Chapter 11
Chapter 11
After floating for a few minutes, Markus heard a delightful sound of a notification from his system. His quest was finally complete!
--------------------------------------------------
Quest Complete!
Crushing 'God'
The true Gods do not appreciate Enel thinking he's one of them. His every breath infuriates them. Destroy Enel, his Priests, and his army.
Objective 1: Defeat members of Enel's Divine Soldiers (Complete)
Objective 2: Defeat any of the four priests of Enel (Complete)
Objective 3: Defeat Enel (Complete)
Failure Conditions: Death, Death of a crewmember
Rewards:
Objective 1: Dials will become available in the System Shop
Objective 2: Ancient and Extinct Dials become available in the System Shop
Objective 3: Rewards TBD (Skill Creation Token)
New items are available in the System Shop!
New items are available in the System Shop!
Your item has been placed inside of your inventory!
--------------------------------------------------
Markus grinned happily and opened his System Shop. Unfortunately, there were no dials available on any of the pages. He'd have to remember to check again after the shop updated with new items tomorrow. As for his new item, he took a look at it and felt his heart skip a beat.
--------------------------------------------------
Skill Creation Token
When used, this token allows the user to create a custom skill of their own design. The skill must fit within the limits, rules, and laws of the One Piece universe. That's right, no cheap-ass Sharingan for you!
--------------------------------------------------
Seeing the description of the token, ideas flooded Markus's mind. This token had so many possibilities that he honestly couldn't decide on just a single one. He automatically discounted anything related to his Devil Fruit or the Rokushiki. He could either learn the skills himself or buy them from the system when they came up for sale. Whatever he created with his new token would have to be something super special. The potential to make a truly overpowered skill could not be hastily wasted. He decided to spend some time thinking about it and come up with something really special so he stored the token away until a later date.
Since it would take some time for them to land on the ocean, Markus decided to spend some of it checking his friend's progress and training them a little more. Some extremely difficult fights were on the horizon and he wanted the crew to be prepared. He was also kind of looking forward to the upcoming Davy Back Games against Foxy. It would be a great way to relax and mess with one of the many annoying characters in One Piece.
When Markus stepped onto the main deck of the ship with a collection of training sticks and blindfolds in his hands, the entire crew let out a collective groan. They knew exactly what those things meant. There were complaints but Markus was hearing none of it, "You all relaxed and partied for days! Time to get some exercise!"
As the others were reluctantly getting ready to practice, Nami walked over to Markus with a distinct sway to her hips while gently tugging at the collar to her blue sleeveless shirt to lower the neckline and expose more of her cleavage. As she got close to him she spoke in a sweetly seductive voice, "Markus, I just feel so tired today. I don't think I can handle something so... big and... hard today. Can't you just let me off?"
Markus tilted his head back and tapped his chin as if he was actually thinking about letting her skip practice today, "Well, I suppose I could let you off today..."
His words earned him shocked looks from everyone else in the crew, as well as a downright pissed look from Sanji for being the target of Nami's flirting. His next words stopped them cold though, "But then I wonder how you would get out of your debt?"
Hearing the word 'debt' ignited a fire in Nami's spirit as she ripped one of the training sticks out of his hand and held it firmly. She was always the one to put other people in debt to her, she did not like being in debt to Markus at all. It was the principal of the thing! Markus just grinned and made sure everyone was ready. The practice pairs were Zoro and Sanji, Usopp and Chopper, Nami and Robin, and lastly Markus and Luffy. One member of the pair would wear the blindfold and try to sense then dodge the blows from their partner. Except for Markus, he was more than good enough with Observation Haki to not gain any benefit from doing his crewmates.
As he bashed Luffy with a black Armament Haki coated stick every now and then, he still paid attention to the rest of the crew. Thanks to the Goro Goro no Mi and his days of practice inside of his Image Training, not to mention the relative peace of being in the air, he was able to get more details and information from the skill. He could perfectly see everything everyone was doing down to the movements of their muscles. It took him a fair amount of practice to get used to the information overload, and he still needed more, but in a peaceful and uncrowded spot like this, he was capable of at least that much.
The pairings would rotate every now and then as Markus wanted to practice with everyone to give them hints and advice on using Observation Haki. Everyone was showing some improvement and were capable of dodging at least a little bit. The most impressive of those to improve were Zoro, Nami, and Usopp. Zoro had received a significant improvement to his Observation Haki after learning how to perform a flying slash. Having to remove excess thoughts from his mind had cleared it and let his body move better and receive more feedback from his surroundings. He was probably the closest to actually unlocking his Observation Haki in the crew.
As for Nami and Usopp, both of them already had good senses thanks to their professions. Nami could read the wind and use that to judge where attacks were coming from. She just needed more practice and she too would unlock her Haki. Usopp had good vision and instincts on where to shoot to hit his targets. Those instincts were a little suppressed by his vision being blocked but he was slowly learning how to overcome that hurdle. Markus felt those three were the closest and just needed one final push to breakthrough.
