The East Blue, somewhere at sea.
A young man stood quietly on the ship, gazing at the sea—a world of azure blue. A thin, transparent mist hung over the surface, and the breeze carried the fresh scent of the air.
The young man's name was Leiyin. He was a sixteen-year-old high school student who had inexplicably transmigrated into this world more than a month ago while watching the One Piece anime.
In his previous life, he had come from an average family and had an average height. Almost everything about him was average. The only thing that was reasonably presentable was his appearance, though he was far from strikingly handsome.
He had originally thought that transmigrating into this world would allow him to make a name for himself, but what awaited him was a miserable fate that left him utterly dumbfounded.
When other people transmigrated, they either became direct relatives of high-ranking Marines such as Sengoku or Garp, or the sworn brothers of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger.
But what about Leiyin?
He had been captured and brought aboard a pirate ship, where he became a wretched bottom-rank shipwright. He had to do rough, miscellaneous work such as repairing the ship, weighing anchor, raising the sails, and carrying heavy objects.
It simply couldn't have been more miserable.
The captain of this ship was [the Clown] Buggy, a Paramecia user with the Dizzy-Dizzy Fruit. His current bounty was six million Beli, and he was still a relatively unknown pirate. As for the so-called immortal of the East Blue, with a bounty of fifteen million Beli, that was something that would happen later.
With a loud smack, someone slapped Leiyin on the head. Leiyin covered his head and turned around, only to see a burly, heavily bearded man glaring fiercely at him.
His name was Tom, an ordinary combatant in the Buggy Pirates. He had immense brute strength and enjoyed bullying the weak.
Tom said, "Kid, you sure have plenty of free time, huh? Have you finished filling the ammunition Buggy-sama ordered you to fill? And you still have the leisure to stand here watching the sea?"
Leiyin said nothing. He was silently driven below deck by the man and continued filling ammunition for Buggy.
It wasn't that Leiyin didn't dare resist. He truly couldn't beat the man. He still remembered how, on the second day after he had been captured, Tom had bullied him. When he fought back, Tom had pinned him to the ground and beaten him savagely. The injuries Tom had inflicted on him had only started to heal last week.
Leiyin feared neither Heaven nor Earth, but he understood the principle that a wise man didn't fight when the odds were against him.
In his current state, unable to even truss a chicken, fighting Tom head-on would accomplish nothing except leaving him with even more injuries.
Once I become stronger, I definitely won't let you off! Leiyin thought darkly.
But how could he become stronger? That was the problem. Strength wasn't going to fall from the sky like a free meal.
Speaking of which, the power systems in this world could broadly be divided into three categories: Devil Fruits, Martial Arts, and swordsmanship.
To obtain a Devil Fruit, one either needed great luck—for example, wandering aimlessly around some island and suddenly coming across one (then eating it in ecstatic delight, only to discover it was the Human-Human Fruit, which was useless to a human and would also turn him into a landlubber. What a scam. Just kidding); a great deal of money, since Paramecia fruits such as the Rubber-Rubber Fruit and some Zoan fruits were worth around one hundred million Beli on the market; or enough strength to forcibly seize one from someone else.
Taking all that into consideration, Leiyin had none of the three options, so he could forget about Devil Fruits.
Then there were Martial Arts and swordsmanship. Even if Leiyin did push-ups, squats, and other physical exercises every day, at most they would make him somewhat stronger and more resistant to blows. There was no way he could defeat so many people from the Buggy Pirates.
Moreover, on this pirate ship, even training his body wouldn't allow him to master combat techniques like [Six Powers], because he simply didn't know them. If he knew [Six Powers], then even if he only knew one move, [Finger Pistol], Leiyin could viciously stab a whole collection of bloody holes in Tom.
But reality told Leiyin: go cool off somewhere else.
At this rate, when would he ever be able to rise above his circumstances? Was he really going to be bullied, humiliated, berated, and ordered around aboard that damn clown's ship until his hair turned white, then be abandoned once he was no longer useful and spend the rest of his life in lonely misery?
Why was he so unlucky?
At that thought, Leiyin's expression gradually dimmed, and his emotions changed from disappointment to despair.
Little by little, consumed by despair, Leiyin fell asleep on the cold deck below.
The next day, just as the sky began to pale, Leiyin was still sleeping when the sound of heavy footsteps came from the stairs leading to the lowest hold. A burly man appeared beside him and kicked the sleeping Leiyin repeatedly without the slightest courtesy, jolting him awake.
The burly man was Tom, who was always bullying him.
The sleepiness in Leiyin's eyes immediately turned to anger.
Yet when Tom saw the anger in his eyes, he wasn't frightened in the slightest. Instead, he watched Leiyin with interest, wanting to see what the man could possibly do to him.
That look was like a weakling roaring, like a kitten snarling.
The anger of the weak couldn't frighten anyone in the slightest.
Seeing Leiyin's expression, Tom nearly burst out laughing. "What is it, kid? Not satisfied?" As he spoke, he grabbed Leiyin by the hair and shook him violently.
Furious beyond endurance, Leiyin threw a punch at Tom.
With Leiyin's thin, undersized body, the punch was like a mosquito bite. To be precise, it was even weaker than a mosquito bite.
Tom caught his wrist in one huge hand.
"Damn it, you dare fight back? I'll beat you to death!" As he spoke, Tom clenched his massive hand into a fist and punched Leiyin in the face. Leiyin fell onto the deck, a pale-red fist mark forming on his face. The blow nearly knocked his teeth out.
Tom still wasn't satisfied. He raised one foot and kicked Leiyin viciously in the body. The force sent Leiyin rolling into the wall of the hold.
Leiyin was in pain all over from the beating, yet he didn't utter a sound from start to finish.
"Damn it, now you know how tough I am. Behave yourself from now on, or I'll beat you three times a day like this!"
"And get your ass to work. Don't stand around here dawdling like some damn woman."
After saying that, Tom smugly raised his eyebrows, twisted his slightly plump body, and hummed a little tune as he went up to the upper deck like a victorious general.
Leiyin endured the pain and slowly climbed to his feet.
That was what it meant to be weak. Forget dignity—even the basic right to survive was almost nonexistent.
Leiyin couldn't help recalling the words of the Shichibukai, [Crocodile]: "Weakness itself is a sin."
No. He had to become stronger.
Stronger?
Even thinking about that word made Leiyin want to laugh.
Where was he supposed to obtain overwhelming power now?
There was basically no possibility.
And so, Leiyin came up with an idea.
Assassinate Tom!
He might as well fight until both sides were destroyed, die together with him, and never again endure this humiliating crap.
When trapped in mortal danger, why fear death? When there was no road ahead, why beg to return?
Before you continue