2 Chapter 2 The sword that begins to cut
Waking up before dawn seems to be a habit from my past life that I still maintain. Like a switch flipped in my mind as soon as the first bird rose my eyes fluttered open to darkness, the nonexistent ability to go back to sleep was oddly irritating to experience for the first time. Sadly my body is more attuned to my current situation than my mind, I have no time to waste and seeing as how I have a food source in the boar and a nearby lake, there's completely no reason that I shouldn't at least begin my training today. 'The strongest people in the world have years on me already and if I want to catch up at a decent pace I have to start now' I intone with resolve as I get up and begin practicing drawing my sword.
After about five minutes of work, I received an incentive to continue at a more focused pace.
QUESTLINE ENABLED
THE WAY OF THE BLADE I
OBJECTIVE: SWING YOUR BLADE IN A DOWNWARD SLASH 1,000 TIMES.
TIME LIMIT:1H 59M
REWARDS: SWORDSMANSHIP SKILL, 5 GACHA COINS
"SHIT, SINCE WHEN DID QUESTS HAVE A TIME LIMIT" I yelled out in surprise before quickly raising the blade and swinging downward at full speed.
*Schwing* *schwing* SCHWING*
DEXTERITY+1
WILLPOWER+1
DEXTERITY+1
'So I can gain stat points through normal means, good to know.'
Over and over, overhead slash into another overhead slash. Sometimes training is more a mind game than physical. Eventually, after a certain amount of physical strain negative thoughts begin to surface, excuses, thinking of something more entertaining to do, better options, an effort to reward ratio, and my personal favorite, we all could die at any minute. Why waste your time putting yourself through this when you could die tomorrow, the trick is to stop thinking altogether, blank out your mind and focus on the same singular movement.
Honestly, I lost track of the number of swings I made after 20 minutes, arms burning, sweating everywhere, and hoarse breathing. But I didn't stop or even notice that state of myself until much later.
ONE HOUR AND 35 MINUTES LATER....
"SCHWING* *SCHWING* *SCHWING*
AGGREGATE- DEXTERITY+ 7, WILLPOWER+5
QUEST COMPLETE
THE WAY OF THE BLADE 1
OBJECTIVE: SWING YOUR BLADE IN A DOWNWARD SLASH 1,000 TIMES.
TIME LIMIT:3M
REWARDS: SWORDSMANSHIP SKILL, 5 GACHA COINS
'Damn I didn't stop for a second and I barely had 3 minutes to spare, talk about a hard quest. Seeing my dexterity increase by seven bringing it up to 22 was definitely worth it. Not to mention the G.coins and my first skill!' I think to myself before pulling up the newly made skills tab on my status.
SKILLS
(NOVICE) SWORDSMANSHIP LVL 1/50- THE WAY OF THE BLADE, MANY HAVE WALKED THIS PATH BUT FEW HAVE SUCCEEDED.
CURRENT MASTERY:5% DAMAGE BOOST, 5% DEXTERITY BOOST
'Jeez 50 levels for the novice level, I guess when there are dudes that can cut ships in half with a sleight of hand the potential of the skill could honestly be endless. Another thing to notice is there's no EXP bar for the skills level, so I won't be able to tell how long each level will take. Now it's time to reward myself for my hard training and feed into my newly acquired gambling addiction'. I think to myself with a mild shiver, remembering how hard it was to stop drawing and save my points after my first try.
'The real question is should I go for 10 one coin draws or go big or go home with the uncommon guarantee? Eh fuck it, who knows, this could be the draw where I get a Mythical Zoan Fruit or a Haki ability.' I think to myself not realizing how far I've already fallen into Gambling.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A 10-COIN UNCOMMON DRAW
Y/N….. DRAWING.....
Waiting to catch whatever drops seeing the silhouette of a white apple with black spots and the iconic swirl pattern fall into my hand.
'There's no fucking way I called that, it's impossible' I intone with a bead of sweat falling down my forehead, barely resisting the urge to bite into it while observe takes its time scanning.
RARE GRADE ZOAN TYPE DEVIL FRUIT
KUMA KUMA NO MI MODEL:PANDA
EFFECT: TURN INTO THE POWERFUL PANDA, PEREMANT +250 BOOST TO ENDURANCE. 5X BOOST TO ALL STATS WHILE IN FULL ZOAN FORM,
'URGGGG….. Ok, deep breaths, I got lucky getting a rare grade item in the first place, no reason to throw away a perfectly good money-making opportunity' I think to myself trying to suppress my disappointment.
'Fucking hell, I almost turned into The Kung fu Panda' I think to myself sighing in relief before depositing the fruit in my inventory for safekeeping.
'Can you even imagine getting into a fight with that?'