Once the training was over, everyone was a little tired and sweaty. Nami's debt to Markus had increased up to 2.3 million Belly as he'd moved a little faster to push her a bit more. The debt was her motivation and he planned to use it as much as he could. She was a bit grumpy about that but cheered up a little when Sanji went to cook dinner for everyone. The sun was starting to go down and it wouldn't be long until night fell.
Everyone ate and drank happily while complaining about their mutual nemesis, Markus. He just grinned happily and threw out a few verbal jabs here and there in reply to any complaints they had against him. All-in-all everyone had a fun meal and enjoyed the beautiful sight of the night sky from so high up in the air. The stars shone bright and clear through the cloudless sky. While fighting was fun, moments like these were what Markus really lived for.
After dinner, everyone went to do their own thing. Zoro, Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper all went to get some much-needed sleep. Robin sat off to the side and occasionally glanced over at Markus as if she was keeping an eye on him. The story he told didn't make sense to her and any way of extracting someone's Devil Fruit should be impossible. If she knew what Blackbeard could do with his Devil Fruit she might not be so sure that it was impossible for a drug to do the same thing. Let alone if she learned about the SMILE Factory and Artificial Devil Fruits, she might be even more inclined to believe his story.
Nami kept an eye on their course, even though there was literally nothing she could do to change it at the moment. Eventually, she got tired and went off to sleep with the others. Markus did his usual evening routine of heading into his Image Training to get more practice with his Devil Fruit and perform some experiments. He'd only been able to make a few nifty skills so far and planned on trying to make more in the future as his control increased. For now, his main focus lay in adapting and gaining experience with his current arsenal. He'd rather wait until he had some mastery over what he had now before making even more moves. His decision would also allow the power of the moves he did have to increase. In his opinion, it was better to have a half dozen powerful moves than a dozen weak moves.
The night passed in that fashion and as the sun rose bathing the world in the light of dawn, the crew could see the ocean coming closer and closer. Sanji looked around and happened to glance up at the balloon octopus. When he did, his eyes and mouth opened wide dropping his cigarette to the deck. Nami spotted his shocked expression and asked, "Sanji, what's wrong?"
Sanji pointed up at the octopus in a panic, "It's getting smaller!"
Nami instantly looked up and paled. Because Markus had distracted them with the training they hadn't paid much attention to the octopus over the afternoon and night. The creature had been shrinking constantly as they moved lower. It was simply due to the increase in pressure the closer they got to sea level. Because they were moving slowly and returning to the sea, the crew had time to adapt to the changes in pressure as they returned to normal. Unlike when they instantly shot into the sky on the knockup stream and had issues dealing with the lower pressure and air content.
Since the Balloon Octopus was adapted to the lower pressure of the white sea, it was easily being affected and slowly getting crushed by the increasing pressure. Markus knew this would happen and just let the others panic while he watched with a smile. It only lasted for a few minutes before the octopus couldn't hold only any longer and instantly deflated.
Once again it seemed like the entire crew lost their souls as gravity grabbed the ship and dragged it down toward the ocean below. They were still fairly high up in the air when they began to fall. Markus wasn't worried about it though. He'd been able to sense the ocean with his Observation Haki for a long time and estimate they were no more than a few hundred feet above it when the octopus finally gave out.
A few seconds later the Going Merry slammed into the surface of the ocean and sent up a massive wave of waver. Simultaneously, everyone but Markus slammed into the deck of the ship due to the sudden deceleration of the impact. The majority of the crew groaned as they climbed back to their feet. Except for Luffy, he was struggling to get the octopus off of his face. Markus couldn't help wondering what it was about Luffy's face that made animals love impacting it.
He didn't have much more time to ponder it as Nami smiled wryly, "Is it wrong that I missed this sea?"
She looked over her shoulder causing everyone to look at the rear of the ship to see a giant tsunami wave coming right at them. Sitting in the wave were three monkey-like faces with weird smiles. Everyone scrambled into action and used the oars to propel the ship and keep it ahead of the wave. Markus was just laughing as he helped row the ship. Nami wasn't wrong, even he'd missed the rediculous sea.
It took some time and effort but the tsunami eventually went away giving the crew a bit of peace. It was then that Nami pulled out her fixed and updated waver. Conis's father had done a good job on it. She wanted to see if it would continue to work on the blue sea as it had on the white sea. As soon as he saw the waver, Luffy threw his hand into the air, "Captain goes first!!"
Everyone stared blankly at the rubber head but didn't argue. Within seconds of trying to use the waver, Luffy was already thrown off and drowning in the sea. Markus almost jumped in to save him before remembering that he couldn't. In the end, Usopp dove into the sea and rescued the idiot. Luffy complained while panting and trying to catch his breath from the near-death experience. Nami took that opportunity to hop on her waver and ride it on the sea. It worked perfectly, something Markus knew would happen.
