Chapter 2

Sure enough.

After Nojiko and Nami woke up and couldn't find their beloved items, they were both anxious and aggrieved, and both cried until they were little tear-stained faces.

Siano was filled with righteous indignation, echoing Bell-mère as he cursed the unscrupulous thief, calling them human scum for stealing from children—simply worse than beasts!

Immediately after, he went to the market, bought a pile of new hairpins and several new headbands, and spent half the day coaxing them before he finally made the two little ones break into smiles through their tears.

After this whole ordeal, plus some subsequent control experiments.

Siano finally figured out the judgment logic of the sacrificial system.

1. The sacrifice must be something closely connected to a manga character, and the value is positively correlated with the closeness of that connection;

For example, the orange flower hairpin Nami cherished was far more valuable than the smelly socks she had changed out of.

2. The value is also positively correlated with the strength of the person the sacrifice came from, as well as the weight of that character in the manga;

It goes without saying that it's related to strength; things with emotional bonds to strong people are harder to obtain, so their value is naturally higher;

As for character weight, it's also easy to understand; for example, sacrifices obtained from Nami were a grade higher in value.

After all, Nami is the number one heroine in the manga, while Nojiko is just a peripheral supporting character, and Bell-mère only lived in memories.

To confirm this, Siano even took advantage of Uncle Genzo's nap, dispatched his top general, the little thief cat Nami, to steal the small windmill from the top of his head, happily gaining a mere 10 points.

Fortunately, even a mosquito is meat; there's no helping it if the value is low, after all, most manga readers don't even remember who this person is.

3. Sacrifices from the same source must wait a year before they can be sacrificed again.

In other words.

There is a cooldown for "shearing the sheep," and the CD is very long; you can't just keep shearing one fat sheep.

Looking at his remaining 25 points, Siano sighed sadly; this rule was the reason he was so poor now.

If there were no such restrictions...

If he were given a few years to develop in silence, he couldn't even imagine how strong he would be when he became an adult and went to sea.

He wondered if the three Marine Admirals combined could take a single punch from him.

"What are you spacing out for?"

Bell-mère reached out and waved in front of him, breaking Siano's fantasy. "You've changed your clothes, why aren't you going to eat? You've been working all afternoon, aren't you hungry?"

Indeed, eating was more important.

In the warm light of the kitchen, a rich meaty aroma drifted.

The two little gluttons had already been eating to their hearts' content, but their mouths and stomachs were too small, so the table full of dishes still looked sumptuous, as if they hadn't been touched at all.

When he came in, Nojiko immediately pretended to be a lady, sipping corn chowder in small mouthfuls, while Nami was still focused on struggling with the crispy crust on the caramel pudding.

And when Siano sat down, clapped his hands, and said "I'm digging in," the style of the scene changed instantly.

The honey-glazed ribs vanished at a rate of three seconds per piece, the steamed fish was reduced to bones in the blink of an eye, and staples like mashed potato rice and garlic bread couldn't last for more than a few seconds, as if they were being swallowed into an endless black hole.

The number of empty plates increased rapidly, and soon they were piled into a small mountain.

If an outsider were here, they would surely be dumbfounded.

But the family had long been used to it.

Probably starting a year or two ago, Siano began to shoot up in height, and his appetite increased day by day.

—Boys entering puberty, and doing physical labor every day, eating a little bit more than little girls is normal, right!

Bell-mère rested her chin on her elbow, smiling as she watched Siano tuck in.

She didn't know if she had saved the East Blue in her past life for the heavens to send her such lovely little angels, especially Siano, who was steady, sensible, diligent, and reliable.

If he really were an angel, he would probably be the most popular one in heaven, right?

Speaking of which.

Although she had been a Marine for a few years and her physical fitness was better than the average person, supporting such a large family on her own was ultimately a strenuous task.

For a long time, the childhood of the three children was actually quite poor and difficult.

At one point, Nami could only wear her sister's old clothes, and Bell-mère often felt guilty and blamed herself for this, until Siano grew into the family's biggest labor force, and life slowly got better.

Especially during the harvest season of the last two years, Siano could always harvest the entire orange orchard within a week; if it had been before, she would have needed a whole month.

