"Dice, come in with me for a moment."
The ship restarted, and Vane called over Dice, who was grappling with Burgess.
Being summoned alone into the captain's cabin like this—when you come back out, you become a power user!
For a moment, everyone felt a bit envious of Dice.
Inside the captain's cabin.
"Dice, are you ready to become a power user!"
In Vane's hand was the black-and-gold Devil Fruit they had obtained from the Holy Church Nation.
Dice broke into a grin. "As long as the captain thinks it's suitable, then I'm definitely ready."
They'd gotten so many Devil Fruits before, yet Vane never let him eat one. Keeping it until now must mean this one suited him perfectly.
"Eat it."
Dice had a big mouth and swallowed the entire Devil Fruit in one go. Since he had masochistic tendencies, a Devil Fruit that others found unbearably disgusting was still acceptable to him.
"Boss, what ability is this?"
Dice did a few bodybuilding poses on the spot—Burgess had taught him these—to show off his powerful muscles.
Vane didn't tell Dice directly what the ability was. Instead, he threw a punch straight into Dice's chest.
Bang!
So painful—so good! Why would the boss suddenly reward me like this?
"Feel your own strength properly."
Feel my strength?
Sure enough, that pain turned into a surge of power that flooded into his muscles.
Rip—
Dice's body swelled slightly, and the clothes on his upper body split apart, especially around the arms, which turned into rags.
"I feel like my strength suddenly increased a lot. Th-this, what's going on?"
"Because the Devil Fruit you ate is called the Karma-Karma Fruit, a Paramecia-type. It can turn the blows and damage you take into your own strength."
That's right—this Devil Fruit was the one that would belong, more than a decade later, to one of the Supernovas, the Mad Monk Urouge.
Urouge is a Sky Islander, a burly man dressed like a cleric.
His fruit ability is pretty broken, but unfortunately the character was rushed past by Oda.
The only verifiable feat is that he defeated Big Mom's subordinate Snack, causing Snack to lose his Sweet Commanders title and making Big Mom's four Sweet Commanders revert back to three.
Later he was defeated by another Sweet Commander, Cracker, who arrived afterward. There's not much to say about that—having just gone through a big battle, being beaten by a Sweet Commander is normal.
The Karma-Karma Fruit can turn pain into one's own strength.
As for whether it can also turn real damage and recovery into strength—that starts to look like double-dipping. That would be way too bugged.
Even awakening the fruit might not be able to do that.
"Turning the pain I take into strength! And it can even change my body size!"
If enough pain accumulates, swelling to two or three times the size wouldn't be a problem.
"This Devil Fruit is way too perfect for me. Long live the boss!"
Dice was a masochist to begin with—thick-skinned and tough, often tanking other people's attacks head-on. Doing that before had no real meaning, at most it just made him feel good.
Now it was different. Taking hits was for increasing his own attack power! Not only did he feel good, it also had real value.
While his attack power increased, it also made him tougher. As long as he wasn't taken out in one blow, even if Whitebeard were right in front of him, Dice could still throw a punch.
"Develop the ability properly."
The compatibility between a user's personality and their ability is very important. Dice's type is quite compatible—he likes getting hit in the first place. As long as he keeps getting hit, that's development. No matter what, it won't develop badly.
...
"Sabaody Archipelago!"
In the view ahead of the Thunder Fortress appeared massive clusters of islands formed by towering mangrove trees.
"Gehihihi, reaching this place means the Grand Line is already half complete."
"However, the difficulty ahead is more than ten times what came before."
The first half of the Grand Line is called Paradise, and the latter half is the New World.
The Marine forces in the New World are relatively weak. Of course, there's also the World Government's 'fostering' policy—letting pirates fight and wear each other down.
In addition, the New World has all kinds of bizarre islands.
"I already expected the difficulty ahead… it's fine. Find an island to lie low for a while and we can quickly build up our combat strength."
Hearing Vane say this, Moria felt it would be difficult. Their crew had quite a few people with potential, but many were too young. That required enough time; a short period of lying low might not be enough.
"Let's go, Moria. You're the veteran—see where we should dock."
The Sabaody Archipelago has 79 areas. Areas 1–29 are lawless zones—where pirates, slave traders, and bounty hunters are most active.
The remaining 50 areas are relatively peaceful. Pirates can actually walk there too, since many coating shipyards are in areas 50–59.
Of course, don't get close to areas 60–69. There's a Marine base there.
This is also the place with the highest average housing prices in the Sabaody Archipelago. Right under a Marine base, pirates generally won't court death by getting close.
Moria recommended a few areas for Vane to choose from. In the end, Vane chose Area 13.
"Why pick here, Meowth?"
"Because there are two somewhat important people here."
Both are legendary figures.
One is Shakky, suspected to have once been one of the Empresses of Amazon Lily, who directly answered Brook about what color underwear she was wearing.
The other is one of the Pirate King's right-hand men, famous throughout the world—the… master of slacking, Dark King Rayleigh.
One runs a pricey information bar that fleeces pirates; the other works as a coating craftsman and lives in seclusion.
Rayleigh's life can be said to be quite rich. He makes a little money using the identity of 'Old Man Ray the Coater,' and when he's bored, he even sells himself as a slave at auctions and then steals the auctioneers' money.
"Moria, Bonez… you stay on the ship for now."
Vane decided to bring Sugar, Monet, Meowth, Tant, Dice, Baccarat, and Selibe—the somewhat neurotic woman.
The sturdy Tant and Dice would serve as background boards. Monet, Sugar, Selibe, Baccarat, and Meowth's abilities might be needed at any moment.
Besides Vane himself, they were all power users. Their ship really had a lot of them.
At this stage, it wasn't much worse than future Yonko crews, and there were also many high-potential fruits.
"Let's go. We're going to look for Shakky's Rip-off Bar."
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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