Marcus stared at his experience bar, watching the numbers tick upward.
From 62% to 62.5%.
Half a percent. That's what he'd gotten for disenchanting an entire golden sword.
"Well... shit."
He ran the math in his head. Killing livestock these days gave him basically nothing, maybe 0.0001% per animal. So getting 0.5% from a single disenchant was huge by comparison.
But still. Half a percent per sword? That ant he'd need two hundred enchanted weapons just to gain a single level at his current progression rate.
"Better than nothing, I guess."
He grabbed another enchanted golden sword from the chest and placed it on the grindstone.
Ding.
The enchantnt dissolved, flowing into him as a tiny trickle of experience. He grabbed the next sword. And the next.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Grab sword, place on grindstone, remove enchantnt, toss the plain sword aside. Repeat. The pile of disenchanted weapons grew steadily beside him while the enchanted stack in the chest dwindled.
His hands moved on autopilot. This was basically the Minecraft equivalent of farming mobs for hours.
When he finally looked up, the chest was empty and his back was sore from hunching over.
Level 57.
Two full levels from that grinding session. Not bad, considering where he'd started.
He stretched. Then he turned to look at the transmutation tablet sitting in the corner, and an idea struck him.
He walked over and pulled up the interface. Sure enough, enchanted golden swords were available for purchase using EMC. The cheapest ones, Sharpness I with barely any durability left, cost 2,120 EMC each.
He checked his current balance: 830 million EMC.
A quick calculation made his eyes widen. At 2,120 per sword, he could buy 391,509 enchanted weapons. Even accounting for the exponentially increasing experience requirents at higher levels, that was enough to push him significantly further.
But he needed to test it first, and make sure purchased items worked the sa way as found loot.
He bought a single enchanted golden sword. It materialized in his hand.
He placed it on the grindstone.
Ding.
His experience bar increased.
"Yes! It works!"
Without hesitation, he dove back into the grinding. He bought enchanted swords in bulk batches, disenchanting them as fast as he could manage.
Ding ding ding ding ding.
He lost track of ti completely. Six Hours passed. Maybe more. He had no idea.
Then a different sound broke through his focus.
Whoosh.
That was the rushing sound of a level-up.
He blinked. Level 60. He'd done it.
He checked his EMC balance and imdiately winced. "700 million? I burned through 130 million EMC?"
That ant he'd disenchanted roughly... he did the math... 61,320 golden swords.
He grabbed one more enchanted sword from his latest batch and ran it through the grindstone out of curiosity.
Ding.
0.0005% experience.
He stared at the number. Back at level 54, each disenchant had given him 0.5%. Now it was giving him five ten-thousandths of a percent.
"Are you kidding ?"
He ran the numbers. To gain a single level now, he'd need to disenchant 200,000 enchanted weapons. At 2,120 EMC each, that was 424 million EMC per level.
His head throbbed, and his hands ached from the repetitive motion. Even his eyes felt strained from staring at the grindstone for hours on end.
"I need a break."
He stood up and stretched properly this ti. When he finally left the enchanting room, he found Alvida sitting in the corridor, wrapped in a blanket and looking half-asleep.
"What are you doing out here?"
She looked up at him with bleary eyes, then wordlessly reached out and grabbed onto him like a koala latching onto a tree.
He didn't resist. He just stood there while she pressed her face against his chest and apparently fell back asleep standing up.
"Okay then."
He tried knocking on the won's dormitory door while Alvida clung to him. No answer.
That made sense. Ever since they'd gotten Minecraft beds, everyone fell asleep the instant they lay down. Waking them up was nearly impossible unless you destroyed the bed or hurt them.
The door was locked from the inside anyway. He could bypass it easily enough with his abilities, but walking into the won's quarters uninvited seed like a terrible idea.
The n's dorm had the sa situation, everyone knocked out cold.
After a mont's consideration, he decided to head for the Nether Portal instead. He'd set up a spare bed down there in the Nether hub, just a regular bed rather than a Minecraft one. Alvida could sleep there just fine.
He'd only taken two steps when she shifted in his arms, moving like a sleepy cat trying to find a more comfortable position.