Yes Shanks, I've come to challenge you for your emperor seat, let's fight to the death no holds bar' A large Panda said with Vigor drawing his blade to begin his dreamed fight to the death.
'Are you seriously a Panda! HAHAHAHA' Imaginary Shanks laughs loudly taking out a bottle of booze and taking my challenge as a complete joke.
"Yeah, thank god that didn't happen," I thought to myself with a thankful sigh before coming to a startling realization.
'A regular Zoan fruit gives 250 endurance, my highest stat is 22, meaning. I'm cannon fodder, damn it's not like I didn't already know, it sucks when things get put into perspective' I think to myself in resolution before continuing to practice my swordplay.
'At Least now I know that the weakest fruits can be obtained in the Rare grade draws, it gives me kind of a general idea where you could get a Logia or an ancient Zoan, maybe Legendary?
After about another hour of sword training trying in vain to get another prompt for the swordsman quest line I decided to take a break for lunch. Eating the other thigh of the boar while I contemplate what I should focus on in my training.
'Realistically the easiest stats to train would be strength and endurance, besides willpower which seems like something that upgrades passively during training. How does one train to make their will stronger? My only guess is to train everything else and surpass your previous limits. With what I have at my disposal now, which really only consists of my body weight, but that's all I really need to train my Endurance and Strength' I thought to myself before dropping to the ground and started doing push-ups to failure.
After a surprising amount of 55 my arms fail and I roll to the side to avoid face-planting.
STRENGTH+ 4
ENDURANCE+3
WILLPOWER+1
'Damn these early points are going by like crazy, better enjoy it while I can. I can already picture myself bench pressing bear-sized boulders in an attempt to raise my strength by one point' I think to myself with a shiver.
'Hm, I could try Killing Fujitora to have someone use the fruit on me for training, Goku style. There may also be other devil fruits that affect gravity to save myself the trouble, I really need to get my hands on the Devil fruit encyclopedia' I think to myself as I get up in a groan to begin the run laps around my camp, also till failure.
After about 2 hours of nonstop running and a completely unknown number of laps, I collapsed in a heap near the river.
AGGREGATED:ENDURANCE+10, WILLPOWER+3
"Yep, that's enough for today. Damn I haven't felt this run down ever, at least I know that by next week this workout will be nothing but my morning warm-up" I said out loud with mild pride.
'Now let's see the progress of two days'
LVL 3 (350/2000XP)
TITLE:
NAME: FATE D. KAL
STR-9
END-18
WILL-14
INT-5
DEX-22
STAT POINTS:10
GACHA COINS:0
'Nice, I'll probably stay in this camp at least until all my physical stats hit 50, call me a coward or whatever. I want to be at least ten times stronger than I was when I got here before I even meet another human. I'll switch daily between my swordsmanship and my physical training. It shouldn't take me more than a week or I'll have to try to find another boar.' I finish over my base plan before hopping into the river to clean myself and my few clothes before heading to bed for the night to prepare for another day of only training.
3 DAYS LATER…..
Surprisingly I've already got one of my stats near my goal, after finishing my second swordsmanship workout that lasted 6 hours straight my Dexterity hit 45, sadly none of my other stats have even passed 30. On a positive note, I've made decent progress in the swordsman skill.
SKILLS
(NOVICE) SWORDSMANSHIP LVL 15/50- THE WAY OF THE BLADE, MANY HAVE WALKED THIS PATH BUT FEW HAVE SUCCEEDED.
CURRENT MASTERY:19% DAMAGE BOOST, 19% DEXTERITY BOOST
'I've come to realize that every level I gain at Novice boosts the buffs by one percent each time, not anything groundbreaking but impressive nonetheless, but the most positive thing about the training is I finally got another quest for it' I intone to myself with a smirk.
QUESTLINE UPDATED
THE WAY OF THE BLADE II
OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT 50 ENEMIES AT OR ABOVE LEVEL 3 WITH ONLY YOUR SWORD
PROGRESS:0/50
TIME LIMIT:10D 23H
REWARDS: 10 GACHA COINS,10 STAT POINTS
'With the promise of 10 G.coins and stat points, I decided to put the rest of my training on hold. Now, where am I going to find 50 animals or people over level three? No clue. I could try to use the compass but it's still locked on the village that's best for me to arrive at and I'd rather not have to search aimlessly for it after hunting for animals' I think to myself before heading deeper into the lush jungle.
Luckily finding beasts turned out to be much easier now after that temperamental boar is dead, turning to my right I see a large Rattlesnake quickly making his way towards me. Waiting until the last possible second I sidestep to the side raising my blade into an overhead slash, bringing the blade down in a flash cleaving the two-meter-long snake in half.
