The Years I Was a Great Swordsman

The novels in the room were all favorites of Kuina or Koshiro's wife. But perhaps because Koshiro was a swordsman, there were surprisingly few romance novels among them. Instead, they were mostly adventure stories about swordsmen, knights, and the like.

Their main premise was usually the protagonist growing stronger along the way before punishing evil and upholding justice, fully reflecting the common people's yearning for fairness and justice, as well as their admiration for great strength.

However, because this world truly possessed supernatural powers, its imagination was instead limited. Other than swordsmanship, gunmanship, Haki, and Devil Fruits, there were few other power systems, let alone things like magic or Chakra.

Besides adventure novels, there were also several historical and conquest novels. Other than immortal cultivation, fantasy, urban supernatural, science fiction, and myriad-world stories, the genres were more or less all represented.

The protagonists came from all walks of life as well, with no fixed pattern. Marines, pirates, and Bounty Hunters were the most common professions, though there were also a few Mafia members and merchants.

As for their backgrounds, perhaps because there were so many kingdoms here, fallen princes were the most common. The female leads were often fallen Princesses as well. Children of multigenerational Marine families, merchant noble families, aristocratic households, and pirates' posthumous children were not uncommon either.

Different origins combined with different professions basically determined a character's future goals.

The most noteworthy among them was a novel called Vice Admiral Dodolayde. It told the story of a man named Dodolayde, who rose from a commoner's son to become a Marine vice admiral.

The author might have been an insider in the Marines. Not only did the book explain the Marines' various departments and promotion system with perfect clarity, it was also filled with collusion between officials and merchants, internal strife, and power struggles. Its descriptions were so detailed and its data so precise that it seemed as if everything had unfolded right before the author's eyes.

Naturally, it also had plenty of vivid and sensual passages—quite a lot of them, in fact. Zhou Qi found himself getting hard again and again as he read.

Compared to all that, there were actually very few scenes about fighting pirates.

"This is a great book!" As Zhou Qi read on, he felt utterly exhilarated. It clearly was not his preferred genre, yet he could not put it down.

If he had to evaluate it, calling it the One Piece World's The Plum in the Golden Vase would not have been an exaggeration.

In official terms, the novel used Dodolayde's rise through the ranks to recreate the lives of Marine soldiers and officers. It portrayed a ghostly world where, from the Five Elders of the World Government manipulating power and ruling autocratically at the top, down to the local level, Marines, pirates, Bounty Hunters, and the Mafia ran rampant. It exposed the corruption and depravity within the Marines and possessed profound social value.

In fact, the book's influence had indeed been enormous. It directly led to major reforms within the Marines, fostering a new generation led by Kong, with Sengoku, Garp, Tsuru, and Zephyr as its backbone.

The book also made ordinary people aware of the World Government's darkness for the first time. Before it appeared, pirates existed on the seas but had never formed a major force. Afterward, powerful figures emerged one after another, and quite a few formidable men made overthrowing the World Government their direct goal. The most representative among them was Rocks D. Zebek.

As expected, the World Government banned the book afterward. Not only were publishers forbidden from printing it, even privately owning a copy became a grave crime. After several decades, the book had all but vanished from the seas.

In Zhou Qi's view, the rise of the Great Age of Pirates should have been the result of class contradictions reaching their peak. This book was merely the spark. But the World Government did not care about that. They could not solve the contradictions, but could they not solve a novel?

And so, the book suffered.

"Should I bring this one over?" Zhou Qi could not make up his mind.

The explicit content was not a major issue. He could simply write ellipses and let readers fill in the blanks with their imagination.

Besides, he was writing One Piece fanfiction. No matter how dark it got, it was the World Government that was dark. It did not allude to anyone.

But the problem was that the novel required a certain reading threshold. After all, the protagonist did not start out invincible, and by the end, he had not punched the Four Emperors or kicked the Shichibukai around. He was not even an admiral—just a vice admiral. It might not feel satisfying enough to read.

Moreover, the protagonist lived in the era before Kong. None of the various characters who appeared were people readers would recognize, so it was hard to feel immersed.

There was another issue. The novel was only seven hundred thousand words in total. If he removed the explicit parts, there would probably be just over four hundred thousand words left. Novels went premium at two hundred thousand words, so with only another three hundred thousand words remaining, could he only charge for two months?

"Fuck, why am I thinking about so much?" Zhou Qi felt like he was getting obsessed. He was not short on money right now. He was just moving a novel over to kill time.

Besides, fewer words were good. Fewer words meant faster copying. At twenty thousand words a day, he could finish it in a month.

"Let's do it!"

Zhou Qi simply moved his laptop over and placed it on the desk. The environment here was different from Earth—fresh and clean, and every breath gave him the feeling that he was constantly growing stronger.

Right, first came the title.

Vice Admiral Dodolayde was not really a bad title, but it did not have any particular strengths either. It was just ordinary.

Could he think of a better one? Something that would make people want to click on it at first glance?

Zhou Qi could not come up with anything. If he had that kind of talent, he would not have needed to work at an electronics factory.

After agonizing over it for a long time, Zhou Qi decided to copy the title of someone else's hugely popular work and alter it for his own use.

The Years I Was a Marine Vice Admiral.

Synopsis: One Piece fanfiction. After reading this book, Rocks immediately went out to become a pirate. After reading it, Roger went straight out to sea.

That would do.

Oh, right. He still had to submit it to an editor first.

He opened his writing software and created a new book: The Years I Was a Marine Vice Admiral.

Chapter One, ...

"?" Zhou Qi suddenly realized that this book was in Japanese. He was not copying a book—he was translating it!

"Fuck!" Zhou Qi suddenly grew nervous. If he were merely copying it, he would just be a content mover. What pressure could there be?

But if he was translating, then he would become a translator!

Back in primary school, his teacher had taught him that translation had to be "faithful, expressive, and elegant."

Simply put, not only did the content have to be accurate and the language structure correct, it even had to possess literary quality!

Forget famous translators—even amateur fan-sub groups could find the most suitable words and sentences after fully understanding the spirit of the original work.

If he messed around and translated someone else's masterpiece into something nobody wanted to read...

That would not be cultural transfer. That would be cultural desecration...

"So, starting with such a difficult novel was really not appropriate. I need to find something simpler to practice on first!" Zhou Qi had no choice but to be cautious. After all, he did not just want to translate books from this world over there—he also wanted to translate Chinese books over here.

It would not matter much if he botched the translation of books from this world, but if he translated Romance of the Three Kingdoms into something nobody wanted to read, Zhou Qi would never be able to forgive himself.

"Mm, I'll start with this one!" Zhou Qi found a novel called Legend of the Great Sword Saint, which had a full seven sets and plenty of words. It was a simple wish-fulfillment story. The protagonist accidentally found the legacy left behind by a powerful expert: a secret manual and a Supreme Grade Sword. He then buried himself in training for eight years, and by the time he emerged, he was basically invincible.

It sounded rather fantastical, but it was actually quite realistic. Many people in this world did not have that gradual growth process. By the time they first became widely known, their achievements were already terrifying.

Take Luffy, for example. From setting sail to reaching a bounty of three hundred million, it took only a few months. Had he not practically popped out of a rock?

"Maybe people in this world like to develop to a certain level before making their debut because they were influenced by novels like this. Who knows?" Zhou Qi shook his head, grabbed the keyboard, and started copying!

Mm, the title would be The Years I Was a Great Swordsman. Later, he could make an "The Years I Was" series and slip the Marine vice admiral book into it.