He glanced down at her. Her eyes were still closed. He kept walking.
Through the Nether Portal, past the main hub. He looked around for Goliath to say hello, but the iron golem had apparently gone back to the ship to recharge.
Marcus made several jumps through his teleportation network, heading down toward the bedrock layer where he'd built his private workshop area.
The mont he arrived, Alvida's eyes snapped open, suddenly bright and alert.
"Oh. You're awake."
"Hard not to be when you're teleporting around like luggage," she grumbled, but she didn't let go. "That dizzy feeling goes right through your sleep."
"Sorry. I forgot about that."
He was so used to the disorienting sensation of teleportation that he barely noticed it anymore. But everyone else on the crew still found it nauseating, especially when caught off guard.
"So what were you doing all day?" Alvida asked.
"Leveling up."
"Leveling up?"
It was a strange term.
She processed that for a mont, then smirked. "No wonder you're getting stronger so fast. You're just abusing your fruit powers."
"This kind of leveling doesn't make stronger," Marcus corrected. "It just unlocks new mods and abilities. If I want to get physically tougher, I still have to train the old-fashioned way."
"Speaking of training..." Alvida finally unwrapped her legs from around him and dropped to the ground. "Today I'm going to prove I've gotten stronger!"
She grabbed his arm and started dragging him toward their usual sparring area.
"Wait, what? Right now?"
"Right now!"
The Haki training session was brutal.
Marcus would throw stone blocks at her from random angles while Alvida tried to dodge with her eyes closed. She had been training relentlessly ever since their encounter with Crocodile. She'd seen firsthand what Logia users could do, and she was determined never to be helpless against them again.
But Marcus had been training just as hard.
They sparred for hours, pushing each other harder and harder. Alvida had definitely improved. But she still couldn't awaken Haki.
When they finally stopped, she was breathing hard.
She stared at her hands. "Damn it."
"You're getting better," Marcus offered.
"Not fast enough." She clenched her fists. "Next ti. Next ti..."
She headed back to the ship to continue her daily training routine, and began grinding hard.
Marcus watched her go, then returned to the n's dormitory to get so sleep. But first, he checked what new mod had unlocked at Level 60.
The notification made him sit up straight.
"Enchanting Infusers?!"
He was on his feet imdiately, rushing back to his enchanting room. He broke down the standard enchanting table with a few quick strikes, watching it pop into item form.
The crafting recipe appeared in his mind: three crying obsidian, two eralds, one book, and one enchanting table.
"Crying obsidian? Seriously?"
That stuff was expensive. He hadn't even set up a Respawn Anchor yet.
But this was too important to skip.
The eralds weren't a problem. He'd accumulated plenty of erald jewelry from Buggy's treasure, Arlong's hoard, and the gifts from King Cobra and Koza back in Arabasta. He'd just forgotten about them until now.
He headed to the storage room, where piles of treasure sat collecting dust. A quick search turned up an erald-encrusted dagger and a matching necklace.
He handed them to Goliath, who used his Munch-Munch Fruit ability to break them down into pure erald gems.
"Perfect."
With the materials gathered, he crafted the Basic Enchanting Infuser. But there was an even more advanced version available. The Advanced Enchanting Infuser required netherite instead of eralds.
That was actually easier to get. He had plenty of netherite.
Out of curiosity, he placed down the basic enchanting infuser first, and examined the interface.
This thing was basically cheat mode for enchanting.
It could apply custom enchantnts and even combine effects. Sharpness, Bane of Arthropods, and Smite, all three on one sword, sothing that should've been impossible in vanilla Minecraft.
Just like he rembered from the modded version he'd played.
The interface had a sliding scale for each enchantnt level, with different tiers consuming varying amounts of experience and lapis lazuli. So of the chanics had been tweaked slightly from the original mod, but the core functionality remained intact.
And there was one feature he liked.
You could use EMC to offset experience costs. Lapis lazuli could also be directly purchased with EMC rather than mined.
"That's incredibly convenient."
After a mont's consideration, he upgraded the basic infuser to the advanced enchanting infuser. If he was going to do this, he might as well go all the way.
