Blake's cheat had come into this world with him.
But Blake was not Kozuki Oden. He could not stand up and swing a sword the moment he was born.
For the first few years, even when he drew complete nobodies, Blake still was not their match. All he could do was grow up slowly while quietly tempering his body.
Fortunately, Celestial Dragons generally had decent physiques.
An adult Celestial Dragon was usually around three meters tall, about the same as a Marine admiral. They only looked flabby because they never trained, and very few of them had the patience to cultivate anything.
With his outstanding physical talent, Blake could already take down some of the background mob characters before he turned ten.
These people had no Devil Fruit ability, no special physique, and no Haki. The only thing their cards could do was strengthen Blake's body.
At that rate, if Blake wanted to rely solely on his body to stand up to opponents with Armament Haki, he would probably have to stack his physique to the level of Charlotte Linlin.
The turning point came when he turned twelve.
That year, Blake awakened Observation Haki on his own.
With Observation Haki, he was suddenly at ease when dealing with nameless enemies who could not use Haki at all. His physical strength skyrocketed.
With something close to precognition on his side, he could even tangle with opponents stronger than himself.
At thirteen, thanks to his improved physique and deliberate training, Blake finally awakened Armament Haki.
From that point on, even if a nameless New World fighter with both Armament and Observation showed up among the mobs, Blake could still put up a fight.
Another three years passed. Although most of the cards he drew were still way out of his league, thanks to the efforts of all those nobodies, Blake had finally gained enough strength to rival Tina.
Blake opened his eyes. The same obedient maid came forward. The scene replayed like the previous morning.
After breakfast, Blake began yet another day of doing absolutely nothing useful.
"My current strength is about the level of a Marine Headquarters rear admiral. Training seriously makes such a huge racket now that it is getting inconvenient in the Holy Land. Looks like I will have to focus on real combat inside the system space from now on."
His identity was awkward in more ways than one.
Among the nineteen Celestial Dragon families, including those of the Five Elders, there actually was not much of a power struggle.
Aside from the truly ambitious ones who wanted to join the Holy Knights, the rest of the Celestial Dragons were good-for-nothing parasites. At most, they would get into trivial disputes over who had the right to claim a particular slave, the kind of petty conflict everyone forgot the next day.
People in the elite circle and people in the trash circle would remain polite acquaintances for life unless they were born into the same family.
Blake was, naturally, deeply embedded in the trash circle as a completely invisible nobody. Hiding was the only way to grow safely. He would not jump out until the day he could beat Imu easily in the card space.
The problem now was that Blake did not have any true direct subordinates.
The maids and guards in his estate were barely qualified to run errands. If he wanted to train any of them into real combatants, he would have to invest his ability cards into them.
According to his plan, he would not use physique- or Haki-enhancing ability cards on anyone else until he himself had reached admiral level.
If it was just an ordinary mission, he could of course leave it to CP.
But for something like going to Birka to look for the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, he honestly did not have a single subordinate he could fully trust at the moment.
If he sent CP, they would definitely bring the Rumble-Rumble Fruit back. They would also definitely submit a detailed report of the operation to the Five Elders.
That would put Blake on the Five Elders' radar. They might not care much, and they definitely would not snatch his Rumble-Rumble Fruit away.
Even so, once exposed like that, everything he did afterward would become a lot more troublesome.
With a sigh, Blake shifted his gaze to the sea.
Crocodile and Moria would, within the next few years, respectively challenge Whitebeard and Kaido. After losing, one would crawl back to Paradise to rot, while the other would start digging up graves all over the place.
Many transmigrators before him had gained their loyalty by promising revenge.
But Blake did not see himself as some master of talk-no-jutsu. He could not stand up, wave his arm, and expect powerhouses from all over the sea to line up to serve him. Those two were not exactly the type to bow their heads easily either.
Bartholomew Kuma, Jinbe, and Hanafuda were, in theory, people he could take as subordinates. But the first two had fundamental ideological conflicts with him, and the last had a deep relationship with Kaido, close enough to entrust his own child to him.
As for the Marines, that was even more of a non-starter.
Right now, with Steel Bone Kong in charge, the Marines were not as independent as they would be under Sengoku, but certain trends had already started to appear ever since Zephyr became instructor at Marine Headquarters.
Unless Blake fully displayed his talent and received the backing of the Five Elders, asking the Marines to send him their top people was nothing but a fantasy.
"Forget it. I should just focus on leveling up for now. Once I get Charlotte Linlin's Iron Balloon, I won't need to worry about safety at sea."
Blake let out another sigh and headed back to his room.
"System, activate."
After gaining Tina's Armament Haki, Blake's strength had leaped forward. He decided it was time to challenge Charlotte Linlin's card again.
If he could obtain her Iron Balloon, then even if he still fell short of elite vice admiral level, he would at least be able to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
At that point, he could finally leave Mary Geoise and head out to sea in search of suitable subordinates.
Blake reappeared in the card space, this time in a town setting.
He did not even have to look for her on purpose. A living meat mountain nearly four meters tall appeared in front of him.
It was strange when you thought about it. As a child and as an old woman, Charlotte Linlin looked almost exactly the same. Only in her youth had she been truly beautiful.
Oda had once said that the most beautiful woman on Hachinosu was Shakky. Blake disagreed. In his opinion, the most beautiful on Hachinosu had to be Bakkin, followed by Charlotte Linlin. Shakky could only rank third at best.
Before he could say anything, a fist the size of an iron cauldron came straight down toward Blake's head.
Blake dodged in a panic.
"No sense of martial ethics."
The fist smashed into the street, carving a deep crater into the road.
Another punch followed. All Blake could do was keep dodging. He had no chance to counterattack at all.
Charlotte Linlin's strength and defense were inhuman. Even with his upgraded Armament Haki, the last thing Blake intended to do was clash with her head-on.
He had never understood this world's fighting style. All those idiots who loved to slam their fists into each other's fists might look hot-blooded, but would it kill them to dodge just once?
The efficiency was unbelievably low.
Over the years of fighting in the card space, Blake had developed his own combat style.
There was nothing particularly mystical about it. He simply relied on evasion and forearm blocks to stop attacks, then struck his opponent's head and liver to cause real, decisive damage.
It sounded simple, but it already placed him above everyone on the seas.
Why did people in this world all seem to have ridiculous HP?
Because every fight on the sea boiled down to who could throw the heavier brick. You use your ultimate, I use mine, we slam them into each other and see who wins.
Dodging? Never heard of her.
Anyone who dodged would be treated like a low-level pirate.
Most of the damage was canceled out by the opponent's own attack, and the spots they hit were rarely truly vital.
In a world where everyone was basically a walking health sponge, those kinds of injuries would never kill anyone.
Charlotte Linlin threw another punch at the ground. Blake's eyes flashed.
His feet hammered against the street, and his figure blurred, reappearing on top of her massive hand. In another flash, he slipped into her front arc.
His hands formed into hammer fists, Armament Haki surging to the limit.
A ruthless, ruthless, single punch.
Charlotte Linlin was sent flying. She toppled backward, crashing into the town behind her as dust billowed into the sky.
Blake landed, but unlike the usual strongmen of this world, he did not strike a pose or stand around watching.
He sprinted straight at her again.
Finishing the enemy was important.
If they were sick, you took their life.
You wanted to play the old "stand up from the smoke cloud without a scratch and do sit-ups" routine on him?
"Drop that Iron Balloon for me!"