Pirate's Swordsman

Open the wooden box, and on the milky white velvet cushion, a dark green oval Devil Fruit is lying there quietly.

It was the swamp fruit that he spent a lot of money to buy at the auction house when he was in the Chambord Islands.

Out of nostalgia for Uncle Tado and even the entire Tado Pirates, Xia Nuo has not rashly assigned it to his crew members in the past few months. Instead, he has kept it with him and occasionally used it. Come out and take a look, it's like reminiscing about the time when you first left Orange Town.

For him, this is a rare manifestation of emotion defeating reason.

Now, three or four months after entering the new world, Xia Nuo finally felt that it was almost time for him to let this fruit play its due role.

But...who should it be given to?

"Well……"

Looking at the swamp fruit in his hand, Xia Nuo frowned slightly. This was also a problem he had been struggling with when he first got the fruit.

After all, everyone in this world knows how valuable the natural devil fruit is. Compared with the sharp swords that every cadre of the Hayate Pirates has today, if this fruit is not distributed properly, it will not only waste a top cultivator. The opportunity to increase their combat power may also trigger some disputes within the Hayate Pirates.

While he was thinking about this problem, his eyes accidentally glanced at another box in the drawer. He suddenly became more entangled and frowned deeper.

The box placed in the drawer is an iron box with a simple appearance and hard material. It was obtained by him from killing "Ghost Sword Hunter" Jikara when he was in the Principality of Sambia a long time ago.

At that time, Xia Nuo was in a hurry to participate in the decisive battle with the church, so he did not open it on the spot. Later, when he returned to the ship and spent a lot of time carefully prying it open, he was a little disappointed. There was nothing valuable inside. The treasure is just a small white piece of paper.

There were no patterned letters on the piece of paper, and the material felt the same as the life card. However, when Xia Nuo observed it in a still environment, the piece of paper remained motionless without any sign of movement.

This is obviously inconsistent with the characteristics of the Life Card - as a magical paper that represents the owner's vitality, it stands to reason that the torn pieces will attract each other with other pieces, and if the owner dies, the Life Card will automatically burn out. There is no such special situation at hand.

This matter once made Xia Nuo quite entangled. He consulted with the knowledgeable Ivy, but still could not come to any reliable conclusion. In the end, he had to put it back in the iron box for preservation as a small thought. , what if one day in the future this life card fragment moves again, and its owner can be found to reveal the answer?

Turning his eyes back to the wooden box, Xia Nuo pondered for a long time before deciding to hold a frank competition for all crew members who want to become Devil Fruit users, and the Swamp Fruit will belong to the final winner. .

This is the most appropriate solution he can come up with at the moment.

That night, after a small banquet was held in the restaurant to celebrate Daniel becoming the third swordsman on the ship, Xiano announced the decision in front of all the crew.

As expected, this decision caused the entire atmosphere on the Gale to boil. Most of the crew members did not expect that such a rare opportunity would fall on them, and they cheered one after another, gearing up and signing up enthusiastically.

At last count, in addition to Kiddaz, who is already a Devil Fruit user, and Daniel Ross, a swordsman who is preparing to learn Shano and focus on the way of the sword, a total of thirty people have signed up, which is almost equivalent to the entire Gale Sea. 70% of the thieves group.

If you want to hold a competition of this scale, the deck area of ​​the Hayate is naturally not enough. However, now that Baymax has the ability to build thousands of square meters of offshore rock platforms in the nearby waters at any time, the problem of the venue is naturally Then it was solved.

The rules of the competition are relatively simple, with only two components in total. The first part is a head-to-head competition of actual combat ability. Without using any weapons, teams are divided into two groups to compete. If they are knocked to the ground for more than five seconds and cannot get up, they are defeated. In the end, each player will receive corresponding points based on their ranking.

The second part is simply a test of physical fitness and willpower. Xia Nuo drew a track on the edge of the offshore platform. All crew members participating in the competition must participate in sprints and long-distance running.

The former has a limited starting point and end point, and the distance is two thousand meters. The shorter the time, the higher the points. The latter does not compete for speed, but simply competes to see who can continue to run more distances while carrying a weight of 30 kilograms.

This was considered a compensation option given that some crew members currently lacked actual combat effectiveness. After the rules were released, the crew members had no objections to this. On the contrary, it aroused the desire to win and began to practice hard in private one by one. .

