Free-for-All

Time passed quickly, and three days before the official start of the Kendo Tournament, more and more pirates and people poured into Pagila Island for the Combat Pyramid.

With so many people, fighting is undoubtedly the best way to pass the time, and with ample rewards, many people register and participate in the Beli within the pyramid.

Among them are swordsmen and pirates, and even the crew members of those Great Pirate are fighting. Even the Navy has joined in, since registration for the Combat Pyramid is not restricted by identity.

In a short period of time, the blocked arena has been further opened, and now a full half of the arena is open. Among them, the highest record of battle maniacs is 168 battles.

Of course, this is based on having the strength, and the person who earns the most money through combat has already received a reward of up to 100 million Beli.

This reignited the fighting.

The Combat Pyramid uses a point system; winning battles increases points, while losing battles deducts points.

The points increase and decrease are not calculated in increments of one point. Otherwise, if each level were worth 100 points, reaching the top level would require 1,800 victories, which would take an incredibly long time.

The points are generally calculated at five points per game, but if the game receives a lot of attention, it may be increased to seven or eight points.

You will be demoted if you don't have enough points.

"Teach, I'm getting a little bored. How about we play something more interesting?" Teach was in the lobby on the seventeenth floor when the door suddenly opened, Kaido's massive body walked in, looking at Teach and saying this.

In this way, he completely forgot that he had almost gotten drunk and caused a scene, and that Teach had tied him up with Seastone beforehand, and that he had just slept on the ground all day.

Kaido hadn't expected to get drunk so easily, but the wine Teach had prepared was very much to his liking.

"Kaido, we came here to watch the swordsmanship tournament, what other interesting things do you want?" Teach turned around and asked with a smile.

He sat in a circle with Whitebeard, Oden, Shiki, Rhine, Rediat, holding a deck of cards. He glanced at the center and said, "Now it's my turn. High-ranking warrior, kill, Oden, I'll beat you."

Teach threw down two cards and smiled at Oden.

"Teach, why did you hit me?" Oden's eyes widened as he looked at the cards in his hand. High-level weaponry would add three points of damage. To completely block it, he would need a Flash and a high-level Observation Haki, but he didn't have enough cards. He only had one Flash, which would cost him three health points.

"Heh, Oden, your acting is terrible. You're a pirate, aren't you?" Teach chuckled softly.

This is a card game that has started to spread on Pagila Island in the past few days. It is called "Pirate Kill" and includes character cards, identity cards, and hand cards.

The characters on the character cards are all famous figures from the sea, and each card also includes a skill associated with it.

The novel game quickly spread, and it's believed that it won't be long before it reaches the entire world, bringing huge profits to the Night Pirates.

The character cards sold are generally average, featuring well-known and powerful characters with more life points. These cards are also very rare, being specially released and extremely valuable.

This is a Whitebeard character card from one of the Four Emperors, made to maximize profits. It cost less than a single Beli to produce, but it's now fetching a high price of ten million Beli on the black market, and the price is still rising rapidly.

And this is just the beginning; it could potentially reach hundreds of millions of Beli in the future.

This was naturally made by the Night Pirates. Teach came up with the idea, his subordinates refined it, and it was completed in a short time, and it is being mass-produced continuously.

Things are valued for their rarity; for example, only one hundred of each of the Four Emperors cards were ever produced worldwide.

Some people, however, noticed something in the character cards' health points; it seemed that health points were used to differentiate the levels of the strongest beings in this vast sea.

People like the current Four Emperors, Garp, and other top-tier powerhouses all have twelve drops of blood, while the four Marine Admiral only have ten drops.

Teach was unaware of this, but when it came to differentiating blood volume, Teach calculated it according to his own classification of strength.

To enhance the game's replayability, the character cards are updated annually. New characters are added, such as the Supernovas, and if a character's strength increases or they acquire Devil Fruit abilities, the character cards are also updated.

Even with images, the entertainment options in this world are still somewhat limited, so Teach feels obligated to enrich this world.

After playing his cards, Teach looked at Kaido was now behind him.

"Speak, what do you want?" Teach asked with a smile.

Kaido glanced at the group playing this "Pirate Kill" game. Like Big Mom, he had no interest in such things; he'd rather spend that time "committing suicide."

