One Piece: I Became a Legend by Seeing Proficiency

Watching the navigator tremble in a corner, Dongze felt a strange pang of disappointment.

"Sigh... You couldn't even take one slash from me?"

Did he hear himself?

Dongze checked his proficiency and found that Armament Haki and Slashing had finally changed.

Armament Haki: 200/1000000;

Slashing: 200/1000000;

"One Zoan is only worth 50 points? What a lousy Golden Finger!"

Dongze took down the pirate flag, confirmed their position with the navigator, and ordered him to sail for the nearest Marine Base.

"Sir! Are you going to collect the bounties?"

"What do you think?"

"Then I'm afraid I can't do that!"

"You won't go?"

"I'd rather die!"

"All right! I'll go!"

They ran into two more pirate crews along the way. Dongze handled them the same way, though this time he left no survivors.

Five days later, the sailboat reached shore. Gazing at the imposing town before him, Dongze sighed. "No wonder they call it the town of beginnings and endings. Loguetown!"

The navigator followed him toward the Loguetown Marine Branch, carrying a large bundle of wanted criminals' heads. His eyes had gone numb, and he said nothing. Dongze had expected trouble, but their arrival caused little commotion.

The Iron Wolf Pirates' captain was their main wanted criminal. The others were small fry, just as Dongze had said, and the Marines barely cared about them. Only the sheer cruelty of their crimes had earned the entire crew bounties.

"Stop! This is a Marine Branch. What are you here for?"

Dongze got straight to the point.

"To collect bounties!"

"You're a Pirate Hunter?"

"More or less."

After a report was sent up, Dongze soon met the branch's commanding officer.

He was a middle-aged man nearly three meters tall, with a scar on the left side of his face, a thick beard, and resolute eyes.

At first, he paid little attention to Dongze, who was still just a kid. But as the heads came out of the bundle one by one, disbelief grew in his eyes.

The Marines beside him began whispering.

"Isn't that Xebec from the Iron Wolf Pirates?"

"And Ironfoot Winter from the Red-Braised Pirates!"

"..."

At last, the officer spoke. "Hello. I'm Harry, the commanding officer stationed in Loguetown and a captain from Marine Headquarters!"

"Did you kill all these people?"

Dongze nodded and pointed at the man behind him.

"And this one's the Iron Wolf Pirates' navigator!"

A peculiar look crossed Harry's face. A Pirate Hunter had made a pirate carry a bundle of wanted criminals' heads to the Marines to collect their bounties. That was certainly...

"I can't sail. If I'd killed him, I couldn't have gotten here!"

Harry froze at Dongze's explanation, then burst out laughing.

"Dele hee-hee! Dele hee-hee!"

"You're quite a character, young man! Hengde, get him his money!"

Before long, a soldier returned with 30 million Beli—the combined bounties—and handed it to Dongze. The whole transaction went surprisingly smoothly.

Dongze had braced himself for delays and demands for a cut. Instead, they took nothing, which surprised him. All the better. He nodded and turned to leave.

Watching Dongze walk away, Hengde asked in surprise, "Captain! Why didn't we...?"

"I couldn't read that kid! What if he'd beaten me up?"

Harry was an elite from Marine Headquarters. He lacked combat strength, but not judgment. He could sense that Dongze was far beyond him, someone he couldn't afford to provoke, so he had tried nothing.

What Harry didn't know was that Dongze had kept his Observation Haki active the whole time. Even outside the gate, he heard every word. When he learned the reason, the corners of his mouth twitched.

He had thought things had gone oddly smoothly. So that was why. If Harry had caused trouble, Dongze probably... well, he might have beaten him up.

The days settled into a simple routine. Dongze was obsessed with grinding—proficiency, that was. To raise his proficiency in the Three Types of Haki as quickly as possible, he used Loguetown as a base and hunted ever farther afield. Soon, word of the ruthless bounty hunter Dongze spread throughout the area.

Famous or unknown, any pirate Dongze encountered was stripped clean. For the pirates, it was a nightmare.

Pirates hardly dared show their faces around Loguetown anymore, afraid Dongze would set his sights on them.

Harry spent those days marveling.

The man was a monster. A single Pirate Hunter had accomplished what Harry's entire branch could not: Loguetown had grown so safe that people could leave their doors unlocked. It was absurd.

But as pirates grew scarce, Dongze had to search farther away.

Then one day, aboard a ship, he spotted someone.

Someone he knew. A woman.

The Devil Child.

Nico Robin.

"It's the Pirate Hunter—Dongze!!"

"We're finished!"

"That guy never leaves anything alive!"

"Boss! We told you not to take that woman in! Now Dongze's after us! We're dead!!"

Through Observation Haki, Dongze heard the pirates talking, and his eyebrow twitched.

He hadn't targeted them because of Nico Robin. In fact, he didn't want to get involved with her yet.

The Devil Child had grown up under Admiral Aokiji's watchful eye. That was no small thing.

Dongze had long suspected Robin's survival into adulthood owed much to Aokiji. Getting involved with her would surely draw his attention.

