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[TIOP] Chapter : 8
🕑 Added 2025-02-02 20:52:34 +0000 UTCA few days later, at the Loguetown naval base:
“Is that the pirate hunter who’s become so famous in town lately? I heard he absolutely despises pirates,” a young marine murmured, eyeing Jack as he dragged a bounty criminal into the base like a lifeless sack of cargo.
His friend nodded cautiously before pulling him aside, clearly reluctant to get too close to Jack. “Yeah, let’s steer clear. Lately, whenever we’ve crossed paths with him during missions, he’s treated us the same as the pirates—defeating us like it’s just training. Sure, he doesn’t hurt anyone, but still…”
In a quiet corner of the town’s tavern, Jack sat nursing a mug of sake. He muttered to himself, “Why hasn’t that Ace shown up yet?”
During his time in Lougetown, Jack had dismantled numerous pirate crews, taking down even their strongest members. His actions earned him a growing reputation as a formidable pirate hunter.
“Ah, whatever. Time to find someone to spar with and rack up some exp,” he said, finishing his drink with a sigh. Ever since his battles with Garp and Bogard, Jack had grown increasingly fixated on becoming stronger. In his relentless pursuit of power, he even sought out sparring matches with navy officers, treating them as convenient training dummies.
On his first day in Lougetown, Jack targeted a pirate with a bounty of 3 million. Not only did he capture the criminal and claim the reward in diamonds, but he also received the bounty amount of money, enough to cover his food and clothing expenses comfortably.
Despite having amassed a thousand diamonds, Jack resisted the urge to draw the lottery right away. Instead, he checked into a hotel, took a long bath, changed into fresh clothes, and then prayed earnestly before activating the system to begin the lottery.
While he knew that such formalities were unlikely to influence the outcome, he couldn’t shake the habit. The entirety of his wealth was at stake, and he wanted to approach the process with as much reverence as possible.
The system’s lottery mechanism wasn’t a spinning wheel or a physical draw. Instead, it required spending a thousand diamonds to purchase a "lucky bag." The contents of the bag, determined at the moment of opening, would decide whether the investment was worthwhile.
As Jack opened the lucky bag, his emotions were a mix of excitement, worry, and anticipation—a strange cocktail of feelings that only grew stronger by the second.
“You opened a lucky bag and obtained an intermediate secret manual!”
The system’s notification nearly made Jack’s heart leap out of his chest. He quickly accessed his inventory and spotted the manual, which resembled a book. Its description read: “Open to receive any intermediate-level secret manual.”
“Ah! This is a windfall—a huge one at that! Everyone always says the first draw from the lottery system guarantees something good, just to hook people in and keep the ‘harvest’ going,” Jack muttered to himself with a grin, quickly locating the corresponding item in the system.
Although there wasn’t an option to randomly acquire intermediate-level manuals in the store, the cheapest intermediate-level manuals typically cost several thousand diamonds. Particularly valuable among them were the intermediate-level skill manuals, with prices soaring to tens of thousands.
Drooling over his stroke of luck, Jack couldn’t wait to open the manual. The system notification chimed again:
“Congratulations to the host for obtaining the Chakra Training skill manual.”
“Oh, my god!” Jack exclaimed, his excitement bubbling over. He had no idea how to articulate the torrent of joy surging through him. This was Chakra, the mystical energy that let ninjas in the Naruto world tame the elemental powers and fundamental forces of the world.
However, when he eagerly opened the manual and attempted to use it, the system threw an unexpected wrench into his plans:
“Prerequisite skills not met. Unable to practice.”
Jack was utterly dumbfounded. Did he actually need to master the Mental Strength Training before learning to control chakra? Chakra is a composition of Physical and spiritual energy. His mental energy might not be up to the level of his Physical energy…? That might be the issue..
When requesting the system for information on this, it got confirmed.
Realizing this, Jack’s excitement was swiftly replaced by a touch of frustration. His dreams of immediately harnessing chakra and walking on the sea had just hit a roadblock.
When Jack examined the Training Manual closely, he discovered that mastering it required progressing through two foundational levels of Mental Strength training: basic and intermediate. Only after completing these stages could he get the basic amount of chakra required for its training.
To move on to the intermediate level mental strength, however, he first needed to complete the basic level. While Jack’s three basic skills were already maxed out, the problem lay in his lack of intermediate skill books to progress further. As a result, his foundational skills were effectively stuck at their peak level.
Turning to his progress, Jack checked his experience bar: it was at Level 8 (87%). Before arriving in Lougetown, he had gained substantial experience from his sparring match with Garp, which had propelled him to Level 8. Along the way, he had defeated pirates and captured his first bounty target after landing, leaving him just shy of leveling up again.
As for skill points, Jack was sitting on a healthy reserve. Back when he reached Level 5, he had nearly depleted his points, but since then, he hadn’t spent any due to the lack of new skills to allocate them toward. Now, he had accumulated four unused skill points, waiting for the right opportunity to put them to use.
With his diamonds depleted, the only viable way for Jack to acquire the intermediate mental skill book was to complete the second main quest, which would become available at Level 10. Based on the pattern of the first main quest, he assumed it would likely reward him with three foundational intermediate skills, enabling him to finally learn to control chakra.
In the meantime, Jack bided his time waiting for Ace while relentlessly hunting down pirates in Lougetown. This served a dual purpose: preparing for the possibility that the Level 10 quest might not provide the intermediate skills and earning enough diamonds to purchase them from the store if needed.
However, the East Blue wasn’t exactly brimming with bounty-worthy criminals. Although pirates were plentiful, those with bounties were relatively rare. To make matters worse, Jack discovered that Smoker had recently arrived in Loguetown as the commanding officer and was aggressively cracking down on pirates. As a result, the number of bounty criminals in the area was far lower than Jack had anticipated.
