Unlucky Roan, and the New Week's Items

As the sun set, the twilight hour arrived.

The battle against Sano, the "Giant Bear," a West Blue pirate with a bounty of 52 million Beli, finally ended in Noah's victory.

And with this, a perfect period was drawn at the end of this practical examination.

Having finished all their assessments, the Elite Training Camp members, still reeling from the shock of witnessing that astonishing battle, began to spontaneously withdraw from the battlefield and return to the warships at the port.

The instructors hidden in the shadows, along with the rest of Aokiji's headquarters soldiers, now revealed themselves and swarmed out in full force to mop up the remaining pirates in the town.

There were not many accompanying instructors, but every single one of them was a veteran Navy elite who had fought on the front lines, with the lowest-ranked among them possessing strength at least equal to a headquarters Colonel.

They had only retreated to the second line for various reasons—such as sustaining injuries, advancing age, or an inability to leave their families behind—to join Zephyr in contributing to the cultivation of talent for the headquarters.

With these individuals participating, the pirates in the town naturally had no chance to escape and were captured one after another.

Even the high-bounty officers had virtually no power to fight back and were instantly neutralized by the powerful instructors.

Only then did they realize, too late and with tears in their eyes, the true nature of those young Navy recruits.

So, from the moment they stepped onto this island, their fate had already been sealed.

On the edge of the town.

At the base of a marble sculpture gnawed by moss, a door suddenly appeared.

Roan, the Big Black Hat, poked his head out cautiously. Only after confirming that the squad of Navy soldiers who had just passed by was far away did he heave a sigh of relief.

He had been forced to the outskirts of the island because he was no match for Rosinante and had been fighting while retreating.

"Good thing I ran fast, otherwise I would've been caught too..." Roan clutched the wound on his side and cursed under his breath, "What kind of background do these Navy brats have? How are there so many monsters?"

The handsome black-haired boy who defeated Sano went without saying; from the moment he killed Kaku in an instant, Roan knew that was not an enemy he should provoke.

As for the other man who liked to squint while holding a cigarette, he looked like a ruthless character just from his appearance, and Roan had no desire to face him either.

Therefore, when the last of the three to challenge him to a duel was that thin, tall, blonde boy, Roan had actually felt a secret joy, thinking he had picked the softest persimmon.

But the final result... clearly, it was not as he had hoped.

"Forget it, I can't delay any longer. I have to get back to the ship before this group of Navy soldiers finds me."

Roan gazed into the distance, looking toward the far horizon, and began to search hard for the trail of his ship, the Big Black Hat.

The power of the Door-Door Fruit had its limitations after all. Even though he had been developing it for over a decade, if he wanted to teleport over a long distance, he had to first lock onto the destination on the other side within his line of sight.

At a distance of several kilometers, opening a door from the ship to the island was easy, but returning to the deck from the island was not simple; he had to be extremely careful.

If he made a mistake, the moment he pushed open the door to return from the different dimension to reality, he would be swallowed by the endless sea, and it would be too late for regrets.

"Hmm? That's strange..."

After searching carefully for a long time without seeing a shadow of the Big Black Hat, Roan frowned, filled with confusion, "That shouldn't be right. I clearly remember anchoring and stopping in that area..."

Could it have been discovered by the damn Navy and sailed away?

He felt somewhat unwilling. After looking around for a moment, a sudden idea struck him, and his gaze fell upon the towering, solitary peak to the north.

From a mountain hundreds of meters high, the view would be much broader than where he was, and there was no way any Navy soldiers would be on such a desolate, precipitous cliff.

If he opened a door and went straight up, wouldn't he be able to use the height advantage to find his ship on the sea?

This is what you call quick thinking...

Roan gave himself a mental pat on the back, then focused his mind, locked onto a protruding boulder at the top of the peak, activated his ability, opened a door on the wall in front of him, and stepped inside.

When he pushed the door open again, he had arrived on the giant rock at the summit.