He was curious what additional features the upgraded version would unlock. He opened the advanced enchanting infuser interface.
The layout was familiar, nearly identical to the basic version but with additional options scattered throughout the nus.
The EMC deduction feature was still there, thank god.
The upgraded infuser could apply multiple enchantnts simultaneously, modify existing enchantnts without removing them entirely, repair damaged enchanted items, and, most interestingly, break through normal enchantnt level caps.
There was a restriction, though. It could only push enchantnts to double their normal maximum.
Sharpness V was usually the cap. Now he could reach Sharpness X. That was the new limit for this system.
And it had unlocked additional enchantnts that didn't exist in vanilla Minecraft.
He imdiately noticed the Sweeping Edge option available for swords.
In the ga, this enchantnt caused area-of-effect damage with sword swings, and higher levels increased the damage of the initial strike significantly.
But what would it do in reality?
Would it create actual sword waves? Ranged slashing attacks?
His curiosity was burning, but he wasn't about to experint with the Shichiseiken. That sword was too valuable, better to test with sothing disposable.
He grabbed a diamond sword from his storage and maxed out Sweeping Edge to level VI using the Infuser.
The ship clearly wasn't the right place to test destructive enchantnts. He needed open space and disposable targets, so he teleported straight to the Nether.
The mont he arrived, an enderman spotted him and teleported directly into his face. But he was ready. His sword was already in motion before the enderman fully materialized.
A pale blue slash shot out from his blade, cutting through the enderman and continuing forward into the distance.
"Damn... It actually creates flying slashes."
The power wasn't bad either. Roughly comparable to Zoro's early 36 Pound Phoenix technique, back when the swordsman had first started developing ranged attacks.
And that was without using much force or coating the blade in Haki.
Marcus coated the diamond sword in Armant Haki. He looked toward a massive group of zombified piglins wandering in the distance.
"Let's see what happens with a normal swing."
A flash of sword light. The pale blue slash shot forward, amplified by his Haki. Over two hundred zombified piglins were instantly cut down. The slash kept going, cutting through netherbrick and glowstone before finally dissipating into the air.
He switched to a regular unenchanted diamond sword and swung again with the sa amount of force.
This ti the slash cut down about 156 zombified piglins before fading.
"So it boosts flying slashes by roughly a third... and there seems to be a distance limit before the effect disperses."
---
Back on the ship, Marcus checked through the rest of the available enchantnts. Most were standard options he recognized from various Minecraft versions. Protection, Unbreaking, nding, Fortune, Efficiency, all the classics were there.
But there were additional enchantnts that caught his attention.
For swords, new options had appeared: Channeling, Thorns, Protection, Projectile Protection, and Feather Falling.
Normally, Channeling only worked on tridents. The others were exclusively armor enchantnts.
But now they were all available for swords.
Channeling on a sword... would that summon lightning strikes on whoever got hit? Or would the wielder call down lightning sohow?
Even stranger were the armor enchantnts. What possible use were Thorns, Protection, and Feather Falling on a sword?
Would holding the sword grant damage reduction? That seed absurd, but then again, the Shichiseiken could manipulate ghost energy to heal its wielder. Maybe it wasn't that far-fetched in this rged Minecraft-One Piece reality.
"Only one way to find out."
Marcus grabbed another diamond sword to use as a test subject.
The Shichiseiken imdiately released a surge of ghostly energy, expressing its displeasure.
The sword's consciousness was getting increasingly agitated, radiating jealous resentnt as Marcus kept experinting with other weapons.
"Don't fuss. I'll upgrade you too once I figure out what works best."
The Shichiseiken quieted down, though ghostly energy still leaked out sporadically, clearly showing its impatience.
Marcus ignored the moody sword and began applying enchantnts to the diamond sword test subject.
But when he saw the EMC cost for Channeling, he froze.
Earlier, when adding Sweeping Edge, he'd checked the costs carefully:
Sweeping Edge I: 1,000 EMC (sa as Sharpness I).
Level II: 2,000 EMC.
Level III: 3,000 EMC.
