After the shock wore off, Kurogane Ren finally realized just how terrifying transcendent items really were.
Before this, he had thought transcendent items were impressive, sure, but not truly top-tier.
Now he knew better.
It wasn't that transcendent items were mediocre.
It was that his eyesight had been terrible.
Transcendent items were amazing.
But the moment that thought passed, Ren's heart tightened again.
Because he had just killed a Celestial Dragon.
And according to the conversation between the black-suited agent and the Celestial Dragon earlier, they had already sent out a distress signal.
Which meant rescue would arrive sooner or later.
In other words, if Ren stayed on this island, then within a few days at most, he would run straight into the rescue team.
And those people were coming for the Celestial Dragon.
Before leaving the ship, the crew had most likely already reported their location.
That meant the rescue team should know exactly where the Celestial Dragon had gone.
And when they arrived, this island—the only landing point nearby—would definitely become their top search target.
As the only living person on the island, Ren had no doubt he would receive some very "warm" treatment from the World Government.
And who knew what methods they had for extracting information?
Devil Fruit abilities came in every kind imaginable. Who could say there wasn't some mind-reading equivalent out there?
So if he stayed here, he was dead.
The problem was...
He had no way to leave.
He already knew how to use the sailboat.
Earlier, he had used the binoculars to read the tiny words on the bottom, and he had figured it out. As long as he placed it in the sea, the boat would grow on its own.
But this was the Calm Belt.
Even if he had a boat, how was he supposed to sail it without wind?
Then his eyes landed on the box the Celestial Dragon had been carrying.
Ren decided to open it and see what was inside.
He took out the key and unlocked the box.
Inside, there were only two items.
The first was a bottle of red liquid, roughly one or two hundred milliliters in size.
The second was a Devil Fruit split evenly between red and blue.
Looking at the fruit inside the box, Ren froze for a moment.
He had imagined all kinds of possibilities.
Secret documents containing hidden World Government intelligence.
A priceless treasure.
Maybe even the truth of the Void Century.
But he had never expected the box to contain just a bottle of liquid and a Devil Fruit.
Ren picked up the bottle of red liquid and gave it a hard shake.
The liquid inside looked thick and sticky.
As for what it actually did, he had no clue.
And there was no way in hell he was going to drink it.
Who knew what this stuff was? What if it was poison?
He still didn't know what the liquid was, but one thing was obvious.
If even a Celestial Dragon had carried it with him while running for his life, then it had to be extremely important.
And the fact that this Devil Fruit was stored together with that bottle was proof enough that the fruit itself was valuable too.
An ordinary Devil Fruit was worth around a hundred million beli.
That was a huge amount of money, but to a Celestial Dragon?
That really wasn't enough to impress them.
Unless this was no ordinary Devil Fruit.
Could it be the Op-Op Fruit?
But... no, Ren was pretty sure it didn't look like this.
He put the bottle away into the storage bag, then picked up the Devil Fruit and studied it carefully.
"System, identify what kind of Devil Fruit this is."
The system replied at once, "Please remind me of this system's name?"
The moment he heard that familiar question, Ren knew the answer already.
This useless system couldn't identify Devil Fruits.
He immediately snapped, "No, seriously—what kind of trash system are you? You don't have storage space, you can't identify Devil Fruits, and yet you still brag about being top-tier in the whole universe? Other people's systems can do everything, but yours can't. At this point, I seriously suspect the programmer who made you got drunk and forgot to write half your code."
"Host, please do not question this system's ability," the system replied coldly. "You say other systems all have storage space and identification functions, so please find one."
"As long as the host can find another system with built-in storage and appraisal abilities, this system promises to uninstall immediately and leave the host."
Ren's face twitched.
Find another system?
In the world of One Piece?
Where the hell was he supposed to find another transmigrator with a cheat system?
And worse, the result would be his own system uninstalling.
How the hell was he supposed to keep playing after that?
Sure, this system only seemed to do sign-ins and lottery draws, but it was still a system.
