A few hours after their first fight against an organized pirate crew, the Spade pirates are sailing away. Zoro is currently sleeping, Ace is swimming beside the ship, and keeping up with the Merry's speed. Usopp is in the nest on the lookout, and Alvida is currently writing in her logbook. Ace, the Captain of the Spade Pirates, did something he had never achieved before: he managed to defeat a proper Captain of a pirate crew, believe it or not, it's the first time he did that, and thanks to that achievement, he got a new skill from Captain Kuro.
The skill is called Unconventional Strategies, but the rank of the skill is only a C-, for now, but the skill is already proving its usefulness to Ace, as he got an idea he never had before. It's something extremely revolutionary in how to get stronger, even while sleeping.
Acquiring points is tough work. Currently, the only two ways Ace knows how to do that are to achieve a special mission given to him by the system, but those are rare. He only received a special mission from the system once, around 7 years ago, and hasn't received one since.
The other way is to absorb seawater, and once you've absorbed the amount necessary, you convert it into points. The only drawback is once you absorb over a specific amount of seawater, it starts to take a mental toll on you, and after you get an extremely painful headache, like you couldn't believe, because you're in the sea, you can't control the amount of seawater you take in its like the system does the absorption for you It's an automatic procedure that Ace can't do anything about.
Back in Syrup village, Ace took an empty barrel, put seawater in it, and absorbed it, but he could only absorb that much in a few minutes, so he went back to just swimming. As soon as Ace acquired the new skill, he got an idea, a brilliant idea, why not use the empty spaces from the pocket dimension and fill it with seawater? If he does that, he'll be able to connect the pocket dimension to the system and control how much seawater it absorbs.
"Hey, Captain."
"Sup Alvida
"He said that it's the first time things didn't go according to his plans. Do you think he'll come for revenge?"
"Nah, and even if he does, he has to get exponentially stronger before he can defeat me. Quite frankly, I don't care what he does as long as he heeds my warning."
"You think he'll listen to the warning you gave him?"
"I was quite clear for his sake; he had better heed my warning."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Well, if he doesn't, may heaven have mercy on his soul because I know I won't. Those nice folks gave me the Merry for free. If the pirate life wasn't for him, he should've never become a pirate in the first place. Someone as brilliant as him would have easily found another job if he so wished. He made his bed, he's gotta lie in it, and if he thinks that killing a rich family is the easy way out, he's got another thing coming."
"By the way, Captain, you told me to head in a specific direction, but you didn't tell me which island we were going to."
"The Conomi islands are our destination, more specifically, Cocoyashi village."
"But Captain, isn't that place Saw-Tooth Arlong's base of operation?"
"That's right, he's been pushing his luck for quite a while. I need to have a conversation with him."
"Captain, not that second-guessing your decision, but he currently has the highest bounty in the East Blue, are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure, so how long will it take for us to arrive there?"
"It will take us a day or two based on the weather; besides, we've been delayed by that pit stop to that marine base to get Kuro's bounty."
"Well, you can't pass up on money. What type of pirates would we be if we were to pass up on free money?"
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