The cost increased by 1,000 per level, which seed reasonable.
But after reaching level IV, the price jumped to 6,000 EMC, double the expected cost, presumably because it exceeded the original level cap.
Level V was 9,000, and level VI followed the sa pattern.
But Channeling started at 10,000 EMC right from level I. And Channeling II didn't cost 20,000, it jumped straight to 40,000.
He worked through the logic. If the base cost was high because Channeling was normally a trident-exclusive enchantnt, then applying it to a sword would double the cost due to equipnt type restriction. That would make level I cost 20,000... but it only showed 10,000.
Wait, no. He had it backwards.
The base cost for Channeling I on a trident would be 5,000 EMC. Applying it to a sword doubled it to 10,000. Then Channeling II would normally cost 10,000, but crossing equipnt restrictions doubled it to 20,000, and exceeding the normal level cap doubled it again to 40,000.
"That's an expensive enchantnt."
But he applied it anyway. He had 700 million EMC sitting unused. What was 10,000 compared to that?
The diamond sword began emitting a hazy purple glow.
He teleported back to the Nether to test it out.
This ti he stayed at a distance and launched a flying slash at a group of zombified piglins, he wasn't eager to get struck by lightning if the enchantnt worked on the wielder instead of the target.
The slash killed the zombified piglins instantly.
No lightning strike followed.
He frowned. "Too much damage? Or do flying slashes not trigger Channeling?"
That made sense. With tridents, the Channeling effect only activated when the weapon itself hit the target.
He looked around the Nether until he spotted an enderman that had just spawned nearby.
The mont their eyes t, the enderman teleported directly in front of him. He thrust the enchanted diamond sword straight into the enderman's chest.
Thunder crashed through the Nether.
Even though the enderman died instantly from the sword strike, a massive bolt of lightning still struck down from above, completely vaporizing the ender pearl that had started to drop.
Marcus stood there, staring at the scorch marks on the ground.
"So that's what Channeling I does... but what does level II improve?"
Channeling I already summoned a lightning bolt from above. What did level II add? Two lightning bolts instead of one? More damage? Longer duration?
He hadn't noticed any obvious difference when the lightning struck the enderman.
Marcus ran another test, this ti comparing Channeling I and Channeling II on separate diamond swords. He stabbed zombified piglins with each blade, observing the resulting lightning strikes.
The difference between the two levels wasn't obvious at all. At least, he couldn't detect anything particularly special about the upgraded version.
After the fifth test yielded the sa unclear results, he gave up trying to figure it out.
"Probably like Infinity I versus Infinity II. Both are infinite anyway, so what's the point of the distinction?"
He headed back to the enchanting room and placed the Shichiseiken on the advanced enchanting infuser.
Ti to go absolutely crazy with this thing.
Sharpness X, Bane of Arthropods X, Smite X, Knockback IV, Fire Aspect IV, Channeling II, Looting VI, Sweeping Edge VI, Power X, Punch IV, Fla II, Infinity II...
Even though so of these enchantnts were weird combinations, he didn't care. He maxed out every single option available.
He didn't even notice his EMC balance was plumting at an alarming rate as each enchantnt was applied.
Quick Charge VI, Piercing VIII, Multishot II, Loyalty VI, Riptide VI, Impaling X.
"Hm?"
The Shichiseiken started trembling violently on the enchanting table, releasing thick waves of ghostly energy.
Marcus placed his hand on the sword's hilt.
The intense ghost energy imdiately crawled up his arm. A strange sensation spread through his palm.
"Don't worry. I'll fill you up completely," he said with a grin, selecting the next batch of enchantnts.
A few tens of thousands of EMC at most. He glanced at the remaining options.
Efficiency?
What would a mining enchantnt even do on a sword?
"Screw it. Add it anyway."
Efficiency X, Silk Touch II, Fortune VI, Luck of the Sea VI, Lure VI.
Then ca the armor enchantnts.
Protection VIII, Fire Protection VIII, Blast Protection VIII, Projectile Protection VIII, Thorns VI, Respiration VI, Aqua Affinity II, Feather Falling VIII, Depth Strider VI, Unbreaking VI, nding II, Frost Walker IV, Soul Speed VI.
