Chapter 17

"Yang Jing."

Hearing the voice, Yang Jing turned around, a few meters behind her was a big muscular black man.

"Qiang Ming?!"

Yang Jing looked at Qiang Ming with surprise, but also something else, guilt and sadness.

Taking hold of her emotions, Yang Jing put an indifferent expression on her face.

"Why are you here?"

She asked coldly.

Looking at her, Qiang Ming smiled at her, there was no anger or hate in his eyes, just a bit of sadness.

"I came to check on how you're doing."

Hearing him say that, Yang Jing started feeling more guilt, but she hid it and turned around, she felt that if she stayed any longer, she won't be able to make herself leave.

"As you can see, I'm fine, now leave and don't come close to me again."

She said coldly, but Qiang Ming had known her for long enough to hear the pain she was feeling with every word she said.

Qiang Ming looked at her sadly while she was walking away, he wanted to stop her, but he knew that if he did, he will regret it, all it will do is make her feel pain.

He knew that until her goal was achieved, she could never relax and feel happiness.

While Qiang Ming was watching Yang Jing leave, someone came behind him, he had long hair and a beautiful face, if someone didn't look closely, he could be mistaken for a very beautiful woman.

"Are you not going to stop her?"

He asked Qiang Ming with some worry.

"No, it is painful, but I know that even if I did stop her now and she stayed, I will regret it."

The beautiful man looked at his old friend with sadness.

"Don't look at me like that, anyway, let's go get our rooms, HAHAHAHAHAHA"

Qiang Ming laughed, but his friend knew he was sad.

"Come on, Tao Cheng, if we don't get our rooms we might have to sleep on the street."

Sighing, Tao Cheng, followed his friend.

Meanwhile with Yang Jing.

She felt like crying, her emotions were a mess, she wanted to stay, she wanted to talk to him more, to hear his voice and see his face she missed so much, but when she thought of that 'man', her happiness of seeing the man she loved and sadness of having to leave him again and say those things to keep him away disappeared, all that stayed was cold fury.

'No, as long as that man is alive, I can never have peace, I must kill him.'

And with that, she started walking towards the house she rented, her mind cold making the surroundings cold and chilly.

Meanwhile, a few meters away from Yang Jing.

'Why is it so cold suddenly?'

James started feeling really cold while walking towards the inn he was staying at after completing another mission.

It has been a week since he heard about the Deathbringers.

Ever since hearing about them, James started being more cautious while being outside the city doing missions, as for the reason why he continued doing missions even in this dangerous time, it was because the prices of monster corpses went up, there were less people going outside to hunt, which means less monster corpses, which means the prices went up.

It wasn't anything too big, it was 10% more per monster corpse, but it adds up, and with that, James finally was able to get enough for a new devil fruit after going out and hunting a lot this past week.

He considered getting Aim, which costs the same amount as a devil fruit, but considering that the city might be attacked at any second, if he can get a good devil fruit it will have a bigger chance of protecting his life than having better aim, though there was also the chance of getting something that will do nothing, it was a gamble, the smart thing would have probably been buying Aim, but James was worried that just Aim won't be enough against enemies that are much stronger.

Arriving at his room, James sat on his bed.

'System, open the fruit wheel.'

[Yes host]

A wheel with 3 colors appeared in front of him.

'Finally, a second devil fruit.'

Looking at the wheel, James started sweating, it was all or nothing now, he is going to spend most of his money now, and after this spin the price will double, and unless he suddenly gets a lot of money it will take him weeks to get enough money for another spin.

'Please be something good!!'

And he spun the wheel.

'Please be good!! Please be good!!'

After a full minute of spinning, the wheel started slowing down before landing on paramecia.

[Congratulations host, you received that Kage Kage no Mi.]

"YEESSS!!"

He couldn't help but cheer, the Kage Kage no Mi was a very good fruit, it allows the user to create an army of zombies, take shadows and make people die from sun light, and control their shadow, even allowing a sort of teleportation, and also control the shadows of things and people.

However, it seems he was cheering too soon.

[Host, I'm sorry to ruin the mood, however I must remind you that this is not the world of one piece]

When he heard this, James felt like water was spilled on him.

Before James can start cursing his luck, the system continued.

[As this is not the world of one piece, shadows don't work the same way, so you cannot control or take shadows of people or things, however, your soul and body are those of one piece, so you can control your own shadow as you like]

Hearing this, although he was a bit sad that he can't use some big parts of the fruit, overall he was still happy, he got the ability to control his shadow, and from what he has seen from Moria, he can create a clone, turn it into other stuff and even switch places with it, it could be very good for combat, spying and running away, overall the fruit was really good.

However, it seems there were more good news.

[Also, the fruit will work normally in trials since they are taken in the world of one piece]

Hearing that made James smile brightly, this fruit will be helpful in trials, overall, he was very, very happy with getting the Kage Kage no Mi.

Taking the fruit, James started eating it. it has been a while since he last ate a devil fruit, but they were still so delicious, he couldn't thank the system's creator enough for making them taste so good.

[Kage Kage no Mi added to slot 2]

A message appeared when he finished eating.

'How do I change slots?'

[You just need to think of changing slots and to what slot you want to change]

'Change to slot 2'

[Changed to slot 2: Kage Kage no Mi]

[Cooldown to change again: M [59] S [59]]

After switching, he felt like something was taken away from him while something else was put in place instead.

'So, it is gone'

James tried activating his logia ability, but it didn't work.

After testing a few more things and completely confirming that the Swamp Swamp fruit was gone, he started trying to use the Kage Kage no Mi.

In front of James's eyes, his shadow started growing taller before it was at the same height as him.

And a second after that it changed to look like him, it was pure black with purple eyes and mouth and purple outline around it.

It looked weird, it looked a bit 2D because of the outline, no matter where you look at it from, you will see the purple outline around it, but the middle is always pitch black, making it look a bit like a drawing.

Looking at it, James told it to wave and it did, after that he made it do more stuff, testing how it follows orders, as a final test, James gave it a big order.

"Go outside unnoticed and bring me a dumpling without anyone following you."

James knew that it was a bit risky, but he wanted to test it, it was important to know.

Without waiting anymore, his shadow became flat on the ground and started leaving fast, after waiting for a few minutes it came back and gave him a dumpling.

Looking at the clone. James smiled, it could be very useful, while the clone was away James was able to look through its eyes, and it was very interesting, it went completely unnoticed, it went through alleys and other houses, in case anyone was following it, got the dumpling and stored it in its body before coming back, on the way back it did the same thing to throw off anyone who noticed it and followed it.

It seems that the shadow was smart enough to think for itself, the command was simple, but it did a lot more than was ordered in order to fulfill the command perfectly, the command was go unnoticed and come back without anyone following and it did just that.

It also seems that the shadow also has some storage ability, it isn't as great as the swamp swamp fruit, the max space is 8 cubic meters. It is pretty big, but nowhere near the swamp swamp fruit.

Overall, James was very happy with the fruit.

Did anyone notice the shadow? Did it throw them off? Find out next time.

(I hope you enjoyed the chapter, it is currently 12 minutes to upload time so I rushed the ending a bit, I hope you still enjoyed it and cya in the next one, have a great day)