Advanced Scouting

Because Xie Wen had beaten Bax in single combat, Cody was even friendlier when they met again. He even took the initiative to raise Xie Wen's pay as a guard...

If the previous payment had really been money for the bombs, this time he genuinely valued Xie Wen's strength.

Cody also knew that Xie Wen was short on money, so he paid him half the fee up front as a deposit.

Of course, Xie Wen wasn't about to turn down a good thing. He was still planning to find a good blade at the trade fair and try unlocking the weapons page... ideally, a Famous Sword.

However, Xie Wen also knew that even if Cody paid the entire fee, rather than just half, it wouldn't be enough to buy a Famous Sword. As for other weapons in the "Skillful Grade" category... he didn't know much about prices in the One Piece world, but he figured it still wouldn't be enough.

Besides, if he wanted to summon more Palicoes, he couldn't neglect Devil Fruits while collecting excellent weapons.

Which meant... there would be plenty more things to spend money on in the future...

He'd worried about money before transmigrating, and he still had to worry about money afterward. Clearly, the fundamental laws of the world never changed.

Xie Wen let out a long sigh, pushed those annoying matters aside, and decided to pet a cat to improve his mood first.

"Little Klee~ Come over here. I'll tell you more of the Naruto the Cat story today."

At first, Xie Wen had told Little Plushie things like Andersen's fairy tales and stories from One Thousand and One Nights, but Klee Meow wasn't interested in stories that "weren't exciting at all." She preferred battle stories about heroes defeating demon kings, and they were even better if they included fire, explosions, and things like that.

So, after much consideration, Xie Wen tried telling her an abridged version of Naruto with Palicoes as the main characters. She loved it... and he'd kept telling it ever since.

As for the possibility of summoning Naruto Meow, Sasuke Meow, or some other Naruto-inspired Palico in the future, Xie Wen wasn't worried at all.

First, the odds of summoning a Naruto-inspired Palico out of all those anime characters weren't high. Second, even if he did, it wouldn't matter. Plenty of people shared the exact same name, let alone cats.

Besides, the cats' lives were very different from those of their originals. There was still a Sanji in the East Blue waiting for Sanji Meow to meet him.

"Yay, meow!" Klee Meow, who had been lying on the table drawing, grabbed her drawing and raced over. "Look, Big Brother Xie Wen! This is the Sasuke Meow Klee drew!"

Yes, with Deidara and Konan yet to appear, Klee Meow's favorite character at the moment was Sasuke, who was good at Fire Release and whose eyes could also turn red...

At first, Xie Wen had worried that Klee Meow might turn into a little cat with delusions of grandeur, but fortunately, she hadn't shown any signs of that so far.

"What a wonderful drawing, Klee."

Xie Wen took the drawing from her paws, glanced at it, and praised her sincerely. Klee Meow was quite talented at drawing, too, and her art style was practically identical to the drawing in the Klee promotional video he'd seen before transmigrating.

"Hee-hee~"

Delighted by the praise, Klee Meow quickly burrowed into Xie Wen's arms and rubbed her little head against his chin. Then she urged him, "Hurry up and tell the story, Big Brother Xie Wen, meow! Last time, Naruto managed to summon the giant toad. Klee's still waiting for him to beat that bad guy called Gaara, meow!"

Sanji Meow, who was tinkering with something nearby, didn't come over, but his ears stood straight up and quietly turned toward Xie Wen.

Xie Wen gently scratched Klee Meow's chin, raised his voice a little, and picked up where he'd left off.

The next day, Cody's ship had its cargo loaded early. Once everyone was accounted for, it slowly sailed out of Paper Lantern Town's harbor.

"Fuck! I'm such an idiot!"

As Paper Lantern Town grew smaller and smaller, Xie Wen suddenly slapped his thigh and shouted in frustration.

"What's wrong?" Bax asked curiously.

"Uh... nothing. I just remembered there was something I forgot to buy." Xie Wen's expression stiffened, and he brushed it off with a random excuse.

Actually, that wasn't entirely a lie. He really had looked so upset because he'd suddenly remembered something he hadn't done.

As for what that was...

"You idiot, you must've forgotten to unlock the map, meow," Sanji Meow said gleefully from beside him.

Xie Wen shot him a cold sidelong glance. "What are you so happy about? If I haven't unlocked the map, summoning a big-sister Palico will have to wait."