Ever since... In the next few days, a series of strange scenes began to appear on the Gale. Some people would walk around carrying wine barrels when they had nothing to do. Some people would even walk and run as soon as they passed by, and they would bring up a gust of wind. I got up at four o'clock in the morning to work on my dream...oh, no, I got up to practice sprinting starting posture.

Even Fujitora could vaguely sense that something was wrong. Why did the young men who played board games with him these past few days run around the room after throwing a dice? Is this the ultimate meaning of team running, or does this imply some kind of metaphysics, which is conducive to scoring higher points?

In order to verify his conjecture, every time it was his turn to roll the dice, Fujitora also started to learn to spread his legs and trot around the room. The result was not to mention, his luck, which had not been very good at all, was really much better. , made him grin broadly...

Five days passed in the blink of an eye, and the pre-announced competition day arrived. The Gale dropped anchor next to the offshore platform, and everyone on the ship came to the platform, either competing or watching the competition. It was lively like a sports meeting.

The first thing to be done is the actual combat part. Under the organization of Xia Nuo, the cadres who did not participate in the competition were mobilized to act as referees on the field, so that up to four groups of competitions could be held at the same time. The simple and neat competition system allowed the winner to go through a whole morning The time was determined quickly - Kira, as the only participating cadre, won the first place.

Throughout the group preliminary round to the finals, Kira's duels almost never lasted more than five minutes. There is no doubt that this is the gap in hard power. Even if they don't use weapons to point it out, ordinary crew members can rarely hold on in his hands. Too long.

However, in the running competition in the afternoon, Kira's suppressive power was not so absolute. In the sprint held earlier, he was even beaten by the first place by more than ten meters. Even though he accelerated and caught up a lot in the end, he still regretfully fell behind. Defeated and only finished fifth.

This made Xia Nuo a little surprised. He originally thought that Kira was good at agility and no one on the crew could compete with him in speed. He didn't expect that he would get such a result after actually trying it.

This is naturally a good thing. It means that although the combat effectiveness of the Hayate Pirates is not very outstanding, there are many ordinary sailors with special skills. If they are trained and trained in a targeted manner in the future, they may not be unable to play a cadre-level role.

After losing in the sprint, Kira was a little frustrated, but he adjusted his mentality in time and regained his fighting spirit before the start of the long-distance race. He carried a 30-kilogram boulder and ran with his head down without saying a word, without worrying about it. Fighting for the leading position.

After all, in comparison, perseverance and adjustment ability are the top priorities for this project, which only compares the total distance and does not value time.

What makes Xia Nuo gratified is that after going through so many ups and downs, many crew members did not let him down. They showed strong resilience and willpower in this project, gritting their teeth and fighting until the last moment until they were exhausted. I had to give up only when I fell to the ground tired.

The final victory was won by Kira. This stubborn kid persisted from noon to dusk. He ran for more than 70 kilometers carrying huge rocks on his back. The shoes under his feet were rotten, but he kicked them away. Then he endured the pain of friction on his soles as if nothing happened until the last moment when his physical strength was exhausted.

In fact, when he ran about sixty kilometers, he was already the final winner. The rest of the crew had already lost and quit. However, by this time, the reward of swamp fruits had become a trivial matter. Instead, the crew members The character of facing one's own heart, wanting to prove oneself, and persevering to the end is inspired and becomes even more valuable.

This is an indispensable cornerstone on the road to becoming a strong man. Xia Nuo already had it when he was in the East China Sea many years ago. It is undoubtedly a surprise for him to see this side of many crew members in a competition today. surprise.

In the sunset, the competition ended perfectly. After the scores from both sides were finally tallied, Kira won the final first place. When he solemnly took the swamp fruit from Xiano, there was a warm cheer among the onlookers. Applause - For the winner who competed under such rules, they will not have any jealousy or envy, but only a matter of course and a faint respect.

It's just that... this seemingly solemn and missionary scene was quickly destroyed, and the reason was very simple. After Kira took a bite of the Devil Fruit, his whole body froze, full of excitement. His face had an expression as if he had eaten Xiang, and after he forced himself to swallow the remaining fruit, he became so disgusted that he couldn't hold it back and rushed to the railing and vomited crazily.

"vomit……"

This scene made everyone laugh, but Xia Nuo only reacted at this time. Looking at Kira who was vomiting and collapsed, he turned his face and coughed twice.

It's all because I have no experience before and I forgot to take the vaccination.

But to be honest, you only need to take a small bite of the devil fruit. Being able to endure the taste and swallow it all shows that Kira's perseverance is really not overshadowed...

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