While waiting for his books to arrive, Mark was slowly and steadily improving his observation haki, not its range, but its strength.
If this were a game, notifications of 0.1+ would be coming every minute. Mark steadily kept this up until he was disturbed from outside.
_Knock knock._
Opening his eyes, he found that his maid had returned with a trolley full of books.
"Come in."
Mark allowed her in gently.
Opening the door without a sound, the maid pushed the trolley into the room.
It was a heavy-looking trolley, yet she didn't look affected, but Mark knew she was affected, a lot.
He could sense her trembling arm muscles.
'Sigh'
Mark sighed, but so was the etiquette of nobles; if it's found that she cannot do her job, she'll be replaced with someone who can.
Even he can't change this.
"Is that all of them?"
Mark asked gently once again.
The maid nodded, nervous for the slightest bit of delay she had caused, but breathed a sigh of relief when Mark simply dismissed her.
Mark might be a celestial dragon, but he was not a moron; humans make mistakes. Why would he replace someone who is working hard, because of a few seconds of delay?
That's utter horseshit.
"Alright, what do we have here?"
Mark started looking through the books; he began arranging them in the order he wanted.
The books themselves did come in a pre-arranged order, mind you; the librarian did it for him; celestial dragon authority was no joke.
But this order was the generally accepted one; Mark wasn't about to follow the general route.
"So here's the deal: there are three separate piles."
"The first is the martial arts pile; from swordsmanship to rokushiki, everything goes there."
Putting all the martial arts books in this pile, Mark nodded to himself.
"The second pile is Haki; wow, there are even uses of conqueror's Haki written here."
"The identity of a celestial dragon is like a cheat."
Mark was honestly impressed with the amount of detail they have crammed into these books.
Keeping it away safely, he put his attention on the next pile, although he called it a pile, but it was just one book.
"The third, a devil fruit encyclopedia, it was updated to the latest version, which came out a week ago."
"They updated the entire thing because some chap in West Blue ate an unidentified devil fruit… talk about overkill."
But who was Mark to complain about free benefits? So he kept the book again in a separate 'pile.'.
Sitting down on his bed, Mark put his hands behind his head; he was wondering what was the best approach for him.
Taking out the Haki book, Mark began to look through the entire thing.
But the more he looked, the more he frowned.
"No way, it's actually at such a primitive level? The best way to increase haki is to fight strong opponents in deadly fights?"
"Please, that's like a modern man saying the best way to gain knowledge is to tour the entire world. Yeah, it's true, but you can also just go to school, or read a book."
"There has to be a better way."
"I remember women of Amazon have techniques that allow everyone to use haki, regardless of their willpower or age."
Mark was very dissatisfied with the techniques written here.
He wasn't a man of science, but even he knew any changes happening to the body during fighting were just a stress response.
Things like that could easily be recreated artificially, Vegapunk could definitely create a machine which can do that.
'There is no way people of this world didn't try to research Haki.'
'Considering Joy Boy could seal Haki, they must have experimented with Haki back in the day.'
'Techniques were definitely lost during the void century.'
Mark thought about this silently, as to why he was thinking about this instead of saying it out loud?
There was someone like Im sitting on his head; what if void century was a keyword which told Im who he should kill next?
Mark wanted nothing to do with that old fossil of a ruler.
"Sigh, there is no use thinking about this; I am a celestial dragon."
Mark shook his head and stopped thinking about Im, he then kept the Haki book back down.
"As for this book's training methods, it's old fashioned and worthless."
"I am not fighting like some barbarian to get a power-up, not a chance."
Haki was out of question until he figured out how to get it without actual danger to his life.
He would rather pay Amazon Lily a visit, they must have a better way of training Haki, considering all of them had Haki.
"Both Haki and devil fruits are things I can get later, then the only thing remaining is martial arts."
"Let's start with sword technique, is that something I can do?"
Mark continued to flip the pages with furrowed his brows.
"I don't get it, what is swordsman sensing the breath of metal?"
"What is breath supposed to mean? Is it vibration? Or is it literally breathing like it grew lungs?"
Mark was speechless; he wasn't used to such vague nonsense, understanding this was impossible for normal people.
Imagine if your high school math was like this.
Comprehend the feeling of A as it adds together with B. People would just stop studying that.
"No, there is nothing here a regular guy like me can use."
"I really hope Rokushiki can give me something to look forward to."
"That's my last hope."
With an immense disappointment bubbling within him, Mark read the last book without any expectations.
But slowly, as time went by, Mark's eyes started to widen.
"Oh… I see… oh…"
After a while of reading, Mark smiled; he saw a particular technique amongst the Rokushiki.
This was a unique technique, the author had barely explained how to do it, but it was so good that it was worth learning anyway.
Even the nonsense explanations didn't stop Mark from choosing this technique, this was what he was waiting for.
"Hahahaha! This is it; This technique can solve all my problems."
"This is what will give me the edge. I found it, finally!"
Mark laughed happily; he was thrilled. It was as if everything that was troubling him was solved in an instant.
Like none of the concerns about Haki or devil fruit mattered to him anymore. He had found the technique which could solve everything.