The Arlong Pirates' Oppressive Aura

As expected.

Nojiko and Nami woke up to find their beloved items missing, frantic and wronged, both turning into little tearful messes.

Xia Nuo righteous indignation flared as he joined Bellemere in cursing the heartless thief—what kind of scum steals from children? Worse than beasts!

He immediately headed out to the market, bought a pile of new hairpins and a few headbands, and after coaxing and cajoling for ages, finally got the two little ones to trade tears for smiles.

After all that fuss, plus some follow-up control experiments, Xia Nuo finally figured out the Sacrifice System's judgment logic.

1. The offering must be something closely tied to a manga character, and its value is directly proportional to the strength of that connection;

For example, Nami's treasured Orange Blossom Hairpin was worth far more than her discarded stinky socks.

2. Value is also directly proportional to the strength of the offering's source and the character's weight in the manga;

The strength connection is obvious—items tied to powerful people are harder to obtain, so their value is naturally higher;

As for character weight, it's easy to grasp—offerings from Nami, for instance, were a tier above in value.

After all, in the manga, Nami is the leading lady, while Nojiko is a side character, and Bellemere only lives in flashbacks.

To confirm this, Xia Nuo even sent his ace operative, Thief Cat Nami, to swipe Uncle Genzo's Little Windmill while he dozed off, netting a measly 10 points.

Still, every bit counts, and low value couldn't be helped—most manga readers don't even remember who that guy is.

3. Offerings from the same source can only be sacrificed again after a year.

In other words, Shearing the sheep has a cooldown, and a long one at that—you can't just keep fleecing the same fat sheep.

Staring at his remaining 25 points, Xia Nuo sighed mournfully—this rule was exactly why he was so broke now.

If not for this limit...

A 100-Beli hairpin could net 300 points. Give him a few years to quietly develop, and by the time he came of age and set sail, how strong could he be? Xia Nuo didn't dare imagine.

He wondered if the combined might of the Three Marine Admirals could even withstand a single punch from him.

"What are you spacing out for?"

Bellemere waved a hand in front of his face, shattering Xia Nuo's fantasy. "You're already changed, so why aren't you eating? You worked all afternoon—aren't you hungry?"

True, eating was the priority.

In the warm kitchen light, rich meaty aromas drifted.

The two little gluttons were already chowing down, but their mouths and stomachs were too small, leaving the table full of dishes still looking abundant, as if untouched.

When they came in, Nojiko instantly played the lady, sipping her corn soup daintily, while Nami was still wrestling with the crispy top of her Caramel Pudding.

But when Xia Nuo sat down, clapped his hands together, and said "I'll start," the scene shifted abruptly.

Honey-glazed ribs vanished at three seconds per piece, steamed fish was reduced to bones in the blink of an eye, and staples like mashed potato rice and garlic bread couldn't last a few seconds, as if swallowed into an endless black hole.

Empty plates multiplied rapidly, soon piling into a small mountain.

If an outsider were here, they'd be dumbstruck.

But the family was long used to it.

Starting about a year or two ago, Xia Nuo had begun shooting up in height, and his appetite grew with him.

—A boy hitting puberty, doing physical labor every day, eating a bit more than a little girl—perfectly normal!

Bellemere propped her cheek on her hand, watching Xia Nuo feast with a smile.

She wondered if she'd saved the East Blue in a past life, for heaven to send her such adorable little angels—especially Xia Nuo, steady, sensible, diligent, and reliable.

If he really were an angel, he'd probably be the most popular one in heaven, right?

Come to think of it, Though she'd been a Marine for a few years and was physically tougher than average, supporting a family this big on her own was still a struggle.

For a long stretch of the kids' childhood, they'd lived in considerable poverty.

At one point, Nami could only wear her sister's hand-me-downs, and Bellemere often felt guilty about it, until Xia Nuo grew into the family's main breadwinner, slowly making life easier.

Especially in the last two harvest seasons, Xia Nuo could finish picking the entire orange grove within a week—something that used to take her a whole month.

Finishing the harvest and sorting early meant selling everything when the first buyer's ship arrived, at a slightly higher price than later shipments.

So with this virtuous cycle over the years, the family's income steadily climbed.

Bellemere counted on her fingers—once this year's oranges were sold, her savings would break 300,000 Beli!

