hearts for scaring them like that.
However, more than ninety cadets could only look dejected and go back to the track to finish their remaining laps.
Led by Shuzo, everyone marched into the academy's large canteen in an orderly manner.
At this time, in the spacious canteen hall, long tables were already filled with dishes. There were roast meat, roast chicken wings, steaks, seafood fried rice, vegetable salad, cream soup, and fruits. The variety was not extensive, but the quantity was more than enough.
"Eat to your hearts' content! There's plenty for everyone!"
With a wave of his hand, Shuzo rushed to the long table first, picked up four plates of roast chicken wings at once, found a seat in the canteen, and started to dig in.
At this moment, the cadets had just finished a strenuous exercise and had consumed a great deal of energy. Extremely hungry, they naturally didn't care about table manners. They went to the long table to pick up the food they liked, found a seat in the canteen, sat down, and started to gobble it up.
One guy even stood right in front of the long table full of food and stuffed the food into his mouth... Yes, that guy was Kaji!
He was in a white naval uniform, which soon got stained with large greasy patches while he was gorging himself, causing his already unsightly appearance to decline further...
Sephilos carried a plate of food and casually found a table in the canteen to sit down. He picked up the chopsticks and ate the food on the plate distractedly.
"Hey, young man, you're eating so little. Aren't you hungry?"
A fragrant breeze wafted over. Shion, a two - meter - forty - tall woman with a pair of snow - white long legs, sat across from the silver - haired young man and looked at the small amount of food on his plate, showing a look of confusion.
"..."
Sephilos gave Shion a speechless look as he stared at the mountain of food piled high on her plate. He didn't know how to describe the sense of discord in his heart.
A gorgeous, well - proportioned and long - legged mature woman turned out to be a big eater...
Seeing the young man remain silent, Shion blinked her big, beautiful eyes and asked curiously, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just have a poor appetite!"
The silver - haired young man scratched his head and casually made up an excuse.
Regarding the issue of food intake, Sephilos had also noticed that he didn't seem to be a big eater...
In the world of the Pirate King, there was a common characteristic among the strong... They had a large appetite!
The energy their bodies needed could basically only be obtained from food. The more they ate, the more energy their bodies could store.
Therefore, the more a person could eat, the stronger their physical strength, endurance, and power would be...
Even if Sephilos ate to his heart's content, he could only consume the amount of food for two or three people.
Moreover, he didn't necessarily need to eat. He could maintain the normal functions of his body just by sucking blood.
He had once roughly estimated his daily energy consumption and intake and found that the two were not proportional at all. The consumption far exceeded the intake, and it didn't seem to follow the law of energy conservation.
It wasn't until one time when he was too busy practicing to cook and used the blood of animals to satisfy his hunger that he figured out the problem.
His body didn't violate the law of energy conservation. The Vampire Fruit gave him a passive instinct. With this instinct, he could extract a certain substance from blood for energy synthesis to maintain his body's energy consumption.
His body originally had the function of actively producing blood. Under the effect of that passive instinct, his body had actually been taking in energy all the time.
Therefore, as long as his body could still produce blood and generate that special substance, he wouldn't feel hungry...
While Shion was quickly and gracefully eating with a knife and fork, she casually asked, "Hey, young man. My name is Shion. What's your name? Which branch are you from?"
The long - legged mature woman was super curious about the young, tender - faced silver - haired boy in front of her.
Judging from his appearance, he should not have reached adulthood yet, but his strength shown in the long - distance running was only slightly inferior to hers.
"Branch G3."
"So it's Branch G3 under Vice Admiral Garp!
That's the most famous branch among all the branches, and the overall quality of the soldiers there is also slightly higher than that of other branches."
However, I often hear Sister Crane say that Vice Admiral Garp is sometimes a very unreliable person!
I wonder if that's really true...
"Well! That old geezer Garp is indeed unreliable sometimes...
But when it comes to the crucial moment, he's still very trustworthy..."
Sephiroth subconsciously nodded in agreement first, but then he seemed to think of something and looked at the long - legged mature woman with a strange expression.
"By the way, who is this Sister Crane you mentioned?"
"Rear Admiral Crane, the General Staff Officer of the Headquarters."
"Classmate Fujito, may I ask how old you are this year?"
Whoosh!
A flash of white sword light!
Fujito held a dinner knife in her right hand and made a beautiful flourish in the air. The green apple on the silver - haired boy's plate was instantly cut in half...
"Little brother Sephiroth, it's not a good habit to casually inquire about a girl's age!"
As she spoke, the expression on the long - legged mature woman's face was half - smiling, and a dangerous glint flashed in her eyes.
Seeing this, Sephiroth twitched the corner of his eye slightly. He simply couldn't understand why this woman would react so strongly...
Could this be the instinctive stress reaction of an older unmarried woman?