Chapter 73: Cultivation direction

“21,000 military skill points…The total bounty for all the crew members of the Fuji Pirates was almost a little over 200 million, it seems that the reward was set according to the bounty offered by the world government.”

Ron walked out of an office while touching his chin.

In the marine headquarters, 2,000 military points would grant you a promotion to the position of a commander, 5,000 military points to reach the captain position, 10,000 military points for the commodore, and to attain the rear admiral position a total of 30,000 military points was needed.

This meant that if Ron applied for the graduation examination at that moment, he would be a commodore of his department if he passed it, and in case he gets additional 9000 military points, he would become a rear admiral, after passing the graduation examination.

It might look effortless, but in fact, it’s very difficult to obtain military achievement points in the marines. Once a recruit becomes an official marine officer, even if he managed to defeat a whole pirate group alone, the obtained military achievement points would be distributed in proportion to the subordinates under his leadership.

But recruits were different.

The recruits who were still entitled to newcomer camp were privileged in acquiring military achievement points. In other words, the accomplished military skill points wouldn’t be distributed without anyone else.

For instance, if Ron was a rear admiral who led a group of marine officers and defeated the Fuji Pirates, from the 21,000 points, he would only get 14,000 points, and one-third of these points would be distributed between his subordinates.

“It would better to find a way to collect the remaining 9000 military achievement points first.”

Ron did not rush to apply for early graduation. After learning about the rules and conditions of the military achievement points distribution, he wondered whether it would be more effective to collect the 30,000 skill points before applying for graduation.

The rank of a rear admiral was his next target. Such rank has the privilege to ask for a devil fruit. Although it would be just one of the most common Zoan devil fruits, for Ron, the ability didn’t really matter.

After leaving the marine headquarters, Ron flew to the coast.

After reaching 100 points, Ron’s use of mental powers became more and more proficient. He basically no longer relied on his physical body to do any type of movement, even walking was replaced by flying.

Besides his flying ability, Ron also mastered some kind of physical barrier, in which he wrapped his body with a layer of constantly rotating spiritual barriers.

Compared with the magic barrier, the spiritual barrier was more flexible and had no blind spot, covering all directions. Although its defense was not as good as the one of the magic barrier, it could at least resist basic attacks, such as ordinary bullets, which would be easily reflected.

The cool thing about this trick was that it was purely based on the use of spiritual power, and there was no conflict with magic that could be used simultaneously.

That was to say, in case of a difficult battle, Ron would first use his stone armor technique, then apply his mental power barrier, and could also add his magic barrier in case of encountering a powerful attack.

A three-layered defensive shield that would give a vice-admiral trouble to penetrate through it.

In addition,

After mastering the third-level of wind system, and acquiring more knowledge about its runes, Ron learned auxiliary wind magic that could increase his body speed. Also, with his 100 points of mental power, his flying speed became extremely fast, that even without using Heavy Load, a rear admiral would never be able to catch him.
After all, Geppo (Moonwalk) is a technique that relies a lot on physical strength, to hop and kick the air to stay afloat. It was not a true flying ability. It focuses on flexibility rather than speed. Its speed is naturally less then Soru (shaving) when used on the ground.

On the ground, Ron’s speed was far inferior to that of a vice admiral, even if a rear admiral should be faster than him, but in the air, with his Heavy load technique, Ron estimated that even an HQ vice admiral would have trouble chasing him relying only on Geppo.

In the face of a vice admiral, which lacks the ability to fly, even if he couldn’t win, Ron should be able to protect himself.

That was the level that Ron reached.

In fact, with his new element affinity, Ron no longer considered Doflamingo as a major threat but wasn’t a matter of strength. But Ron could easily outrun him and use the sea as a shield, which was the worst enemy of any devil fruit user.

But…

Even if he could protect himself that way, it would be very embarrassing, and it would be a great hit to his pride and dignity as a true magician.

Standing in the sky, after a single wave of his magic wand, Doflamingo instantly turned into powder… One Strike! One Kill! That was Ron’s goal.

Ron was lost in his thoughts for a while.

Soon after, he summoned the achievement system and switched to the achievement interface.

There was some achievement that wouldn’t appear on the interface unless certain conditions were encountered. This made Ron check the achievement interface from time to time, so he wouldn’t miss any achievement worth accomplishing.

“oh!”

This time, Ron was a little surprised. He noticed that there was a newly added achievement entitled “Rear Admiral”, completed on the condition of reaching that rank.

“Oh! That would be great! Graduating as rear admiral will grant me an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, the devil fruit, and an achievement.”

Ron smiled.

His total achievement point at the moment was 62 points.

When his mental power broke through the 100 points barrier, his total achievement point was 54 points. After the breakthrough, he first mastered the third-level magic and completed the achievement of the “Magic Master”, getting 3 achievement points.

The killing of the Fuji pirate group completed four achievements at once.

[Rising Star: kill a pirate with a reward of more than 30 million Berries]

[Famous Prey: kill a pirate with a reward of more than 100 million Berries]

[Excessive Force: Destroy a medium-sized ship or more]

[Sword & Magic I: Kill a swordsman with magic]

These four achievements brought Ron a total of 5 achievement points, where “Famous Prey’’ was 2 points, and the others were 1 point each, and the last two were hidden achievements that Ron didn’t see before.

Besides, the last two previously hidden achievements were not single. Both were a part of an achievement series. Among them, there was “Lose Control” and ‘’Mad Destructor’’ behind the ‘’Excessive Force’’, completed under the condition of destroying at least ten medium-sized and one large-sized ship for the former. And at least three large-sized vessels along with 30 mid-size ships should be destroyed the latter.

As for the “Sword and Magic I” there was a “Sword and Magic II” upward, with the request to kill a grand-master swordsman, which was temporarily out of Ron’s consideration.

He wasn’t sure about the abilities of a grand-master swordsman, and how efficient his skills would be against him.

“Vista of the Flower Swords”, the former 5th division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, was only judged as a swordsman master, not a grand-master. So far, the only confirmed swordsman with such a title was Dracule “Hawk Eyes” Mihawk, the strongest swordsman in the world.

Mihawk was way stronger than Doflamingo, and surpassing him with many levels, the other masters were considered the strongest in the sea.

And considering Ron’s current strength, they were out of his league.

Ron’s current objective was to gather as many achievement points as possible to unlock the third-level magic of the remaining systems department, fire and earth, and to explore the second-level magic of the guardian system to fill this vacancy.

Among these abilities, the second-level magic of the guardian system had the highest priority.

The reason was so simple. Ron’s third-level wind magic was too powerful, but its releasing time was so long. Even if he managed to unlock the third-level fire magic, it wouldn’t be easy to form a complicated spell like he did with the first and second level magics.

Unable to form the magic combination, the practical significance of exploring third-order fire magic was not that great, and even the gained strength improvement would be minor.

On the contrary, unlocking the second-level magic of the guardian magic would serve as a great asset, and it would bring a satisfactory improvement.