Chapter 75 - 75: Ranks

*At sun set*

When they reach the training island, it was with a hungry stomach that Edam returned back to his cave to take a shower and eat but just as he was about to take a bite of his quick homemade sandwich, someone opened door.

And the person who entered was Zaz.

"Yo !"

"Yo... go ahead read it..." Edam pointed out to the book and opened his mouth to take bite but...

Instead Zaz took a chair and sat down in front of him and spoke.

"Yeah but no, I'm actually here to tell you that Donny found Mickey completely beaten up..." Zaz said with a serious expression.

"Hmm ? He lost in a fight ? he's so fast though..." Edam asked.

"Yes... or no... well I don't really know but... he was beaten up black and blue... quite ugly to see... his opponent broke his two legs it seems..."

"Is it that grave...?" Edam quietly put down his sandwich and asked surprisingly.

"Well... Nope but..."

"...Phew here I thought the worst, why are you making it sound like he's going to die dude..." Edam sighed in relief, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Munch, munch, munch, and who beat him up ? He should be pretty strong right ?" Edam asked plainly.

"Well we don't know, in fact nobody know... the officers refuse to say who it is for obvious reasons..."

"Well quite normal, I'm sure that Leo and Raffe wanted to kill someone right now... let's pray for the guy that they never found out his identity munch, munch, munch..." Edam said and laughed softly before standing up.

"Let's go see Mickey..."

And they were gone to pay Mickey a visit at the small "hospital" of the North regiment.

"Haha..." When they arrived the turtle cat was already awake lying down on the bed with a lot of bandage to cover his two legs. He was trying to laugh out happily but he still had some difficulty to do it. The other three turtles brothers were obviously already keeping him company.

"Haha-... Aouch...Sorry to have made you all worry for nothing at all..." Mickey said awkwardly.

"Nothing you say ? The doctor said that you just brushes a lifelong disability there bro... that's nothing to joke with..." Donny said as he sat on a chair nearby.

"..."

"It's nothing, don't move... Sigh we didn't got to fight buddy... what actually happened ?" Edam asked him as he looked at his two broken legs.

"Uh... well... while I was searching for some opponents, I met this weird guy dress up in a black suit. That's weird 'cause he didn't had a suit for his weak points to be hung on... and then... then... I forgot... It's kind of blurry but all I know is that it hurts a lot..." Mickey tried to explain but it was still too blurry.

"Uh huh..." Edam exclaimed before slowly putting down a hand on his left leg, closing his eyes.

"Hey what are-...?" All of them were puzzled and wanted to asked but...

"Be quiet." Two simple words came out of Edam's mouth but they didn't uttered a word after that.

"...?" Question marks all over Mickey's face.

"Don't move." A dry order came out of his mouth and Mickey stopped moving.

In Edam's mind an image quickly formed out showing various broken bones, torn muscles, torn veins etc... This strange phenomenon was made possible thanks to a weird mix between Observation Haki and the Ki. One to perceived and the other one to details things out.

"I see..." His face frown a bit. This kind of wounds would take a couples of weeks and even months to fully heal. Fortunately Mickey was not human and so benefits the advantage of a higher regeneration rate, his devil fruit surely did had something to do with it too. A normal human would have surely lost his legs by now.

'It should takes a month or two to somewhat heal and another two to fully heal but..."

"...Let's cheat a bit...' He put his other hand on his other leg and...

With a thought, his hands glowed up with a golden aura as he channeled a certain amount of lifeforce onto Mickey's legs. The purpose was to heal by accelerating Mickey's natural healing abilities by nourishing it with Edam's own lifeforce.

Edam discovered this ability while he was playing with plants. Since Ki was lifeforce it could accelerated a plants growth by who know how many times and since you don't have to be a genius to think of healing someone with this rather unorthodox medecine, the little monkey asked Zephyr if this way of healing was viable and... it surprisingly did... to a certain point that is...

After a couples of minutes that he took off his hands and breath out.

"Phew... how exhausting..." He wiped his sweat off.

"What did you do ?" Leo asked curiously.

"I'm healing him... sort of..."

"Hah ?" Raffe who stood at the side exclaimed.

"What do you mean ?" Donny asked.

"Exactly what I mean... Okay It's more like giving him a huge boost but anyway..." Edam sat on a chair.

"Wow I didn't knew you could heal people..." Mickey said in heartfelt admiration.

"Normal I've never used it on anyone since it take a lot of energy and I have to stay still and focused during the entire process or..."

"Or...?"

"... or Ka-boom..."

"Oh... damn..."

The problem when channeling Ki is not the quality of the process or whatnot but rather the correct quantity to channel on the intended target...