After spending a few days together, they began to get to know each other and seemed to get along quite well, even playing games together. However, they both knew that this was only temporary. Once they left Teach's territory, they would revert to their old ways and become enemies again.

But now that they've finally managed to get together, they might not have this opportunity again. Besides, this is Teach's territory, and now that Teach's strength has earned their recognition, they naturally have to give Teach face.

"Since we're all gathered here, let our men have a friendly spar," Kaido smile.

This piqued Shiki's interest, and he put down his cards to look at Kaido.

"It's not that simple," Teach said with a smile, narrowing his eyes.

Kaido were undoubtedly purposeful; there was no such thing as baseless speculation.

"Of course we should offer some rewards." Kaido looked at Teach, somewhat tempted, and said, "Your Alligator-Alligator Fruit is quite good."

As expected, Kaido set his sights on Teach's Devil Fruit, the Ancient Species Crocodile-Crocodile Fruit, Ino- Crocodile Form. This was Devil Fruit that Teach had collected, obtained from the royal treasury after destroying the Kraken Kingdom.

That place was truly a treasure trove for the Night Pirates, with Teach's Dark-Dark Fruit, Gari's Rage Fruit, Kos's Pierce-Pierce Fruit, and other abilities, as well as treasures worth trillions of Beli.

As a carnivorous Devil Fruit, it's not top-tier among Ancient Species, but it's still quite good, which is why Teach chose it as a reward in the Combat Pyramid.

Points can be used as currency. Once you reach 1,900 points, you can obtain this Devil Fruit by deducting 1,000 points and adding 300 million Beli.

To prevent players from farming points, even if you lose points, you won't be demoted. To increase your points, you can only continue fighting at your current level.

If strong individuals were to farm the Night Pirates' rewards through combat, it would be a huge loss, so restrictions were imposed from the very beginning.

Compared to the value of the Ancient Species, those 300 million Beli are practically free.

"I don't mind, but can you offer a reward of equal value? Besides, I don't think your pirate crew can take it," Teach said with a smile.

The others shared Teach's thoughts. Besides, they didn't even know how the competition would go, so how could Kaido be so confident? They also had a lot of confidence in their subordinates.

Kaido's decision was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Of course, it would be best if he could get his hands on this Ancient Species, but it wouldn't matter if he couldn't. With his current power and strength, he could easily find it if he wanted to.

Moreover, there are quite a few Ancient Species users in his pirate crew.

It would be a huge waste to take action just for an Ancient Species, even though Ancient Species are very rare.

Upon hearing Teach's words, Kaido realized that he couldn't bear to part with an Ancient Species Devil Fruit. If he lost it to someone else, it would break his heart for a long time.

"If you want it, you can just trade it for Devil Fruit. Paramecia or Logia are both fine." Teach smiled. He didn't care much about an Ancient Species Devil Fruit. To be precise, this Devil Fruit was prepared for his future subordinates, or rather, it was prepared for his own subordinates.

This is his territory. Many of the registered users are members of the Night Pirates. If they can reach 1,900 white points, their strength will naturally be considerable. After consuming this Ancient Species, their combat power will surge, and they will become his capable henchmen.

Even if someone else takes it, it would be best if it joined the Night Pirates, but it's okay if it doesn't. Teach has that kind of magnanimity.

"Besides, we won't lose anything. Everyone contributes items of roughly equal value, and we send people up to fight. The winners choose first, and the losers get what's left. Even if there are losses, we won't lose much."

"The question now is, what should we offer? How many people should each side send, and what restrictions should be placed on them? As for value, we can just observe it; if there are no rare abilities, we can compensate for quality with quantity."

Teach was interested in this kind of battle. It could be considered a preliminary round before the start of the kendo tournament. The sparring between members of top pirate crews would definitely attract a lot of attention, and such a battle would certainly be very high-level, which is something that the Combat Pyramid currently lacks.

Although there are indeed powerful individuals within the Combat Pyramid today, their sheer numbers mean that some strong fighters rarely encounter equally matched opponents, resulting in some battles not being particularly intense.

This can be considered a preview of the high-end combat of the future Combat Pyramid.

Anyway, he won't lose out.

