Two buckets of milk were gone, so Marcus headed to the livestock area and collected five more buckets, storing them away for future ergencies.
While this didn't solve the problem of illness, it provided valuable insight into how his abilities worked. As for the idea of soaking in seawater while drinking milk to counteract the weakness debuff? He'd never tried it, but most likely the weakness would be temporarily removed, only to return within seconds.
Johnny and Yosaku, who had once been Zoro's subordinates back in his bounty hunting days, imdiately perked up when they heard the ship lacked a proper cook.
"You should definitely check out the Baratie!" Johnny suggested. "It's this floating restaurant that's famous throughout the East Blue."
"Yeah, they've got incredible food and so seriously skilled chefs," Yosaku added, already looking much better after his fruit and milk treatnt.
Everything was developing exactly as Marcus rembered from the original story, which relieved him a bit. He definitely didn't want his presence to sohow prevent the original Straw Hat crew mbers from joining the ship.
But then he heard how long the voyage would take.
He froze mid-step.
"Seven days?! It's that far away?"
"Well, it's on one of the major shipping routes," Johnny explained with a smile. "All the mber nations pass through there, plus there are plenty of resources and trading opportunities nearby. It's worth the trip."
Hearing this, Marcus scratched his head. He'd thought Loguetown was much closer to their current position. After all, in the story, right after Sanji's arc ended, there was Nami's Cocoyasi Village arc, then Loguetown, and then they entered the Grand Line.
He opened his map to double-check their course.
He watched their heading, which was pointing directly toward the northern section of the map. Although most of the map remained black and unexplored, his observations over the past few days had taught him one important thing: the Red Line was positioned on the western edge of the map, and right now they were sailing in the opposite direction.
It seed they would be spending quite a bit more ti in the East Blue than he had initially calculated.
With all this island-hopping and detours, the journey would probably take at least three to four months before they even reached the Grand Line.
He stopped worrying about it. Having plenty of ti to prepare was definitely better than having to face soone like Crocodile imdiately upon entering the Grand Line.
He made his way to the livestock area and went through the routine of feeding the cows, sheep, and chickens.
Although he'd expanded the livestock area as much as the ship's design would allow, relying on animal breeding alone to quickly reach Level 20 was still proving quite difficult.
That's when he started seriously considering other people as potential sources of experience points.
At present, there were three ways he could gain experience.
The first was from his livestock breeding operation. The second was by defeating enemies in combat, even just making them surrender ntally seed to count. The third, and most unpredictable, was gaining soone's genuine approval.
This last trigger was still mysterious to him. It had happened with both Alvida and Kira before, but the circumstances weren't clear.
So far, it could only be described as "recognition," but the exact conditions remained unclear.
What bothered him was that ever since boarding the ship, Luffy's group hadn't yielded any experience points at all.
Of course, it might just be because he hadn't truly earned their recognition yet, despite being accepted as a crew mber.
For soone like Luffy, sharing food was usually the best way to show acceptance, and being invited aboard should have been enough to express approval.
But still... no experience gain.
He considered whether he should try giving Nami a gold ingot to see if that would trigger the recognition chanic. After all, her love of treasure was known.
But that wasn't really the outco he wanted. After all, at this point in the story, she hadn't yet truly acknowledged herself as part of the Straw Hats. She was still planning to leave them once she had enough money to buy back her village.
Obviously, flashing a gold ingot around could significantly affect the storyline in unpredictable ways.
As he considered these options, he felt a headache coming on.
Wait a minute. Storyline?
Could it be that he'd gained experience from changing these people's life trajectories?
In the original tiline, Alvida was supposed to be part of Buggy's crew after getting punched by Luffy. Was she important to the overall plot? Yes and no, by the ti the story reached the New World, there wasn't much depiction of her, not even when Buggy eventually beca one of the Yonko.
If it weren't for Buggy being Oda's favorite character, Alvida might not have had any significant screen ti at all.
By changing her path, Marcus might have altered a character's entire story arc, thus gaining a great amount of experience.
