The first trial lasted only five minutes.
Outside the room, it was barely enough ti for Zaraki to take a few swigs from the liquor bottle Garp had hidden in a cabinet and for Bogard to record the initial readings.
Inside the room, however, those five minutes stretched into an agonizing lifeti.
Through the palm-sized seastone window, Zaraki watched the participants get violently dragged out of their comfortable reality.
Before the gravity even hit, a low-frequency hum began eating away at their nerves.
It wasn't loud, but it burrowed into their ears like a dull blade scraping against bone, accelerating heartbeats and making every buried instinct scream that danger was coming.
Then, the gravity dropped.
Clack—hum!
The air thickened instantly. Nami and Carina dropped to their knees with a pair of sickening thuds that made even Zaraki's eyelids twitch.
The sudden pressure squeezed the breath from their lungs, turning the very act of making a sound into a luxury.
They braced their hands against the floor, their shoulders trembling and fingers scraping the tal in desperation as their back muscles locked up like enemies of their own bodies.
This was only double gravity.
For Zoro, Sanji, and Smoker, it was troubleso but manageable.
Zoro adjusted his stance imdiately, frowning as if disappointed the first wave wasn't heavier.
Sanji slowed but kept his balance enough to curse under his breath, while Smoker's smoke form distorted before stabilizing, his expression turning ugly but not panicked.
But for the normal humans, every breath beca a brutal battle.
"Hey! This is too reckless!" Sanji snapped, imdiately stepping forward to help Nami.
"Don't move." Zaraki's voice echoed through the intercom—cold, flat, and devoid of comfort. "You want to save them? Then pray they learn how to breathe before they panic. Helping them now only teaches their bodies to wait for rescue."
Nami's lips trembled.
If she had the breath to curse him, she would have scread.
Black spots danced in her vision while her lungs burned, the pressure flattening the fragile courage she had built since Arlong Park.
She desperately wanted Sanji to help her and Zaraki to stop the machine, but beneath the panic, sothing stronger clawed its way up.
'I can't fall here. I finally have a chance to live for myself.'
Sothing inside Nami shifted.
The crushing pressure stopped being a formless weight and beca readable movent—airflow, floor vibrations, Sanji's approaching footstep, Carina's trembling breath, and the stubborn rhythm of her own heart.
Nami shifted her fingers half an inch, then adjusted her shoulder.
It was a ridiculous, microscopic movent compared to the monsters nearby, but to her, it was the difference between suffocation and life.
She inhaled.
It was a ragged gasp, but she breathed.
Outside the room, Zaraki narrowed his eyes. "Observation-type reaction, huh? Not bad."
Bogard's pen paused for half a second before continuing across the clipboard.
Then the second stage activated.
The crimson light inside the room deepened.
Gravity was rely a hand pressing down on the body; the ntal pressure field was a knife pressed against the soul.
Smoker stiffened first, biting clean through his cigars.
Sparks rained onto his collar unnoticed as his pupils contracted and his body instinctively tried to scatter into smoke.
Yet the pressure field dragged that smoke downward, forcing it to churn against the floor like a trapped cloud.
For a Logia user, the sensation of being unable to escape was deeply humiliating.
Zoro's three swords humd as if reacting to the pressure.
His muscles bulged and his eyes went bloodshot, but he didn't fall.
Instead, he lowered his stance and rested a hand on his hilt, facing down an invisible opponent.
Sanji dropped to one knee, his fingers clawing the floor grooves as every nerve below his waist was pushed to the absolute brink.
Isuka lasted longer than Zaraki expected.
Pale and sweating, she kept her hand glued to her sword hilt, her posture tight and controlled like a bowstring pulled to its absolute limit.
Carina stopped pretending.
Her clever smile vanished, replaced by the wide-eyed, sharp calculation of a thief who suddenly realized the door was locked, the window was fake, and the only way out was through the man holding the knife.
"ntal pressure... this is the real catalyst," Zaraki muttered, watching the life-sign data spike wildly on the screen.
The human body had limits; fear did not.
The machine didn't just increase gravity—it dragged raw survival instinct to the surface and forced the body to answer a question most people avoided their entire lives: Do you want to live badly enough to change?
The five minutes passed like a slow execution.
Zaraki tapped the screen. "That's enough. Any longer and they really will break."
With a soft beep, the crimson lights died and the oppressive hum vanished.
The resulting silence was almost frightening.
Hiss—!
The pressure valve released, and the heavy tal doors slid open, releasing a thick cloud of white steam.
A trembling hand gripped the doorfra.
