Improving His Constitution

He successfully escaped by pretending he needed to use the bathroom.

Once he reached the bathroom, Maud immediately locked the door from the inside.

Hunter's Notebook

The ink-black, imposing notebook appeared out of thin air.

The black feather at the spine trembled slightly, as if waiting for Maud to favor it.

When he had first developed his ability, Maud had envisioned the pen as a black fountain pen, but that would have increased the difficulty of developing it.

So, to reduce the development pressure on the other parts, he had no choice but to settle for a quill, which was harder to write with but simpler to construct.

Pulling the quill from the spine, Maud unhesitatingly wrote the two neat Chinese characters for "constitution" at the first silver line.

Improving his constitution was his highest priority at present.

There was no need to think about it at all.

Only by improving his constitution first would he have the capital to pursue more.

Not to mention, in the One Piece World, a powerful constitution was the very foundation upon which the strong established themselves.

As for the monstrous constitutions of Four Emperors Big Mom Charlotte Linlin and Beasts Kaido, Maud currently did not even dare imagine having them.

After writing down his need, Maud opened the first page of Hunter's Notebook.

It was as blank as snow.

In a daze, Maud saw densely packed, crooked, ugly handwriting on the page.

He blinked, and the writing abruptly vanished like a phantom.

Maud froze slightly and murmured, "Let's start over..."

The current him was like having his high-level account wiped, then creating a new low-level account on a new server and starting over.

As far as advantages went, they were still genuine.

Maud moved his quill, forming Watt's appearance in his mind as he quickly wrote down Watt's relevant information.

Evan. Watt

Skilled with a blade

He had heard this information from Sunny. It was absurdly simple.

But even the leg of a mosquito was still meat.

Besides, with his current body's strength, even if the benefits he obtained were minor, the effects would probably be immediately apparent.

As though he had completed an important task, Maud unnecessarily closed Hunter's Notebook slowly.

Thanks for Evan. Watt's contribution.

Thanks to Kid for bringing Watt here.

Maud dismissed Hunter's Notebook and looked at himself in the mirror.

He raised a finger and lightly pressed the bloodstained bandage on his forehead. Pain immediately began to spread.

If Hunter's Notebook worked, then after completing the hunt, the wound's healing should show an obvious improvement.

The only thing he regretted was that Watt was not specialized in physical combat.

"Ready."

Maud picked up the small knife from the sink and walked out of the bathroom.

Inside the shop, Saul and Sunny had been waiting for quite some time.

But in reality, it had only been a few minutes.

With the small knife in hand, Maud came before the unconscious Watt.

Under Saul and Sunny's gazes, Maud did not waste time. He bent his knees, crouched down, and forcefully drove the knife into Watt's chest, aiming straight for the vital heart.

Splurt—

Blood splashed all over Maud's hand.

The awkward part was that the knife had only gone halfway in and had almost slipped from his grip.

Saul's brow lifted.

Sunny lowered her eyes.

Damn it.

Maud cursed inwardly.

But when he thought of the physical standards of this world, he accepted it. Besides, his body was currently extremely weak.

Without the slightest hesitation, Maud pulled out the knife and stabbed him several more times, finally making Watt die quickly in his unconscious state.

The entire process, from beginning to end, was no different from killing a chicken.

After all, Maud had done this sort of thing plenty of times before.

Among the hunting results recorded in Hunter's Notebook in his previous life, there were nearly a thousand names.

Most of them belonged to death-row criminals whom he had personally executed after getting a job at an execution institution and taking advantage of its convenient methods.

The entire process consisted of pressing the execution switch that administered the drugs, and that was it. It had been effortless.

Because the rewards came so easily, Maud had stayed in the penal institution for a long time and lacked experience in life-or-death struggles with others.

Strictly speaking, Maud was not a standard hunter inclined toward combat.

And as the number of criminals he had personally executed increased, Maud had gradually developed an imperceptible indifference toward life.

Or rather, he was indifferent to the lives of criminals. In Maud's eyes, most pirates in this world were no different from the serious offenders in the penal institution of his previous life.

