The Money-Grubbing System

After leaving the hall, Luo Ze did not rush to leave the Marine branch.

Colonel Yate's arrangements had been thorough. He had deployed all the personnel throughout the Marine branch. So after Ron had slaughtered all the Marines in the hall earlier, there was no one left alive in the entire branch.

Outside the hall, the Marine branch looked the same as usual, with nothing out of the ordinary.

Luo Ze opened the rooms one by one and searched them. After searching the spacious Marine branch for dozens of minutes, he finally found the Marines' treasury.

The moment he opened the wooden door, huge treasure chests came into Luo Ze's view. They were piled up in the corners, stacked atop one another, and every chest was filled with Beli.

Luo Ze casually slashed out with his sword, cutting off all the locks on the chests. He opened them one by one, and stacks of green Beli appeared before him.

He grabbed a chest at random. The instant his slender fingers touched the Beli, a strange sound suddenly rang out. Then, all the Beli inside the chest vanished.

Luo Ze repeated the process until he had collected every last Beli.

"Amount confirmed: 364.51 million Beli. The host currently possesses a total of 510.02 million Beli. Would you like to complete the mission?"

At the same time, a somewhat stiff mechanical voice suddenly sounded. Its speech was intermittent and devoid of emotion, but its meaning was clear enough.

"Complete the mission."

Luo Ze answered indifferently. He had gone to such lengths to find all this money precisely to complete the mission.

"Host, completing the mission requires payment of 300 million Beli. Would you like to proceed?"

The system's mechanical voice rang out again, confirming the next procedure with Luo Ze.

"Proceed." Luo Ze agreed without hesitation, though his heart ached a little. He had put considerable effort into saving up so much money, yet more than half of it was gone in an instant.

"Mission completion in progress. Please wait."

"Ding!"

"Congratulations, Host. Mission completed!"

"The system has automatically deducted 300 million Beli. Remaining balance: 210.02 million Beli."

"Mission completion reward: Congratulations, Host. You have obtained Upgrade Points ×500. Sword upgrade permission unlocked."

The system's voice continued to ring out, echoing beside Luo Ze's ears.

"Open the upgrade panel." Luo Ze spoke with some excitement. After struggling for so long, he could finally reap the rewards.

"Upgrade panel opened."

The system replied flatly.

As its words fell, a blue translucent panel suddenly appeared before Luo Ze. The panel was square, its text neatly arranged, while the system clearly read out the corresponding values.

Host: Luo Ze.

Sword: Ordinary Iron Sword.

Swordsmanship: 200

Strength: 50

Agility: 50

Haki {Observation Haki}: Not learned.

Haki {Armament Haki}: Not learned.

Haki {Conqueror's Haki}: Not awakened.

Looking at the blue panel before him, Luo Ze pondered for a moment.

He now had five hundred Upgrade Points, which he could use to upgrade Swordsmanship, Strength, or Agility.

The benefits brought by these three attributes were easy enough to understand.

Upgrading Swordsmanship would make his swordsmanship more refined. Once it reached a certain level, he might unlock even more powerful techniques.

Upgrading Strength would increase his physical toughness and recovery speed.

As for Agility, it was related to speed. Whether it was his reflexes, his own movement speed, or the speed at which he swung his sword, upgrading Agility would improve all of them.

All three attributes were extremely important. Put simply, upgrading Swordsmanship would increase his attack power, upgrading Strength would make him tougher and more resilient, while upgrading Agility would increase both his movement and attack speed.

Luo Ze thought for a while. His Swordsmanship was currently at two hundred, and he had five hundred Upgrade Points available. If he allocated some points to upgrade both Strength and Agility, his abilities would become more balanced overall.

However, Luo Ze had never been one to follow the conventional path. Compared to balanced attributes, he preferred to push a single aspect to the extreme.

After thinking for a moment, he first took out one hundred and fifty Upgrade Points and invested them in Agility.

Ding!

The system's voice rang out.

Congratulations, Host. Upgrade complete. Agility has increased from 50 to 200.

Luo Ze then took the remaining three hundred and fifty Upgrade Points and added them all to Swordsmanship. Soon, his Swordsmanship was upgraded as well.

His panel now read:

Host: Luo Ze

Sword: Ordinary Iron Sword

Swordsmanship: 550

Strength: 50

Agility: 00

Haki {Observation Haki}: Not Learned

Haki {Armament Haki}: Not Learned

Haki {Conqueror's Haki}: Not Awakened

Luo Ze nodded in satisfaction. Through the upgrades just now, he could feel that his strength had improved considerably.

Although his "Strength" attribute had not increased, he was a swordsman. Swordsmen were inherently extremely lethal, and after raising his Agility and Swordsmanship, he was fully confident that he could instantly kill any opponent below the rank of Commodore.

As for Commodores, Luo Ze would probably be evenly matched against someone of that level. However, because his "Strength" attribute was relatively low, he was not suited for prolonged battles.

"This Haki..."

Luo Ze glanced again at the Haki options at the bottom.

Unlike the attributes above, the Haki options below had always been grayish-white. The notes also stated "Not Learned" and "Not Awakened," so Luo Ze could not upgrade them.

Luo Ze did not know what he had to do to activate Haki, but with his current strength, it was more than enough for him to run rampant throughout the South Blue.

Even on the Grand Line, before reaching the New World, there were actually many people who did not understand Haki.

So Luo Ze was not in much of a hurry. At worst, if he encountered a Logia user in the future, he could just run.

"Right, my sword."

Luo Ze opened the attributes for "Equipped Sword."

The sword he used was not some powerful famous blade, but merely an ordinary iron sword.

Therefore, Luo Ze guessed that the sword upgrade function could strengthen his weapon and gradually transform it into a Supreme Grade Blade.

And that was indeed the case. After Luo Ze opened the sword system, dense lines of text appeared across the blue panel.

The text described everything clearly, and it was not far from Luo Ze's guess.

However, the requirements for upgrading the sword gave Luo Ze quite a fright.

He had not expected that upgrading the sword once would require a full thousand upgrade points.

That was way too much!

Luo Ze felt a headache coming on. He had worked so hard to complete a mission worth three hundred million Beli just to earn five hundred upgrade points, yet upgrading his sword once required one thousand points.

In other words, upgrading the sword once would cost a full six hundred million Beli.

"Life's going to be rough."

Luo Ze shook his head with a bitter smile. He understood now—the system was a money sink too.