"Bas... tard..."
Sanji dragged himself out, his neat suit soaked and his elegant deanor utterly wrung out.
The mont he crossed the threshold, he collapsed onto his back, gasping like a dying fish.
Zoro followed, using his scabbard as a cane.
Every muscle in his body spasd, and sweat dripped from his green hair to form a puddle beneath him.
"That feeling..." Zoro rasped, sliding down the wall. "What the hell was that... It was like being thrown into a pit of blades."
Smoker erged last among the n, barely standing.
The typical arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by heavy wariness.
He held half a broken cigar, his trembling fingers failing to light it twice.
Isuka helped Nami and Carina out.
The swordswoman was pale but kept her back straight, her hand resting on her hilt as if terrified of losing the feeling she had just grasped.
The air outside the room instantly turned foul with the scent of sweat, fear, and exhaustion, but to Zaraki, it was the sll of becoming stronger.
His throat went dry.
Watching them struggle on the edge of collapse stirred the battle hunger within him, a heat that water couldn't quench.
He grabbed Garp's stolen bottle of liquor, popped the cork, and took a long swig.
The liquid burned down his throat and exploded in his stomach, scattering the restless heat.
He exhaled comfortably.
Alcohol and suffering—a decent combination!
Smoker marched over, his expression dark and his silver hair damp with sweat. Pride forced him to stand upright, though he unconsciously crushed his broken cigar.
"Hey," Smoker snapped. "You drank your booze and tortured everyone half to death. They can barely move. When exactly does this 'quick training' start?"
It was a fair question.
To Smoker, the black room was just a brutal, horrifying warm-up.
He expected a manual, a breathing thod, or a secret Marine formula.
What did torture have to do with Haki?
Zaraki swirled the liquor in the bottle, looking at the Captain like he was an idiot.
"Learn? They already started learning."
The words jamd in Smoker's throat, his face clearly screaming: Are you ssing with ?
"Stop talking nonsense!" Smoker waved a hand, stirring up white smoke. "You locked them in a gravity coffin and crushed them like dead dogs! If Haki were that simple, Headquarters would be full of users!"
Ignoring him, Zaraki walked over to Carina, who was sprawled on the floor with her chest heaving.
"Hey, little fox." He lightly kicked the bottom of her shoe. "Stop playing dead. Think back to when the red light ca on. That feeling of a blade hanging right in front of your eyeball—what did your body do so you wouldn't be crushed by that fear?"
Carina struggled to open her unfocused eyes.
For once, she didn't joke.
She slowly raised her right hand, grasping weakly at the air.
That feeling... If she didn't gather everything into one point, she would be crushed.
Spirit. Breath. Fear. Will. All of it gathered into one fingertip.
Everyone's eyes widened.
It was faint, so faint a blink would miss it, but for less than a heartbeat, the tip of Carina's index finger gained a dim black sheen before vanishing.
Her hand dropped weakly back to the floor.
The armory went dead silent.
Smoker stared at her finger like he had just watched a sheep breathe fire.
It was Armant Haki.
It wasn't mature hardening or combat-ready, but it was real.
"How is this possible..." Smoker rasped, his gaze snapping to Isuka.
The swordswoman sensed the shift as well.
Supporting herself on one knee, she shakily stood and wrapped her fingers around her hilt.
For a fleeting second, a spark far more refined than Carina's flickered through her palm, making her scabbard hum faintly.
Smoker's expression crumbled.
His subordinate—the girl who always chased him and shouted for him to slow down—had just touched a threshold he had avoided for far too long.
In the Grand Line, a Logia without Haki dominated the weak, in the New World, they beca a target.
A heavy sense of crisis slamd into Smoker's pride.
"Zaraki," Smoker said stiffly, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "Run it again."
Zaraki smirked. "Didn't you call it a fairy tale?"
Smoker's scowl deepened. "I said run it again."
Behind him, several Marine officers observing the test lost their composure.
The value of what they had just seen was astronomical.
It was only a spark, but a spark could beco a fla, and a fla could forge armor.
The armory grew restless, eyes fixing on Zaraki with hunger barely masked by discipline.
Zaraki finished the liquor as a system notification pinged in his mind, confirming points earned from successful training stimulation.
"What's the rush?" He tossed the empty bottle aside, his grin turning malicious. "The machine isn't running away. Line up one by one. But let make this clear: the energy fee cos out of your allowances for the rest of the year."
The armory fell silent before the officers' eyes turned rabid.
Compared to Haki, an allowance ant absolutely nothing!
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