Kira, on the other hand, had never even appeared in One Piece originally. Changing her story didn't matter much to the overall world since she was essentially a completely new character.
This would explain why Alvida had given so much experience while Kira's contribution was relatively minimal.
One had original screen ti and plot relevance; the other didn't exist in the source material.
If that's the case, Marcus thought, does that an I should invite more original characters onto the ship? Like Yosaku and Johnny?
But in the end, he couldn't think of anything more, after all, this was still just speculation at this point.
Ti passed quietly as they sailed toward their destination.
---
On the third day of their voyage, sothing unexpected appeared on the horizon.
"Could that be the legendary Treasure Island?" Yosaku pointed toward an island in the distance that was shrouded in dark, swirling clouds. His eyes burned with excitent.
"The legendary Treasure Island?" Nami imdiately perked up at the ntion of treasure.
"Yes, exactly like it's described in all the records!" Johnny quickly added. "A small island that never changes, but it's always surrounded by those dark storm clouds. They say there's incredible treasure hidden there."
Luffy, who had absolutely no resistance to the idea of adventure, beca instantly curious.
"Let's go! To that island! Ti for so exploration!"
Usopp was equally intrigued, though a bit more nervous about the whole thing.
"But I've heard there's supposed to be a god living on the island," Alvida said thoughtfully as she gazed into the distance. "Many pirates who've angered this deity were supposedly struck down by divine punishnt."
Among pirates, this rumor was extrely popular and widely circulated.
Countless sailors claid to have seen the god, been cursed by it, and then plagued by terrible misfortune for years afterward.
Marcus, however, wasn't particularly concerne, he knew exactly what was really on that island.
Just a person trapped inside a treasure chest.
Actually, that raised an interesting question. If he freed that person from the treasure chest, would that count as altering the storyline? Would it trigger another experience gain?
The group decided to investigate the legendary Treasure Island.
As soon as they set foot on shore, Marcus had to admit that compared to normal vegetation, the plant life here was extrely... twisted.
The patterns and growth formations were sowhat like the swirls found on Devil Fruits, but far more exaggerated and unnatural.
Up ahead, Usopp crept forward nervously, only to jump back in shock when a plant shaped like an ear of corn suddenly opened what appeared to be a mouth, complete with a bright pink tongue.
"This plant has a tongue?! Is this thing an animal or what?!" Marcus approached it curiously.
He reached out to touch the bizarre plant-creature, and of course, it imdiately clamped down on his finger.
Rather than biting him, though, it seed more like it was gently holding onto him.
This gave him a bold idea, dig up its roots and see what was actually underneath.
But before he could act on this plan, the plant's root system suddenly began writhing and moving.
The next mont, he watched as the entire plant slithered away like so kind of vegetable snake.
This sight left not only him but everyone else completely stunned.
"Is this so kind of hybrid between a snake and a carnivorous plant?!" Marcus stared blankly at the retreating organism, his eyes brimming with curiosity.
In the ani, these weird plants hadn't seed like much, but seeing them in reality made him wonder about the actual biology. How was this even possible? Was it a plant that had gained animal characteristics, or an animal that looked like a plant?
Maybe it was so kind of chira species?
His curiosity was fully ignited.
And it was at that exact mont that the "god's" voice rang out across the island.
"Get out! Get out of here! Leave this sacred—"
But before the voice could finish its threatening speech, Marcus simply reached into the nearby bushes and yanked the speaker out.
The whole group froze at what they saw.
"There's a person growing out of a treasure chest?!" Luffy exclaid in surprise.
Everyone else was equally dumbfounded.
He leaned in to examine the strange figure from multiple angles, then grinned widely. "Are you the child of a treasure chest and a human? That's so cool!"
"Yes, I've lived in this chest since I was a child, what the hell! How could a treasure chest give birth to a human?!" the trapped man sputtered. "I just can't get out of this damn thing! It's been twenty years already! Are you an id—"
Marcus placed his hand directly on the treasure chest. In the next instant, the chest vanished completely.
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