Choosing the Marines: Black Cage Hina

After getting the system, it was time to make use of its abilities. In other words, he needed to find a Marine base and enlist.

After all, he was a hopeless failure at cultivation. If he had a system and did not use it, wouldn't that make him an idiot?

But he could not choose just any Marine base. Before being transported here, even when looking for a company to work for, he would have checked its salary standards first.

Joining a Marine base required even more caution than working for a company. If things did not go well at a company, he could resign. But at a Marine base, if he ran into superiors like Nezumi or Morgan, he would really suffer.

But investigating Marine bases was not something he could do himself. Fortunately, Little Black lived downstairs.

"Little Black!"

Yang Yunzhi came downstairs and saw Little Black picking out fruit for customers.

"Landlord?"

"Come upstairs after you finish up. I need something from you!"

"Alright!"

Yang Yunzhi returned to the second floor first, and Little Black came up shortly afterward.

"What do you need, Landlord?"

"Help me gather and organize intelligence on every Marine base in West Blue. I mainly need the names, genders, ages, and personalities of the base commanders. Photos would be even better!" Yang Yunzhi said.

The job was not difficult, because when Marine base commanders took office, local newspapers would report it. Gathering the information was just somewhat troublesome.

So Yang Yunzhi named his reward as well. "Do this well, and I'll waive another month of your rent!"

"Alright, Landlord!" Little Black immediately hurried off to get to work.

Little Black had not always been this capable. The main reason was that Yang Yunzhi had constantly assigned him all sorts of tasks over the past two years, and he had gradually been trained up.

Some bosses said that making people work was a way of nurturing them. Apparently, that was not entirely a lie!

After Little Black left, Yang Yunzhi did not sit idle. He began testing the system's two rewards.

The storage space, and the personal map.

First was the storage space. Yang Yunzhi discovered that although it was one cubic meter in volume, it was not a standard cube. It was a space that could twist and deform.

In other words, putting a ten-meter-long thin rod inside was no problem.

Furthermore, time inside the space was frozen. If he put hot water in, it would be exactly the same when he took it out.

More importantly, this space could store living things!

That was right. Yang Yunzhi had initially thought this space, like other storage spaces, could not hold living creatures. But after buying a chicken downstairs and testing it, he discovered that it actually could!

And the chicken would not die after being placed inside. It was as though time had stopped for it; it looked exactly the same when taken out as when it had gone in.

Lastly, there was the collection range, which depended on physical contact with his body.

As long as something touched his skin and did not exceed the space's capacity, he could store it.

If he was wearing clothes and they blocked contact with his skin, then he could not store it.

Notably, his hair also counted as bodily contact.

Yang Yunzhi used his hair to touch the table in front of him, and it was actually stored in the space.

That made him realize there was one skill he absolutely had to learn: Life Return!

This skill could not only control hair growth, but also manipulate hair to move and attack!

Once he learned that skill, would his collection range not expand dramatically?

However far his hair could extend, that was how far his storage space could collect!

After studying the storage space, Yang Yunzhi began studying the map.

By coming into contact and chatting with different people on the streets, then observing the changing colors of the glowing dots representing people on the map, he figured out the mechanism behind their colors.

White represented strangers—neither liked nor hated.

Once someone developed a favorable impression of him, their dot turned light green. The higher their favorability, the darker the green.

However, because there had not been enough time, he had not figured out what color came after green.

Once someone developed a negative impression, their dot turned light red. The stronger their dislike, the darker the red.

But he did not raise much hostility, because he was afraid of getting beaten up.

Besides displaying people's favorability, buildings, roads, and trees, the map also showed mountains and rivers. These were not rendered like a satellite map, but more like a street-view map, with everything represented by distinctive geometric patterns.

Unfortunately, although the map was useful, it also had an inconvenient flaw. It was a top-down view, and he could not change its perspective. He could only shift the focus area up, down, left, and right, then zoom in or out.

He wondered whether that might change after it leveled up in the future.

As he continuously adjusted the map's position and studied the surrounding area, he suddenly saw a green dot rapidly approaching.

Yang Yunzhi grinned and immediately got up to head for the door.

Once the green dot stopped outside his door, he immediately opened it and saw Little Black, who had been about to ring the doorbell.

"Eh, Landlord, what a coincidence. I was just about to bring you the information! Are you heading out?"

This was not a coincidence. I saw you coming!

But Yang Yunzhi merely nodded. "I was planning to wait for you downstairs. But did you really gather the intelligence that quickly?"

It had not even been two hours!

