24 Chapter 5
As they approached the island of Little Garden, Luffy threw his hands up in the air, "Woohoo! Our second island in the Grand Line!"
As they approached the island, Vivi spoke up, "We should be careful. I'm worried about what Ms. All-Sunday said."
Usopp cowered in the back, "Y-you don't suppose there's monsters?"
Sanji shrugged his shoulders while puffing on a cigarette, "Beats me. But we need to restock on food. I wasn't able to get anything on the last island."
As they sailed down a river through the island, everyone looked around curiously. Nami commented, "It's like an unexplored land. Just look at how thick the jungle is. Just what about this place is 'little'?"
She looked over the side of the boat, "And look, I've never seen any of these plants before. Not even in my encyclopedia!"
Markus walked up next to Nami, "Remember, this is the Grand Line. Logic and Reason no longer apply. Anything that can happen, will happen."
As she turned to look at him, a loud roar came from the sky. Everyone looked up while Nami grabbed Markus's arm and hid behind him, "What was that?"
Sanji smiled, "It's just a bird."
As he tried to downplay it, the 'bird' flew closer and everyone got a good look at it. It was a massive prehistoric-looking lizard-like bird. As the bird flew over them, a loud crashing sound came out of the jungle and shook the very air around them. Nami, still hiding behind Markus and gripping his arm even tighter asked, "Does that sound like a regular jungle to you?!"
Usopp, panicking, added his two pointless cents, "That sounded like a volcano exploding!"
Markus looked in the direction of the sound and smiled. His two biggest impressions from the show relating to Little Garden were the two dueling giants and the giant wax cake Mr. 3 made to capture some members of the crew. Of all the Baroque Works agents, Markus knew that Mr. 3 was the only one he for sure couldn't kill. He would play a role in Luffy's escape from Impel Down in the future.
As he was contemplating these things, a giant tiger slowly stalked out of the forest near their ship. It walked along the shore stalking their ship for a short distance before some blood spurt out of its mouth and it fell to the ground. Seeing the giant tiger stalking them and then apparently dying for no visible reason, freaked the two cowards out. Nami and Usopp wanted nothing to do with the island. After sailing a bit further, Zoro dropped the anchor. Luffy looked into the jungle with a giant grin on his stretchy face, "Sanji! Make me a bento!" He turned to look at the crew, "I smell adventure!"
Sanji just smiled and started to make his way to the kitchen. Seeing Luffy so excited, Nami gave up. Shortly after she became distraught as Vivi asked Luffy, "Can I come along with you?"
Luffy automatically agreed but Nami couldn't help shouting, "Even you?!"
Vivi looked over at Nami and gave her a soft smile, "Yes. Just standing around here will give me too much time to think about things. Besides! I'll have Carue with me!"
The duck in question nodded unconsciously before letting out a scared squawk that left its bill hanging open wide in shock. Nami looked at the terrified Carue, "Your bodyguard looks too scared to even quack."
Sanji called out from the kitchen, "I'll make a lunchbox of love for you Vivi!"
While Sanji prepared two lunch boxes and a drink for Carue, at Vivi's request, Markus stepped to the side to do a few things. He wanted to go over his status and double-check his memory to decide what to do here. Everyone was going to split up and he wasn't sure who it would be best to follow to maximize his gains on this island.
As far as his growth went, he'd only gained two levels and a couple of attribute points for working out. On the bright side, reading through Nami's books had helped increase his Spirit a bit while flirting with Nami and Vivi had given his Charisma a little boost. He didn't intend to have a real relationship with either woman though. Nami was... well she was Nami. As for Vivi, she would stay in Alabasta and he fully intended to leave the country when the rest of the crew did. He wasn't going to settle down in one place for too long. Not anytime soon anyway. But, flirting with her and making her blush was a fun way to pass the time.
