Chapter 200: Off the Charts

"Captain, want to play a round?"

Luqi glanced at Xiang Gaowen; though his expression remained calm, the curiosity in his eyes was utterly unmistakable.

He had witnessed Xiang Gaowen's monstrous, overwhelming strength with his own eyes during the battle at Drum Island.

Yet he had never truly grasped just how strong Xiang Gaowen actually was; now that he had the chance to witness it firsthand, he naturally couldn't let it slip away.

"I'm quite curious too~"

Zoro lifted his gaze to look at Xiang Gaowen.

He was confident.

With his current strength, if he were to return to that first battle against Xiang Gaowen, he still wouldn't be certain of victory.

Yet he was confident he would never again be so easily toyed with by Xiang Gaowen as he had been before.

But he knew even more clearly that no matter how much stronger he became, Xiang Gaowen would only grow stronger at an even faster pace.

"Oh~"

Xiang Gaowen looked at the owl clasping his hands in the distance and immediately took interest:

"You said your upper limit for endurance is around ten thousand, right?"

The owl nodded:

"That's right, chababa~"

"As long as it doesn't exceed that number, my body can withstand it."

In his words,

he brimmed with confidence in his own durability.

Jabura nearby felt the same; he never worried about the owl's safety:

"The owl has never—"

"There won't be any accidental injuries."

"Then I'll... give it a try!"

The moment the words left his mouth,

Xiang Gaowen's figure had already appeared before the owl; he clenched his fist, gauged the force in his hand, and said:

"I'll only use forty percent of my strength; if you can withstand it, you win!"

"Don't underestimate me!"

"Chababa~"

The owl's brows furrowed slightly, taking this as a deliberate humiliation from Xiang Gaowen.

But before the anger in his heart could even escape his lips, he felt a violent gust of wind blow past, sending his hair dancing wildly.

Even before Xiang Gaowen's fist had arrived, an indentation had already appeared on the owl's skin...

Something's wrong!

I'm done for!

"Wai—!"

Boom!

After a dull thud, the owl's face contorted; he opened his mouth and spat out bitter stomach acid, losing consciousness on the spot.

His body was sent flying by Xiang Gaowen's overwhelming force, skipping repeatedly across the water's surface until it slid all the way to the very edge of everyone's vision.

For a moment, the scene fell terrifyingly silent.

Amidst a sky-full of splashing water, Xiang Gaowen's mouth twitched:

"Crap, I didn't hold back enough!"

"Keluo, save him!"

Following Xiang Gaowen's startled shout, everyone present finally came to their senses; staring in the direction where the owl had vanished, they were rendered speechless.

Very quickly,

Keluo brought the owl back and laid him on the deck.

At this moment, the owl's face was deathly pale, completely unconscious; only the constant rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive.

A few breaths later,

"Hiss—!"

The owl suddenly snapped his eyes open; the pain radiating from his chest made his lips tremble, and the look he cast at Xiang Gaowen was as if he were staring at some catastrophic flood or ferocious beast.

"I... I can't calculate it; that strike far exceeded my endurance limit."

"Forty percent of your strength was already beyond your prediction?"

Jabura swallowed hard.

He knew what that meant.

The owl's endurance limit being ten thousand meant that exceeding that value could result in injury.

But a mere ten thousand units of Dori could absolutely not knock the owl unconscious directly.

In other words, Xiang Gaowen's forty percent strength far exceeded ten thousand units of Dori—so how much would his full strength be?

Thirty thousand?

Forty thousand?

Or even more?

Jabura knew that there was a vast gap between himself, and even Luqi, and Xiang Gaowen, who was one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea; he had also guessed that Xiang Gaowen's Dori would be very high.

But this high? It was enough to induce despair.

With this, what the hell am I even training for!

He turned his head and only then realized that Weiqu beside him was frantically rubbing his own eyes.

Clearly, the scene before him made Weiqu feel as though he were experiencing an illusion.

Yet whether it was the cold wind blowing against his face or the soreness in his body, both reminded him that the monster in the distance was undeniably real.

"We should all be fortunate that the fellow didn't harbor murderous intent back then."

Jabra sighed:

"No."

"Perhaps it wasn't that the fellow lacked murderous intent, but rather that he deliberately held back out of respect for Roubo Luqi's sake."

"How truly ironic."

While the two were sighing, Zoro and the others in the distance also gradually recovered from their silence.

"This sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn't it? The captain's Armament Haki is higher than all of us combined?"

Sanji slowly removed the cigarette butt from his mouth, opened his lips to exhale a puff of smoke, and murmured:

"Truly..."

