Pirates: I Loaded a Game Panel

"Ugh—"

Nausea flooded Adrian's mouth in an instant. Devil Fruits really did taste as awful as the legends said!

Adrian's brows drew tight. Fighting the urge to vomit, he forced down the rest of the fruit.

After a long while, he closed his eyes and felt a new power surging through his body.

A moment later.

Adrian raised a finger. It felt utterly natural, as instinctive as breathing, and a tiny, adorable white ghost slowly emerged from his fingertip.

The little white ghost, no bigger than a finger joint, kept flapping its arms as it drifted into the air.

At the same time, his system panel began refreshing frantically.

[Host detected consuming a Devil Fruit!]

[Devil Fruit ability identified as Ghost. Host's Intelligence has increased!]

[You have gained a new Specialty: Ghost Fruit!]

[You have gained a new Specialty: Sea Curse!]

[You have learned a new skill: Ghost Creation!]

[You have learned a new skill: Spirit Projection!]

[You have learned a new skill: Ghost Body!]

Generally speaking, Paramecia Devil Fruits granted their users a corresponding special ability, but those abilities broadly fell into three types: superpowers, superhuman bodies, and material creation.

The Float-Float Fruit and Tremor-Tremor Fruit were superpowers, granting their users genuine supernatural abilities.

The most famous example of a superhuman body was the Gum-Gum Fruit, which would let Luffy, the child of destiny twenty years from now, turn his entire body into rubber.

Creation abilities, such as those of the String-String Fruit and Wax-Wax Fruit, could produce substances out of thin air.

Beyond those three types, there was also an exceptionally unusual kind of Paramecia known as a "Special Paramecia." Charlotte Katakuri's Mochi-Mochi Fruit, for instance, combined a superhuman body with material creation.

Adrian had thought the Hollow-Hollow Fruit involved only a superpower—the creation of ghosts. He had never expected it to grant a corresponding superhuman body as well!

Eating the Hollow-Hollow Fruit had given Adrian two new Specialties and three skills.

Ghost Fruit was Adrian's second Specialty. Its effect was bluntly simple: "Intelligence ×2."

It was breathtakingly powerful!

Sea Curse, meanwhile, was the flaw no Devil Fruit User could avoid: the lifelong inability to swim and a weakness to Seastone.

Ghost Creation and Spirit Projection were the Hollow-Hollow Fruit's most basic abilities. The former let him produce ghosts at will that ignored physical attacks and obstacles; the latter let his soul leave his body and move freely.

The power and size of the ghosts he created, as well as the distance his projected spirit could travel, all depended on his Intelligence stat.

Of the three new skills he had gained from eating the Hollow-Hollow Fruit, the last surprised Adrian most.

[Ghost Body]: Under the influence of the Hollow-Hollow Fruit, your body shows signs of becoming ghostlike. You gain some ghost abilities and immunity to a certain degree of physical attacks.

Gain some ghost abilities...

Adrian narrowed his eyes.

As he recalled, more than twenty years from now, Perona had barely developed her abilities. When she first appeared in the Thriller Bark arc, her other powers were hardly worth mentioning apart from her almost certain-kill Negative Hollows. Her real body was a glaring weakness.

But two years after the Paramount War, Perona could easily make her real body float into the air, just like a ghost.

So if Ghost Body reaches a high enough level, could I turn my entire body into a ghost?

Not just resist physical attacks to a certain degree, but become an intangible ghost immune to all physical attacks?

The terrifying possibility set Adrian's heart racing.

Then he checked how much experience Ghost Body needed to level up, and his eyes nearly popped out.

"A hundred million?!"

"This is only level-one Ghost Body, and it takes a full hundred million experience to upgrade? How much will later levels cost? Come to think of it, did I even earn thirty million experience over the past two years?"

Adrian took a deep breath and earnestly reminded himself: This is a Devil Fruit!

This is a Devil Fruit!

This is a Devil Fruit!!

After repeating it three times, he finally calmed down.

He glanced at the experience on his panel. Even if he poured all of it into Ghost Body, the progress bar probably wouldn't reach one percent. Adrian sensibly abandoned the idea of leveling his Hollow-Hollow Fruit abilities with experience.

"Then it's time to spend those Free Attribute Points and Skill Points I've been saving!"

Skill Points and Free Attribute Points were precious resources, especially the former.

There were roughly three ways to gain Skill Points: level up, complete certain high-level missions, or raise a skill to its maximum level.

Adrian understood that as he grew stronger, Skill Points would become harder and harder to obtain. Every single point was invaluable.

He knew how important Skill Points were for instantly improving an ability. They could teach him a new skill on the spot or raise a skill's level without regard for bottlenecks.

Since gaining the system panel, Adrian had used Skill Points only once, to unlock Six Powers: Life Return ahead of time.

By now, Adrian had saved a full 83 Skill Points! (His two new Secondary Professions had brought him another 20.)

Now was the time to put them to use!

Each skill upgrade required as many Skill Points as the level being reached: one point for level one, two for level two, and so on.

Eighty-three Skill Points were enough for Adrian to max out one skill instantly!