LVL 2 RATTLESNAKE KILLED
+100XP
'Might have spoken too soon, this is going to take awhile' I finish my thought with a sigh before changing my path to the one the snake came from in hopes of finding its nest. It only takes minutes to arrive at the assumed nest where only one beast seems to reside, a 3.5-meter-long rattlesnake, most likely the other one's mate.
*HISSSS*
The monster hisses in surprise and anger when he notices my presence, sadly the only difference between this one and its mate was its length, in one counter strike it too was killed.
LVL 3 RATTLESNAKE KILLED
+200XP
ONE HOUR LATER…..
Dipping under a large black arm and taking a small insignificant swipe as I passed under the strongest monster I've fought to date, a 3.5-meter tall gorilla.
*ROARRRR*
The large beast yelled in anger at his continued failure to hit me, at this point the only way I can take advantage is to force him to overextend, just once is all I need. Sounds easy on paper but when you're barely 1.9 meters tall fighting against a Gorilla almost double your size you come to realize you only have one advantage, speed.
Jumping to the side in a hurry as the Ape makes its fastest swing yet, I almost make it completely unscathed. As I jumped to the side, the gorilla showed surprising intelligence to change its swing direction at the last minute, landing a backhand slap against my chest that sent me 20 meters back in a slide. 'The hell? I barely felt that, it must be because of how high I have my endurance, the beast isn't strong enough to hurt me with a swing'
Dipping in and out of his range dodging both swipes and punches my chance finally happened, the monster of ape goes for a one-arm grab trying to end the fight immediately. With a smirk I position the blade towards the side he's trying to grab, with one quick slash followed by a roll to get out of range, a 50-pound arm falls into the dirt.
*ROARRRRRRRRR!!!*
The beast loses his focus completely, blinded by pain and unstrained anger he doesn't even notice me jump from behind him to cleave his head from his shoulders in one clean cut.
LVL5 GORILLA
+1300XP
+3 GACHA COINS
LVL UP…..5 STAT POINTS ADDED
QUEST PROGRESS
ANIMALS AT OR ABOVE LVL 3 KILLED: 13/50
'WHAT, I can gain G.coins from killing things as well! Yes this is fucking awesome' I finished my thought with a smirk barely retraining the urge to waste them all at once.
'Yeah that's definitely enough progress for one day, I even gained a few points in my physical stats as well as about 7 levels in Swordsmanship. Obviously, fighting was always the best way to train, but it's more of a risk-to-reward scenario' I finish up cleaning the blood off my sword before heading back to camp.
7 DAYS LATER…..
*SHING SHING SHANG* *SWIPE*
'You ever have a moment where you realize you've been taking things too casually? Yeah, I finally got to 49 of my 50 enemies, so it was my smart idea to fight the first thing I saw. In hopes of making to the village in the next few days to finally sleep in a bed again, but my dumbass had to run into the actual King of the forest' Intone to myself wiping the blood running over my right eye, a vicious singular claw mark lies just above my eyelid, millimeters away from damaging my eye.
*GROWLLLL*
The saber tooth tiger voiced his annoyance at my continued parry of his sharp claws, jumping back with a start and throwing an ordinary rock smacking it straight in his right eye. 'Ha! How does it feel bastard' I think to myself in malice watching blood begin to fall over his eye.
*GGRRR*
The beast charges straight back in throwing a flurry of paws, dodging the ones I can and parring the ones I can't dodge. We eventually reach another impasse, jumping back simultaneously to get a better idea of our enemy's state.
SWORDSMANSHIP LVL UP 22-23!
Looking over the tiger I come to realize I'm not the one who took the most damage in these exchanges, numerous superficial cuts line its hide, but the significant damage was one of its front paws almost completely split in half. Had to almost sacrifice my eye to make that cut, luckily it worked out making us just about even in speed.
Deciding I let the bastard bleed enough I decide to be the one to charge in for the first time, the beast jerks in surprise not expecting me to take the initiative. The beast swings his undamaged left paw in an attempt to keep me away from his right side, it lands on my ribs marking it with a three-line paw pattern. I barely felt it as I turned my charge into a roll putting me perfectly next to his hind leg. With a battle-lusted smirk, I cleaved the leg from the body destroying this cat's balance and fighting ability. Turning quickly I parry the anger-induced swipe, seeing that my objective was complete I jump back, content to watch the bastard bleed out. It's only minutes later the beast takes its last labored breath.
WILLPOWER +7
LVL 9 EVOLVED SABER-TOOTH KILLED
+3,000XP…. 6 GACHA COINS ADDED
LVL UP…. 5 STAT POINTS ADDED
'Let's go! That's 21 G.coins total just from fighting and I leveled up finally hitting level 6. Now I can do three Uncommon draws!" I intone before laughing in excitement as my quest completion rings.
