Chapter thirty- Progress and land fall

Once again Gabriel stood at the very front of the going Merry with the next island of their journey in sight. The voyage from Whiskey peak to little garden had taken just under a week of sailing given the weather of the grand line proving to be unhelpful at times. But Gabriel was pleased with himself how he had taken the time at sea to improve on his skills, ever since he purchased the system upgrades he had done quite a bit and improved a lot of his skills, he couldn't do a lot onboard the Merry given how it was only so big, but he was pleased with what he had done. Looking at his filtered skill list his numbers were looking even better than before.

Crafting: 250/2000AP

Combat strength: 550/5000AP

Combat speed: 550/5000AP

Hand to hand combat: 275/2000AP

Combat stamina: 550/5000AP

Battle Endurance: 120/10000AP

Yure yure no mi: 300/10000AP

Rokushiki (Six Powers): Soru: 350/5000AP

Mind Palace: Max

Bōjutsu: 500/10000AP

Swordsmanship: 700/10000AP

Marksmanship: 400/5000AP

Musician: 200/2000AP

Navigation: 300/2000AP

Cooking: 500/2000AP

Teaching: 300/2000AP

He had been putting a hell of a lot of time into his training with everyone on board, and by himself both in the real world and in his mind palace grinding for points at night while his body rested. During the day he had trained with both Zoro and Usopp training his swordsmanship as well as his marksmanship, before spending time trying to unlock his observation haki and teaching Usopp how to use a Bo staff as a weapon.

While he didn't unlock his observation haki in the past six days his skills had grown and he had even unlocked a skill that he didn't know he had, teaching, it apparently helped him to better teach others skills that he already possessed and that didn't require the system to learn, so he had put plenty of time into that skill because he knew it would be helpful when he did unlock his haki so that he could teach the rest of his growing crew how to use it.

He had also unlocked his musician skill from singing in his free time, just songs that he remembered from his past life, Luffy had even gone so far as to name him the crews temporary musician regardless of the fact that he was captain of his own crew.

The rest of his time awake was split with others.

Nami, he had asked to help him learn the basics of Navigation and Sanji he had asked to help him improve on his cooking, both had been really great teachers and his affinity in both skills grew remarkably because of that.

He had also been sparing with the others in his crew without the aid of his weapons or his devil fruit so that he could grow his combat skills and they had all improved, but the slowest of them all to improve had been his battle endurance which had only grown by twenty points in the last six days. He just knew that skill was going to be a pain to improve on and that he was likely going to have to do a huge point dump into it to actually get the result he wanted without wasting a whole lot of his time.

His nightly grinding sessions had also resulted in him building up a very large reserve of AP points that he would eventually put into his skills, along with a healthy amount of cash that he was still putting by.

AP: 2080

Beri: $256,000

The results of facing off against hordes of weaker enemies and pounding them into the ground for small amounts of AP in return and then facing the more powerful ones after to test how well his skills had improved.

The only downside to his mind palace training was that he got absolutely no improvement of his skills from it as it was all inside his head his body didn't grow stronger and his skills didn't improve. But at least now he knew that his skills were at such a level that he could now face even the toughest opponent that he had, Arlong, and beat him with out having to resort to cheap methods such as blowing his brains out like he had the first time. He'd beat him more than enough times to unlock his sword blueprint and had more than enough materials to make it but didn't for reasons he had already mentioned.

All and all he knew he was ready for the next island and was more than looking forward to it. Why? Because he already knew just who and what were on it. Dorry and Brogy, Giants, both with Bounties of one hundred million, as well as Dinosaurs of all kinds. He couldn't wait to meet with both the giants and fight against the dinosaurs so that he could create both inside his mind palace to fight them to reap the rewards of those kinds of fights.

He also knew that Mr three and miss Golden week would be making appearances on this island, but he was yet unsure about just how they would go about things this time. He had changed things by turning Gem and Mikita against baroque works, so there shouldn't be any exploding rum barrels this time, he was unsure just what was going to happen. Mr three was a devious planner so he would bound to have some plan in mind for confronting them and trying to capture Dorry and Brogy. But then he didn't intend to fight with them, at least not now.

He had promised Luffy after all that any enemies they faced between Whiskey peak and Alabasta were his to handle so he wouldn't lift a finger to fight them in order to keep his promise, though that didn't mean he didn't have other plans for those two.