Frustrated, he even resorted to targeting marines for practice to scrape together the experience he needed, though the returns were meager. With his increasing level, ordinary minions no longer provided meaningful gains.
"Damn it! If I weren't afraid of missing Ace, I’d head straight to Cocoyasi Village—it’s like a treasure trove of experience points!" Jack muttered bitterly, glaring at his experience bar, which stubbornly sat just over halfway through Level 9.
Today, I finally encountered a bounty criminal, earning a substantial amount of experience and 200 diamond points. However, I’m still 500 short of the 1,000 diamonds needed for the intermediate skill book for mental strength.
Since arriving on this island, I’ve captured several bounty criminals—one with a bounty of 3 million and three with bounties of 1 million each. Unfortunately, the diamond rewards from those captures were spent on the earlier lottery. Adding today’s 2 million bounty, my total stands at just 500 diamonds.
“Damn Smoker! Would it kill you to arrive a bit later? If it were possible, I’d definitely take you down too!” Jack muttered under his breath as he made his way toward a nearby restaurant, anger simmering beneath his calm exterior.
Although he hadn’t yet confirmed whether his chakra could affect a Logia-type user like Smoker, it didn’t stop him from venting in private.
As he approached the restaurant, a murmur of voices caught his attention.
“Look, what’s going on inside?”
“Someone seems to have died. The owner’s deciding whether to call the marines.”
“I heard he just dropped dead in the middle of his meal!”
“Could it be the food here? What if there’s poison?”
Curious, Jack pushed his way through the crowd gathered at the entrance. The scene felt oddly familiar, and a spark of recognition lit up in his mind.
'This... this feels like Ace,' Jack thought, his intuition telling him that something significant awaited him inside. Without hesitation, he squeezed into the restaurant, eager to confirm his suspicion.
"As expected, it’s you!" Jack muttered through gritted teeth, though now that he was face-to-face with the person responsible, his earlier frustration gave way to resignation.
At the center of the crowd’s curiosity was none other than Ace, slumped over at the dining table, fast asleep in the middle of a meal.
Even though Jack had long known about Ace’s bizarre tendency to doze off in the most absurd situations, seeing it firsthand never failed to shock him. Witnessing someone fall asleep while eating seemed so unbelievable that Jack had doubted it the first time he’d heard the stories. But after spending time with Ace, he had come to accept that, no matter what strange events unfolded around this man, nothing would surprise him anymore.
"Ah! Sorry about that! Fell asleep again while eating! Ah wu~~" Ace mumbled groggily as he woke, picking up where he left off, shoveling food into his mouth without a care in the world.
The restaurant owner, who had been frozen in shock moments earlier, now stood awkwardly nearby, unsure of how to react. After a brief struggle to compose himself, he forced a strained smile and said, "It’s... it’s fine. Please, enjoy your meal!"
Jack sighed, shaking his head, and slid into the seat next to Ace. Draping an arm over his shoulder, he greeted him with a mix of exasperation and amusement, "Hey, Ace. Long time no see." He wasted no time grabbing some food brought by a nearby waiter, digging in as though nothing unusual had happened.
"Jack! It’s been ages!" Ace beamed with genuine excitement as he recognized his old companion.
CLANK!
The sound of handcuffs locking into place cut through the lively atmosphere. Ace’s jubilant expression froze as he stared at his wrists in disbelief.
"What the—?!"
But it was too late—Jack had slapped a pair of handcuffs onto him, his expression a mix of smug satisfaction and playful mischief.
They weren’t Seastone handcuffs—those were far beyond Jack’s budget. Instead, he had paid a hefty sum to commission sturdy steel handcuffs. While they couldn’t neutralize Devil Fruit users, they were durable enough to serve as a "welcome gift" for Ace.
"Hey~ what’s the deal? We haven’t seen each other in ages, and this is how you treat me?" Ace said, feigning hurt as he gave Jack a helpless, puppy-dog look.
"Nope, we’re not that close," Jack retorted with a nonchalant shrug. "Besides, Vice Admiral Garp will be here in a few days. I’m just taking precautions!" He tried to sound casual, though he was clearly keeping an eye on Ace’s every move.
"What?! The old man’s coming here?" Ace’s expression shifted instantly to one of alarm. Without a second thought, he shot up from his seat, his gaze darting around the room like a startled animal.
Before Jack could react, Ace quickly bowed to the restaurant owner, saying, "Thanks for the meal!" Then, like a gust of wind, he bolted out the door.
"Hey, get back here! I just want to complete my mission, you idiot!" Jack bellowed, breaking into a sprint. Although he had half-expected Ace to try and escape, he hadn’t anticipated how effortlessly his target would slip away.
"The Fuck!! Are you planning to dine and dash?" The restaurant owner called out in confusion, momentarily stunned by the unfolding chaos.
"Stop running, you bastard!" Jack shouted furiously as he chased after Ace, who was darting through the streets ahead of him. Behind Jack, a growing mob of chefs and restaurant waitstaff pursued him relentlessly.
What had begun as a simple pursuit by one restaurant's staff quickly escalated. As the commotion from Ace's escape grew louder, more and more people joined the chase. This only added fuel to Jack's frustration. 'That idiot must have been causing trouble in Lougetown for days,' Jack thought angrily. 'Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people after him.'
Meanwhile, out at sea near the port of Lougetown, a naval warship was steadily approaching. Smoker stood on the deck, his expression sour. Despite capturing several pirates on this mission, they had all been low-level criminals, leaving Smoker visibly dissatisfied. Beside him, Tashigi stood quietly, sensing her superior’s discontent.
Elsewhere, on the open sea, three days away from Lougetown, a dog-headed warship was cutting through the waves, heading directly for the same destination.
