Chapter 49: Chapter 42

After getting the double news of his mom being pregnant and the Kid Pirates being around Vallipo, neither father nor son felt their argument made sense to continue.

When Aramaki readied to leave, he had asked Bill if there was anything he needed anything and, not standing on ceremony, Bill had told him that he wanted to learn the Iron Body technique.

Hearing this, Aramaki told his son simply: “Fine, don’t sign any contracts.”

Seemingly even now Aramaki was determined for his son not to be in the Marines for a second longer than necessary.

Or, as Aramaki would put it, his ‘eldest son’.

For Bill’s part, after hearing the news he had wanted to go himself, he even uncharacteristically swore to himself that he would destroy the Kid Pirates if they made a move on Vallipo.

He also tried to follow his father back home, but the Commodore had told him it wasn’t possible and even if it was, that Bill would only slow him down.

It was only now that Bill learned that his father could fly, something that he hadn’t been able to do before.

Having followed Aramaki out of the base, the last thing the big man had told him was that he’d send a message about home and to not forget that Bill wouldn’t be going back on any missions until he graduated from all his classes.

He even annoyingly grinned and emphasized the word ‘all’.

At that time, Bill didn’t respond to the goading, and just wished the man a speedy journey.

Seeing his father disappear in the distance, Bill turned around and decided to not waste any time.

He had signed up for both Metallurgy and Engineering, and even though didn’t think his father would be dishonest in the deal he had made, those courses had years’ worth of branching specializations.

‘Well, years’ worth of branching specializations for other people.’

Unlike the rest of his body, Bill only had a somewhat loose understanding of his brain. He definitely did not have a photographic memory, but he had something more than a ‘very good’ recall ability.

He would not remember every detail to everything he ever saw, but he would definitely remember the things he had decided was important.

With this in mind as he walked back to his room, he grabbed his report and took care of the last duties he had pertaining to the South Bird procurement mission.

After giving his report to Sentomaru, Bill discussed the issue of graduation and whether it was to spite Aramaki or something else Captain Sentomaru just laughed and claimed he would speak to Punk on his behalf.

In the meantime, Bill walked to his room and cracked open his introductory Metallurgy book and skimmed over the contents.

This book didn’t have much in the way of processing material but was instead about the geological markers for various metal groups.

All in all, it was informative but dry. Bill had read it before and interestingly had taken notice that the metals in this world seemed to oxidize similar to those on Earth.

He then wondered if there were some constants throughout all reality, but after thinking about the implications of such a hypothesis he quickly just moved on.

After several hours, Bill felt he had memorized the introductory book. He didn’t think the rest of the courses would be so simple, due to the need for practical lessons, but this book was much more just memorizing facts.

Turning to the Engineering book, Bill took a little more time.

Unlike the Metallurgy text, the Engineering book asked more questions about design – questions that couldn’t just be memorized and answered.

Of course, over time an Engineer would train themselves at problem solving, but for a man who had been a Plumber then English Teacher in his last life he still had a ways to go.

Going over the various design samples, Bill barely noticed the hours pass by.

With his body the way it was, he could survive for a long time without food or water and even sleep was not as essential as before.

He still liked sleep, and could get a full nights worth, but it was more of a luxury than anything. Bill suspected he could live off just a couple hours of sleep a day and be totally fine.

On the afternoon of the next day, he put his pencil down and started clearing his desk.

There were simple design problems everywhere, from flat-bottomed barges to bird feeders.

For these problems, there weren’t any strictly ‘correct’ answers, which was fun in some ways but definitely more time consuming.

Putting the papers on his shelf, Bill went to get something to eat and saw Marron and some of the MSU Recruits in the cafeteria.

After talking to them he was told that they were going to be given two weeks without duty but were encouraged to use the time for training.

Bill had never felt comfortable encouraging others to sign the extended contracts to learn one of the Six Powers, but he was relieved when Marron said that most of them had chosen to do so.

She and most of the other blade users had chosen Shave, but the two marksmen had chosen Moon Step.

Either one was good, but in his heart, he felt that for the great majority of people Shave was the best.

He had also been reserved due to the fact that while these teenagers had signed twenty-year contracts, he had already learned one and would probably get another while still on his regular six-year service contract.

Saying goodbye to the MSU Recruits, Bill went around to see Sentomaru who irritatingly told him that Vegapunk was busy and sent Bill to an academic advisor to discuss his specialization path.

Bill knew there just had to be an intersections between Metallurgy and Engineering, he hoped that by finding it he could graduate early.

After all, there was always more time to look into other fields, he thought.

Unfortunately, Bill thought wrong.

Standing in front of a bushy-eyebrowed old man he was told unsteadily: “Err, Metalurrgical proceedures foocus on producction of bassic an advannced materrials rannging from irron to seasstone.

Enginnering has manny speccializzations. Manny of whicch incluude the ussing off those mettals, but it doesnn’t foccus onn the prodduction of themm.”

When Bill asked if Engineers didn’t design the forges, he was surprised when the old man told him no, that the metallurgists designed that equipment themselves.

Leaving the office, Bill decided to not despair.

He had a lot of benefits others couldn’t hope to have, if he could, he would focus on Metallurgy as his main field and play around with Engineering.

Particularly, the Engineering of cybernetic limbs was something he found pretty awesome.

His youth had been spent idolizing Cowboys, but Bill hadn’t been immune from the futuristic crazes of early television.