After maxing out literally every single enchantnt available, he nodded in satisfaction.
The Shichiseiken now shimred with a dark aura, looking like sothing pulled straight from a fantasy ga's endga content.
Marcus reviewed the long list of enchantnts displayed in the interface.
"That'll do."
As for weird combinations like Frost Walker and Lure on a sword... he couldn't care less. Maximum everything was the goal, and he'd achieved it.
"Huh. No reaction?"
Usually at this point, the Shichiseiken would release ghostly energy to express its emotions. But this ti, the sword was completely silent.
Marcus channeled so Haki into the blade to activate the ghost energy. And then he understood what was happening. He'd poured in too much at once.
The Shichiseiken was completely full, overwheld by the sheer volu of new powers it had absorbed. The sword seed to be... processing.
"Let's see what you can do now."
He carried the Shichiseiken to the Nether, trying to figure out how to properly test all these enchantnts at once.
The mont he started thinking about attacking, flas and lightning began coiling around the blade. And on top of that... he felt cold.
He looked down. At so point, frost had ford beneath his feet without him noticing, spreading outward in a thin layer.
He blinked.
The frost was there, and he could sense the chill, but it didn't actually feel cold. There was no uncomfortable freezing sensation.
In the distance, zombified piglins had respawned and were wandering aimlessly.
He gave a light swing.
A brilliant purple slash tore through the air, wreathed in terrifying flas and crackling with lightning. It struck the piglins directly.
"Wait, what?"
Lightning had coated the slash, traveling with it through the air.
Was this the Channeling effect? No, that hadn't happened when he'd used Channeling on the diamond sword. That had only triggered lightning on direct physical hits.
Then he felt it, the Shichiseiken transmitting emotions to him.
"Ah, Haki... so Channeling II lets you infuse lightning into the blade, not just summon it on impact. I wasn't triggering it before because I wasn't coating the weapon with Haki. And since the Shichiseiken has sentience, it can control when to activate the effect."
The sword radiated joy.
At this mont, the ghostly energy of the Shichiseiken was unbelievably gentle.
So gentle that he actually felt uncomfortable.
In the past, even when his Haki had forcibly dominated the blade, the sword had only appeared to obey. Deep down it had remained proud, constantly sending little waves of protest and dissatisfaction.
But now? Not only was it docile, there was even this strange sense of devotion.
The sword answered his unspoken question with a single concept transmitted directly to his mind: Loyalty.
"Ah..." Marcus rembered now.
Normally, Loyalty was just a trident enchantnt that made the weapon return to the thrower after being thrown.
But after exceeding the normal level cap, or perhaps because the Loyalty enchantnt had been applied to a sentient weapon, sothing had changed.
"Well... I guess that's not a bad thing."
His hand glided lightly over the blade. He could feel the intense heat of the flas coating it, but the fire and lightning didn't hurt him at all. As his fingers traced along the edge, his Haki flowed naturally into the sword.
The flas and lightning flared more intensely in response.
Combined with the sword's own ghostly fire, it was as if sothing deep inside the blade had been switched to maximum output.
He nodded in satisfaction.
The Infinity enchantnt had definitely changed.
He'd only infused a small amount of Haki initially, but once it entered the sword, the energy seed to achieve perpetual motion. The power level was locked at full capacity, maintaining itself without any additional input needed.
As long as he channeled Haki once, this taphorical eight-cylinder engine would keep roaring in his hand. And as long as he maintained physical contact with the hilt, the power would never fade or diminish.
"In that case... let's see what happens when I actually try."
He took a proper fighting stance.
Armant Haki coated his arms.
In an instant, his shirt was shredded by the sheer force of his power, bursting into countless strips of cloth that fluttered through the Nether's strange atmosphere.
Countless arcs of lightning and tongues of fla coiled around his arms. Even more shocking, waves of ghostly fire burst from his arms alongside the other elents. The spectral flas snarled and writhed.
As he gathered power, the thin layer of frost beneath his feet rapidly expanded outward. Just as he prepared to swing, he felt a surge from the blade, ghost energy mixing with enchantnt effects, multiplying the power exponentially.
