Chapter 17: Peak Performance
A Week Later
Turns out that my Peak Specimen perk had way more effects than I had originally thought.
What I originally thought was something simple like making me more handsome, removing blemishes from my skin and giving me the body of a peak human athlete even if I was already beyond that physically.
While it did give me that, turns out that my thought process was too small as when it meant peak of the human race, it wasn’t referring to the normal race I knew of back in my world but peak human here in the One Piece world.
Let me tell you those are not the same thing.
While a peak human back on Earth was pretty capable, it paled in comparison what a peak human here was capable of.
A human here as long as they kept training could reach pretty monstrous feats with my grandpa and Roger being the main examples what the human body was capable of.
In the period of about a week I got more handsome, which had Nami and Tiche giving me appreciative looks even if Nami did look confused at my sudden changes. It also made me taller by about 10cm making me taller than Zoro now.
Then came the changes that were not visible to the naked eye like making my brain process information much faster and also retain that information with perfect clarity.
My vision, hearing, sense of touch and taste also got upgraded by a noticeable amount and finally I got a small increase in my vitality and natural regeneration.
When you add that to my Daily Grind ability, that would now be permanently slotted in going forward unless an emergency occurred, I had noticed a noticeable increase in my physical abilities and endurance.
Setting my abilities aside, now that we had a proper ship, things had become less boring as we had proper room to walk, eat and more importantly rest.
The hard wooden and uncomfortable deck had been upgraded to hammocks which while not a huge upgrade, they were infinitely better than the former.
Tiche and Nami of course took the Captain’s Quarters for their own being the only two girls and set up two small beds there turning it essentially into the girl’s cabin.
Speaking of the girls, Nami had finally fully let her guard down around us and I saw her smile more since our heart to heart back in the Gecko Islands which was good.
Zoro and Tiche could tell that something had definitely happened between us but hadn’t brought it up which didn’t surprise me given their personalities.
Then again now with the proper room to train, we had done little but continue to train the past week as we brought Usopp up to speed to our training methods teaching him TCB and trying to awaken his Haki.
Speaking of…
Flicking some pellets in rapid succession making them whistle at the speed thrown, it didn’t take long until I heard them hit.
“Owwwww! Do you have to throw them so hard, Luffy!?” Usopp yelled with an angry and bruised face as he opened his eyes from his position sitting in the deck.
“It looked like you were falling asleep.” I said with a deadpan causing the teen to pale a bit and instantly try to deny it.
“I-I wasn’t!”
“Get back to concentrating on trying to feel our presences or voices.” I ordered with a small sigh watching as Usopp begrudgingly did as ordered.
Usopp, as I had found out the hard way, wasn’t really motivated to train and was actually quite lazy when not properly motivated. Even Nami was much stronger than him at this point.
Even after I fully explained the benefits of Haki and Total Concentration Breathing, Usopp wanted to focus more on making gadgets for his slingshot like tabasco sauce pellets and similar things.
I had even showed him my Malorian Overture and asked if he wanted to use it while we found him a better weapon, but he refused, preferring to stick with his trusty slingshot.
At this point, I was starting to think it was going to take us running into real danger for Usopp to finally get his ass in gear and realize this wasn’t a game.
Sighing at him, I turned to another side of the ship and saw Nami sitting calmly on the deck with a blindfold. She suddenly moved her head rapidly, letting some pellets safely fly past her before wincing as one struck her cheek.
Tiche was handling her training. Unlike Usopp, who wasn’t showing much progress, Nami definitely was.
In order to train her body so it could handle Total Concentration Breathing better and allow her to run if needed, she had started doing leg exercises a while back. It was already starting to show as her legs looked more toned now.
She did some upper body work too, but she focused mainly on her legs, which I approved of. Since Nami wasn’t really a frontline fighter, having the ability to run away safely was one less thing for me to worry about.
Turning to Zoro last, I saw him busy lifting weights and left him alone, knowing I didn’t need to babysit him.
