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Erase the Devil Fruit's fear of Seastone and the sea?
Staring at that line of description, Sam couldn't help thinking about Devil Fruits in the One Piece world. If those people ever found out about this, they'd probably lose their minds.
Devil Fruits were insanely powerful, sure, but they came with fatal flaws. Seastone. The ocean. One wrong step and you were done for.
Even if the story later retconned some things, those weaknesses never truly went away.
And now, all it took to erase those drawbacks was a pile of Dimensional Coins.
Sure, it cost ten thousand.
But it was absolutely worth it.
After all, even Whitebeard, the so-called strongest man in the world, the guy who could destroy the world itself, still couldn't escape those weaknesses despite having fully mastered the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
Of course, none of that really had anything to do with Sam. It wasn't like he knew Whitebeard personally.
He shook his head and focused back on the description, eyes glinting slightly.
With Chairman privileges, removing a Devil Fruit's weaknesses and strengthening its effects together only cost two thousand points.
That was with the Chairman discount. A regular member would have to pay twenty thousand Dimensional Coins for the same thing.
"…"
Sam grinned. "So this is the perk of being Chairman, huh? Man, being a privilege-abusing bastard feels amazing."
"It's basically cheating."
Robin: "…No. You were already cheating to begin with."
Thinking about everything he'd drawn so far, Sam nodded seriously.
Yeah. Fair point.
I am Sam "Actually Cheating".
Sigh. Even though this totally slapped me in the face for saying I wouldn't rely on cheats, a cheat-powered life really is lonely at the top.
Sam couldn't help sighing.
Still, what was I even going to use this power for?
Robin: "You sure about that? Heh. I hope you can still say that later."
Sam: "?!"
Whoa. Why did it suddenly feel cold down my spine?
Did I just plant some kind of terrifying flag?
He forgot about it almost immediately and turned back to the screen in front of him.
"Come on, hurry up and strengthen it. I wanna see what changes!" Sam ordered.
The next moment, his accumulated 11,427 points dropped straight to 9,427.
He didn't react much. Money was meant to be earned and spent, after all.
Once optimization was confirmed, the Ope-Ope Fruit in front of him slowly became coated in a crystal-clear sheen, faintly glowing.
The light lingered for a dozen seconds before gradually fading away.
Sam asked, "Wisdom King, can you analyze or imitate how this works?"
"…"
Wisdom King replied, "Sorry. The Trans-Dimensional Mercenary Guild is beyond my capacity to analyze."
"Given enough time, I could optimize a Devil Fruit myself, but during its optimization process, I can't analyze its operational method at all."
"In fact… I can't even detect its existence."
"…"
Yeah, that made sense. If you could analyze it, it probably wouldn't be a lottery prize I pulled in the first place.
Wisdom King: "…"
Hey, hey, I heard that!
Why do you keep asking impossible things?
You're totally bullying me here!
Picking up the optimized Ope-Ope Fruit, Sam examined it from every angle.
The size hadn't changed much, but the upgraded version looked way better than before. The patterns on its surface were more intricate and pleasing to the eye.
"They say Devil Fruits taste awful, but this one smells fruity. Is that also part of the optimization?"
He leaned in and sniffed it, muttering, "Honestly, this Trans-Dimensional Mercenary Guild is pretty damn badass."
In Sam's opinion, just fixing the taste alone was worth the two thousand Dimensional Coins.
When you're rich, you get to be this reckless.
After mentally preparing himself, Sam bit into the Ope-Ope Fruit.
He'd braced himself because he was worried it might smell good but taste like hell.
Thankfully, after the first bite, he realized the optimized Devil Fruit actually tasted pretty good.
It was sweet, with a fruity flavor he'd never experienced before.
Not exactly heavenly ambrosia, but definitely a rare and enjoyable fruit.
"Hm. Looks like tasting awful was also one of the Devil Fruit's built-in flaws. Otherwise there's no way it'd taste like this."
So yeah, he hadn't been wrong. The optimization really had wiped out the "disgusting taste" flaw.
Good thing I didn't just grab it and eat it without checking…
Crunch.
"Damn, that's good."
By the time he finished the entire fruit, Sam clapped his hands and went to wash them.
As he washed up, information about how to use the Ope-Ope Fruit suddenly flooded into his mind, making him pause mid-motion.
"Looks like this so-called optimization does more than I thought."
"So that's how the strengthening works. It actually gives me part of the usage methods directly, even skipping some of the training and development steps."
"Wisdom King, organize the Ope-Ope Fruit's abilities for me."
"Understood."
After washing his hands, Sam lay back on the sofa and replayed the compiled data in his mind.
"....."