This carefree and relaxed life continued until Riley turned 6 years old.
There were a bunch of reasons why Riley had been okay with relaxing for the past three years , for one , he was still just a toddler and little kid even at four and five so not much he could do with such a body even though it is enhanced.
Then there was also the fact that he would only be truly a child again once since something instinctively told him his path ahead would be a very very long one that spanned millenia , so he decided to enjoy what is potentially his last childhood.
But now , the time had come for him to start training. The past three years had been idle and wasted but still not without small and convenient gains here and there.
The only note worthy things were an even more noticeable increase in the rate of solar energy in his cells and an increase in the assimilation of the Ophiuchus constellation essence. At the moment , Riley was sure he was strong enough to lift about four tonnes which honestly already made him pretty monstrous..
Obviously along with his strength , everything else like speed , reflexes , senses, durability and stamina increased too which made Riley feel a hell of alot safer walking around alone.
Besides that , Riley had also managed to gain significant control over his gender situation whereby he could switch between boy and girl at will though he still had to do it every once in a while or it automatically happened.
Honestly it didn't even bother him much because , Riley didn't have any particularly strong feelings towards being able to transform into a female version of himself or herself anyway.
Because of this sometimes , Esme would come home and find a short blonde haired boy in a dark green shirt and white shorts , or sometimes the boy would become a girl with slight changes like her face becoming more round and feminine plus barely noticeable changed in her figure.
Honestly , Riley was more or less impressed with his physical features the most. As a boy , he showed heart breaking and super model potential while as a girl he showed absolute goddess potential.
Riley had once thought to himself while looking in the bathroom mirror 'Yup , I am definitely building a harem with this face. How can all this be selfishly kept to one person.'
Though jokingly , he had begun to really consider it because his power and potential was out of this world so there were chances that he would go 'out of this world' literally which widened his options.
That whole topic was shelved for later though and he focused on the most important thing now , training.
...
In one of the large open colloseum sized training rooms which looked abit like actual colloseums with a sky and sun even present above , Riley sat on the rough wooden floor with soft glowing light radiating from his hands.
Riley had decided to depend on a combination of the system and the Kyro Nova Castle to get stronger.
The system was a sure fire path to grow stronger in natural combat power and skill though it's rewards were random , while the castle had everything required for him to learn and master , Magical , Divine and inherited abilities.
Riley's confidence in the system was reinforced by the explanation that he recieved when he brought up the information of the still dormant template he recieved as a reward.
[Template (Admiral Kizaru)]
- Provides all knowledge , powers , abilities , traits , experience , skills and Capabilities of the legendary Fastest Devil fruit including the Pika Pika No mi.
- (Would host like to activate Template essence and initiate assimilation process.)
As a full blown Admiral , Kizaru's combat power was nothing to scoff at and from the little about the lazy Admiral Riley remembered , he could confirm that the template was really valuable at his current stage.
Furthermore , with the experience and skills of Admiral Kizaru , there was already a martial arts foundation waiting for him in the template which meant that he didn't need to go hunting for a dojo like some paranoid protagonist.
Infact , he also had to consider any future templates and the martial arts or fighting styles that will come with them so he really had no business stuffing whatever fighting styles this world had into his mind.
The template had remained untouched and dormant though already bound to him so now Riley was trying to increase it's assimilation rate.
According to Riley's understanding , the template started with a single base skill which he had to train and this training unlocked more of the skills while also releasing more of the knowledge , experience and strength of the character in both skills and physique.
It was all in the end tied to training so he had to train to integrate the template.
The light of the Pika Pika No mi was the aim for kick starting the integration of this template , when Riley gave the confirmation , a warm light emanated from his body and the ability to manifest and shape light was automatically registered in his mind.
Riley held up his small hand and focused until golden yellow light burst from his arm in unrefined and pulsating waves which just lit up the training ground aimlessly.
Though his first try wasn't so good , Riley continued practicing for over 12 hours until he finally started getting the hang of controlling light albeit barely.
The true satisfaction came when he opened the system screen to check the template's progression rate.
[Template (Admiral Kizaru) - 2.3%]
At this rate , Riley was sure he would be able to completely gain the powers of Admiral Kizaru in about a month's time. That was if the speed of template progression continued the same of course.
With his still growing super physique , Riley didn't feel tired for a really long time and the fact that he was mentally mature helped maintain his focus too so 12 hours became his standard training time.
Except for Saturday's and Sundays which were reserved for relaxing and occassional reading , Riley spent the larger part of every other day in the Kyro Nova Castle training and growing stronger.
It had only taken about 2 weeks for Riley to get his template to 31% which proved that the rate of template integration didn't slow down the more power he gained , but instead got faster.
In the previous two weeks , Riley had seen explosive growth which was way beyond his expectations.
Another impressive thing he unlocked was real fighting skills.