Sure enough, his field of vision was more than a grade wider, and the surroundings were silent and empty, with only the faint sound of flowing water drifting over...

Wait, flowing water?

On this barren mountain top, with no mountain streams, where would the sound of water come from?

Roan followed the sound to the other side of the giant rock and looked down in confusion, only to see a guy below who was peeing against the rock wall, also staring up at him in a daze.

It was a tall man nearly three meters in height, wearing a white justice coat, with fluffy, curly black hair.

"Ara..."

Seeing him, the man narrowed his eyes and made this ambiguous sound.

The temperature in the surroundings plummeted sharply. Whether it was an illusion or not, Roan felt as if he saw cold, bone-chilling white frost rushing toward his face.

And then...

There was no then.

On the other side.

Noah returned to the warship, passing through the crowd amidst countless gazes of envy or admiration, and made his way back to his room.

The final ranking of the assessment would require a few days of counting and verification before it could be finalized; in all likelihood, they would have to wait until the warship returned to the headquarters for Zephyr to announce it personally.

However, there was one thing almost everyone could be certain of: this time, the first place in the assessment belonged to none other than Noah!

This was something no one could question.

After all, whether it was his glorious combat record or the astonishing battle prowess Noah displayed when defeating Giant Bear Sano in the final showdown, he was simply beyond the reach of his peers in the Elite Training Camp, leaving them with nothing to do but sigh in admiration.

As for the girls who had secretly harbored feelings for Noah, their eyes turned into stars, and they watched him leave the deck and return to his cabin with an almost reluctant gaze.

Other than that, the rest of the group didn't have any other thoughts.

After all, Noah had always been well-liked, and his previous assessment scores had consistently been in the upper-middle range. Coupled with his increasingly insane and frantic training lately, even his sudden rise to take first place was not entirely unacceptable.

If it had been some lazy, slacking bottom-feeder who suddenly erupted and snatched first place, it would have undoubtedly drawn all sorts of suspicious glares.

Returning to his room, Noah found that Rosinante and Shiryu had already returned before him.

Having exhausted their physical strength and reached the point of extreme fatigue, the two were already fast asleep, snoring away on their beds.

Noah still had plenty of energy, but since he had been fighting all day and his brain had been in a state of constant tension, he simply climbed into bed as well, intending to get some sleep and properly refresh his mind.

Waking up, it was exactly 5:30 in the morning; his freakish biological clock, precise to the second, was still doing its job.

Noah got out of bed, looked at his two friends who were still fast asleep, and decided not to wake them. He walked out of the cabin alone, washed up briefly, and came to the railing on the deck.

All around was the endless blue sea, and Citrus Island was nowhere to be seen.

Clearly, while the recruits were sleeping and resting, the warship had already silently left the port and embarked on the voyage back to headquarters.

"Oh, right."

After letting the sea breeze blow for a while and clearing his head, Noah suddenly remembered that once it hit midnight last night, it had become a brand new week, and the random items in the shop should have refreshed.

He hurriedly opened the system panel and entered the shop. After a quick scan, he found, as expected, that the random items in the shop had completely changed:

[Gravity Training Field (Permanent): 70,000 points]

[Taijutsu Training Acceleration Card (60 days): 10,000 points]

[Blue-Eyes White Dragon Summoning Card (Consumable): 1,500 points]

[Infinite Luosifen: 8,000 points]

[Rokushiki Iron Body Skill Scroll (Intermediate): 2,000 points]

[Clock-out Reminder: 500 points]

The second update is here, goodnight everyone!

PS: Thanks to "Serious and Cowardly" and "Being Alone is Also Fine" for the 10,000-point tips; the accumulated debt of chapters increases by one.

Also, thanks to book friend 20200706210038838, "Ancestor of the Wolf King", "Glowing Glasses Brother", "Naturally a Youth of Peerless Elegance and Unrivaled Talent", "Romantic Cloud Dream", and book friend 20200706210038838 for their support and tips, thank you very much!