"It wasn't that I was fast. The West Blue Weekly in the city center already has compiled information. I just bought a copy!" Little Black said, handing Yang Yunzhi a book.

West Blue had fifty Marine bases. Each base had a commander, an adjutant, and a few important personnel. Naturally, all of that fit into one book.

"Good. You did well!" Yang Yunzhi patted Little Black on the shoulder. "I'll waive another month of your rent. That makes four months now!"

"Thank you, Landlord! Thank you!"

"No need to thank me. Go get busy!"

After closing the door, Yang Yunzhi returned to the sofa and sprawled across it as he began flipping through the West Blue Marine Intelligence Ledger.

Hmm, the book even used detachable pages. The West Blue Weekly really knew how to do business.

Yang Yunzhi pulled the book apart and read through it page by page.

He started with age. Anyone over thirty-five was immediately passed over.

If someone was still a Marine colonel at thirty-five, there was basically no future for them. And once a Marine had no prospects, they would either slack off or become corrupt.

He could not choose a Marine superior like that.

Second, anyone ugly was out. After all, he might have to follow that superior for a long time. If they were ugly, he would have to look at them every day at work, and it would affect his mood.

Third, anyone especially young—under twenty-five—with an overly long, segmented name, or a name containing a "·" symbol, was also out. Those people were most likely Lineage members sent down to pad their resumes.

Such people could get promoted without fighting pirates, but Yang Yunzhi had to fight pirates. Otherwise, how would he improve?

Following a superior like that meant no opportunities to fight pirates. Not an option!

Of course, he could also choose to become that kind of superior's lackey. Maybe he would get promoted quickly too.

But how could a true man, standing between heaven and earth, remain forever beneath another?

Yang Yunzhi would never be someone's dog.

Then, huh?

As he flipped through the pages, Yang Yunzhi stopped at one file.

Commander of Marine Base 36: Major Hina, twenty-five years old.

She joined the Marines seven years ago, was promoted to ensign five years ago, and captain three years ago. She was then recommended to the Marine Elite Officer Training Academy. After graduating two years later, she returned and was promoted to Headquarters major, after which she was stationed at Marine Base 36 as its commander.

She had only been there for two months.

It was worth noting that Marine base commanders were generally colonels. However, Hina was a Headquarters major, equivalent to a branch commodore, so there was no issue with her serving as a base commander.

There were, of course, cases of Headquarters colonels serving as base commanders, but that was because they had been suppressed by their superiors.

Even while being suppressed, Smoker still received excellent treatment. After all, Loguetown was no ordinary Marine base.

"Hina... Is that the Hina?" Yang Yunzhi stared at the photograph of the beautiful young woman with pink hair and a serious expression, thinking carefully.

After eighteen years in this world, memories from his previous life had become somewhat blurry. But he still remembered important One Piece characters.

Pink hair, and named Hina. There should not be anyone else, right?

Hina's most obvious trait should have been the Cage-Cage Fruit. However, this file contained no information on abilities she excelled at, likely for confidentiality reasons.

Hina was currently a major. When the story began ten years later, she would be a colonel. After the Paramount War, she would be promoted to rear admiral twelve years from now.

That promotion rate did not seem particularly fast, but that was because Hina was indeed not especially strong.

However, Hina's background was not weak.

As a female Marine in a force where female Marines were rare, she naturally had connections to Momousagi and Tsuru.

And as a graduate of the Marine Elite Officer Training Academy, she had a whole group of classmates.

Furthermore, Hina valued talent. She even accepted someone like Jango, so there was no reason she would not accept him.

Most importantly, Hina herself was upright. She had managed to remain uncorrupted by the time the story began.

Anyone who had worked as a civil servant knew just how important that was.

With a superior like her, she probably would not make him do anything that violated justice.

All in all, this was an exceptionally good choice!

"Marine Base 36 is on Glass Island!" This time, there was no need to have Little Black gather more intelligence, because Yang Yunzhi had graduated from a maritime school. The school itself was meant to train sailors.

He knew navigation and understood West Blue geography even better. While he was not as naturally gifted as Nami, his professional knowledge was absolutely not lacking.

Glass Island was only a little over eight hundred kilometers from Flower Country. He would have to pass through four countries along the way, and the voyage would take around twelve days.

Moreover, because this region was Eight Treasures Navy territory, there were no noteworthy pirates around.

The superior was suitable, and the route was safe. It seemed that even heaven wanted him to become Hina's subordinate!

"In that case, I'll say goodbye to my parents tomorrow and leave the day after tomorrow!"