1 month later.

“Poseidon” Dalmatian called out.

Ezra noticed that he had both his hands in bandages.

“Hey buddy what happened, did you get into a fightback at home?” Ezra asked.

“Do not mind it, I had a fight with my brother who tried to stop me from heading back to the academy,” Dalmatian replied.

“Okay, I will not ask further about your family matters, welcome back. The academy is empty and boring these days, you should take some time to recover.” Ezra added.

Ezra had continued his nighttime underwater training without failure, and his understanding of the Umi Umi no Mi (Sea Sea Fruit) had deepened. There was one more test to carry out before the start of the second year but for this, he needed a sparring partner.

...

A week went by, and Dalmatian had recovered from his injuries. He was currently practising his boxing on a punching bag in the training ground.

“Hey Dalmatian, would you like to do some sparring. I feel like all this training without any actual combat won’t make me improve” Ezra said, he didn’t want to sound like he was scheming something.

“True, I felt like that when I fought against my brother. Although my power, speed, and endurance improved I could not defeat him. I believe sparring will help develop our battle sense” Dalmatian said after thinking for a while.

Both boys found a clearing since they were not used to sparring. It was agreed to only fight using their physical strength, since Ezra trained with a pole it was only fair for Dalmatian to wear a training arm guard.

Ezra’s pole hissed as he lunged with it, performing a stab at Dalmatian to open the fight.

Dalmatian who was already expecting such an attack responded by dodging to the left, as he watched the pole stab and retract from his previous location.

Taking the initiative Ezra continued attacking. Swooshing sounds filled the training ground just from each pole swing, stab or chop. Ezra continued to build his momentum increasing his attacking speed.

Dalmatian kept up with Ezra’s attacks even as the speed increased. Although he was also a rookie to proper combat, he had more experience than Ezra. He threw out a punch with a boom interrupting Ezra’s attacks.

The shockwave of the collision pushed the two of them back a few steps.

It took only a second for the boys to regain their footing, indicating the start of the second round.

A loud shockwave echoed through the training ground as Dalmatian punched forward.

Ezra had to focus on his footwork as he dodged each attack while also blocking the ones he couldn’t successfully dodge.

This went on for 10 minutes, Dalmatian attacking while Ezra dodging, blocking, and countering. Now they both laid on the floor, breathing heavily, totally exhausted.

“That was fun, let us do this more often,” Dalmatian said.

Ezra could only smile; he was too tired to talk.

It became a daily occurrence to hear hissing and booming sounds from the apprentice training group in the academy.

“In two days, the ship with the other students’ marines should be arriving, this is probably our last time to spar. Till today we have fought using most of our strength, how about we give this last spar 101%,” Ezra said.

“I like the sound of that, we have both improved a lot since we started sparring daily. Things have not been settled between us; we are currently at 57 draws. How about we use this to determine the winner” Dalmatian added.

“Fine, but like always we are not allowed to use our devil fruit powers, just physical strength,” Ezra stated before things went too far.

Dalmatian agreed as he got into his boxing stance.

Ezra held his pole in his hand as wrapped his fingers around the end of the pole.

The atmosphere was tense, this was no longer a spar. The boys were going at it with all they had. All the experiences accumulated from their previous 57 spars, had brought about major improvements in both boys. Without them knowing their aura had started to change. Ezra had gained much-needed experience; his pole art had entered embryonic form, and soon he would have a style that he had developed himself. On the other hand, the uniqueness of Dalmatian’s boxing had been refined also.

Simultaneously they attacked.

Whoosh! Boom!

A high-speed battle was taking place in this training ground, any mistake was paid for by pain. Over the time sparring the two boys had developed some type of foresight skill. Using this they could predict the direction of an attack, and then respond accordingly. Ezra had a high proficiency in using this foresight compared to Dalmatian, this was the only reason for the constant draws even though he was physically weaker.

Kick, Block

Punch, Parry

Stab, Block

Different combinations of attacks were thrown out by both Ezra and Dalmatian.

Gathering their strength, Dalmatian said, “Let this be the last attack”.

His muscles strained as he threw an all-out punch. Not backing down Ezra, lunged with his pole staff in one hand, he shot out like an arrow leaving its bow.

A bang could be heard due to the collision of both attacks and both boys flew out and plastered into the walls in both directions, out cold.