Adrian studied the three skills granted by the Hollow-Hollow Fruit.

Spirit Projection didn't seem useful for now. Pass!

He could improve Ghost Creation's proficiency later by practicing and making ghosts. Pass!

The only one left was Ghost Body. Raising its proficiency probably meant getting hit over and over—a long, painful process with no hope of leveling it up in sight...

That's the one!

Adrian immediately dumped 55 Skill Points into Ghost Body!

[Ghost Body] LV3 (0/400 million): Your body shows a slight tendency to become ghostlike. You gain some ghost abilities, can float into the air like a ghost, and are immune to a certain degree of physical attacks.

[...]

[Ghost Body] LV6 (0/3.2 billion): Your body shows a strong tendency to become ghostlike. You can turn into a ghost for short periods, change your size, pass through physical obstacles, and become immune to physical attacks.

[...]

[Ghost Body] LV9 (0/25.6 billion): You can remain a ghost for long periods.

[Ghost Body] LV10 (0/51.2 billion): You can enter a ghostlike state anytime, anywhere, passing through physical obstacles and becoming immune to all physical attacks.

With the final ten Skill Points invested, Ghost Body finally reached max level.

The max-level skill effect was even more frightening.

[Ghost Body] LV10 (MAX): Passive skill. No cost. Become ghostlike and immune to all physical attacks!

"Holy shit! I got a Logia-style passive skill out of a Paramecia!"

Adrian couldn't help swearing. Who could possibly stand up to a passive skill like that?!

And becoming ghostlike wasn't merely a matter of turning into a natural substance.

Ghostification had four major features: flight, size-changing, passing through physical obstacles, and immunity to physical attacks!

It was absurdly powerful!

Looking at his remaining 28 Skill Points, Adrian fought down the urge to spend them all.

The rush was addictive!

But remembering the experience bars he had glimpsed while upgrading Ghost Body made his teeth ache.

25.6 billion. 51.2 billion...

Who would have thought the experience needed to upgrade Devil Fruit skills grew ex-po-nen-tial-ly?

How the hell was anyone supposed to grind that much experience?

All the experience Adrian had saved over the past two years didn't even add up to a hundred million!

If he really had to use experience to max out his Hollow-Hollow Fruit abilities, he would probably need to live for three thousand years!

Considering the Ghost Fruit Specialty's emphasis, Adrian put all his remaining Free Attribute Points into Intelligence.

His panel had been transformed.

--

Name: Adrian

Level: 29 (Version 1.0 public beta countdown: 364 days, 2 hours, 37 minutes, 56 seconds)

Secondary Professions: Shipwright LV10 (MAX), Doctor LV10 (MAX)

Personal Attributes: Strength 80, Agility 70, Stamina 74, Intelligence 250, Charisma 25, Luck 1

Free Attribute Points: 0

Skill Points: 28

Specialties: [Low-Level Toughness], [Ghost Fruit], [Sea Curse]

Skills: [Ghost Body] (MAX), [Six Powers: Shave] (LV8), [Six Powers: Paper Art] (LV6), [Ghost Creation] (LV1), [Spirit Projection] (LV1)

--

There was nothing more to say. With those attributes, those Specialties, and especially those skills, he wouldn't merely stride unchecked through the first half of the Grand Line—he could do it walking backward!

His Intelligence in particular had shot through the roof under the Ghost Fruit Specialty's "Intelligence ×2" bonus!

Two hundred and fifty points!

Under normal circumstances, only a level-sixty character who had put every point into Intelligence could reach that figure. Adrian was only level twenty-nine!

It was terrifying!

His heart pounding, Adrian couldn't wait to test the power of his max-level Ghost Body.

His figure turned hazy for an instant, and he entered his ghostlike state.

"This feeling..."

Adrian raised his hand and clenched his fist. Nothing felt different.

But when he swung at the Tea Table in front of him, his arm passed straight through it. The momentum even carried his arm through the Tatami floor.

"I can pass through physical obstacles!"

Adrian's eyes lit up. He tested the other abilities of his ghostlike state one by one—flight and changing size—and both worked remarkably well.

What was more, Adrian noticed something else.

With Ghost Body at max level, he could remain ghostlike at all times, experiencing what it felt like to be a ghost every second of the day.

For the Hollow-Hollow Fruit's other two skills, that constant experience was like an "automatic experience buff."

Spirit Projection's gains were modest, but Ghost Creation accumulated experience at an unbelievable rate!

In just a few seconds, Ghost Creation had gained nearly a few hundred experience points—roughly ten per second!

In other words, even if Adrian did nothing, Ghost Creation would reach level two in four months!

I wonder how long this effect will last...

Adrian let his thoughts wander. If it keeps up at this rate, one level after four months, two after twelve, three after twenty-eight, four after sixty, five after a hundred and twenty-four...

Uh, when I put it that way, it isn't all that fast. Level five would take ten years...

Whatever. It's a passive buff, and it's free.

In a word: sweet!

Next, Adrian tested Ghost Creation.

Although he had only just eaten the Devil Fruit, Adrian already had plenty of ideas for developing the Hollow-Hollow Fruit. At worst, he could learn from Perona in the original story!