Whoa, really, was her childhood dream coming true? Who'd have thought a few years ago that she'd one day become a millionaire?

"Is this what came today?"

This time, Xia Nuo's voice shattered her beautiful fantasy.

"Eh?"

Bellemere snapped back to reality and saw that Xia Nuo had somehow already finished eating and picked up a newspaper she'd left on the corner of the table.

"Yeah, the News Coo came at noon." Bellemere complained, "I don't know what the World Economic News Agency is up to, raising prices again. Last week it was 40 Berries, now it's 50 Berries a copy. Back when I was your age, it was only 20 Berries..."

She hadn't had the habit of ordering the newspaper every day before, nor could she afford it.

It was only in the last couple of years, after things got more comfortable, that she started subscribing at Xia Nuo's strong insistence, and the latter read it carefully every single day.

Bellemere couldn't quite understand why her adopted son paid so much attention to the newspaper. She always felt that those big events out at sea were far removed from their lives growing oranges in the countryside.

Her nagging went in one ear and out the other. Xia Nuo hummed a couple of times in acknowledgment and began scanning the paper.

—He hadn't read more than a few lines when his gaze was instantly drawn to a report below the front page.

<Agreement Reached! Sun Pirates Captain Jinbe Has Become the Newest Shichibukai!>

Beside it was an accompanying photo. Under the escort of several Marine Officers, a blue-skinned, fat fish-man in a bathrobe and wooden clogs stared calmly at the camera.

Xia Nuo stared at this photo, his gaze fixed for a long time.

The hand gripping the edge of the newspaper unconsciously clenched tight.

"Is it coming..." he murmured under his breath.

"What?" Bellemere tilted her head in confusion.

"Nothing."

Xia Nuo shook his head slightly and quickly flipped through the remaining pages.

After confirming there was no other noteworthy information, he glanced out the window, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

"Looks like the rain's stopped. I'm going to practice my sword in the grove for a while. If it gets late, you two go ahead and sleep, don't wait for me."

He smiled, grabbed the wooden sword from the corner, pushed open the door, and stepped out, leaving a silhouette that grew smaller and smaller beyond the glass window.

"Hmm..."

Bellemere withdrew her gaze, pinched her chin, and fell into thought.

She wasn't a sharp person. As a child, the elders in her hometown always called her an empty-headed, mischievous idiot.

But after living together day and night for so many years, she knew Xia Nuo too well. She felt that this reaction of his definitely meant he was hiding something from her.

She suddenly recalled, in a daze.

When the kid was ten years old, one day during his afternoon nap, it seemed like he had a long, vivid nightmare.

Then he jolted awake, drenched in sweat, and came to her, saying that in the future, a group of terrifying, hideous pirates would come to occupy this island.

He wanted her to move early, to get far away, to find another island and start a new life.

That was naturally impossible—this was her hometown. How could she move away just because of a child's inexplicable nightmare?

Besides, the East Blue 16th Branch, where she had once served, was very close by.

If any pirates really came, wouldn't the Marines of the 16th Branch take care of it?

Bellemere had spent a long time coaxing him back then, laughing and crying, before the little guy calmed down.

It was also from that day onward that the child's temperament grew steadier day by day. He never brought up moving again, and as time passed, he gradually became the pillar of the family.

All along.

She had simply thought Xia Nuo had matured with age, and because he was born into hardship, he was far more mature than his peers. She only felt relieved.

Could it be...

That the shock of that nightmare had been far more intense than she imagined, and had persisted to this day?

"Huff!"

On this autumn-to-winter night, the temperature had suddenly dropped to around zero degrees Celsius, and the white mist from his breath was clearly visible.

Xia Nuo first jogged a dozen laps around the orange grove to digest his dinner and warm up.

Then he came to an open space, stripped off his clothes, revealing his lean, muscular chest.

He planted his stance firmly, set the wooden sword aside, and began practicing the Breathing Fist technique.

This set of techniques was something he had saved up for a long time last year and spent a full eight hundred points—a huge sum—to purchase from the trading market.

Its core seemed to have some connection to the breathing methods of the Demon Slayer world, but there were clear differences.

At the edge of the orange grove was a circular clearing deliberately cleared out.