The air around him rippled violently.
"Serious Slash!"
The sword slash tore through the Nether. Black ghostly energy mixed with roaring flas and crackling lightning. The air warped around the attack. Everything in the slash's path simply ceased to exist, devoured by the overwhelming combination of elents.
The zombified piglins didn't even have ti to turn their heads. One second they were there, the next they were gone. Not even their drops remained. The attack had completely disintegrated them.
BOOM.
Three thousand blocks away, the slash finally hit solid netherrack. The explosion was massive. Marcus squinted into the distance and could see that at least a hundred blocks of netherrack had been completely obliterated in a straight line.
And that was just the visible damage on the surface. If you counted the entire cross-section of destruction... this single attack had wiped out thousands of blocks.
"Holy shit," he muttered. "That's... actually kind of terrifying."
He'd known the enchantnts would make the Shichiseiken stronger, but this was on another level entirely. Based on what he'd just seen, that single swing had the destructive power of a strong swordsman, maybe even approaching Great Swordsman territory.
And he hadn't even used advanced techniques. Just raw strength amplified by basic Armant Haki and the sword's enchantnts.
As he stood there processing what he'd just done, slow clapping echoed through the Nether.
He spun around.
Goliath stood a few ters away.
"When did you get here?"
"I followed you through the portal earlier. You've been jumping between locations so frequently that I thought it prudent to maintain proximity in case of ergencies."
Marcus thought back and vaguely rembered seeing Goliath behind him at so point. He just hadn't paid much attention at the ti.
Goliath gestured toward the Shichiseiken. "The sword was already a Great Grade before your modifications. As a cursed weapon, it naturally amplifies its wielder's strength through the ghost energy it generates. But with these enchantnts... Even an average swordsman could challenge top-tier fighters while wielding it now."
Marcus looked down at the blade in his hands.
"I guess I did create sothing pretty crazy, huh?"
"'Pretty crazy' hardly does it justice," Goliath said seriously. "You've created what can only be described as a divine weapon. Though even that term feels insufficient given the sheer amount of power you've invested in it."
Marcus scratched his head. Nobody was immune to a well-placed complint, after all.
The mont he stepped onto the deck with the upgraded Shichiseiken, Zoro opened his eyes. The swordsman had been napping against the mast, but sothing had yanked him out of sleep. He sat up straight.
For soone who'd dedicated their entire life to the blade, the presence of a truly powerful weapon was impossible to ignore. It called to them on so primal level, like a predator recognizing another predator's scent.
His eye locked onto the Shichiseiken in Marcus' hand.
He'd felt the weapon's aura before, back when Marcus had first claid it. But the sword's presence had grown so intense that it was radiating pressure even while dormant.
It was like Luffy spotting a feast when he was starving, or Sanji seeing a gorgeous woman walk past, or Zoro himself slling rare aged sake.
He could sense quality with just a glance. And what he was sensing from the Shichiseiken right now made his palms itch.
"What did you do to it?"
Marcus walked past him, trying and failing to suppress a smug grin. "What do you an?"
"Don't play dumb. Did the Shichiseiken get stronger again?"
"Oh, you noticed?" Marcus said innocently. "Yeah, I did so work on it last night."
He leaned against the railing and stared out at the ocean dramatically. "Man, how many days have we been sailing? When are we gonna reach the next island?"
Zoro's eye twitched. The guy was practically vibrating with the need to explain what he'd done. But his curiosity won out. "Alright, I'll bite. How did you upgrade it?"
"Well, since you asked so nicely..." Marcus briefly explained about the enchanting infuser.
Everyone on the crew knew about the enchanting room, he had never kept it secret. But none of them had actually seen what it could do until now.
"So you're telling ," he said slowly, "that you can make weapons this much stronger?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Could you... do the sa thing to mine?"
Marcus' grin widened. "Well, I don't know. Could I?"
"Marcus."
"Maybe I could. Maybe I couldn't."
"Marcus."
"I suppose if soone asked nicely—"
"For fuck's sake, Marcus, will you enchant my swords or not?!"