His real growth had been in his skills. His Observation Haki had reached level 61 and with his current Willpower Regeneration he could keep it on permanently without draining himself dry. The problem was, it didn't gain experience anymore without being used in combat. So, even if he left it active 24/7 he didn't gain even 0.1% experience for it. His Armament Haki had grown to level 42 and he'd confirmed a nice bonus to leveling it up. Every 20 levels the Willpower cost of the skill was lowered by one point. The original cost had been ten Willpower a second, it had dropped down to eight now. His Basic Sword/Gun Mastery skills had also grown a lot. He'd run into an issue with his Gun mastery though. No matter what he did, it wouldn't go past level 75, 0.0% experience. He couldn't figure out why.
His brawling was now level 81 and provided excellent bonuses to his unarmed damage. The unmentionable footwork had risen to level 59. He now gained +590% movement speed for 59 seconds. One more level and he could be able to use it for a full minute. His two main defensive skills had also grown. There was a problem raising them though, he couldn't use both at the same time. If he used Tekkai, his Physical Resistance skill wouldn't gain any experience. The growth of Physical Resistance was also significantly slower than any other skill he had and had only reached level 41 where Tekkai had reached level 45 already. Leveling them was pretty straight forward, just summon a half dozen people in Image Training and let them wail on him until he was almost dead. Thanks to this masochistic tactic, he could now ignore 75% of the damage dealt to him by enemies level 45 and below, while using the skill of course.
The only skill to show absolutely no growth was his cooking skill. Sanji flat out refused to let him in the kitchen to cook! He closed his status and sat back to think. He couldn't remember the details of what happened on Little Garden exactly, only the gist of events. He knew about the giants and that one of them would get injured by a bomb planted by Mr. 5. He had to think deeply about it. He couldn't remember the names of the giants but he remembered that the one to get bombed would be the one Luffy was hanging out with.
Markus crossed his arms over his chest and thought for a bit. As Sanji left the kitchen with food for Luffy and Vivi, Markus came to a decision. He was just going to go out on his own and hunt down all the Baroque Works agents. The most dangerous one would be Mr. 3 and he felt like he could deal with the wax man. His fruit was pretty interesting and had some good utility to it, but other than that its weaknesses were too great. All it took was some heat and his 'hard as steel' wax would melt like regular wax. As for Mr. 3's female partner... he couldn't remember anything about her at all.
After receiving the bento's for himself and Vivi, Luffy leaped off of the boat and was quickly followed by Vivi riding on Carue. After the two took off, Zoro hopped off of the ship, "I think I'll go for a walk."
As he started to leave, Sanji called out, "Hey Zoro! While you're out there, see if you can hunt down some food!"
Zoro looked at Sanji over his shoulder and nodded, "Sure thing. I'll bring back something you could never hunt down."
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" Sanji glared down at Zoro, "Did I hear you wrong or did you just imply you could hunt bigger game than me?"
Markus glanced over at the two as they started to glare at each other. He could practically see electricity clashing between them. In the show, they already had a sort of rivalry between them. Thanks to Markus and his Observation Haki training that always paired the two up, their rivalry was on a whole new level. Markus was spared from the rivalry simply because he couldn't be touched by either of them. Any attempt by either of them to hit Markus always failed miserably. His Observation Haki was just too strong, at this point, he could cover most of the ship with it in passive mode. Instead of seeing him as a rival, the two men saw him as a goal instead. Markus planned to make it a goal they could never reach.
In the end, both men left the ship in order to hunt down game and compare it with each other. After the two left, Markus walked to the edge of the ship while calling out over his shoulder, "I'm going to go explore as well. Have fun you two!"
Nami immediately put on an adorable face to try and tempt Markus, after all, he did flirt with her pretty often, "Can't you just stay for a while?" She tugged at the collar of her shirt to slightly expose some cleavage, "A big strong man like you should have no problem protecting little ol' me."
Markus gave her a toothy grin, "Don't worry cutey, I won't go far."
