Chapter 12

Without wasting time, Markus found a comfortable spot beneath a tree and closed his eyes. As soon as he did he activated his Image Training ability. His vision swam and soon he found himself standing in a white room before a screen. On the screen, there were multiple options he could configure for his training. Things like the environment, opponent, number of opponents, and so on. He looked through them for a bit before setting a few options. He chose to fight Mohji, deliberately picking a weak opponent to get a feel for using the skill. For the environment, he picked 'Generic Townscape'.

As soon as he confirmed his choices the white area around him shifted and he found himself standing in the middle of a town that could be from any island in the East Blue. The streets and buildings were empty and the place was silent. After a few seconds the area in front of him warped and a copy of Mohji appeared. Mohji was silent and it was clear there was no life to him. A couple of seconds after he appeared, Mohji charged at Markus with his hands balled into fists.

Markus arched an eyebrow at the sight. Mohji was slow and weak. He sidestepped the first attack easily, his upgraded observation haki making it easy to keep track of him. As Mohji moved past him, Markus struck out with his right fist and clocked Mohji right across the face. The blow easily knocked Mohji off of his feet. Markus didn't give the fake Mohji a chance to recover, he chose to kick the man while he was down and literally kicked him to death.

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You have defeated Mohji the Tamer, an opponent more than five levels above you. Experience x200%, +2,800 experience.

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Markus grinned happily. He could effectively farm experience now! He checked his skills and his grin grew even wider. His Brawling skill gained some experience too! Not a huge amount, but he could grind his skills as well! Markus felt a thrill run down his spine. Now he could get stronger! He looked over at Mohji's corpse and watched as it faded away. On the ground, he could see something, a small stack of bills, money. He picked it up and looked it over, "What the hell?"

He tried and succeeded at opening his inventory. So, he tried sticking the money inside of it. It actually disappeared inside and the section of his inventory dedicated to keeping track of his money increased by five hundred. He froze and stared dumbly at the display, "Loot drops?"

He called up the controls for the Image Training skill once more and decided to fight someone worth more experience. Buggy. The skill didn't require him to beat someone, he just had to meet them and he could fight them.

For the next six hours, Markus fought different people in his mind. Buggy and Kuro proved to be the only difficult opponents for him. Every time he beat an opponent some loot would drop. He ended up farming nearly a hundred thousand Belly. That wasn't all though. Like any good game, sometimes potions would drop as well! He'd gathered five health potions and seven Willpower potions. Each potion would restore fifty points in the appropriate resource. Sadly, nothing else dropped from the defeated enemies. Most of the time he just got a couple of hundred Belly and nothing else. On the bright side, he was now level 12 and when he hit level 10 he'd gained 10 attribute points instead of the usual 5. He hoped that was always the case.

After he exited the Image Training, he looked at his status and grinned. He had a total of 60 points he could spend at the moment, but before that he wanted to check something. He retrieved the skill book for Armament Haki and attempted to use it. Once again he failed. He tried to use Analysis to see if he could find the requirements but he couldn't. The same thing happened when he tried again with Conquerors Haki. Neither could be learned yet, which he found annoying. If he knew the requirements that could at least be helpful and give him a goal or path toward learning them.

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Name: Silvers D. Markus

Age: 16

Class: Noob Pirate

Level: 12

Exp: 115,625/180,000

Hit Points: 400/400 (+21/minute)

Willpower: 420/420 (+21.6/minute)

Strength (STR): 55

Vitality (VIT): 40

Agility (AGI): 55

Spirit (SPT): 42

Wisdom (WIS): 32

Charisma (CHA): 23

Luck (LCK): 22

Attribute Points: 60

Belly: 98,450

Skills:

Life is but a Game

[Passive]

Your life is just a game to entertain those watching. Still, this gives you a bit of a boon. As a character in a game you benefit from having a game characters body. Pain is fleeting. Your mind is indomitable. Sleep will remove all negative status effects and fully restore your Hit Points and Willpower. No matter how you are hurt you will not die until your Hit Points reach zero.