After leaving Usopp’s village, we had made a small detour to turn in Kuro and his subordinates’ bounties at the nearest Marine base. Since none of us were wanted, we had no visible Jolly Roger, and Zoro was already known as a bounty hunter, we had no problem collecting the money.
While there, we bought some supplies for the ship, including the set of weights Zoro was currently using, and continued on our journey.
Ever since unlocking his Observation and Armament Haki, Zoro had taken to training like a man possessed now that we had proper room. He worked on his body like this, dedicated a good amount of time to Total Concentration Breathing by blowing on gourds, and practiced using Haki on command.
Since he had already done it once in battle, it had only taken him two days before he could now imbue his swords with a black coating. So far he could only hold it for less than a minute before exhausting his Haki, so he was focused on getting used to it and increasing the duration.
Blinking, I turned toward the sea after suddenly feeling two weak presences. I saw a small rock peaking out of the water.
Thinking about it for a moment, I tilted my head as I remembered we had yet to run into those two friends of Zoro. I turned to the others.
“Hey guys, I sense two people on that rock over there. Should we check it out?” I asked, grabbing everyone’s attention.
Sure enough, all of them turned to me before directing their gaze in the direction I pointed and shrugging.
“I don’t really care one way or another.” Zoro shrugged and went back to his weights.
“Sure.” Nami said calmly with another shrug as Tiche also nodded in agreement.
“Yosh, this looks like a job for Captain Usopp!” Usopp yelled suddenly, all excited and probably glad for any distraction from training.
With everyone’s agreement, we changed course a bit. Sure enough, we met two guys, Johnny and Yosaku, with the former watching over the other who was lying on the ground and appeared sick.
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Surprised at first at our sudden appearance, Johnny soon calmed down when he saw Zoro and then quickly begged us for help.
Just like in canon, Yosaku had gotten scurvy due to a lack of vitamin C and we had quickly gotten him onboard the ship before squeezing some lemon juice down his throat as Nami explained what the problem was.
Immediately seeing some improvement, Johnny thanked us profusely.
“Now that we have a proper ship, we really need to find a proper cook for the long voyages ahead.” Nami muttered while we were gathered inside with a resting Yosaku to the side.
Perking up at that, Johnny spoke up.
“If you’re looking for a seafaring cook, there’s a perfect place for that.” Johnny said with a grin.
“And where is that?” Usopp asked curiously.
“But this place is close to the Grand Line, and you hear rumors there about the hawk-eyed man you’ve been looking for Zoro-aniki.” Johnny said with a meaningful look towards Zoro.
Zoro grinned excitedly then and gripped his katana harder.
“Looks like we have our next destination.” I said with a smile getting nods from everyone.
“Then our destination is, the Sea Restaurant, Baratie!” Johnny said dramatically pointing forward.
With our destination set, we changed course.
During the trip, we roped Johnny into helping with our training, or more specifically he was in charge of trying to hit Usopp with a wooden stick while the former attempted to dodge.
The sheer look of horror Usopp had given me when I explained what he was going to be doing going forward was funny as hell. It only got better since he couldn’t even complain as Nami was doing the same training but with a bigger stick.
The days that followed were joined by Usopp’s painful screams and desperate pleas to ease up on him which we all ignored.
During a period of rest, we had tasked Usopp with painting our Jolly Roger on the masts and flag since there was no reason to keep holding it off any longer now that we no longer had bounties to turn in to the Marines.
The first flag, much to my slight irritation had been Usopp’s own Jolly Roger which wasn’t well received by anyone, especially Nami and Tiche who immediately reprimanded him.
“Idiot! We are the Strawhat Pirates! Not the Longnosed Pirates! Draw it again!” Nami yelled with shark teeth as she whacked Usopp in the back of the head for good measure.
“Please stop playing around, Usopp-san.” Tiche said with a blank but scary voice causing Usopp and a watching Johnny to squeak in fright.
The two had seen her training with me and had found out first hand just how strong she was when we sparred developing a healthy amount of fear and respect for her from that point on.
“Sorry! I’ll change it right away!” Usopp yelled in panic as he hurriedly got to drawing the proper Jolly Roger this time ignoring the huge bump on his head courtesy of Nami.