Among the powers of the pirate world, a Marine Admiral stood near the very peak. An admiral was likely stronger than a Great Swordsman; only the very best Great Swordsmen could match one.

And Aokiji had the Logia Ice-Ice Fruit. Without mastering Armament Haki, facing him would almost certainly end badly.

As for Dongze's own strength, he estimated that he was considerably stronger than an ordinary Vice Admiral, but still well short of an Admiral.

Iron Fist Garp and Black Arm Zephyr were both masters of physical combat. At his peak, Garp had even surpassed the Four Emperors in strength, while Zephyr had possessed the power of an Admiral.

They also had something else in common: both had trained their Armament Haki to its peak.

With that in mind, Dongze conservatively estimated that even with his weapon, sword techniques, and Conqueror's Haki coating, his Armament Haki would have to reach the Ryuo stage before he could defeat an Admiral.

Defeat, mind you. Not merely hold his own.

He looked at his proficiency, barely over 2,000 points.

Nope. Not a chance.

Of course, some might ask: Nico Robin was beautiful, fair-skinned, and long-legged. She could fight, she was easy on the eyes despite her A-Cup Pair, and she could read Ancient Script. With her help, he might even get his hands on Pluton, Poseidon, or Uranus. She was the ultimate support.

Wouldn't bringing a gorgeous, long-legged woman along be great?

It would!

He just wasn't strong enough. He didn't dare.

Besides, she had a Marine Admiral playing the part of a protective father.

Anyone who made a move on her was dead!

Every pirate crew that had taken Robin in had met a grim end, captured by the Marines one way or another. Dongze could guess with his eyes closed that Aokiji had been pulling strings behind the scenes.

To put it bluntly, it wasn't that he didn't want to. He couldn't!

Forgotten Dust cut through the air, killing the pirates. Dongze glanced at the 200-point increase on his panel and nodded. Every little bit counted; he wasn't picky.

Then he turned and left without even looking at Nico Robin again. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to resist.

She was barely in her twenties, a striking young woman with dark, curious eyes and a shapely figure. Her A-Cup Pair was coming along.

Unfortunately, right now, an A-Cup Pair was more than he could afford!

"You're not going to kill me?"

Nico Robin looked at Dongze in surprise. She was wanted too, with one of the highest bounties in the East Blue. Yet this bounty hunter, who supposedly spared no one, hadn't attacked her.

Dongze didn't turn around. He answered calmly, "The Devil Child, Nico Robin. Seventy-nine million Beli. I'm no match for you!"

"You..."

Robin wanted to walk over and slap him twice for lying through his teeth!

No match for her? Did he hear himself?

She couldn't even muster the strength to resist him.

She had finally found another place to belong, and within days, he had killed everyone there. Now she had to find somewhere else again.

Back aboard his small sailboat, Dongze watched Nico Robin lower a skiff and quietly depart. He sighed. "What a shame. Give me a little more time, and maybe I could afford that A-Cup Pair."

Truth be told, he had his eye on her.

As her figure receded, Dongze leaped up and barked, "Crossing the Eight Directions!"

Eight black slashes tore through the air and ripped the pirate ship apart.

Lately, proficiency in the Three Types of Haki had been so hard to gain that Dongze had considered going back to his village to get beaten up. After all, his master was a Great Swordsman. A few sword strikes from him could drive Dongze's Armament Haki and Observation Haki up.

But he hated to give up the extra rewards from hunting pirates.

Sword Intent (locked!): 0/100;

He had a feeling that if he unlocked Sword Intent, he could take down those Admirals even without reaching the Ryuo stage in Armament Haki.

That mere 100-point requirement gnawed at him, tempting him endlessly.

One hundred points. One hundred. Just one hundred.

It was the first skill in his list that needed only 100 points. Compared with Haki's million-point requirements, it was right within his damn reach!

But he couldn't figure out how to unlock it. He had pulled out handfuls of hair over it. Luckily, he had since unlocked Life Return from the Six Powers, or he would have gone bald.

At a loss, Dongze had gone on to unlock dozens of sword techniques, including:

Crossing the Eight Directions: 6500/10000;

Heavenly Flying Immortal: 1200/10000;

Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness: 1000/10000;

One Sword Across the Ages: 100/10000;

Bixie Swordplay... no, not that one. He couldn't bring himself to pay the price.

Far away, as Nico Robin rowed her boat, a deafening crash erupted behind her. She gritted her teeth. "Bastard!"

The days flew by as Dongze ground proficiency. Another month passed, and pirates sailing the East Blue had become almost impossible to find. A saying spread among them: if you don't want to get cut down, stay off the sea.

Dongze had terrified them. Few pirates who put to sea without heading for the Grand Line had clean hands, and anyone who fell into Dongze's hands had no chance of escaping.

Still, a rare few noticed something strange: adventurers who went to sea without wantonly killing civilians came through encounters with Dongze unharmed.

Gradually, Dongze became known throughout the East Blue as the Crime Buster.