Meditation

[Active, Level 18, 82.2% Experience]

When you use this skill you will enter a deep meditative state that enhances your physical, mental, and spiritual recovery. Leveling up this skill increases its effect.

+18% Hit Point recovery per minute

+18% Willpower recovery per minute

-18% Duration to mental debuffs

Analysis

[Active, Level 10, 1.1% Experience]

Analysis lets you analyze and understand the world around you. The higher the level the more information you can uncover about the items and people you see.

Physical Resistance

[Passive, Level 8, 69.2% Experience]

They say 'no pain no gain' but that's not entirely true. This skill lowers the damage received from physical attacks and lowers the sensation of pain.

-6% Physical Damage (0.75%/level)

-4% Pain Sensation (0.5%/level)

Observation Haki

[Active/Passive, Level 15, 57.3% Experience]

Observation Haki grants the user a sixth sense to observe the world around them with. Depending on the level of the skill the user can potentially feel the presence, strength, emotions, and intentions of people around them. Extremely high level users of the skill can even gain precognitive abilities and glimpse the future for a few seconds. As this skill increases in level more features will be unlocked.

[Passive]

Sense people and incoming threats within a distance of one foot. Distance increases by one foot per level of the skill.

Current Range: 15 Feet

[Active]

Increases the sensing range of the passive effect by a factor of ten.

Current Range: 150 Feet

Cost: 1 Willpower/second

Basic Sword Mastery

[Passive, Level 12, 77.3% Experience]

Grants the user a basic understanding of how to use a sword in combat. In essence, 'the pointy end goes in the bad guy.' As the level of this skill increases so too does your skill with the sword.

+12% Attack Speed with Swords

+6% Damage with Swords

[This skill can evolve.]

Basic Gun Mastery

[Passive, Level 8, 13.6% Experience]

Grants the user a basic understanding of how to use a gun in combat. In essence, 'never look down the barrel of your own gun.' As the level of this skill increases so too does your skill with a gun.

+8% Reload Speed with Guns

+4% Damage with Guns

[This skill can evolve.]

Brawling

[Passive, Level 13, 8.7% Experience]

Brawlers are not martial artists but they are fighters in their own right. Rough and undisciplined, brawlers trade blow for blow and aren't afraid to fight dirty! As a brawler, you gain a bonus to damage dealt while unarmed or when using improvised weapons.

+13% Unarmed Damage

+13% Improvised Weapon Damage

Image Training

[Active]

When you use this skill you enter a meditative state that allows you to fight against people you have met. Defeating the conjured enemies will allow you to gain experience points. Damage taken during combat will lower your hit points, death during training will lead to real death. The more often you defeat the same opponent the less experience you gain for defeating them.

Pussyfoot Maneuver

[Active, Level 5, 73.8% Experience]

Using unique footwork you are able to vastly increase your speed while reducing the sound you make, temporarily. The higher the level of the skill, the faster you move and the less visible you become.

+50% Movement Speed for 5 seconds

Cost: 25 Willpower

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He looked at his 60 available points and tried to decide what to do with them. He couldn't increase his Charisma or Luck so that just left the others. He thought about improving his Spirit to increase his Willpower pool, but aside from Observation Haki and the unmentionable footwork, nothing else used it. He stared at his attributes for a bit before deciding on what he was going to do. Until he got his hands on the Goro Goro no Mi he was going to be fighting physically. With that being the case, Strength, Vitality, and Agility should be his main focus for now. With sixty points saved up, it was perfect. He spent twenty points on each of the three attributes. Instantly he felt stronger. Strength flowed through his body, his muscles grew a little and became more defined. His skin flushed as his health increased and he became more robust. It felt amazing. The small increases of one point at a time had a small feeling to them but this was on an entirely different level.