Finishing the harvesting and sorting work early meant that when the first purchasing cargo ship arrived, everything could be sold, and the price would be slightly higher than later on.

So, after a few years of this virtuous cycle, the family's income had been rising steadily.

Bell-mère counted on her fingers; after this year's batch of oranges was sold, the money she had saved would exceed three hundred thousand Beli!

Ooh, honestly, was her childhood dream about to come true? Who could have predicted a few years ago that she would one day become a millionaire!

"Did this arrive today?"

This time it was Siano's voice that broke her beautiful daydream.

"Eh?"

Bell-mère came back to her senses, only to see that Siano had already finished eating and picked up a newspaper she had placed on the corner of the table.

"Yes, the News Coo only came at noon." Bell-mère complained, "I don't know what the World Economic News is doing, raising prices again. It was 40 Beli last week, and now it's 50 Beli a copy. When I was your age, it was only 20 Beli a copy..."

She didn't have the habit of ordering newspapers every day before, and she couldn't afford it.

It was only after things got better in the last two years that she started ordering them at Siano's strong request, and the latter would read them carefully every day.

Bell-mère also couldn't understand why her foster son was so concerned about the newspaper, always feeling that those big events on the sea were clearly very far away from them, planting oranges in the countryside.

Her nagging went in one ear and out the other; Siano hummed twice and scanned the newspaper.

—He hadn't read many lines before his gaze was instantly drawn to the report at the bottom of the front page.

"Agreement Reached! Sun Pirates Captain Jinbe Becomes the Newest Warlord of the Sea!"

There was also a picture next to it; accompanied by several Marine officers, the blue fat fish-man was wearing a yukata and wooden clogs, his face calm as he stared at the camera.

Siano stared at this photo, his gaze not moving for a long time.

His hand gripping the edge of the newspaper tightened unconsciously.

"Is it coming..." he whispered.

"What?" Bell-mère tilted her head in confusion.

"Nothing."

Siano shook his head slightly and quickly flipped through the remaining pages.

After confirming there was no other information worth noting, he glanced out the window, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

"The rain seems to have stopped. I'm going to the orchard to practice swordplay for a while. If it gets late, you guys go to sleep first; don't wait for me."

He smiled, grabbed the wooden sword from the corner, and pushed the door open, leaving behind a silhouette that gradually faded away outside the glass window.

"Hmm..."

Bell-mère withdrew her gaze, pinching her chin in deep thought.

She wasn't a person with keen intuition; when she was a child, the elders in her hometown always called her a brainless, naughty idiot.

But after living together day and night for so many years, she knew Siano too well and always felt that his reaction must mean he was hiding something from her.

She suddenly remembered, in a daze.

The year the child was ten, one day during his afternoon nap, he seemed to have had a very long and realistic nightmare.

And then he woke up suddenly, covered in sweat, and came to find her, saying something about a group of fierce-looking pirates coming to occupy this island in the future.

He wanted her to move early, go far away, and find a place on another island to start life over.

This was naturally impossible; this was her hometown, after all. How could she move just because of a child's inexplicable nightmare?

Besides, the East Blue Branch 16 where she had served was very close to here.

If there really were pirates coming, could the Marines of Branch 16 just ignore it?

Bell-mère was torn between laughter and tears as she comforted him for a long time before the little guy's emotions stabilized.

It was also from that day on that the child's temperament became steadier day by day, and he never mentioned moving again. As time passed, he had gradually become the pillar of the family.

All along.

She just thought Siano had grown up, and because he was born in hardship, he was far more mature than his peers, and she only felt gratified by this.

Could it be...

That the stimulation of that nightmare was far more intense than she thought, and had continued to this day?

————

"Hoo!"

On the night when autumn and winter alternated, the temperature had plummeted to around zero, and the white breath exhaled from his nostrils was visible to the naked eye.

Siano jogged around the orange orchard a dozen times, which counted as digesting dinner and warming up.

Immediately after, he came to an open area and took off his clothes, revealing his strong chest.

He planted his feet in a horse stance, set the wooden sword aside, and began practicing the Breathing Fist.

This set of fist techniques was something he had purchased from the trading market for a huge sum of seven hundred points after saving for a long time last year.

The core seemed to have some connection with the breathing techniques of the Demon Slayer world, but there were obvious differences.