With that, Markus jogged off into the jungle. The moment he was out of sight of the ship, he vanished and left a cloud of dust in his wake. His plan was simple. Use his footwork and Observation Haki to their maximum and look for the Baroque Works agents on the island. They had to be around somewhere and between his speed and the range of his Haki he could probably find them pretty quickly. The best part was that using both skills only cost him 85 Willpower a minute while his recovery rate was 74 per minute. He only lost a grand total of 11 Willpower a minute. He could keep using both at their maximum for over two hours before he ran out of Willpower. He planned to find the agents long before that amount of time passed.
As he ran, Markus kept an eye out for smaller life signs, the size of humans. The island was filled to the brim with living creatures, but most of them were massive dinosaurs and easily dismissed as unimportant. He didn't care about those creatures. Thanks to the increased level of his Haki he could see people's aura and get a decent handle on their strength. It made filtering out the other stuff easy and sped up his search.
It took him nearly twenty minutes, but eventually, he found a small house made of white wax with two life signs inside of it. He moved toward it and stopped around four hundred feet away from it. With his Haki having a range of just over six hundred feet when active, they were well within his range. Now that he didn't need to move around, his Willpower slowly began to recover at a rate of fourteen points a minute, slightly faster than he originally lost it.
He found a comfortable spot and sat down. He decided to wait for one of two things to happen. either Mr. 3 and the person with him to leave or Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine show up at the little house. He wasn't about to barge inside of a building made from Mr. 3's wax, that was akin to deliberately walking into a trap. He was sure he could knock Mr. 3 out in a couple of blows or less but not if he got himself trapped in Mr. 3's wax, like an idiot. He wasn't completely confident that he could break Mr. 3's wax once it hardened.
As he waited he bought some sweet iced tea from his system store and sipped on it. The store was even kind enough to provide ice in the drink. After he drank all of the tea, he stored the cup and ice inside of his inventory. No point in wasting perfectly good ice by letting it melt! He was forced to wait for a good fifteen minutes before two more life signs entered the small wax building. All four Baroque Works members were in the same spot. Perfect.
Markus hopped to his feet and made his way toward the building. Though he could sense things out to a range of six hundred feet, the closer he was to something, the clearer the picture he got. Just like using his own vision. Even if his eyes could see the horizon, it didn't mean he could see it in great detail. The same applied to his Haki, the further something was, the less clear the image was.
He stopped about fifty feet from the building and leaned against a tree. From here he could hear the conversation going on inside of the building clearly through his Haki. He had missed the beginning of their conversation but listened in while he could.
"There is a most fortuitous opportunity for us on this island. An opportunity to make an enormous sum of money. I'm sure you've already seen what I'm talking about." There was a rustling sound like paper before Mr. 3 continued, "Take a look at these wanted posters. I should give you my sincerest gratitude for giving me the opportunity to come to this island. These wanted posters are a hundred years old, however, they are still valid because the pirates on them are still alive and on this very island! With each one being worth one hundred million, capturing both will be two hundred million!"
"So that's why you had me place a bomb in their rum!"
"Exactly Mr. 5. After all, we would stand no chance facing them head-on. All you two need to do is follow my commands. With a little scheming, an entire mountain can be leveled to the ground you know."
Hearing their chatting caused Markus to sigh. He hadn't tried super hard to stop it, but he was still slightly hoping he could prevent the one giant from getting hurt by the bomb. Ah well, nothing he could do at this point. He remained outside listening to their conversation about their plan. They'd never get to pull it off because as soon as they stepped out of the building he was going to beat the crap out of all of them. He moved to a spot directly in front of the door to the building and waited.
Finally, Mr. 3 shut up and the four people left the building. When he saw the fourth member he finally remembered who she was. Not by name but he remembered her ability. It was the absolute worst matchup for someone like Luffy, but it was completely useless against him. Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine still looked the same, though sporting a few bandages over the wounds Markus had given them previously. Mr. 3 was a slender man wearing a frilly shirt, blue-tinted glasses, and had his hair styled to look like the number three. Standing next to him was a little girl with blush spots on her cheeks and her hair tired into braided pigtails. Her clothing was... eccentric to say the least.
