Autumn Leaf Blade

After the heavy rain, the sky cleared. The sunlight was as bright as if it had been washed clean by the rain, crystal clear and radiant. Not a cloud stretched across the sky, and even the air felt fresh and sweet. Rainbows had appeared in some places.

City of Water, Commercial Street.

Sephiroth stood before the display window of a weapon shop, studying the blades, guns, swords, shields, and armor inside with great interest.

After a while, he pushed open the glass door and entered the shop, which was filled with all kinds of weapons.

At the counter stood a middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache. He wore trousers, a white shirt, a black vest, and a red bow tie around his neck. Smiling, he said:

"Welcome!"

"What would you like to buy, sir?"

"I want a good blade... preferably a Meito."

Hearing that, the mustached man looked Sephiroth over from head to toe before cautiously replying:

"A Meito? I do have two Sharp Swords in my collection, but each one costs over a million Belly..."

"Over a million Belly is still barely within my budget. Let me see the quality of the blades first."

Sephiroth nodded slightly, showing little surprise at the steep price.

In truth, spending over a million Belly on a blade was not particularly expensive.

Several sets of full-body armor in this weapon shop were priced from over two million Belly to five million Belly.

For most ordinary people, armor was actually more valuable than weapons. Besides protecting against cuts from blades and swords, it could also block the penetrating damage of bullets.

Therefore, in ordinary weapon shops, defensive gear usually cost far more than weapons.

To buy a good blade, he had turned the house upside down before finding 2.6 million Belly in cash in Karl D. Pal's bedroom.

As for the more than 150 million Belly in the bank account...

Although his father, Karl D. Pal, had appeared on the list of people lost at sea, his body had not been found.

Under City of Water law, they had to wait another year before he could be legally declared dead. Only then could Sephiroth inherit the estate...

The mustached owner did not waste any time. He went to a shelf nearby, brought over two sheathed longswords, and placed them on the counter.

Sephiroth picked up one of them and, with a clang, drew the blade.

Strange purple patterns spread across the straight blade, inexplicably sending a chill up from the depths of one's heart.

"This Sharp Sword is called Demon Spirit. Its blade is 84 centimeters long and 1.7 centimeters wide. The edge is only about 0.8 millimeters thick. The hilt is 23 centimeters long and 2.2 centimeters wide. It costs one million Belly..."

As he spoke, the mustached owner hesitated briefly.

Then he continued:

"However, I should warn you, young man. This is a Demonic Sword. Its previous three owners all died miserable deaths..."

Under the mustached owner's astonished gaze...

Sephiroth remained expressionless and silent. He swiftly sheathed the sword in his hand, tossed it onto the counter, and picked up the other sheathed longsword.

The mustached owner: "..."

Sephiroth casually drew the second longsword.

The straight crimson blade resembled autumn maple leaves. It was slightly heavier than the previous one.

"This Sharp Sword is called Autumn Leaf. Its blade is 96 centimeters long and 1.8 centimeters wide. The edge is only about 0.7 millimeters thick. The hilt is 25 centimeters long and 2.3 centimeters wide. It costs 1.5 million Belly..."

Sephiroth lightly swung the Crimson Longsword a few times before asking tentatively:

"This one isn't a Demonic Sword too, is it?"

Hearing that, the mustached owner hurriedly shook his head and explained:

"Of course not... This blade is of excellent quality. In terms of sharpness, it is very close to the Fifty Good Grade Swords."

After thinking for a moment, Sephiroth picked up a pencil from the counter with his left hand and held it before him. With Autumn Leaf Blade in his right hand, he swung at the pencil.

He felt almost no resistance at all as the crimson blade cleanly split the pencil in his hand into two.

Not bad!

It's leagues better than the longsword I used for practice before.

That piece of junk struggled even to chop through a wooden post...

Unable to endure it any longer, he had come to the weapon shop to spend heavily on a good blade.

Besides, that captain had already called to tell him there were no issues with his identity verification. In three days, he would be heading to the Marines' G-3 Branch for recruit training.

Therefore, there was no need for him to be too frugal. The Marines would provide food and lodging from now on anyway...

"Alright! I'll take this blade."

Sephiroth opened the inside of his blue suit jacket, took out two stacks of ten-thousand-Belly notes, counted out one and a half stacks, and handed them to the weapon shop owner.

"Hehehe! You're certainly decisive, young man!... Oh, right, I also have some other excellent weapons here, including high-powered firearms.

As they say, ten years of martial arts training are no match for one bullet... Are you interested?"

The mustached owner rapidly counted the bills with both hands while grinning at the remaining 500,000 Belly in Sephiroth's hand.