QUEST COMPLETE
THE WAY OF THE BLADE II
OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT 50 ENEMIES AT OR ABOVE LEVEL 3 WITH ONLY YOUR SWORD
PROGRESS:50/50
TIME REMAINING::2D 21H
REWARDS: 10 GACHA COINS,10 STAT POINTS
'Hell yeah, that's 2 level ups worth of stat points and a whole uncommon draw! Not to mention over this week of chasing and hunting monsters I hit and surpassed my goal for 50 in every physical stat.' I thought to myself in excitement before pulling up my status.
LVL 6 (2,400/16,000XP)
TITLE:
NAME: FATE D. KAL
STR-45
END-53
WILL-65
INT-5
DEX-61
STAT POINTS:30
GACHA COINS:31
'Damn I was right, the amount of EXP needed to level up doubles every time but the amount of stat points received remains the same, that seems unfair. Hopefully, it will change eventually or I actually am going to have to start bench pressing a mountain to gain a strength point in a decade or so.'
Deciding to wait until I make it back to camp and settle down before drawing, I cleaned my blade on the hide of the Saber-tooth before sliding it into its sheath. 'I really need to figure out how to do that slash to send all the blood on my blade to the ground, that would be badass'
'What's been on my mind for a while is if I should get involved with the Law situation, realistically I could go grab the Ope Ope no mi for myself with my compass, damning Law to his fate. Luckily for him, I don't really want to eat the fruit, but it wouldn't hurt to have it for my future ship's doctor. I'm pretty sure I have about a year to make my decision, thinking of the kids' life so far. He probably had one of the saddest backstories in the show, destined to die before the age of twelve due to his whole ancestry being poisoned from mining. In a dream world scenario, I could allow the events to play out and approach him when he washes up on Swallow island recruiting him there. Honestly, that's a shoddy plan considering I have no way for him to trust me, and considering he's been around Doflamingo he probably has trust issues. I guess I'll think of something once the time comes.' Finishing the debate I finally arrive at camp and immediately go towards my Hide bed, pulling up the Gacha Shop in excitement ready to draw.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A 10-COIN UNCOMMON DRAW
Y/N….. DRAWING.....
Just as usual I wait for whatever to appear, after waiting patiently a small green-colored orb falls into my palm.
UNCOMMON SKILL ORB
CRUSH TO RECEIVE AN UNCOMMON GRADE SKILL
'Yes, finally another skill' I thought to myself before crushing the orb.
SKILL LEARNED
(NOVICE)BOXING LVL 1/50-THE WAY OF THE FIST, A FOOTWORK AND PUNCHING COMBO-BASED MARTIAL ART THAT IS BEST USED IN MID-RANGE TO CLOSE-RANGE COMBAT
CURRENT MASTERY:5% STRENGTH BOOST, 5% DEXTERITY BOOST, 10% DAMAGE BOOST DURING UNARMED COMBAT.
'Hell yeah, If I ever lose or break my sword in a fight I'll have something to fall back on" I finish going over the Skill and throwing a few test punches to get a feel for it before I do my next draw,
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A 10-COIN UNCOMMON DRAW
Y/N….. DRAWING.....
After waiting for about thirty seconds a green-colored briefcase falls into my lap opening up to find a staggering amount of berries, 750,000 berries to be exact. 'Damn I'm sure this is still an Uncommon drop considering the briefcase is the same color as the uncommon skill orb, so if my guess is right the common reward of cash will be less than 100,000 while an uncommon reward of cash seems to be 1 million or less. Not bad, I'll be able to buy at least a small boat now
'Now for the last one, come on I got the lowest draws both times, my luck gotta be saved up now'
WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A 10-COIN UNCOMMON DRAW
Y/N….. DRAWING.....
Seeing an orb fall into my hand I can't help but be saddened at not getting lucky, at least until I realize it's not green this time but red
RARE SKILL ORB
CRUSH TO RECEIVE AN RARE GRADE SKILL
Without a second of hesitation, the orb is crushed,
ROKUSHIKI SKILL LEARNED
TEKAI LVL 1/100- ONE OF THE SIX SECRET AND POWERFUL MARINE TECHNIQUES, TEKAI GIVES ITS USER THE ABILITY TO FLEX EVERY MUSCLE IN THE BODY TO GREATLY INCREASE DEFENSIVE AND LATER ON OFFENSIVE CAPABILITY.
CURRENT MASTERY: ONLY ABLE TO USE STATIONARY, 100% BOOST TO DEFENSE WHEN USED.
"HELL YEAH!" I yell out in excitement, I can even get Rokushiki abilities from the Gacha. '
Tekai might not be the best one to have but it's definitely useful, it's going to be a pain in the ass to train though. It would be a good idea to try and teach one of the Gorillas on the island to box with me, that'd probably be the best and fastest way to train it'
Looks like tomorrow I'm finally going to make my way toward the village, hopefully, it's a port town.