On the edge of the orange grove, there was a circular clearing that had been specially cleared.

Nine thick wooden stakes buried in the ground formed an array, each at different heights and distances, with iron hoops tightly bound at both ends.

This was something Siano had entrusted to the village carpenter, using old varieties of orange trees that had been phased out last year.

If it weren't for the fact that Nami had covered every stake with crayon graffiti—clouds, moons, little rabbits—it would have actually had quite the aura of a master's dojo.

Inside the stake array, there was also half a basket of oranges.

Most had wormholes or were rotting; they were all defective products phased out during the harvest these days.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Three rotten oranges were tossed into the air, and the black-haired boy moved the moment they landed.

His right foot stepped fiercely on the annual ring pattern of the wooden stake, his waist and hips twisted to produce a sound of breaking air, and his elbow accurately struck the first falling fruit.

The airflow driven by the seventh form of the Breathing Fist surged wildly under his skin, blowing the orange into eight even segments with a "pop."

Before the juice could splash onto his eyelashes, his left knee had already crushed the seed sac of the second orange.

And when the third orange was still thirty centimeters from the ground, Siano suddenly stopped, his right foot, which was already inches away and about to break the orange peel, stepping steadily on the ground.

Drip.

Sweat dripped down his chin onto the withered leaves, steaming up a wisp of white smoke.

Suddenly relaxing when the muscles were expanded to the limit, repeatedly tempering the capillaries—this was the secret recorded in the Breathing Fist manual.

Siano didn't stop, taking three more oranges from the bamboo basket next to him, repeating the process just now, over and over again.

It wasn't until the half-basket of oranges was almost bottomed out that he finally stopped and came to the faucet to cup water and wash his face.

Sshh—

Kicking the empty basket away, the black-haired boy, after a short rest, turned his target to the orange trees next to him.

These were also varieties purchased by Bell-mère in the early years; both in yield and fruit taste, they were far inferior to the batches planted later.

After winter passed this year, they were due to be phased out.

Just like some fish-men with inferior natures who deserved to be torn into sashimi!

Breathing Fist, Eighth Form!

"Hah!"

Siano let out a low roar, and the moment his left foot crushed the withered leaves under his sole, his right fist struck the tree trunk in the arc of a diving seagull.

Where the fist passed, his finger joints popped like frying beans.

Bang! Bang! One punch after another, like a storm, the place where his knuckles collided with the tree trunk gradually took on an iron-gray color.

This color was a characteristic of the Breathing Fist stimulating the hardening of subcutaneous tissue, which had similarities to Armament Haki.

But the coverage was extremely small, and the strength was inferior; for now, it could only be considered a low-spec version.

After the whole set of punches was finished, a faint "crack" came from the center of the orange tree, but the exterior only had a few fist prints the depth of a finger joint.

Continue!

After a short rest, with only a few seconds of pause, the old orange tree let out another painful groan.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Under the cover of the silent night, the dull and rapid sound of hitting continued in the orange grove.

"One thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven, two thousand!"

Stop!

Siano stood back in the distance, planted his feet, and let out a long breath.

From his shoulders and the top of his head, nearly transparent white gas drifted out, vanishing into the night.

And from his shoulders down, his torso trembled violently, lasting for a few seconds before gradually weakening.

Every inch of muscle twitching matched his heartbeat, his pores spraying out rolling heat waves, steaming the frost attached to the withered branches and leaves at his feet into a twisted vortex.

"The progress is quite good!"

Feeling the sense of power clearly coming from all over his body under extreme weakness and fatigue, Siano twisted his neck, as if reborn, and couldn't help but grin with a satisfied smile.

Must say.

He really had some talent in physical training.

He had been practicing the Breathing Fist for a year and a half, counting from start to finish.

From the clumsy start to now becoming more and more proficient, the speed of progress was like opening an accelerator, getting faster and faster.

It took him a year to go from not entering the door to entering, and another three months, in late summer and early autumn, to finally achieve minor success.

And now, before winter had fully set in, he had already felt the barrier of breaking through the limit.

At this rate.

He was confident that with at most ten more days of such bitter cultivation, he would be able to master the fist technique.

(End of this chapter)