"I just got a new type of revolver called the Python Revolver. At close range, it can kill even an elephant with a single shot. It only costs 150,000 Belly.

Buy it now, and I'll throw in sixty bullets..."

"Uh!? No, thanks..."

Sephiroth shook his head, declining the owner's suggestion without the slightest urge to buy it.

He had seized a pile of firearms from the slave ship. They were all gathering dust at home now.

Although firearms would be very helpful to him right now, relying too heavily on them would not be a good thing. It would breed complacency in his heart and cause him to neglect tempering his physical abilities.

The top experts of this world all basically possessed incredibly powerful Armament Haki protecting their bodies.

For example, as long as Big Mom Charlotte Linlin had not suffered a mental breakdown, she could be shot or shelled in her normal state without taking any damage.

As for Kaido, there was even less need to mention him. He regularly tried to kill himself by jumping from heights of ten thousand meters and still came out completely fine, at most feeling a little dizzy...

While Sephiroth's mind was filled with random thoughts, he unknowingly arrived at the market district.

Since it was already nearing noon, Sephiroth figured it was time to buy groceries and cook. He began purchasing food, intending to return home and prepare a meal...

When passing a mutton shop, he stopped and entered. After going around the glass counter at the front, which displayed cured mutton, sheep-blood sausages, and other dried goods, he walked toward the back corner where several iron cages stood.

Sephiroth raised his right index finger and pointed at an iron cage containing three white goats.

He turned to the blond young man standing beside the slaughtering table, who was wielding a cleaver to butcher an entire sheep, and asked:

"Excuse me, how much does a live sheep cost?"

"If you buy a whole one, it'll be 500 Belly per pound...

Lilith, a customer wants to buy a sheep. I'm busy right now, so come help out."

"Got it, big brother!"

A slender blond girl pushed open the shop's back door and entered.

Although there were a few freckles on her cheeks, they could not hide her youthful, adorable features.

Overall, she was a very pretty girl.

Lilith opened the iron cage, looped a rope around a white sheep, and led it onto a large iron scale.

As the blond girl added weights to the balance beam, she asked:

"Would you like us to slaughter the sheep for you, sir...?"

"No, I only want it alive."

Sephiroth shook his head and declined her offer.

In fact, he was buying a live sheep only because he wanted to drain its lifespan and replenish the stockpiled lifespan he had consumed during recent training.

During this period, through developing and studying his fruit ability, his stockpiled lifespan had increased from three hundred years to five hundred years. To his delight, he had also discovered that the range of creatures from which he could extract Life Force was not limited to humans.

As long as a creature had blood, he could extract its Life Force. Fish, chickens, dogs, and other animals all worked, though the amount he could extract was far less than from humans.

He had also discovered that compared to eating normally to replenish energy, using blood to satisfy his hunger was actually more efficient.

This was a good thing for Sephiroth. At the very least, he no longer had to limit himself to extracting Life Force solely from humans.

In the original story, the Celestial Dragons had an extremely strong obsession with immortality!

For that reason, they had even mobilized CP0 on a massive scale to search for Pure Gold because of a vague legend from several hundred years ago claiming that obtaining it could grant eternal life...

Who knew whether, if the World Government discovered that Sephiroth's Vampire Fruit could grant eternal life and youth by extracting the Life Force of others, CP0 would capture him and hand him over to Vegapunk for all kinds of experiments!

That image was far too beautiful. He did not dare imagine it!

Therefore, he had no choice but to be more cautious and carefully conceal his true abilities.

His desire to join the Marines was also partly due to this concern...

The Marines' talent development system was the path most likely to let him grow stronger at this stage!

He figured that once his strength reached the level of a Shichibukai, the World Government would no longer be able to do much to him...

After all, the Op-Op Fruit had always been something the Celestial Dragons desperately desired. Yet once Law, the user of the Op-Op Fruit, had grown strong enough and openly joined the Shichibukai, the World Government had not directly captured him for research. That was a good example.

In other words, as long as Sephiroth grew strong quickly enough—strong enough that others dared not provoke him—trouble would simply vanish into nothing!

Looking at the balanced weights, Lilith said with a cheerful smile:

"Exactly one hundred pounds... The total is 50,000 Belly!"

"Alright!"

Sephiroth nodded and took out a small half-stack of bills from inside his suit jacket, preparing to count out five ten-thousand-Belly notes and hand them to the blond girl.

"Why has a pirate ship suddenly appeared on Commercial Street?"

Bang! Bang...!

Several consecutive gunshots shattered the street's peaceful atmosphere, and people immediately descended into panic.

"Pirates are here!"

"Run!"

"Help!"