With the points spent, his total health jumped up to 600 while his regeneration increased to 32.1 a minute. He clenched his fist and felt his newfound strength. His knuckles popped while his muscles bulged a little bit. He climbed to his feet and stretched, his body snapping and cracking as his muscles expanded and flexed. Suddenly he spun around and slammed his fist into the tree he'd been leaning against. With a thunderous boom, the tree cratered around his fist. Markus grinned and slowly pulled his hand back.

He settled back down and looked up at the sky. For the next few hours, he watched the sky until the sun began to rise above the horizon. As he was getting ready to go join the others for breakfast, he thought of something. His Strength overall strength had just gone up a fair amount, he decided to try the skill books again. Multiples of 25 could sometimes signify tiers and so on in games. It didn't hurt to try so he pulled out both of the skill books and tried again. They still failed. He sighed and made his way to Meshi to join the other three.

As they were enjoying their breakfast, Kaya approached them with a smile. Luffy waved at her as she approached, "Hey!"

Kaya smiled brightly, "I've been looking for you guys."

Nami looked concerned as she asked, "Don't you need to stay in bed?"

Kaya shook her head, "No, I've been sick for a year, ever since I lost my parents. Usopp cheered me up and encouraged me so I can't be weak anymore. Besides," She smiled brightly, "I hear you guys need a ship!"

Luffy immediately got overexcited, "You're gunna give us a ship?! Really?!"

Kaya led the four of them to the shore where a ship waited along with Meri. Zoro looked impressed, Luffy was still overreacting, and Nami exclaimed, "A caravel!"

Markus knew nothing more about ships than that they could float. Meri smiled at everyone as he gestured to the ship, "I've been waiting for all of you. It's a slightly old style but I designed it myself. It uses a staysail and the controls are in the back. It's called 'Going Merry'."

Markus tuned out as Meri and Nami started talking about the details of the ship. For once, he sympathized with Luffy. As they continued to talk the sound of yelling could be heard coming down the ramp leading to the shore. Everyone turned to look in time to see Usopp, wearing a massively overstuffed backpack, rolling down the hill while screaming, "STOP ME PLEASE!"

Zoro and Luffy were happy to oblige... using their feet and Usopp's face. Usopp managed to groan out, "Th... thank you."

Zoro and Luffy deadpanned together, "No problem."

Markus chuckled at the sight before turning back to the ship. While Usopp and Kaya were having their farewell, everyone else boarded the Going Merry and looked around the ship. Luffy made his way to the aft of the ship and looked down at the pair as they talked. After saying his goodbye to Kaya, Usopp turned to the ship and waved at Luffy, "Have a safe voyage! I hope to see you guys on the sea sometime in the future!"

Luffy seemed confused and asked, "Why?"

Zoro chimed in, "Hurry up and get on board."

Luffy continued where he left off, "You're already one of us aren't you?"

Usopp froze for a moment before being overcome with joy and shouting, "I get to be the captain right?!"

Luffy yelled at him, "No way! I'm the captain!"

Everyone waved goodbye to Kaya and with Nami giving orders, they set sail. As they got further out to sea, they filled up some mugs and clanked them all together, "To our newest crew member! CHEERS!"

After a few rounds of drinks, Luffy got busy with some paint and a black square of fabric. After a while, he held up a flag with their pirate symbol. Everyone stared at it in all of it's 'glory'. After some jokes at Luffy's expense and one failed attempt by Usopp, they finally had their flag. It was a somewhat cartoonish skull and crossbones wearing a copy of Luffy's trademark straw hat. With the flag made and the mainsail painted to match, everyone but Luffy sat down to relax. As they were, there was a loud explosion as Luffy fired one of the cannons on the deck. He'd fired at a pillar of land sticking out of the water some distance away.

