…
“Oi Marco~!”
“Stop steering! It’s time to eat!”
Vir shouted.
In the cockpit, Marco, who had been leisurely steering the ship, gave a casual reply before switching the vessel to autopilot.
Then, he made his way to the deck.
By this time, Vir had already laid out quite a spread of food.
With Sanji’s cooking skills in his arsenal, making food was no trouble at all for him.
“Never would’ve guessed, Vir—you can actually cook?”
Marco, already feeling hungry again, grabbed a chunk of meat and stuffed it into his mouth.
But the moment he took a bite, his eyes widened.
“Holy crap! This is amazing! You’ve been hiding your inner master chef all this time? I thought you were all show, but this is legit!”
With that, he started devouring the food even more ravenously.
He was eating like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Vir, however, remained unfazed.
Sanji’s cooking skills—what else is there to say?
You could nitpick Sanji for a lot of things.
But when it came to being a gentleman and his cooking, he was absolutely flawless.
After polishing off two bowls of braised pork, Vir set down his chopsticks.
Somehow, food you made yourself always felt less satisfying than food made by someone else.
At that moment, he pulled out a collection of tools from his medical kit—gear he had previously exchanged for.
Chainsaw, arc welder, brick, needles… and so on.
But as Vir looked over the tools, his brows furrowed.
Because shockingly… most of them were broken.
Aside from the brick and the arc welder, the rest were basically unusable.
Even the needles had snapped in half.
The chainsaw’s blade was completely dulled—rendered useless scrap.
Even the brick… had visible cracks on it.
Probably from smacking Momousagi and the others a few too many times.
This whole situation made one thing painfully clear:
These tools all had a limited lifespan.
When he’d been fighting small fry, this hadn’t been noticeable.
But after treating Whitebeard, his faithful chainsaw had outright died on him.
Even coating it with Armament Haki didn’t help.
The rotary hammer drill was the best example—it had failed to pierce Whitebeard’s skull.
The conclusion was obvious:
The items from the system shop might have special effects, but at their core, they’re not that durable.
When used against top-tier opponents, they quickly became trash.
When he was sawing Whitebeard, he’d already felt some resistance.
Sigh.
At the end of the day, this stuff was just too cheap.
They were all priced around 10,000 to 20,000 points.
How were they supposed to work reliably against people who could give him hundreds of thousands of negative points at a time?
Honestly, it’s a miracle they didn’t break mid-surgery.
The worst part? The shop didn’t even have any decent high-tier tools.
And he could only buy one of each!
Damn it.
Looked like he’d have to start using them more sparingly.
Not like there were many other options.
That’s just how it was.
Sure, he could use regular surgical knives instead—Armament Haki would still let them cut through flesh.
But…
They don’t have special effects.
No special effects means fewer negative points.
This time, the Crying Needles were a game-changer, netting him 800,000 negative points in one go.
Now that’s a difference.
From Whitebeard, he hadn’t just earned Conqueror’s Haki Infusion…
He’d gotten a whopping 4.3 million negative points!
An absolute windfall.
Vir couldn’t help but smile wide at the sight of that number.
How to spend that cash?
Obviously, first thing was upgrading the system.
The improvements that came with an upgrade were massive.
And the shop would likely change with it, too.
Maybe it’ll solve the tool durability issue.
That was his most urgent concern right now.
Even if it didn’t, there was still the option of enchantments.
Without hesitation, Vir summoned the system interface and selected System Upgrade.
As 1,000,000 negative points vanished, the system began its update.
[Ding! System upgrade will take approximately two hours. Please wait patiently.]
Tch.
Fine.
Waiting two hours wasn’t a big deal.
He could wait.
Vir stood up slowly and walked over to the railing.
Leaning against it, he let the sea breeze brush against his face.
Under the scorching sun, the damp ocean wind felt refreshing.
As he gazed at the calm sea, his thoughts drifted back to Whitebeard’s situation.
By now, the Marines must’ve learned that Whitebeard had fully recovered.
And there’s no way Sengoku would sit still after hearing news like that.
Whitebeard’s war might not go as smoothly as expected.
Vir needed to stay on guard, too.
It wouldn’t be surprising if things went sideways in an instant.
He needed to find more ways to stay alive during this time.
Raise his strength even further.
Marineford was both an opportunity and a crisis.
Whether he lived or died—it would all depend on him.
On the Sabaody Archipelago—
Bartholomew Kuma was a must.
His Paw-Paw Fruit could deflect nearly any attack.
And his sheer durability, his monstrous endurance—all top-tier traits.
Ridiculously useful.
Next was Trafalgar Law.
That guy’s ability—when it came to escaping—was only slightly worse than Vir’s own spatial powers.
The best choice for staying alive.
And later on, he could even make outstanding contributions to his own treatment.
But in truth, the most valuable person on the Sabaody Archipelago wasn’t them.
It was…
That old man.
Rayleigh.
Would he even give Vir a chance to treat him?
If Vir could treat him…
If he were lucky enough to acquire Conqueror’s Haki in the process…
Nyehehehehe~
No need to even say how insanely strong he’d become afterward, right?
Even if it’s not Conqueror’s Haki—
Rayleigh was a master of everything else anyway.
It’s basically like drawing from a pile of ultra-rare treasures.
No matter what you pull, it’s jackpot.
This stop at Sabaody Archipelago—no need to elaborate. As long as he could secure even one of them, his confidence would skyrocket.
And his options during the Summit War would expand dramatically.
Just as Vir was spacing out at the back of the ship…
A vessel about the same size as theirs suddenly blocked their path up ahead.
Marco, who was mid-meal, immediately sensed something was off.
He hurriedly bolted toward the helm.
If this precious ship got damaged in a crash, that would be hella bad!
He’d been too focused on eating and hadn’t kept an eye on where they were going.
And the key thing was—that ship in front wasn’t even moving out of the way!
Just standing there, dead center!
Are they stupid?!
What do they even get from crashing into us?!
We’re moving crazy fast here!
Marco cursed inwardly.
But it was already too late to steer away.
All he could do was slam into reverse, trying to slow the ship down.
But this ship was built for speed—
It’s not like it could stop on a dime!
In the end, Marco could only watch helplessly as the two ships collided!
*BOOM!*
A loud crash rang out!
Vir, who had been leaning at the stern, was immediately flung forward!
He smashed headfirst into the door of the control room with a loud thud!
Through the helm’s glass, Marco saw Vir’s deeply resentful glare—and scratched his head in embarrassment.
Totally not my fault…
It was that woman’s fault on the other ship!
—–
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