Marcus laughed and held out his hand. "Alright. Hand them over."
Zoro imdiately unbuckled his sword belt and passed all three blades to him.
Marcus hurried toward the enchanting room. This was going to be aweso.
He placed Wado Ichimonji on the enchanting infuser first and started selecting the first enchantnt. After adjusting the level of Sharpness to 10, the interface wouldn't let him proceed.
"What the hell?"
He checked his EMC balance and froze.
The number staring back at him was 732.
"...What?"
He closed the interface and opened it again, certain there had been so kind of glitch.
732 EMC.
"No. No, that's wrong. That has to be wrong."
He'd had 700 million EMC. SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION. And now he had seven hundred?
"Where the fuck did it all go?!"
The last thing he'd done was enchant the Shichiseiken. He'd maxed out every single enchantnt available, but surely that couldn't have cost 700 million EMC. That was insane.
Unless...
He pulled up the enchantnt cost breakdown and started reading through it. His face went pale as the numbers sank in.
The first few enchantnts had been cheap. A few thousand EMC each. But then the costs had started climbing. Each new enchantnt added to the weapon increased the price of the next one exponentially.
At first it was double. Then triple. Then quadruple. The costs had snowballed completely out of control.
By the ti he'd gotten to the later enchantnts, each one was costing hundreds of thousands of EMC. So of the final additions had cost over a million each.
"Oh my god, I'm an idiot..."
He'd been so excited about maxing everything out that he hadn't even glanced at the total cost. He'd just kept adding enchantnts until he ran out of options.
700 million EMC, gone in a single crafting session.
In his head, he'd figured the upgrade would cost maybe a few hundred thousand at most. That would've been manageable. After all, converting a Devil Fruit cost around eighty million. Compared to that, a few hundred thousand seed reasonable.
But 700 million?
His chest hurt.
For a mont, he seriously considered reverting all the enchantnts and starting over. But the system quickly made it clear that wasn't an option, removing enchantnts would cost even more EMC as a penalty fee. This wasn't like using a grindstone where you got your experience back. Once the EMC was spent, it was gone.
"Shit. What am I supposed to do now?"
The problem wasn't really about the EMC shortage itself. He could always generate more eventually. What actually worried him was that he'd promised Zoro he'd enchant his swords, and now he was basically broke.
He teleported to the Nether and spent the next hour clearing out all the zombified piglin drops that he and Goliath had accumulated over the past few days. The loot converted to about a hundred and twenty thousand EMC.
It was sothing, but nowhere near enough.
He searched through every storage chest on the ship, converting anything he didn't need. After scraping together every resource he could find, he barely managed to enchant Zoro's three swords with Fire Aspect VI, Sharpness X, and Power X.
It was way less than what he'd done to the Shichiseiken, but at least it was sothing.
When he delivered the enchanted swords back to Zoro, the swordsman's eye lit up as he felt the power radiating from the blades.
"These are incredible," he said, giving Sandai Kitetsu a few test swings. "Way better than before."
"Glad you like them," Marcus said, trying not to show his relief. "If you want more enchantnts later, just let know. I'll add them when I can."
Zoro nodded, completely satisfied. He didn't ask about the Shichiseiken or why his swords hadn't gotten as many enchantnts. After all, he knew Marcus' cursed sword was special, it made sense that it would have unique properties.
Marcus was about to head back to his room when he caught sight of Alvida leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, staring at him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
Oh. Right.
On the ship, there were only a handful of people who fought with weapons. Three-sword style Zoro. One-sword style Marcus. Mace-wielding Alvida. Nami technically used a weapon, but her Clima-Tact was more of a specialized tool than a traditional weapon. And Vivi was already getting tired of her Peacock Slashers.
Everyone else fought with their fists, legs, or Devil Fruit powers.
So he had enchanted Zoro's swords and his own sword, but had completely forgotten about Alvida. His eye twitched. Keeping everyone happy was harder than fighting enemies sotis.
"Alvida—"
She held up a hand. "Before you start making excuses, just tell honestly. Can you enchant my mace?"
"Not right now."