Markus felt that something about this was familiar but he couldn't remember what, once again. It was annoying how hard it was to remember the beginning of the story. It would be a few years before the most recent memories he had of the show became relevant. The issue was, by the time they became relevant the memories would be a few years older and harder to remember. A vicious cycle of forgetting.

As Usopp fired the cannon and destroyed the spire, Markus finally remembered what was about to happen. Being such a good shot, Usopp nailed the spire and destroyed it. Luffy and Zoro were a bit impressed. Even Markus was a little impressed. His marksmanship was definitely Usopp's most redeeming feature. After the spectacular shot, everyone but Markus entered the kitchen slash dining room of the ship. Markus decided to stay outside, but by the door so he could pipe in on the conversation.

It wasn't long before what he was expecting to happen, happened. Johnny climbed up onto the ship. Johnny was a tall man with dark hair with a facial tattoo and wearing sunglasses. He unsheathed his sword and shouted, "COME OUT YOU DAMN PIRATES! I'M GOING TO SLAUGHTER YOU ALL!"

Markus hopped to his feet and looked down at Johnny with a smile, "What seems to be the problem?"

Johnny kicked over some barrels, breaking one of them. Markus hopped down to the main deck and stood in front of Johnny empty-handed, "Who do you think you are breaking our stuff?"

Johnny lifted his arms to swing his sword, but Markus caught his hand by the wrist and squeezed. Johnny yelled in pain and dropped his sword. Markus easily manhandled Johnny by his arm and forced him to the ground. After yelping in pain he continued to shout and make noise. Eventually, the rest of the crew came out of the kitchen to see what was happening. When Zoro got out and saw who Markus had in his grip, he looked surprised, "Huh? Aren't you Johnny?"

Johnny, still in Markus's grip, looked up at Zoro, "Is that you Zoro?! Bro!"

"Where's Yosaku? Isn't he usually with you?"

Johnny seemed to deflate, "He... He's.... Yosaku is sick!"

A short time later Johnny, with the help of Zoro, brought Yosaku onto the ship from their little boat. Johnny began to describe Yosaku's symptoms. Bleeding gums, losing teeth and old wounds opening. Markus looked at Nami, the only other intelligent person on the ship and rolled his eyes. She saw the look and smiled a little before ripping into Johnny, "God how stupid can you be?!"

As Zoro and Johnny started to talk back, Markus jumped in and cut them off, "She's right. Only an idiot would get sick like this."

Nami called out, "Luffy, Usopp, we've got some limes in the kitchen, squeeze them and bring the juice here. He's got scurvy."

Luffy and Usopp soon returned with a mug filled with lime juice and force-fed it to Yosaku. Johnny looked at Nami as she spoke, "He should be fine in a couple of days."

She then went on to berate everyone, except Markus, for not knowing about scurvy and what causes it. If they didn't know, it could easily kill them while they were sailing. Yosaku suddenly jumped up and started dancing around with Johnny. It was comedic and made Markus smile while he watched their antics. It wasn't long before Yosaku was back down on the ground passed out. As if someone could recover from scurvy that fast. Once he was put in one of the rooms to rest it finally became clear to Luffy that they needed a cook. Hearing the discussion, Johnny chimed in, "If it's a cook you're looking for, I know just the place. Of course, getting one to join you is another thing entirely."

Johnny then explained about Baratie, the floating restaurant. Luffy immediately decided that was going to be their next stop. Nami set course and they were soon on their way. It would take a little time so Markus decided to do some cooking for the crew. Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp knew hardly anything about cooking. Nami claimed she did but would only do so for money. So, Markus did it. On the bright side, he gained the cooking skill.

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Cooking

[Passive, Level 1, 0.0% Experience]

From simple fried eggs to one hundred course feasts, cooking is a skill that everyone should possess. The higher the rank of this skill the more delicious and nutritious your food becomes. At high enough ranks your food will provide temporary buffs.