Nine thick wooden stakes were buried in the ground, arranged in a formation, each at different heights and distances, with iron hoops tightly binding their tops and bottoms.

Xia Nuo had commissioned the village carpenter to make them from last year's culled old citrus trees.

If not for the fact that every stake was covered in crayon doodles by Nami—clouds, moons, little rabbits—it would have actually had quite the air of a master's training ground.

Inside the stake formation sat half a basket of oranges.

Most had bug holes or rot, culled as rejects during the harvest these past few days.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Three rotten oranges arced through the air, and the moment they hit the ground, the black-haired youth moved.

His right foot slammed onto the growth rings of the wooden stump, his waist and hips twisting with a sound of displaced air, his elbow precisely striking the first falling fruit.

The airflow driven by the Breathing Fist Seventh Form surged wildly beneath his skin, bursting the orange into eight even segments with a soft pop.

Before the juice could even splash against his lashes, his left knee had already shattered the seed sac of the second orange.

And when the third orange was still thirty centimeters from the ground, Xia Nuo suddenly halted his momentum. His right foot, which had been inches away from crushing the peel, planted itself firmly on the earth.

Drip.

A bead of sweat traced along his jaw and fell onto a withered leaf, evaporating into a wisp of white steam.

Abruptly relaxing the moment his muscles swelled to their limit, repeatedly tempering the capillaries—this was precisely the secret recorded in the Breathing Fist manual.

Xia Nuo didn't pause. He took three more oranges from the bamboo basket beside him and repeated the process, over and over.

Only when the basket was nearly empty did he finally stop, walking to the faucet to cup water and wash his face.

Shhhk—

He kicked the empty basket aside. After a brief rest, the black-haired youth turned his target to the few orange trees nearby.

These, too, were varieties Bellemere had purchased in the early years. Neither their yield nor the taste of their fruit could compare to the batches planted later.

Once this winter passed, they ought to be culled.

Just like certain lowly fish-men, born vile, who deserved to be torn apart like raw sashimi!

Breathing Fist, Eighth Form!

"Ha!"

Xia Nuo let out a low shout. The moment his left foot ground the dead leaves beneath it to dust, his right fist struck the trunk in an arc like a seagull diving.

As his fist passed, the knuckles of his fingers popped like beans crackling in a pan.

Thump! Thump! One punch after another, like a raging storm. Where fist bone met tree trunk, an iron-gray sheen spread unnoticed.

This color was a characteristic of the Breathing Fist stimulating subcutaneous tissue to harden, similar to the coating of Armament Haki.

But the coverage was extremely small, and the intensity was inferior—for now, it was merely a low-budget version.

After finishing the full set of punches, a faint crack came from deep within the orange tree's core, yet the surface only bore a few fist prints, each a knuckle's depth deep.

Continue!

A brief rest—only seconds of pause—and then the old orange tree let out another pained groan.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Under the silent shroud of night, the orange grove echoed with a relentless, rapid drumming of impacts.

"One thousand nine hundred ninety-six, one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven... two thousand!"

Stop!

Xia Nuo returned to his starting position, rooted his stance, and let out a long exhale.

From his shoulders and the crown of his head, nearly transparent white vapor drifted upward, vanishing into the night.

Below his shoulders, his torso trembled violently, the shaking gradually fading after several seconds.

Every inch of muscle pulsed in time with his heartbeat. Pores blasted out waves of rolling heat, turning the frost clinging to the dead twigs and leaves at his feet into twisting spirals of steam.

"Progress is damn good!"

Feeling the clear sense of power still flowing through every part of his body, even in the depths of exhaustion and weakness, Xia Nuo twisted his neck as if reborn, a grin of satisfaction spreading across his face.

He had to admit.

He really did have some talent in physical training.

He'd been practicing the Breathing Fist for a year and a half, all told.

From the clumsy start to the growing proficiency now, his pace had been accelerating like he'd turned on a cheat.

It took him a year to go from not having entered the door to stepping through it. Then, over three more months, at the end of summer and start of autumn, he finally reached minor mastery.

And now, before winter had fully set in, he could already feel the barrier to breaking through his limits.

At this rate.

He was confident that with at most another ten days or so of such grueling training, he would achieve great mastery of the fist art.