After comforting her and explaining the current situation, she readily accepted it.
He sighed in relief again.
After Alvida left, he headed straight back to the Nether. He needed to start farming EMC again. Fortunately, he had Goliath's help.
In a short ti, he managed to accumulate over a million EMC. But he stopped. It wasn't that he didn't want to keep farming, but they had already reached their next island.
He went back to the ship, climbed up to the main deck, and squinted at the island in the distance. It wasn't Jaya, which ant it definitely wasn't Mock Town.
He observed his map, and his eyes widened. There was a treasure marker on the island. The sa kind of marker that had led him to the Chira Fruit.
anwhile, Nami began preparing for the next expedition.
Although the ship's water needs were basically handled thanks to the infinite water system, they still had to store so normal water, after all, there were tis when real water was necessary. For instance, when cooking soup, Minecraft water couldn't boil, and many ingredients required slow simring.
The crew made landfall five minutes later. After so discussion about how to split up for resource gathering, they drew lots to determine who would handle what tasks.
He ended up with fruit and food collection, which worked out perfectly given the treasure marker's location. He wouldn't have to make excuses about wandering off alone.
Except he wasn't going to be alone. Vivi volunteered to help him, and not wanting to be left out, Alvida tagged along as well
The three of them set off into the forest, with Marcus following the treasure marker on his map. Vivi and Alvida walked behind him, chatting pleasantly about training routines and combat techniques.
After about twenty minutes of walking, they reached a small clearing. In the center stood a tree with strange-looking fruit hanging from its branches.
But Marcus wasn't looking at the regular fruit. His eyes were locked on a small fruit hanging from a low branch, one covered in spiral patterns, shaped vaguely like an ear with lips on top. It looked kind of like a cashew, if cashews had mouths.
Vivi and Alvida were still chatting and didn't notice at first. But when Marcus reached up and plucked the fruit from the tree, they both fell silent.
"Is that a Devil Fruit?" Vivi asked.
"Yes."
Marcus turned the fruit over in his hands, examining the na.
Whisper-Whisper Fruit.
He stared at it for a long mont.
"No way," he muttered. He was taken aback. It seed like the Devil Fruits really could choose their own owners.
"What is it?" Alvida asked, moving closer to look.
"It's the Whisper-Whisper Fruit."
"Whisper-Whisper?" Alvida frowned. "That doesn't sound powerful."
Vivi, however, covered her mouth in shock. "It actually appeared!"
"What do you an 'appeared'?"
Vivi quickly explained that Devil Fruits sotis seed to choose their own users, appearing when soone needed them or was ant to have them.
Alvida's expression turned complicated. When she'd gotten her Slip-Slip Fruit, hadn't Marcus been the one who'd given it to her? So was that the fruit choosing her, or Marcus choosing her?
She felt confused about what that ant.
Then she looked at the fruit and didn't know what to say. After all of Vivi's training and dedication, this was the fruit she'd wanted? Even a Zoan-type Devil Fruit would've made more sense for combat purposes.
"So you've been working so hard, just to get a fruit that lets you... whisper to people?"
"It's more than that," Vivi said defensively. "The Whisper-Whisper Fruit would let communicate over long distances, gather information without being detected, coordinate allies in battle... It's perfect for soone with my skills."
"If you say so."
While the two won discussed the fruit's potential uses, Marcus remained silent, turning the Devil Fruit over in his hands.
Of course this would happen now, right when he had less than a million EMC left. Was the fruit sohow sensing danger, or was this just really bad timing?
He weighed the fruit in his palm, considering his options. After a mont, he stored the fruit in his inventory.
Vivi blinked in surprise. Alvida frowned. "Marcus?"
"I need to record the data first."
Both won relaxed.
Vivi, though curious, wasn't impatient. Her mind was already wandering, imagining ways she could develop the powers of the Whisper-Whisper Fruit.
"You two handle the regular fruit. I'm going to check if there are any other interesting resources on this island."
As for the rest of the fruit-gathering work, he left that to Vivi and Alvida. He returned to the ship, stepped through the Nether Portal, and got back to grinding EMC.
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