He already knew that he wanted to recruit Mr three into his crew but he doubted that he would be able to do that on Little garden, besides if things continued with the canon for the most part he still had roles that needed to be handled later, like freeing them from the sea stone cage that Crocodile had prepared, or helping Luffy with his break in of Impel Down. If he didn't succeed in warning Ace when they met about Black beard then he would definitely be needed for that role.

Miss Golden week was another story entirely however, her skills with paint had always interested him, an ability that was completely unconnected a devil fruit power, which meant that she had the possibility to grow even stronger just like Keren if she obtained the right one. He would definitely be trying to recruit her the first time around for his crew.

It wasn't long before the going merry was coming along beside the island and sailing along the shoreline as everyone was on deck looking out at the huge jungle that was in front of them.

"I can see why they call this place little garden" Luffy smirked as he looked out at the trees.

"I can't, what's little about it," Zoro quirked

"yeah it looks like a jungle out there, maybe we should skip this island," Usopp said swallowing hard as he leaned on his staff/sling shot that he had made to use since his lessons with Gabriel, it wasn't anything like his weapon later, it was just a staff with the sling shot head nothing too fancy just yet.

Gabriel smirked, "where is your sense of adventure Usopp, I thought you wanted to be a brave warrior of the sea" he teased.

Both Gem and Mikita snorted from their spots, "Brave him," Gem shook his head, "Yeah more like chicken of the sea" Mikita commented with a giggle.

Keren crossed her arms as she looked up at the trees also, "but he is right, it dose look harsh, but that only means that it will be a good challenge"

Gabriel laughed, "I like the way you think Keren" he mused before he started down the steps, "I'm going down to change, I'll be up in a bit" he called and slipped down below deck.

When he came up a while later he was once more dressed in his black kimono and haori with his hat back on his head and now with the newest edition of Kurobuchi on his left hip for the time being, with his swordsmen training progressing so well he planned to keep a look out for a second blade that would go along with Kurobuchi so that he could learn to use two sword style to improve his skills further and so he could imitate his favourite character from the bleach anime properly.

As he was coming back up to the front of the ship, Zoro was in the middle of dropping the anchor of the ship.

"We stopping here?" Gabriel asked as he looked around, they appeared to have found the river that lead through the island while he was below deck and had came inland a fair bit.

Nami nodded at his question, "yeah, we're all staying here, we don't technically have to go inland for the log pose to set so staying here is the safest option" she told him.

Hearing her Gabriel smirked and then looked to Luffy who had his hands on the railing and was looking out at the jungle in front of him with a large grin on his face, he knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Are you sure about that Nami?" Gabriel stated and then gestured to Luffy.

"Sanji, go make lunch, and make it a great big pirate lunch with lots of meat and no vegies, I'm going to need lots of energy" Luffy said as Nami immediately felt her stomach drop.

"Energy for what, you're not leaving here" Nami told him.

"ya know fun stuff, ya wanna come along" Luffy said grinning like a crazy person.

Nami seemed to sweat drop at the sight of him and Gabriel shook his head, "forget it Nami, you can't change his mind, plus he is your captain after all, he can do as he likes" Gabriel told her as he walked over to the railing and put his foot on it before jumping up and over to the shore line.

"What! Where are you going!" Nami demanded seeing him leave the ship so casually.

"where do you think, exploring, I'm not about to sit around doing nothing" Gabriel responded before looking to his crew, "Mikita, stay on the ship, you're on guard duty, anyone comes by that isn't a friendly crush em, Keren, you can explore if you want to" he added, not bothering to give Gem an order as he technically hadn't agreed to join his crew just yet.

"Aye captain" Mikita nodded happy with that kind of order as she jumped up and floated up to the crow's nest to keep watch.

Keren nodded, "Thanks captain," she came over to the railing, "want some company?"

Gabriel shrugged, "come along if you want, though you might not get any good fights with me around" he mused.

Keren smirked and jumped off the ship anyway, "I think I'll do okay either way" she said as she began to follow him as they left the ship heading out into the jungle to explore.

Gem watched them go off and shrugged before he went back inside the ship, he had no intention of going out into the jungle, too many bugs.