"... a monster so pure that it leaves one unable to muster even a shred of desire to challenge him!"

"Ah~"

Van Augur, who had appeared beside the group at some unknown moment, lowered his eyelids and looked toward Xiang Gaowen in the distance:

"Hasn't the captain always been like this?"

"Overwhelmingly powerful."

"Even a monster like the Flame Disaster Akainu, whose bounty exceeds 1.3 billion, was no match for him."

"Besides, for a man who intends to reach the summit, such power is only to be expected."

"That's true."

Xiang Keluo reached out to push up his glasses, but the calm expression on his face lasted only an instant before he could no longer maintain it:

"But no matter how you look at it, this gap is far too ridiculous. How exactly did that fellow cultivate?"

He knew that Xiang Gaowen's learning ability was perverted to the extreme; a single glance allowed him to steal one's technique, and merely observing for a month enabled him to directly comprehend the Six Powers of the Marines.

But such things relied mostly on talent in the realm of comprehension, whereas Armament Haki, even if not rigorously measured, was easy to judge as something that purely consumed physical talent.

Superb comprehension combined with monster-level physical abilities...

"This world must be utterly mad to allow such a fellow to run rampant."

"However."

"What we should be worried about now is whether we will fail to keep up with his pace and end up like those people in the East Blue."

His words fell silent.

The pirates all fell quiet, yet a flame burned in their eyes.

Mere moments later, everyone silently resumed their cultivation state.

They trained even harder, more diligently, and pushed their bodies to even greater extremes than before.

Even Jabra and the others, who hailed from the CP organization, couldn't help but feel their teeth ache upon witnessing this scene.

They even saw a pirate's thigh vein burst open!

"Although I can understand that this might be the reason they are so powerful..."

"But no matter how you look at it, training to this extent will only cause the body to break down, or even leave permanent damage, right?"

In the distance.

Upon hearing this, Roubo Luqi stopped his movements and asked in confusion:

"Isn't this level quite normal?"

"How is this normal at all?"

Jabra's eyelids twitched repeatedly; seeing that no one cared to respond to him, he simply stood aside.

Yet the more he watched Roubo Luqi train desperately, the more unwilling he felt.

A few minutes later.

Jabra removed his shirt, tossed it into the hands of the owl, turned around, and joined the army of cultivators, beginning to secretly compete with Roubo Luqi.

Night fell.

Xiang Gaowen sat before his desk, looking at the number of experience points harvested today as displayed by the system prompt, and nodded in satisfaction.

The consequence of everyone's desperate cultivation was that Xiang Gaowen's gains for the day had risen by another thirty percent.

"Indeed, one must apply pressure to them to generate even greater motivation."

Xiang Gaowen's gaze swept across the system panel, finally settling on Swordsmanship and Armament Haki.

Currently, both skills had reached a critical point; leveling up just once more would unlock new attributes.

And whether either skill leveled up, it would bring a tremendous boost to Xiang Gaowen's combat power.

The former, as Xiang Gaowen's primary combat strength, needed no further explanation; the latter would even more so complete Xiang Gaowen's shortcomings in the realm of Haki.

Xiang Gaowen couldn't help but feel a secret anticipation.

He understood clearly.

Once he entered the New World, the opponents he would face would be top-tier powerhouses like Emperors and Admirals.

And these people were truly capable of piercing through his shield and instantly defeating him with Armament Haki: Advanced Coating.

At the very least, Xiang Gaowen still lacked the confidence to withstand the single strike of Divine Piercing that Shanks used to instantly defeat Kid.

Therefore, apart from physique, swordsmanship, and the three fundamentals of the Red Dragon, Haki was the most important one.

In the following days.

Xiang Gaowen's pirate crew enjoyed a rare period of tranquility.

Aside from his cultivation, Luqi also took charge of organizing the shipwrights on board to repair the vessel.

The Raven's propulsion system soon returned to normal.

Seeing no hope of escape and realizing that staying offered them greater advantage, Jabura and his two companions simply decided to remain on the ship under the pretext of protecting Vivi.

The more they watched Luqi cultivate, the more uneasy they felt in their hearts.

This feeling of watching a teammate engage in such intense effort was like having hundreds of ants crawling over one's body; ultimately, all three joined the ranks of these relentless strivers.

Xiang Gaowen, naturally, had no objection to this.

After all, with three additional leeks added to the mix, and Jabura being a Zoan-type ability user, they could help Xiang Gaowen accelerate the progress of his Red Dragon Fruit.

If not for the system's restrictions, Xiang Gaowen would have even wanted to let them experience the Captain's Wrath buff ahead of schedule.

Time flew by, and several days passed.

