Spending Money
Over 100 million Beli sounded like a fortune, but Beli was like yen: the banknotes came in large denominations.
In Water 7, Franky's gang had robbed Usopp of 200 million, and it had only filled one suitcase.
That night, under the cover of Vision Wards and darkness, 130.8 million Beli passed into Ma Qiao's hands without anyone noticing.
Watching Nezumi gradually emerge from the darkness, Ma Qiao waved a hand in front of his nose in disgust.
When Nezumi activated his Q skill, [Ambush], he could hide his stench, but once he became visible, the sour reek of the sewers was impossible to conceal.
Fortunately, marines who spent years roaming the seas were much like pirates. They went years without bathing and smelled just the same, so none of his subordinates were put off by him.
By comparison, Vivi, who took a hot bath every day and spent half an hour in it each time, really wasn't a qualified Pirate Hunter.
Nezumi (Twitch) might have been a little ugly and smelled a little bad, but he was still one of the four chief retainers currently serving Ma Qiao.
Ma Qiao ordered Garen to step forward and pat him on the head as encouragement.
He definitely hadn't done that because he had seen fleas on Nezumi's head. He was simply showing concern for a subordinate as the head of the household.
Garen was the support Ma Qiao had personally appointed.
Naturally, a support and an ADC had to get nice and close.
But judging by the way Twitch bared his teeth at Garen, Ma Qiao's good intentions seemed to have fallen somewhat flat.
As heroes summoned by Ma Qiao, Twitch and Garen would carry out his orders to the letter.
Even so, they still had personalities and traits of their own.
It really was asking too much to make a noble son of the Kingdom of Demacia and a creature of darkness from the sewers of Zaun become friends.
But whether it meant forcing men together or piling men on men, there was no helping it.
Garen was a more reliable support than Ashe...
Besides, if Ashe left, who would help Ma Qiao keep an eye on Vivi while she bathed?
Surely it couldn't be Teemo, whom he was about to recruit?
That little bastard could sometimes give even Momonosuke a run for his money. Ma Qiao decided to keep him away from his good student.
Ma Qiao gestured for Nezumi and Garen, who were bristling and glaring at each other, to separate.
It was no exaggeration to say that if they met in the Rift, Garen could chase Nezumi for three blocks, as long as the gap in their levels and equipment wasn't too great.
But in front of Ma Qiao, they had to love and cherish each other and become a model bot-lane duo!
Looking at Garen's muscular arms, Ma Qiao suddenly remembered something and asked Nezumi, "Twitch, Garen can do push-ups, Ashe can draw a bow, and Ryze can meditate. What can you do for my arduous cultivation in your spare time?"
"My master."
Nezumi bowed to Ma Qiao and said, "Perhaps... I could taste the mold on cheese for you!"
"Mold?"
Ma Qiao felt his stomach churn.
Just as Ma Qiao wouldn't feel his arms ache when Garen did handstand push-ups, he wouldn't feel anything out of the ordinary when Nezumi ate mold.
But he had to admit, the idea was still a little nauseating.
Ma Qiao wasn't a picky eater. He had even eaten Vivi's "special cooking," but mold was a bit too much.
"Oh, no, no, my master, I think you've misunderstood!"
Nezumi hurriedly explained, "Besides the mold on cheese, I can taste other things for you, such as the mold on peanuts..."
"Moldy peanuts? Aflatoxin? Isn't that stuff extremely toxic to the liver?"
Ma Qiao was startled, but he quickly understood what Twitch meant.
Of course, Twitch could do push-ups like Garen.
But as a giant sewer rat, that sort of exercise wasn't his specialty. It would take twice the effort for half the result.
Come to think of it, what was a giant sewer rat best at?
Of course, it was immunity to all sorts of diseases and viruses.
By eating spoiled and poisonous food, Twitch could greatly improve Ma Qiao's resistance to disease and poison.
That was far more useful than a crude improvement like building muscle.
Ma Qiao's qilin arms were already strong enough. He didn't need the little bit of exercise Nezumi's scrawny arms and legs could provide.
But when it came to poison resistance, he was still nowhere near strong enough.
Ma Qiao could keep extending his lifespan, but that didn't mean he couldn't fall ill or even die of disease.
Plenty of people in the world of pirates had died of illness.
Leaving aside ordinary people like Usopp's mother, even Gol D. Roger, according to Rayleigh's recollection, had turned himself in to the marines because he was terminally ill and didn't have long to live.
With Twitch's thoroughly tempered resistance, Ma Qiao could handle anything, whether it was Ganges river liquor or stir-fried pork cooked in gutter oil...
None of it would be a problem!
He could even be basically immune to epidemics like the Black Death and cholera.
And besides immunity to disease, Ma Qiao would also gain the all-important poison resistance.
Ma Qiao vividly remembered the shocking scene of Impel Down's warden, Magellan, wiping out the entire Blackbeard Pirates with a single Venom Dragon.
At the same time, poison resistance in the world of pirates didn't seem to follow scientific principles.
After King Luffy gained poison resistance from Magellan, he could somehow withstand both blue-ringed octopus venom and poisonous gas, even though one was a large-molecule biological neurotoxin and the other a small-molecule hemoglobin-binding toxin with an entirely different mechanism.
So, in all likelihood, poison resistance was universal in the world of pirates.
In that case, the poison resistance Ma Qiao gained from Twitch eating spoiled food would be extremely valuable.
Ma Qiao once again ordered Garen to step forward and pat Nezumi on the head as encouragement.
No matter how unwilling Garen was, he had to accept the reality that the organization had decided he was the support.
Reciting poetry wouldn't help!
After handing over the treasure, Nezumi returned to the inn to rest.
He would find various excuses to stay on the island for a few more days, so that Ma Qiao could summon Teemo and make initial progress on the development of the Big Bird brand multifunctional Den Den Mushi before heading to G-2 Base.
As soon as Nezumi left, Garen put on a full set of protective gear, strapped on a disinfectant sprayer, and began thoroughly disinfecting the backyard.
He sprayed the spot where Nezumi had stood more than a dozen times in particular.
The wind blows the eggshell away; spend the money and enjoy the day.
Ma Qiao didn't want to spend his entire income every month either, but as the Penguin Immortal, he had far too many things to spend money on.
Ma Qiao checked every part of the tavern through his vision and found everything proceeding in an orderly fashion.
Now that Vivi had a plan to win over Teacher Ma Qiao and pry information about Mr. 0 out of him, she had behaved much better lately and hadn't sneaked out of the tavern again.
Instead, she was always hanging around Ma Qiao's office.
One moment she would bring him chicken soup, the next she would ask him a question. In short, she tried every possible way to find a chance to search for information.
Vivi hadn't believed a single word of Ma Qiao's nonsense about him and Miss All Sunday being nothing more than ordinary friends.
Relying on her maidenly intuition, Vivi firmly believed that the stinky old uncle and that old auntie had to have some kind of illicit relationship!
In fact, even Vivi herself hadn't noticed that, besides saving her country, she had developed some other motivation for investigating the matter so eagerly.
Unfortunately, Vivi's investigation was destined not to go smoothly.
Ma Qiao was a forgetful and careless fellow, but all three of his retainers, one of whom was about to be exiled, were very attentive and wouldn't give the little girl an opening.
After checking everything and making sure nothing was amiss, Ma Qiao went over to the bookshelf and once again turned the unremarkable copy of Sow Postpartum Care.
He was off to enjoy spending money.