One Pice: A Game Blue System.

There are serious implications here! This could change everythi..oh shit is the snail still ringing? We should probably answer it.

"Puru-puru-pur-KA-CHK! Oi! Blackjack! Learn how to answer the damn phone!" A raised voice shouts through the snails mouth. "Did you find Wulfric? What was the trouble?"

'Oh crap. Time to see if my impersonation skills are still up to snuff.' "No trouble." I respond in the deepest baritone I can muster. "Just some kid playing bounty hunter. I dealt with him." For a few moments there's silence on the line but then the animals eyelids narrow menacingly.

"...you are not Blackjack."

Welp. There goes that plan.

"Set sail boys!" The voice continues. "We've got the product, no sense waiting for company! KA-LICK!"

And there goes a potential ride out of here as well.

Shit.

In the end it's taken me eight days to get back to Yeutton Port. Just about every ship in Halnola's harbor was plagued by ripped sails, rotting wood or some other affliction of disrepair. It took me the better part of an afternoon before I found one I'd be comfortable sailing on. A small cutter that could be manned by just two or three people. In retrospect I'm more surprised than ever that I found a ship heading to Halnola in the first place. It really was a first class shithole.

Anyway, hunting down the owner of the small boat was a pain in and of itself and the man turned out to be as stubborn as a goat. He was adamant that he and his ship weren't going nowhere no how. After two days I was so fed up with the situation that I slapped 100,000 Beri in front of him, figuring if that doesn't make some headway on his attitude then nothing will.

And you know what this cheeky old geezer says to me?

To double it.

And goddamn it I paid him.

It was an absolutely ludicrous amount of money for a simple boat ride to the next island over but I was desperate. I had two wanted men in my [Inventory] worth close to 9 million put together and I needed to turn them in quick. My plan was to say I kept them drugged while unconscious to explain away why they never woke up during the trip.

But there's a limit to that sort of thing. Too much time passes and there's no way that story holds up. I'm stretching it thin as is.

Maybe I was over thinking it way too hard. In the end they might not even question me on it. The people of 'One Piece' are known for many things but critical thinking skills are certainly not among them.

Whatever.

If there's a silver lining to be had from taking so long to get back, it's that I had plenty of time to come to a decision on my rewards from the Blackjack fight.

The stat points were easy. I'm a bit enamored by DEX at the moment so I tossed all 10 in there bringing the trait up to 75. The Lv. 3 [Skill Disk] was slightly trickier. I wasn't quite sure what it was at first but it turned out to be a consumable item that would raise any single [Skill] by three whole levels.

I didn't want to rush into using it. I looked over my list of [Skills] with a critical eye, eliminated the...let's say less than useful ones… from the running and then doodled a little 'Pros and Cons' chart of the few that remained.

It was a bit sad that after all that work it wasn't really a competition. There's only one [Skill] in my arsenal that truly deserves it.

Skill Lv up x3! Physical Endurance Lv. (5/30) → (8/30)

-Your body's durability to damage from physical sources. Resistance increased from (15%)→ (24%)

Getting beaten to death leaves an impact on you. And no, that's not a fucking pun. It's not an experience I'd like to repeat anytime soon. I spent more than a few evenings grinding the [Skill] up to Lv. 5 before using the item. A distinctly unpleasant series of exercises in the jungle that left trees wrecked and most of my knuckles scraped and bloody.

Thinking back, I believe I once encountered a novel where the main character grinded a similar skill by regularly mutilating himself. 'Good time management' I think he called it. A few quick stabby stabs to the legs or stomach, let it all heal up, and then repeat ad nauseam. Massive gains in record times.

Remembering that, I've never been so relieved to be blessed without Gamer's Body or Gamer's Mind. If that's the type of self-destructive behaviors or thoughts those skills can lead to then I'll happily stay on the long route.

Still, that didn't change the fact that the route was long though. Hours and hours of beating my fists to level up an 'experience bar' who's progress I couldn't see. In the end, I only kept through with it because my first round with Blackjack showed the [Skill] was close to Lv. 5 in the first place.

And it..may have been a good stress outlet for the old man constantly rebuffing me on a ride back to Caeba.

And also because one of my major flaws as a person is being a total sucker to the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' and like hell was I going to stop halfway through..but that's really a story for another day.

The familiar metal gates of Yeutton's Marine branch come into view and a large sigh of relief passes across my lips. 'Finally.'

These past two weeks have majorly sucked but now it's time for the reward to make it all worth it.

I push onward, pulling along a wooden cart behind me that I'd rented off a merchant. One of the wheels takes a brief dip in a pothole and Wulfric immediately starts screaming his head off again. I'm not exactly sure what he's saying, what with the gag in his mouth and hood over his head and all, but based on the tone I'm going to guess it was an insult to my mother.