After conducting a final inspection of the Raven's propulsion system, Luqi walked into the captain's quarters to report the specific situation to Xiang Gaowen.

"The propulsion system has basically returned to normal, but this ship ultimately suffers from structural issues; the best way to thoroughly resolve this is to replace it with a new one."

Xiang Gaowen nodded:

"For now, we can only make do with this."

"Once we Enter the New World, or once you obtain the blueprint for Pluton on your end, we will build a new ship that truly belongs to us."

"Mm."

Half a day later.

Xiang Gaowen's pirate crew set sail once again, heading in the direction of Alabasta.

Several days earlier, Xiang Gaowen had already informed Cobra of Vivi's situation.

The latter, wholly concerned for his daughter's safety, naturally agreed without any hesitation to the one hundred million ransom demanded by Xiang Gaowen.

Both parties agreed to exchange the hostage at Canola Port.

At this moment.

Alabasta Wang Cheng.

Cobra sat upon the royal Wang Zuo, looking weary as he examined the intelligence gathered by Chaka, Pell, and the others.

His brows were tightly furrowed.

"Is the reason for Lady Vivi's disappearance due to pirates?"

Pell's eyes carried anger that was difficult to conceal as he said indignantly:

"As expected, not every Warlord of the Sea is like Crocodile."

"Even though he shares the title of 'Righteous,' Knight Xiang Gaowen is, in the end, nothing more than a pirate."

Chaka nodded.

Clearly, he wholly agreed with Pell's viewpoint.

After all, in recent years, Crocodile had been active in Alabasta, eliminating pirates everywhere, and had already accumulated immense popularity.

Whether commoners, Alabasta officials, or even they, the royal guards, all held him in high regard.

Cobra glanced at the two men but said nothing, directing all his attention to the intelligence in his hands:

"Ever since Alabasta turned into a desert several hundred years ago, this kingdom has fallen into prolonged poverty."

"For the people here, merely surviving is already incredibly difficult; let us hope they truly came only for the ransom."

Just then.

A low, hoarse voice rang out from outside the great hall:

"He certainly did not come for the ransom."

Crocodile slowly walked in, looking calmly at Cobra, and said:

"As for the reason, you, as king, should know better than I, after all, that fellow is this generation's Red Dragon Fruit ability user."

Cobra suddenly stood up, his pupils trembling continuously:

"Has the devil who turned this kingdom into a desert... been reborn once again?"

"That is correct."

Cobra immediately became Solemn.

Even though he had glimpsed mere fragments of the Red Dragon within the records of the Alabasta royal family.

He could still feel that the fruit brought calamity akin to a natural disaster upon this kingdom.

If a Red Dragon Fruit ability user were to truly reappear in Alabasta, then even the last sliver of living space for this kingdom would be destroyed.

"No!"

"This matter is no longer something we can handle..."

At this moment, even if Cobra was unwilling to seek aid from the World Government, he had no choice but to bow his head.

Neither this kingdom nor his daughter could afford even the slightest risk.

"I will report this to the Marines; given the urgency, they will take action."

"Wait."

Cobra's action was interrupted by Crocodile.

Just as he was puzzled, Crocodile's next words felt like a bucket of cold water poured over him:

"Once that fellow discovers the Marines' movements, he might kill the hostage, and your daughter's life would be lost on the spot."

"Then what should I do?"

Cobra slumped down, reaching out to touch his forehead.

This was simply because he knew clearly that what Crocodile said was a fact very likely to happen.

Even in Alabasta, a member nation of the World Government, one of the twenty nations that created the world, a great power with hundreds of thousands of standing troops.

Every year, commoners and nobles killed by pirates were as numerous as ox hairs.

"I can help you."

A faint smile lingered on Crocodile's lips.

Watching Cobra's reaction, he knew his plan had largely succeeded.

In reality.

A month ago, when Vivi appeared at Whiskey Peak, he had already received news and even dispatched core members to pursue and kill her.

Although the assassination attempts failed consecutively, they had no impact on the overall situation.

Furthermore, judging from the fact that Vivi had not sought support from the World Government, even if she knew something, she held no evidence in her hands.

But now the situation was different.

Vivi had boarded Xiang Gaowen's ship.

If Xiang Gaowen truly learned something from Vivi's mouth, or even guessed his purpose.

Then Baroque Works' deployment here, and the so-called hero act he had endured performing with disgust for several years, would all become a joke, erased by the World Government once they realized the truth.

But upon learning that Xiang Gaowen's purpose was merely to demand ransom from Cobra, for Crocodile, the matter could be described as a turning point.

He had found a perfect strategy.

(End of Chapter)