"!!!" [Shocked cat.jpg]

Both the man and the cat suddenly felt a lot less cheerful. They stared in the direction of the long-vanished Paper Lantern Town, wearing matching forlorn expressions.

"A map?" Bax, who had vaguely caught the gist of their conversation, paused, then suddenly remembered Xie Wen getting "ripped off" buying maps yesterday...

"It's just a map, isn't it? Wait here a moment, lad."

Bax patted his chest and ran toward the captain's cabin. A little while later, he returned with a roll of paper that looked quite old.

"Here! Only the Navy has a complete map of the West Blue, but we've collected maps of the nearby waters and the areas around the islands we visit regularly. I doubt there are many more accurate than Mr. Cody's." Bax handed Xie Wen the maps, then added, "I'm not giving them to you, mind. You can have a look, or even make a copy if you want, but you have to return them afterward."

"Uh... there's no need to go to all that trouble. I just need a look. Thanks, Bax." Xie Wen hastily thanked him.

He had to admit, he really was lucky to have met good people like Cody and his crew first in the One Piece world. It was nothing like his rotten luck before transmigrating.

As Xie Wen accepted the maps from Bax, he shamelessly claimed a certain Ragdoll cat's credit for himself.

Of course, he had his reasons...

Sure, Klee Meow had pointed out the direction back then, but Xie Wen was the one who had summoned her! So, if you traced it back to the source, didn't it still come down to his good luck?

While making excuses for himself, Xie Wen looked through all the maps in his hands.

I knew it... in a world dominated by oceans, even with more convenient navigation tools like Log Poses and Eternal Poses, their nautical charts shouldn't be that terrible.

Sure enough, accurate nautical charts did exist. They still couldn't compare to the printed maps on Earth that had undergone repeated surveying, lacked more detailed data like elevation, latitude, and longitude, and were nowhere near electronic maps, but at least they looked like proper maps.

After returning the maps to Bax, Xie Wen took out the Hunter's Notes again...

This time, the map page had finally changed.

First, aside from the areas Xie Wen had already unlocked, a small, faintly outlined region had appeared on the map. It was essentially the combined area covered by the maps he'd just read. A short, translucent section had also appeared on the progress bar below.

If all it added was "pre-rendering," looking at these maps wouldn't mean much to Xie Wen. But after studying it carefully, he discovered that wasn't all.

After gaining the "pre-rendering" effect, Xie Wen's "vision range" had also expanded enormously.

To give a simple example: before "pre-rendering," the area lit up on the map while Xie Wen sailed had been a finger's width across. Now, it was a palm's width, just as if he'd learned Advanced Scouting in Heroes of Might and Magic.

He also no longer needed to return to Paper Lantern Town, where he'd stayed earlier, because the entire island had already been lit up.

Although he wasn't sure of the exact reason, this really did let Xie Wen breathe a huge sigh of relief...

If the method of lighting up the map had remained unchanged, heaven only knew how long it would take to fill the new progress bar, let alone light up the entire world map, as he would probably have to do later.

Without "pre-rendering," Xie Wen would probably only have a chance of completing the map by killing Kizaru or Kuma, finding the newly reborn Glint-Glint Fruit and Paw-Paw Fruit, and using their powers to fly all over the world.

But speaking of stealing Devil Fruit powers...

An idea suddenly popped into Xie Wen's mind.

Some clever readers have probably already guessed it. After all, it isn't exactly a novel concept, and the foreshadowing I planted earlier was pretty obvious.

As for whether Monster Hunter or Pirates has the stronger power system, there really isn't much point in comparing them. Both have exaggerated lore, and both have moments that contradict it. Judging solely by the destruction their humanoid beings can cause, Pirates is obviously more over the top, but you could also justify the Monster Hunter side by saying Elder Dragon scales can easily block Haki and so on.

Personally, setting aside uncertainties like differing world rules and details that contradict most of the established lore, hunters fall short of Pirates characters in terms of their feats and the overall setting. When they hunt Elder Dragons, they rely more on hunting techniques to exploit weaknesses, rather than pinning Sea Kings to the ground and beating them senseless the way Pirates characters can.

Of course, this sort of thing comes down to personal interpretation. Besides, only the protagonist and the cats have Monster Hunter abilities, so it doesn't really matter which side is stronger...

The matchups and power system in the One Piece world are already a tangled mess. If you make me add the Monster Hunter world's system to that and sort it all out, I'll fucking lose my mind!

Thanks to Weiyi de Xingyu and Wu zhi Beifang for the tips.