"Then it's decided, hehehehe! If one person is assigned to one item, how many people should we send?" the Golden Lion laughed.

"Two will do. If one Ancient Species counts as seven Devil Fruits, I'll offer seven Devil Fruits, plus one Ancient Centipede Devil Fruit," Whitebeard said casually.

Anyway, the Whitebeard Pirates had many Devil Fruits, including some good ones, but few people ate them. For example, the Ancient Centipede Fruit, which is also Ancient Species, was mainly eaten because there wasn't a suitable one.

Moreover, the Whitebeard Pirates wouldn't easily give such a great ability to their son; without strength and potential, the ability would be wasted even if given to someone else.

"Then I'll take the Alligator-Alligator Fruit plus seven Devil Fruits," Teach said with a laugh.

"The Paramecia Paralysis Fruit combined with the Paramecia Wave-Wave Fruit." The Flying Pirates truly live up to their reputation as the largest pirate crew in the world; they unleashed two powerful abilities right off the bat.

The Wave-Wave Fruit can be considered a lower-tier version of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, while the Paralysis Fruit has strong auxiliary effects, especially in war, where it can play a decisive strategic role.

"In that case, there are still seven ordinary Paramecia Devil Fruit, including the Paramecia Plasma Fruit." Kaido added.

Although the Plasma Fruit has good power, he still wants Ancient Species. His targets are the Alligator-Alligator Fruit of the Night Pirates and the Ancient Centipede Fruit of the Whitebeard Pirates.

However, he has not yet fully grasped the power of the Plasma Fruit. In Teach's eyes, the Plasma Fruit is undoubtedly one of the top-tier Devil Fruit, if properly developed.

"Then there's Linlin left, let's call her over," Shiki said casually.

"She probably isn't interested in this, is she?" Kaido frowned. It wouldn't be good if she, one of the Four Emperors, didn't participate, since she was the only one whose pirate crew wasn't involved.

"Don't worry, she'll send people to participate, because there are Devil Fruit she wants among them." Teach smiled. Compared to Kaido, who likes to collect Zoan Devil Fruit, Big Mom prefers to collect abilities related to food.

Among the Devil Fruit Teach brought out were the Paramecia Bean-Bean Fruit and the Juice-Juice Fruit. These are abilities that need to be developed, especially the Juice-Juice Fruit, which can turn you into a jelly-like person if you eat it. If you have great strength and develop it well, you could become like Katakuri.

Teach was just doing Big Mom a favor.

"What are the requirements for participating? Are there any restrictions?" Rhine asked.

"Under twenty-five, I guess," Kaido said casually, but he found that the others were looking at him like he was an idiot.

"Teach, you're twenty years old now, aren't you?" Whitebeard asked, looking at Teach.

"Yeah, I'll be twenty-one soon," Teach replied with a smile, still implying he was twenty. "If that were the only restriction, all the officers in our pirate crew, including myself, would be eligible to participate."

"Then under twenty years old, no, under nineteen years old." Kaido also realized that he had overlooked the age of the Night Pirates and Teach. After thinking carefully, he realized that the officers of the Night Pirates were basically only in their twenties.

Secretly, Kaido also had his own plans. His crewmate Krell was just eighteen years old, and with the powerful abilities of Mythical Zoan, Kaido was confident that if there was any competition, he could at least obtain an Ancient Species.

"What kind of competition format will be used? How will the rankings be determined?"

"A free-for-all, it'll all come down to luck. We'll rank them according to the order in which they fall, and the one who's last will get to choose first," Teach decided. One-on-one fights were a bit boring and not exciting enough.

He also had some ideas: the Combat Pyramid could also introduce a free-for-all mode or a team battle mode, since the battlefield is large enough.

Teach's words made their eyes light up. Compared to a direct confrontation, such a melee was undoubtedly more exciting. It allowed for targeted attacks, and to survive to the back required not only great strength but also considerable cunning.

When fighting others, you also need to be wary of sneak attacks from others.

"A free-for-all? Not bad."

"Then it's decided."

"Then go prepare, I need to choose carefully."

Naturally, the candidates need to be carefully selected. If they perform poorly or are too incompetent, it will be a disgrace to their pirate crew. (To be continued)