A New World

Natlan Darknorth was someone whose hopes and dreams were crushed in his previous life.

He tried to reach the top, to gain power, but he was crushed every single time.

By slimy old bastards who had their grip on everything in the world.

Who did not allow anyone new to take their place or come into their circle.

They had their claws on everything since a long time and refused to change or let anyone in.

No matter how much he tried, whether it was through climbing the corporate ladder or through politics or the mafia, every time he made progress he was crushed by those who were sitting in power for hundreds of years.

Ancient families who had an iron grip on every facet of wealth and power.

In the end he gave up, he felt hopeless, he had no power to shake their shackles.

But the universe had something else in plan for him.

After he died from overdosing on drugs he was reincarnated in the world of One Piece.

Something he read when he was a naive little kid.

——

"Where am I " asked Natlan as he looked around what seemed to be a tiny island town.

[This is Kokuna, a small island in East Blue]

"Wait , who are you?" he asked startled after hearing a feminine robotic voice.

[I am Astrea, a high functioning Artificial Intelligence]

Natlan had a headache, he had a lot of questions and had no idea what was happening, he found a rock near the beach and sat down and started asking Astrea questions.

According to her, he was reincarnated in One Piece, by who? she had no idea and the reason was also unclear.

The World had a power level system, and everyone could see each other's power levels unless someone was capable of hiding it and chose to do so.

Which made this world feel more like a game to Natlan.

He had something called Quests, that he could gain experience from and he could also gain experience from killing enemies at least one power level higher than him.

He felt this was they System's way of preventing him from committing genocide to increase his strength.

Each time he leveled up a rank he would get one skill point to increase the level of each of his skills.

Each skill had 4 ranks and would max out at 4. After which the only way to increase their strength would be to transform them into something of a higher level.

And the other way to make skills stronger was, to just get good, like normal people.

Another way to increase his strength was to build his army or rather make his subordinates strong.

This was the power of the Blood Lotus, those who are bestowed with this by Natlan would have their natural limits broken allowed them to go stronger beyond their physical limits.

It would also give him control over their life and death, allowing him to take their life at anytime with just a thought.

It also allowed them to receive skills from him.

But the biggest thing was that they would gain experience and grow stronger from killing enemies at a higher rank as well.

And would also receive quests from the System which would also give them experience and make them stronger.

And the key part was that Natlan would receive half the experience from that.

This basically meant if he built a proper army he could just not fight at all and his subordinates would do all the work for him and he would continuously become stronger.

He was encouraged to focus on building his subordinates and make them stronger to increase his own strength.

After all, while he could find a lot of enemies at a higher Power Level when he was weaker, when he would become stronger and reach the higher Power Levels it would become more and more difficult to find stronger enemies than him greatly slowing down his progress.

And the fact that higher levels required more experience to reach them, despite the fact that higher level enemies dropped more EXP, it would still be an arduous slow road to strength.

At that point raising his subordinates would be the primary way for him to become stronger and farm experience.

"So do I have any starting powers?"

[Genetic Code - Rock Rock Fruit]

"Wait , controlling rocks? that's it ?" sighed Natlan as he thought this power wasn't super impressive.

[Yes]

"What's this Genetic Code thing?"

[Its a copy of the Devil Fruit Power - with its restrictions removed]

"So you mean I am not affected by the weakness of Devil Fruits?"

[Yes, after all you have not actually physically eaten the Devil Fruit but possess a modified genetic code of the Devil Fruit, a copy of sorts]

"So if I ate a devil fruit normally I would suffer from the weakness?"

[Yes, I would advise you to copy the Genetic Code instead of doing such a thing]

"I see" thought Natlan as he pondered.

His current power level was Civilian, the bottom of the barrel

His current goal was to become stronger, atleast being able to defend himself.

As he got up he had a sudden thought.

"Wait, you say I control rocks, but there's a lot of types of rocks" he asked.

[Yes, currently you posses the genetic structure of normal common rock found anywhere]

"Does that mean if I can get the genetic structure of some other rock I could freely manipulate it?"

[Yes, as long as you possess the genetic structure of the rock you would be able to freely manipulate it]

Natlan smiled as he had an idea.

He spent the next day looking around the town and making inquiries.

His first Quest was to get a pair of clothes, a weapon and kill an Apprentice ranked enemy.