Johnny who was close to Zoro, leaned in close to him and whispered against his ear. “Zoro-aniki! Who are these girls? They’re really scary and strong.”
“That’s our Navigator and Assassin.” Zoro answered casually causing poor Johnny’s face to pale at the last words.
“A-A-Assassin!?” Johnny whispered yelled as he frightfully turned to the beautiful but calm Tiche who was sitting next to me ignoring everything that was just said because the idiot was whispering loud enough for everyone to hear of course.
“Shishishi, aren’t they great?” I said instead with a pleased grin as I patted both Nami and Tiche’s shoulders causing the former to lightly flush while the latter just smiled in a pleased manner and puffed her chest a bit in pride.
I was ignored as Johnny did his best to make himself seem harmless.
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Weeks Later
About two weeks had passed since we encountered Johnny and Yosaku during which the latter had made a full recovery and had also been roped into our training.
Our temporary company had called us crazy plenty of times as they got to witness first hand what our training entailed of, which was basically trying to beat the shit out of each other and blowing into gourds.
During the past three weeks, my Daily Grind ability had been constantly active which had added what amounted to 21 regular people’s strength and endurance permanently to my physique.
Peak Specimen had also continued to refine my body during such time though thankfully I hadn’t grown much taller since then and my height had stopped at a respectable 190cm. While I didn’t mind getting taller, I didn’t want to get too tall that it would make other things inconvenient.
The others had become curious about my sudden growth spurt but hadn’t commented much on it which I was thankful for. It made sense too since in this world people like Big Mom and Whitebeard exist so me growing 13cm in three weeks was not too much of a shock in this world.
Today we were all taking a break from training, to Usopp’s utter joy, since we were expected to arrive at the Baratie today so we were all just relaxing on the deck.
“Luffy.”
Hearing Zoro calling to me, I turned around on my seat which was in Merry’s figure head as it was surprisingly comfortable to see the man giving me a serious look.
“What is it, Zoro?” I asked with a raised eyebrow as I kept a hand on my hat to keep the wind from blowing it away.
“If we happen to run into Mihawk during our stay in the Baratie, I plan to challenge him to a duel. There’s no way I can just give up the chance to challenge him when he’s been my dream for years now.” Zoro calmly told me with a determined expression that somehow got even more serious as he took a small pause.
In the back of my mind I already knew what was coming and felt a small frown form on my face.
“If that time comes, I want you to stay out of it.” Zoro finally said.
I stayed silent for a few moments in slight indecision. Since I had already changed the timeline with my mere presence, I had truly no idea if Mihawk would arrive today and more importantly, I didn’t know if things would play out the same if he did arrive.
Would he still spare Zoro like he did in canon? Or would he kill him this time?
‘Still, I have a feeling if I decide to interfere, Zoro wouldn’t stand for it.’ I thought with a hidden grimace so closing my eyes I let out a small sigh and nodded my head once.
“Very well, I will respect your decision.” I declared seriously.
“Thanks.” Zoro said as his expression relaxed into a small smirk.
“Umm, guys! I think we might have trouble!” Yosaku suddenly yelled getting our attention.
Turning his direction, we saw what the problem was as a marine ship was slowly closing in on us putting all of us in instant alert.
I then turned forward and saw Baratie within viewing distance and relaxed a bit as I became curious if we would run into that idiot Fullbody or something.
“Relax,” I called out loudly making sure everyone heard me. “Let’s see what happens first. It could be they’re just here to eat as well and we can avoid a confrontation. Just be ready in case anything happens though, we don’t want our new ship to be damaged when we just got it.” I instructed calmly.
“Oh, I didn’t even notice that we’re already here! Look everyone, that’s the Baratie up ahead!” Johnny said as he finally saw the restaurant out in the distance.
Looking at the large fish shaped ship up ahead slowly get closer, a grin lit up my face as I thought about our future crewmember and cook.
‘I hope you’re ready Sanji, because I have two years worth of food I’ve been missing out on ever since I lost my sense of taste.’