"Ahem..."
"System, I didn't mean anything by it. I'm just saying your features are so limited that they don't really match your self-proclaimed rank."
The system replied in a lofty tone, "Host, you must understand. The more complex something is, the more likely it is to malfunction. The simpler it is, the less likely it is to have problems."
Ren stared blankly.
What kind of garbage excuse was that?
You're a system, not a machine.
This clearly just meant your programmer was too lazy to write more code.
By now, Ren was already used to the system's incompetence.
But the real problem was still right in front of him.
He had to leave this place as soon as possible.
Given how important a Celestial Dragon was, the Marines or the World Government would definitely send help as fast as they could.
The sooner he escaped, the safer he would be.
But the question was—
how was a weakling like him supposed to sail safely through the danger-filled Calm Belt?
Without knowing what kind of ability this Devil Fruit contained, there was no way he would eat it blindly.
Then, suddenly, Ren remembered the Skill Extraction Card.
His gaze shifted toward the black-suited corpse on the ground.
After a brief hesitation, he clenched his teeth and decided to use one.
He walked over to the body, took out the card, placed it on the corpse, and silently activated it.
The card dissolved into countless particles of light and vanished.
At the same time, a line of text appeared in Ren's mind.
"Congratulations, Host. You have used a Skill Extraction Card and obtained Iron Body from the Navy's Six Powers. The skill has already been mastered by the host."
Ren's eyes widened.
He stared in disbelief.
He had never imagined that he would pull Iron Body out of the Six Powers.
The Navy's Six Powers were an excellent set of techniques.
But among One Piece fans, Iron Body had always had a terrible reputation.
Compared to Soru, which let you move like teleportation...
Kami-e, which let you evade attacks...
Or Geppo, which let you move through the air...
Iron Body had always been mocked as One Piece's strongest illusion.
Because there were simply too many examples of people getting themselves killed by relying on it.
The most famous negative example, of course, was CP9.
People practically joked that the entire CP9 squad had lost because of Iron Body.
There was also that Marine with the single ponytail who used Iron Body to tank punches from Luffy and Zephyr.
He clearly could have used Soru or Kami-e to dodge.
Instead, he stood there and took the hits head-on.
But in Ren's opinion, Iron Body itself wasn't useless.
Take that Marine as an example.
The reason he took Luffy's attack head-on was to stop him.
At the time, Luffy had already been getting closer and closer to the execution platform.
In that situation, every step Luffy took forward was a massive boost to pirate morale.
So if the Marine couldn't take Luffy down quickly, then stopping his advance became absolutely necessary.
He failed not because the method was wrong—
but because his Iron Body wasn't strong enough.
The strategy had been fine.
His hardware just hadn't kept up.
And sometimes, the usefulness of Iron Body depended on who was using it and what kind of situation they were in.
The people who mainly used Iron Body were Marines or World Government personnel.
Take the Marines.
As the supposed representatives of justice, they often had to protect civilians.
If a Marine were fighting a pirate and that pirate deliberately attacked nearby civilians to force the Marine's hand, then in most cases, the Marine would have no choice but to shield those people.
And in that situation, Iron Body was valuable.
Use Iron Body to tank the attack, protect the civilians, and protect yourself at the same time.
Or just like what had happened a moment ago—
the black-suited agent had been a bodyguard.
When Ren attacked the Celestial Dragon, that man used Iron Body to protect his master.
So in Ren's view, the correct way to use Iron Body was in situations where there was no way to avoid an attack, and you needed to protect yourself as much as possible while standing your ground.
Of course...
CP9 had pretty clearly been hit with collective stupidity.
Still, even though Ren had now obtained Iron Body, it didn't seem all that useful at the moment.
Because his greatest threat right now wasn't humans.
It was the Sea Kings.
And with his tiny body, to creatures like those, he was nothing more than a one-bite snack.
They wouldn't even need to chew.
They could just swallow him whole.
So for his current situation...
Iron Body was basically useless.