Killing them was like crushing an ant, without the slightest psychological burden.

Speaking of penal institutions, the only place Maud could think of in the One Piece World was Impel Down.

It was just that the punishment institutions in the One Piece World seemed to be a little more humane.

Even if the criminals imprisoned in Impel Down had committed enough crimes to warrant execution ten times over, they were merely locked up and left at that.

It could be understood as preventing Devil Fruits from spreading outside, but ability users imprisoned in Impel Down were clearly in the minority.

Still, even if Impel Down did not advocate executing prisoners, his ability was actually very well suited to joining the Marines.

Unfortunately, he had awakened in such a chaotic place. Even if he managed to escape in the future, he probably would not pass the Marines' recruitment screening.

As his thoughts turned, Maud slowly released the knife handle, rose, and closed his eyes.

Within the darkness before him, Hunter's Notebook floated silently. A halo radiated from its edges, like the sun during a total eclipse.

The halo seeped into the notebook at a visibly discernible speed.

Immediately afterward, a tiny white star appeared on the black cover.

At the same time, the light source vanished, and darkness returned before his eyes.

In that short span of time, a hint of color returned to Maud's pale face.

He opened his eyes and felt a slight itch on his forehead.

At the same time, the weakness that made him feel as if a strong gust of wind could knock him flat had clearly diminished.

These changes all came from the hidden benefits of the constitution requirement.

As for visible benefits such as muscle and hardness, Watt's level and the pitifully small amount of preparatory information he had provided were not enough to cause any changes.

But no matter what, Hunter's Notebook worked!

Light shone in Maud's eyes.

Saul and Sunny had watched Maud kill Watt, as well as his excited reaction afterward, in which the blood rushed to his face. Neither of them found it strange.

After all, in their eyes, the people merchants hated most were often pirates who plundered without restraint.

Not to mention, Maud had ended up in this state because of pirates.

Taking out his frustration on Watt and easing his emotions was perfectly normal.

However, Saul did not want the shop's future second laborer to go to an extreme.

He came to the corpse, pulled out the small knife, and wiped the blood off on the corpse's clothes.

"Look at how excited you are. I wanted you to say goodbye to the past, not get yourself trapped in a dead end."

"Understood."

Maud lowered his head and replied.

He understood Saul's meaning perfectly and could not possibly explain anything proactively.

What he had to do now was honestly cling to Saul's support, then quickly integrate into Mad Hatter Town, where human lives could become cheap at any moment.

Saul glanced at Maud's blood-covered right hand and said, "Good. Go wash your hands first."

Then he looked at Sunny and said, "Little Nini, go call Arthur over to collect the body."

"Okay."

Sunny left to carry out his instructions.

Maud went to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and scrubbed the blood from his hands.

After washing them clean, Maud dried his hands and looked at himself in the mirror.

He raised his hand and pressed the wound again.

It had hurt a few minutes ago, but now it no longer did.

The results were gratifying. From another angle, that was also because this body was too weak.

He wondered how many hunts he would have to complete before he could reach a level of self-healing comparable to Luffy's.

"Phew..."

Maud gently exhaled, relaxing both his body and mind.

Successfully completing his first hunt gave him a little more confidence.

But his circumstances remained extremely difficult, and his second hunting target was nowhere in sight.

"Mad Hatter Town..."

"Although it's dangerous, looking at it another way, it's also an excellent hunting ground."

"Let's take it slowly."

Maud cupped some cold water and splashed it onto his face.

After wiping away the water, he did not rashly remove the bandages to inspect the wound. Instead, Maud walked out of the bathroom.

When he returned, there was an unfamiliar, powerfully built man in the shop.

The man wore an outfit resembling work clothes. A black armband bearing the character for "death" was tied around his left arm, and he wore a white mask that revealed only his eyes and half his mouth.

Maud figured this person should be Arthur, whom Sunny had gone to call over to collect the body.

Arthur had originally been examining the corpse. When he heard Maud's footsteps, he looked up, visibly surprised.

"Oh, you actually woke up?"