... 'cause...like Zephyr said. "Too much vitality kill vitality." Literally... Edam's lifeforce was kind of overbearing and wasn't something that Mickey's broken legs could take on... in fact wrongly manipulated the consequences would be really disastrous to see.

"Alright, It could have healed faster if it was not that bad but let's take it easy and slow for now, I'm not that proeficient at that, my forte is destruction not healing... I think you should be up in two weeks or something like that..."

"Really ?"

"Of course... who do you take me for...?" Edam said with a fake pride.

"Oh then thank you Edam." Mickey smiled happily.

"Hmm... You're welcome..." Edam nodded and put his thumb up before they all started to speak about all and nothing.

...

Since then, a week quickly flew by while Edam and the other participants had to wait for the results to come out.

And then it was finally time for the results...

All the participants who were in the top 200 from both the SCC and GCC were gathered and Zephyr himself along with two officers were announcing the results and encouraging the new seedlings and older one too.

When Edam arrived at the place he was surprised (but not really in fact) to see that those two officers were two persons he already knew.

'...Oh, Ain, Binz... what a surpri-... well not really... Despite being already full fledged soldier they are still glued to grandpa hehe...' He thought as he saw one girl with slender, curvaceous young girl with reddish-brown eyes and dark blue hair framing her face, which is held back with a hairpiece.

"Wow who's this beautiful girl ?"

Wha... she's so pretty and young and... and... goddammit she's a Lieutenant already ?! "

"Let me enlighten your poor lantern my friend, She's the Lieutenant Ain, a close students of the Grand instructor Zephyr..."

"Oh and the guy ?"

"Uh... Well... you know... the guy who did umm..."

"..."

"To make it short you don't know..."

"...Yeah in short..."

...

The other officer was one guy, a rather tall and lanky guy, with large lips and broad shoulders that appear disproportional to his long arms. He dresses in a flamboyantly colorful outfit with a black and yellow over-suit, and a hot pink body suit underneath which also covers his head. He wears a green sash around his waist and carries a sword and a large shuriken on his back, tied on by a light pink cloth. His appearance strongly resembles that of a ninja.

"Whoa... a ninja..."

"What a strange guy..."

"Rasen-..."

"Silence !" Zephyr said with a profound tone and began a speech.

...

"Ah sh*t I'm so nervous... a few points and I can exchange it for a hundred thousand of berry..."

"Me too, I want to send some money for my mom..."

"... I'm just a few points away from getting the metals Navy gloves..."

"Wha... Lucky you... I'm still a hundred of points from getting my weapon..."

Every participants of both the SCC and GCC were gathered and were getting rewarded.

Zaz & co were fortunate to get into the top ten despite getting swept away, since they still got a lot of points before actually fighting for the crown (to lose) they made it to the top twenty.

There were some other talented guys and girls other than them who did made their way to the top five, surpassing even Zaz & co but not because they were more powerfull than them but because they were fortunate enough to keep their weak points intact.

Overall the three weak points acted like a multiplier of some sort. So some has less points but better ratio at the end of the day.

Even Mickey who was currently still in the bed had more points than them.

But of course, it was Edam who stood at the top with a frightening numbers of points...

Although the officers in charge didn't reveal his total points for some reasons, no one really question it, since he got the throne he was bounded to get the most point out of them after all, so mentioning his numbers of points were kind of useless.

"The winner is Monkey D. Edam and he will get..." The girl named Ain then listed out his rewards with a charming smile but in a heartbreaking tone for the others to hear. For most Edam was the very reasons for which theyr didn't got a lot more points... His [Sky Fall] was the misery of many.

After that Zephyr personally gave out a speech as he clearly highlighted the fact that "Anyone can achieve the same thing etc..." all of that to encouraged the new seedlings.

A lot of the persons presents did want to snort at this but the one who gave out the speech was the Grand Instructor himself ! You should be crazy to snort at his words...

And anyway after that, the condidates who were chosen to take the special test, were gathered in another places to get their results out.

This time however in comparison to before, there were fewer students again, twenty five including Edam & co standing perfectly in line.

When every students arrived, all of them were shocked to see the Fleet Admiral Sengoku and the Navy Hero Garp himself standing along with Zephyr the instructor !

One has to know that those three persons were the veterans of the Navy, the front face of the Navy. Apart from the three great admirals they were the three great models and source of inspiration for those youngsters who were hungry for justices.

"Good, all of you have done a good job, as you know every single one of you are the top rankers of this year special test." Sengoku said with seriousness.

'Wow did he just complimented us...?'

'I will soon have my own ship Hahahahaha !'

'Mom do you see this I'm a top rankers, I will buy a lot of bones whaf !'

A minority of them were proud of themselves and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing though, they did deserved their pride.

"The truth is... This test was in fact made up as a final test to give all of you an actual rank as a Navy soldier !"