When the four people spotted Markus they all froze. Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine looked the most surprised though it quickly transitioned to anger. Seeing Markus standing there with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face infuriated both of them. It was his fault they were in trouble with Mr. 0!
Markus uncrossed his arms and lifted his right to wave at them, "Yo! Sorry to just drop in so rudely. To make it up to you I'll be nice and give you one chance to surrender."
The four of them looked surprised but it swiftly turned to conceit for three of them. The only one to maintain a neutral look was the little girl. Ms. Valentine started laughing in that annoying way of hers. It made Markus just want to knock her out right then and there. But, he was a gentleman and he was giving them a chance to surrender, though clearly they had no intention to take it. In a condescending tone, Ms. Valentine said, "Mr. 3, leave this fool to us. We owe him for what he did to us in Whiskey Peak!"
Mr. 3 just waved his hand, "Do it quickly! We have a schedule to keep!"
Markus just sighed, "I gave you a chance."
After he spoke he vanished from where he was and appeared behind Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine with both of his fists cocked back and colored black. He struck out and slammed his fists into the back of their heads. He modulated the force of his blows to be just enough to knock the two of them out cold in a single hit. Thanks to beating on them constantly for experience in his Image Training, he knew exactly how to deal with them easily and efficiently.
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You have defeated Gem of the Boarder, +100 experience.
You have defeated Mikita, +100 experience.
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Markus stepped away from the two unconscious bodies and sighed. Due to beating them up so much in his Image Training, they were worth only a hundred experience each time he beat them A while ago that much experience might have been worth something, but at the moment he needed about 85,000 experience to level up again. At only 100 experience a pop, he needed to defeat them 850 times to level once! Not worth it.
He turned back to Mr. 3 and smiled, "As I said, you can surrender now, or I can take you down by force. It's your choice."
Mr. 3 just smiled, "You think you can take me out just because you took them out?"
Markus shook his head, "No, I think I can take you out because you're a coward and weak." Markus slowly drew the katana he kept hanging on the left side of his waist. He let the sound of it being drawn drag out slowly as a psychological tactic, "You saw how fast I moved just a moment ago. Tell me. Which do you think is faster, your wax or my blade?"
Mr. 3 started to sweat profusely as he looked at the shining edge of the katana in Markus's hand. He swallowed loudly before dropping to his knees and kowtowing before Markus, "I give up!"
Markus blinked in surprise as he looked down at Mr. 3. He knew the man was a coward but he didn't expect him to actually give up that easily. He honestly wanted to beat Mr. 3 at least once! He turned to look at the little girl. He quickly used analysis to get her codename since he couldn't remember it, "What about you Ms. Golden Week?"
In response, she pulled out a paintbrush and a color palette. With rapid brushstrokes that even he found a bit hard to follow, she drew a strange yellow symbol and somehow threw it onto his clothing. In a soft voice, she said, "Laughter Yellow."
At the same time, Mr. 3's hair suddenly caught on fire while he leaped to his feet with wax dripping from his arm. He threw his arm forward shouting, "Candle Lock!"
Markus just sighed and vanished. The next instant he appeared in front of Mr. 3 with his sword already sheathed. He grabbed Mr. 3's face with his right hand and gripped him tightly enough to cause cracking sounds, "Bad move."
Markus used his grip on Mr. 3's face to lift his entire body off of the ground before reversing direction and slamming the back of his head down on the ground with enough force to crack the earth beneath him and shatter his blue-tinted glasses on his face.
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You have defeated Galdino (Mr. 3), +5,500 Experience.
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Markus slowly stood up and turned to face Ms. Golden Week. He glared at her while she shivered in fear. He looked down at his painted shirt and hoodie, then back up to her, his glare sharpening, "Your cheap tricks won't work on me. How do you plan to compensate me for ruining a perfectly good shirt and hoodie?!"
Ms. Golden Week shuddered in fear before her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted.
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You have defeated Marianne (Ms. Golden Week), +750 Experience.
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