Chapter 96: Returning to the Marine Headquarters

“We arrived…”

Looking at the marine headquarters ahead, Ron stopped practicing.

It took the warship about one month to complete the escort mission. Although he did not make any significant progress in enhancing his attack during this month, he realized the efficiency of his second-level magics of the guardian department during actual combat.

Before going out on a mission, he had a low chance of winning against any HQ vice admiral. He had only stronger attack power than most of them.

But at the moment, with his six-rods light prison and the elf orb, plus the enchanted elf wand, there were only a few vice admirals who could hold their grounds against him.

The military skill points required to be promoted as vice-admiral was 150,000.

With Ron’s current strength, it was indeed possible, even easy to arrest more pirates and be promoted to vice admiral as soon as he graduates, but for him, it is not so necessary.

On the one hand, there was no achievement for direct promotion to vice admiral. On the other hand, the achievements that could be obtained in the marine HQ were seven or eight and if wanted more freedom to obtain achievement points, it would be better to take charge of one of the branches after graduation.

In the past, Ron was hesitant to leave the HQ and go to a branch, but at that time, he had confidence in his current powers that he would be fine even if Doflamingo himself chose to attack.

As soon as he set foot in the port of the marine headquarters, Ron was thinking about his next plan, but suddenly his eyes flashed.

He felt a bit dizzy and his soul was unsettled. Soon, he felt that his mental strength was increasing, about 2 points of improvement.

“This feeling is…Did Nami broke through?”

Ron quickly found the source of this spiritual improvement. It was the imprint’s resonance brought by Nami. Based on his own improvement, Ron estimated that Nami’s total mental strength reached 30 points.

Thinking of this, Ron couldn’t help but lick his lips.

If he recalled correctly, Nami had 20 points of mental power before he left the marine HQ. That was more than a month.

“She managed to improve her mental power by 10 points in one month?!”

Although the mental powers could be improved easily in the early stages, Nami’s cultivation speed was a bit too fast. During his first month, his mental power was only improved by 3 or 4 points, which was less than half of Nami’s progress!

And Ron estimated that Nami wouldn’t devote all her time to cultivation and she was just meditating for a few hours a day

[Ok] (Poker face)

Ron sighed. it seemed that Nami was indeed a genius.

But he was too, and that moment, his total mental strength was close to 120 points.

…

Back at the marine headquarters, Ron went straight to the office of the affairs and took care of some things.

The first thing was to submit an early graduation application.

The second thing was to spend 30,000 military skill points in exchange for a Zoan devil fruit.

The third thing was to spend 25,000 military skill points in exchange for a large piece of Kairōseki.

The processing of Kairōseki was extremely difficult, much more difficult than mining, and only Dr. Vegapunk could make it.

Therefore, the value of processed Kairōseki was very high, especially for the one already converted into weapons and restraints, as for the raw Kairōseki, it was much cheaper.

Ron didn’t care if it was processed or raw material, he only cared about the overall size.

Therefore, the 25,000-point Kairōseki that he bought was considerably big compared to the Kairōseki sticks on the warship, that if it was cut into a spherical shape, its diameter could surpass one meter.

The office of affairs didn’t know Ron’s reason behind buying such a large piece of Kairōseki, and actually they did not care, because there were often exchanged. After all, it was the best weapon against devil fruit users.

The graduating in the advance process required quite a time before it could be finalized, and it was not possible to start the graduation assessment immediately. Hence, Ron returned to his residence after getting the Kairōseki and the devil Fruit.

…

In the center of the room.

A piece of Kairōseki with a diameter that surpassed one meter was placed there.

Ron was standing not far away. Instead of looking at the seafloor stone, he was squinting his eyes and staring at the devil fruit like he had some candy in his hand.

The last time Ron possessed a devil fruit was when he fought with one of the Donquixote Pirates high ranked officers, Senor, which ended with the latter’s death, and from that moment Rom made himself an enemy of the whole family.

Ron had also studied the devil fruit from a spiritual perspective at that time, but he could only perceive that the devil fruit contained some kind of energy and curse.

But at that time.

Ron’s spiritual power reached 100 points and using his God Mode, his observation ability reached the micro-level, that Ron became able to peep into the level of the cells.

After he increased his sight to the extreme, he could vaguely observe that the devil fruit seemed to be composed of ‘Runes’!

These runes were not the ones that Ron knows, but they are very rough and the most important point was that there was more than one rune! Countless runes connected in a complicated manner. All connected to each other, as a whole!

It was as if he was observing the most primitive component of life.

“These runes… don’t seem to be eternal runes, but they seem to have some eternal characteristics, and they are too complicated.”

Ron stared at the devil fruit, and after long observation, his eyebrows frowned.

The number of runes contained in the devil fruit was no less than 100, each of which was rough and difficult to understand. Ron couldn’t understand how it could grant animal form and powers to its user. It is impossible to understand unless he observes other Zoan devil fruits, analyses their resemblances and differences.

“I will memorize it first.”

Feeling that his soul was getting more and more ‘hungry’, wanting to devour the energy contained in the devil fruit, Ron shook his head slightly. He started memorizing the runes forming the devil fruit carefully, before he granted his soul’s desire, to devour.

Just like last time, his spirit extended to the outside of the body instantaneously, opened its big mouth like a demon thirsty for blood, and then engulfed the devil fruit in one bite, and shattered all the runes in it. After a few seconds, all the energy was extracted and quickly absorbed.

Zizi!

And then Ron discarded the rest of the devil fruit, containing the curse.

The cursed itself was also a rune. Ron pondered, he thought it might be dark, or curse magic, but it was also very rough and obscure.

All the devil fruit runes cursed part or not were intertwined, and as soon as the other part’s runes were broken, the cursed rune broke quickly and disappeared in the void, showing the same scene as the last time the devoured devil fruit was consumed.