The group enjoyed the peace, Usopp even pulled out the dials he'd managed to gather through trading his rubberbands to the Skypians. All of them seemed to work just fine except for the cloud dials. Soon they moved into the cabin of the ship where Nami had all of their treasure on display, "Thank you for waiting! Now we will officially start distributing the loot! Each of these is worth a lot of money!"
The majority of the crew cheered and started saying what they wanted. Luffy wanted a bronze statue for some reason. Chopper wanted medical books, at least his request made sense. Sanji wanted new pots, pans, silverware, and some human-sized mouse traps. Made sense. Zoro wanted enough rum to swim in it. Markus and Robin kept their silence and watched with smiles. Nami smiled brightly and split the treasure into two piles, one of which was four times the size of the other, "First things first. My share is eighty percent."
Usopp, Luffy, Chopper, Sanji, and Zoro immediately objected. Nami laughed, "Just kidding! Actually, I think we should use most of the money to repair the ship."
Everyone looked enlightened by Nami's comment and agreed wholeheartedly. The Going Merry was their home and had been with them for a very long time. The poor ship had to deal with simple patch jobs and had suffered a fair amount of damage during their journey. The ship wouldn't last much longer.
Everyone sat around the dining table to discuss while Sanji served sandwiches and tea. Markus watched the conversation with a smile, especially when Luffy made an intelligent decision for once and decided the next crew member should be a shipwright. When they were done with lunch hand their discussion they all stepped outside just in time to see another tsunami appearing at the back of the ship with the same monkey face inside of it.
Everyone screamed as they got to work rushing the ship away from the giant wave of water.
"Run away! It's the sea monkey's again!"
"They're here again!!"
"There's no wind!"
"Pull up the sail!"
"We'll use the paddles!"
As the crew was paddling like mad to keep ahead of the giant wave, Usopp shouted down from the crows nest, "There's another ship ahead of us!"
Luffy called up, "Enemies?"
Usopp kept looking at the ship through his binoculars and called down, "Uh... no? There are no flags or sails on the ship. What kind of ship is that?"
Markus looked in the direction of the ship and smiled. He could sense that there were only about a dozen people on the ship with very negative feelings. A result of losing to Foxy in a Davy Back Game. Markus had to admit that the game was a great way to quickly bolster the crew of a pirate ship. Though it had its fair share of issues. You'd never really be able to trust the other members of the crew and it was akin to slavery, in his opinion.
As the Going Merry got closer to the ship without sails, Luffy shouted, "HEY!! You guys, the wave and sea monkeys are coming! TURN AROUND!"
Some life seemed to stir in the crew of the other ship. Suddenly shouts started coming from the ship.
"Everyone get up! It's a ship! Let's rob them!!"
"It's a giant wave we have to dodge it!"
"Fire the cannon!"
"You can't command me!"
"Where's the sail?!"
"Where's the navigator?!"
"Captain?!"
As the clearly undermanned ship got closer to the wave one of its cannons went off and shot the wave. This seemed to piss off the sea monkeys as they crashed the wave right on top of the ship and sank it. The crew let out a collective sigh of relief as the wave settled down and left them alone. Even Markus felt a little better without the wave coming at them. He felt like he might be developing a phobia of the ocean. He'd get over it though.
As they continued to sail Nami looked around, "The temperature and humidity are stabilizing. We must be nearing the next island. Hey Robin, do you see anything?"
Robin called down from the crow's nest, having traded places with Usopp not too long ago, "Yes.. A while ago."
Luffy and Usopp objected simultaneously, "Why didn't you say so sooner?!"
Markus just chuckled at the scene and expanded the range of his Observation Haki, slowly. Part of training had been on controlling the range of his Observation Haki so that it wasn't just 14 or 140 miles. He couldn't shrink his passive range yet but he had managed to learn how to control the range of his active Haki so it didn't just instantly expand.
As his senses expanded he could feel the Long Ring Long Island not too far away along with the ship Foxy was sailing and the crew members on it. Markus smiled to himself as they passe through the fog and could see a wide-open plain with many tall and thin trees. This island was definitely one of the weirder ones out there that he could remember.
As the ship pulled up to the shore, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper leaped off of the ship and rolled around in the grass. Markus hopped off of the ship as well and sighed happily. It was good to be on solid ground again. The Upper Yard in Skypiea might have been 'solid ground' but it was still thousands of feet above the real ground and didn't feel quite the same. Even though they had only been in Skypiea for about a week it felt significantly longer.
Markus looked around as he could already feel many different animals in his 14-mile range, all strangely long or tall. He could also sense Foxy was on the island though he didn't seem to be aiming for Luffy just yet. Soon enough they would cross paths and meet. Markus was looking forward to it! The Davey Back Games might have been a bit annoying in the show but Markus intended to have some fun and really mess with Foxy and his pirates. He could only play in two of the games though so which two should he participate in?
Well, he'd just pick when the games started!