"Wha-...?!..."

"Whaf...?"

"Heh ! All those who didn't know are really stupid..."

"Accordingly to your points as well as various of others factors, all of you will get a rank going from Seaman first class, up to the rank of Lieutenant !" Sengoku said with a powerful voice.

Th majority of those presents already had their bloods boiling up as they thought about being officers straight away.

_____________________________

(A/N :As a reminder the ranks are like this:

-Fleet-admiral.

- The three Admirals.

-Vice-admirals.

-Rear-admirals.

-Commodore.

-Captain.

-Commander.

-Lieutenant Commander.

-Lieutenant.

-Lieutenant junior grade.

-Ensign.

-Warrant officers.

-Master chief petty officer.

-Chief petty officer.

-Petty officer.

-Seaman first class.

-Seaman apprentices.

-Seaman recruits.

-End of reminder )

______________________________________

"Let's begin with students from the south regiment (the humans ones)... Jean Michel ! Congratulation you're given the rank of petty officer !" Zephyr took out a list and exclaimed.

Clap, clap, clap...!

"Ant de Bonham congratulation you're given the rank of petty officer too."

Clap, clap, clap...!

"Osefa Von. Osef Jr... Congratulation you're officialy Warrant Officer !"

Clap, clap, clap...!

...

Just like this, ten people out of the twenty from the South were promoted and were sent back home no matter if they were pleased or not with their ranks...and well who would dare complain right ?

Though it was quite strange that Kuina's name wasn't call out at all. She could only remain at the same place like a proper student. She already had an idea of why she wasn't promoted yet.

And after the South came the North obviously.

Now only eight students were presents... that is to say... Edam, Zaz, Leo, Raffe, Donny, Kuina and then a dog, a cat and... a small human ?

~~~

But instead of names being called out, they only got a deep silence to greet them along with a stare that could freeze them on the spot from Sengoku who took the list out from Zephyr.

~~~

His "death" stare was especially focused on a certain monkey-youngster who seemingly couldn't careless and only had a faint smile on his face.

Garp who was at the side was trying hard like never before to not burst in laughter.

"Good, good, good..." Sengoku said after but then thought. 'Damn brat..."

"Now all of you presents right here, right now, right there..." Sengoku said and paused for a moment.

"Congratulation you all will form one single special unit !"

"..." What ?!!!!!

What the heck was that...? It was kind of common sense that all of them should be promoted to a certain rank, a rank that will give them a certain power over all those below right ? But... still, what the f*ck was that...!? Doesn't that mean that they would have a captain ?

And...

And if they were to get a captain... that couldn't possibly be someone who lost their points like Zaz & co... Only the best would take the command right ?

If all those thoughts were correct then...

There was only one guy who filled the criteria currently...

"As all of you maybe figured it out already... Your captain and leader will be none other than Monkey D. Edam who will be given the rank of Captain !"

"What ?!" Everyone...

"Wasn't the highest rank obtainable Lieutenant ?!" Leo asked wide eyes.

"It's unfair, I want my own ship to command dammit !" Raffe shouted.

"..." Kuina

"Silence !" Zephyr shouted to calm them down and sure enough it worked.

Zephyr then continued. "Every single one of you were given a chance to pass this test but were eliminated and lost your points !"

"..." Everyone apart from one.

"..." He paused a bit. "...Who would have thought that our very top students would all be wiped out just like that too though..."

"..." Everyone apart from one.

"But it was our fault too... However as it would be unfair to the others top rankers who got a rank through their hardworks, we thought about a solution and here it is... a special unit."

"You all will be from now on the Rainbow unit !"

"As for student Edam's rank... well after three long years of tests, the training camp's council as well as the High Marine council judged his abilities to be worthy of the rank of Captain despite his age and so decided to bestow this rank !"

"And if any of you doesn't agree with this and think that you have more abilities than him to command the ship, you are very welcome to oppose it. A private battle will be organized to decided who will be the Captain then..."

...

No one said a single word after that...

Since they knew that it was a waste of time, pointless...

He was too strong for them to beat... In the same generation he gave the vibes of being invincible, indestructible, like a cheat or a bug, or like a lvl 50 boss coming to a lvl 1 area... a true anomaly in the system...

...

"...Good... Since none of you want to challenge him, you will have to decided between yourselves who will be the second-in-command !" Sengoku spoke up.

Sure enough this line made their blood boil like never before. Kuina, Zaz, Leo and Raffe opened their eyes wide in interest.

They were after all youngsters, this little bit of competition was exciting for them. They maybe could not beat the monkey but for the others that was another question.

As for Donny, Mickey and the others three, they seemed to be pleased with their current position.

...

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Well... nothing to say apart from,

Mistakes....????