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Markus cooked a simple meal using a recipe he could remember. He made simple fried rice and some grilled meat. If he didn't grill meat Luffy and Zoro would complain, a lot. Everyone enjoyed the meal together, minus the unconscious Yosaku. Markus got compliments from everyone for his food. He kept the meal small, if he didn't Luffy and Zoro would eat everything they had. After the meal, Markus went off out of the way and closed his eyes. He spent a couple of hours using his Image Training to gain a bit of experience and grind up his skill experience. Since Luffy and Zoro were both around level 20, he wanted to get to around there himself.

A couple of hours after dawn the next day, he heard shouting. When he opened his eyes they had arrived at Baratie. The entire restaurant was a giant ship, themed after a fish. It was pretty impressive looking and Markus was looking forward to trying the food here. Especially food cooked by Sanji! As they were pulling up to the restaurant they noticed a marine ship floating right next to them. A man with pink hair wearing a suit with metal bands bolted to his knuckles stepped out and looked over at the Going Merry, "Never seen that pirate flag before." He called out, "I'm a Lieutenant from the Marine Headquarters known as "Ironfist Fullbody." Who is your captain, name yourself!"

Luffy immediately replied, "I'm Luffy! I just finished making my pirate flag yesterday!"

Fullbody lost interest in Luffy and turned his attention to Johnny and Yosaku. A verbal barb or two from Fullbody annoyed the two into attacking him. The end result was them knocked down and bleeding on the deck. Before Fullbody could do anything else a woman came out of his ship's cabin, "Darling, enough beating up weaklings. Let's go~!"

As he turned around to leave he looked at one of his Privates, "Sink 'em."

All the cowards on the Going Merry started to panic. Zoro looked concerned but wasn't freaking out. Luffy and Markus were the only ones who didn't seem to care. Luffy hopped up onto the railing around the deck and stood in the direct line of fire. As the marine cannon went off he inhaled deeply, "Gomu Gomu no Fuusen!"

Just like with the cannonball Buggy had fired, Luffy swelled up like a balloon and stopped the one fired by the marines. Usopp, Johnny, Yosaku, and Fullbody all went bug-eyed at the sight. Luffy grinned, "You can have your cannonball back!"

The cannonball bounced off of Luffy and flew through the air. However, his aim sucked. The cannonball flew through the air and slammed into the Baratie ship blowing off a section of the roof. Everyone stared in shock, Luffy collapsed onto the deck in such shock that he nearly fainted. As they were wondering what to do, a pair of cooks came out of the ship and grabbed Luffy, no one made a move to stop them. It was his fault for bouncing the cannonball back into Baratie anyway!

Everyone relaxed for a bit before Zoro spoke, "Luffy is taking a while. You don't think they'll make him stay here and work off the damage, do you?"

Nami sighed, "He should just tell them it's the marines fault. That idiot is too honest for his own good."

Usopp came up with a bright idea, "Hey! Let's go in and see him. We can also get something to eat!"

As they got closer to Baratie they could hear some commotion from inside but they paid it no mind. Once they got inside they sat at a table and looked around. After they got comfortable and some food was delivered to them, Luffy came walking out of the kitchen wearing an apron. The group couldn't miss the chance to mess with Luffy. Nami started, "Hey errand boy."

Usopp followed her with, "Heard you have to work here for a year." While snickering.

Zoro added, "Would it be alright to redraw the ship's flag?"

Markus capped it off with, "I say we make Usopp the captain now!"

Luffy started yelling, "I'm still the captain! How dare you go off and eat delicious food and leave me here to work?!"

With Luffy making so much noise it attracted Sanji's attention to their table. Sanji was a young man with blond hair that covered one eye and curly eyebrows. He wore a black suit that made him look at least a little refined when combined with his tall and sleek physique. Naturally, his eyes landed on Nami. He came swooping over spouting a bunch of bull with hearts in his eyes. Markus just shook his head and smiled to himself. So, this would be their chef. Luffy sure had a penchant for recruiting weirdos.