For the rest of the day, Bill went around and collected the second-year textbook ‘Advanced Metallurgy’ which detailed compound metals, and ‘Biomedical Alloys’ the third-year textbook which detailed composite materials used in implants.

Getting the third-year textbook should have been impossible given the Academy’s rules, but apparently Aramaki hadn’t been joking when he claimed that their family had strong backers.

These books were amazing; they showed that the Science Division valued the production process even more than the specialized knowledge.

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This was shown by the fact that besides the Introductory textbook describing the forging of common materials such as steel, nothing else was mentioned.

With these two books in hand, Bill grabbed some bread and went back to his room.

In lieu of having to actually forge anything, he easily memorized these books over the next few days until he was satisfied with being able to parrot the material.

Of course, he did not learn three years of advanced education in under a week, at this point he clearly understood the ‘why’ but not the ‘how’.

It is often looked over, but Production is half science and half art.

After reading back the textbooks verbatim, Bill thought he was good enough to move on the second and third year Engineering textbooks.

Unlike the Metallurgy field of study, Engineering had no set path. There had been over ten second year topics and roughly the same number for third years.

Looking at the huge list of classes, all of them seemed both interesting and practical.

In the end, after a lot of thought, Bill decided to go with two of his actual interests and the books he had picked up were titled ‘Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering’ and ‘Electronics and Communication Engineering’.

Interestingly enough, these fields were the direct forerunners to the highest-level specializations in the Science Division, particularly Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering.

Of course, all fields of study were interwoven. Even if Bill graduated with sixth year courses under his belt, he would still have gaps in his knowledge about some parts of the industrial or computing processes.

But as he sat down looking at the textbook titled ‘Electrical and Instrumentation’ he put that out of his mind and starting memorizing.

The next several days went much as the previous ones, where Bill could read and remember the words.

He could seemingly solve all the problems on paper but felt like the worlds greatest basketball fan who never played a game.

Sure, that fan could tell you what to do and where to do it on the basketball court, but was watching a bunch of basketball the same as being a basketball player?

Of course not, and that was his problem now.

Thinking this, Bill went out to get some lunch and when he came back to his room, he found a parcel on the desk inside his room.

‘Hm?’

Bill had locked his door, so as he opened the package he wondered why an administrator hadn’t just dropped this outside

Privacy wasn’t super emphasized in this place, and when he saw the packages contents it made sense to him.

He had been sent a martial arts manuscript reading [Iron Body].

Did this mean his father had flown from Marineford to Vallipo in just under a week? Bill found that unlikely.

He was glad that he had this, but physical training hadn’t been on his to-do list.

‘Now it seems I really won’t be getting much sleep.’ He thought.

But like before he didn’t despair. As a person who understood the value of youth Bill knew these years were made for hard work.

Looking down at his several textbooks, Bill started to read them without opening the pages.

Then after a few minutes of this, he stopped, suddenly bored, and opened up the Iron Body manuscript and put it to memory.

Like with the Metallurgy and Engineering textbooks, just reading the manuscript would not make Bill an expert.

But unlike those textbooks, the manuscript gave him practical lessons in order to master the martial art.

Becoming proficient with Iron Body was not hard for a man who had complete control of his body, what was hard was to master the martial art.

Mastering Iron Body would make a person’s skin impenetrable and bones unbreakable as long as they had the strength to manipulate their bodies.

Of course, like each of the Six Powers the ability was only as strong as the user.

Humming to himself, Bill decided he would master the technique, but first wanted to focus on his studies. So, getting up he left his room to visit Sentomaru again, where he found the big man behind a desk full of paperwork.

It was an odd sight for the Captain to be in, and the man was in no mood to talk as he shooed Bill out of the room.

“eh? Punk is in his lab… Lieutenant, you can just go and talk to him now!

If he asks anything, just tell him that he’s put too much work on me, and I can’t handle your problems right now!”

Shrugging his shoulders, Bill did as Sentomaru said and found the old scientist sitting in a large chair in the lowest level laboratory in the base.

Standing in the doorway, Bill called out: “Dr. Vegapunk?”

Hearing his name, Punk didn’t look up from the document in his hands and simply replied: “Ves?”

Bill knew that Vegapunk was eccentric and so didn’t take offense to the old man’s attitude as he spoke about his current problem, including the stipulation made by his father about graduation.

Trying to sound as valuable as possible, Bill couched his request in the sense that his goal was to reach Captain of Procurements as soon as possible.

Hearing this Vegapunk had looked up from his document and said: “Das Kaptain position ist fery vell knownst, ant ist diffikult to reash. Das zee haffen zee strengthen to reash zat position?”

 Hearing this, Bill knew he had snagged his catch and now just had to reel it in.

He went on to roughly describe his strength, and not knowing the exact limit on a person like Sentomaru, exaggerated a bit by saying he had ‘learned’ two of the Six Powers.

By the end of it, he had Vegapunks full attention but was surprised by the old scientist’s next question.

“And vat does zee finken ist zee vost important mission of Prokurements?”

This was unclear and didn’t have a correct answer. Presumably Vegapunk wanted to know what the single most important thing was to procure.

So half-jokingly and half-seriously, Bill answered: “Probably money” then noticing what he had said quickly tried to play it off with a quiet “hahaha” laugh.

This reply wasn’t met with scorn, instead Vegapunk just replied: “Zat ist korrekt… Vy vill sie you to zat position soonen ist possible.”

Stunned but excited, like that, a small joke had made William Ox apprentice to the most prominent scientist in the world.