"Come at me with all you've got." Ao said, a few seconds after saying so Ace and Sabo tried to hit him with a pipe, Ao flawlessly dodged both of their attacks, He put his palms forward and redirected both of their attacks. Ace's pole hits Sabo while Sabo's pipe strikes Ace. Both of them got winded and collapsed on the ground.
"You guys Give up?" Asked Ao, Moving closer to the two of them in an instant. The two of them were tired and winded from fighting Ao for so long. Their stamina was empty and were trying not to show their tiredness by concealing their heavy breaths.
"Never... Giving... Up." Ace and Sabo said as they both collapsed simultaneously, Ao sighed before putting them inside of a hollow tree.
"Now that these two are out of the way, I can finally start training my haki." Ao said as he clapped his hands to get rid of the dust.
"Armament is the easiest Type of haki to awaken and considering my perk, it shouldn't take me that long to awaken it after awakening conquerers." Ao said to himself as he went near a tree, its bark had sharp Ridges on it, the bark itself was also not soft. He braced himself as he punched the tree.
He continued punching the bark, punch after punch, blood slowly escaped his knuckles and his arms were starting to get tired. His knuckles were basically coated by dried blood at this point but he continued punching. Eating a lot of food at once helped him heal faster, this injury should heal after eating food.
"997... 998... 999... 1000" He said with grunts in between as he released his knuckles from the torment, his had was loosing blood and had formed clots of blood. He sighed as he wrapped bandages around his arm.
He was feeling it, his life energy and the energy of will running rampant around his arms, His armament haki, it was at its last stage before being awakened.
***
Ao continued Punching the bark of the tree over and over again, his hands were already covered in caluses and dried up blood from the month of training. His bottleneck in armament haki would soon be over. His arms were tired and his knuckles probably had thousands of micros fractures, but he kept going. Haki was the power of one's will, someone who doesn't possess enough will to go through this has no chance of awakening any kind of Haki.
Ao's hads were already tired and felt like jelly, each time he punched the bark of the tree, a chunk of skin on his knuckles fell out, his bones were aching for him to stop but he wasn't someone to give up half way. He pushed through the effort, his final reps were soon approaching and his hands also reached their physical limitations, Ao couldn't push through if his arms gave out.
"I cannot give up." He said to himself, He punched the bark of the wood harder, chunks of wood flew from the bloodstained tree as Ao's knuckles lost their skin, his bones were exposed from his knuckles now. If he punched once more his hand would probably be crippled.
In a flash of white, his light skinned hand turned shiny black and his skin became rock solid, his arm was coated in armament now. He smiled as he started celebrating the achievement by Dancing.
Just at that moment, the black coating in his hands lost colour and became the same colour as his skin. There was only one explanation, his will was not enough to handle the strain of armament, He bent to the ground after tiredness consumed him.
"Don't tell me... Nooooo!"