[System installing...]
[Progress: 99%]
[Host, please avoid danger during this period and do not die.]
...................
East Blue, waters near Loguetown.
Rumble!
Thunder exploded, and lightning illuminated the dim sky, making the approaching dark shadow even clearer amidst the storm.
The next moment, another roar exploded near a medium-sized warship. However, this was not thunder, but a cannonball fired from a distant pirate ship.
"Lieutenant, this is bad! The figurehead has been hit by a cannonball and is damaged!" A young girl with glasses, projecting a capable yet energetic aura, rushed into the captain's quarters in a panic and addressed the young Lieutenant inside.
The figurehead is one of the most important structural components of a ship. If damaged, sailing speed drops significantly.
Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal; a shipwright could fix it with a little time.
But this time was different. They were currently fleeing.
A significant drop in speed meant they would be caught by the people behind them!
Upon hearing this terrible news, the young Lieutenant remained calm. He walked out of the captain's quarters onto the deck, his gaze piercing through the storm to land on the pirate ship closely tailing the warship.
Standing at the bow of the pirate ship was a woman. She looked savage and fierce, abnormally obese, with a face that was large and round. At this moment, her small eyes were staring covetously at the young Lieutenant.
Seeing the young Lieutenant step out of the cabin, her eyes lit up, and her roar cut through the curtain of rain, reaching his ears:
"Ivan, stop resisting! Become my man! You can't escape, hahahahaha!"
Facing Alvida's provocation, the young Lieutenant's expression remained unchanged. There was not a ripple of emotion on his handsome face.
Adjutant Ivan, who was the energetic girl Tashigi, stood aside and secretly observed her superior officer.
Seeing Ivan's calm expression and confident demeanor, she let out a long sigh of relief.
As expected, Lieutenant Ivan definitely has a way to solve the current predicament!
After all, he is the idol of the young generation of Marines in the East Blue, White Dove Ivan!
As Ivan's most loyal fan, Tashigi had long since memorized her idol's resume backward and forward.
Lieutenant Ivan joined the Marines at the age of fifteen. Initially, due to poor talent, he was unremarkable among the many trainee Marines.
However, two and a half years ago, Lieutenant Ivan suddenly displayed effort far surpassing ordinary people, and his strength rose drastically in a short period.
Over these two and a half years, Lieutenant Ivan repeatedly achieved military merits. While being promoted to Lieutenant, his strength became comparable to pirates with bounties in the millions.
If it weren't for the fact that Lieutenant Ivan was currently suffering from unhealed severe injuries, they wouldn't need to fear Alvida at all, let alone be chased by the Alvida Pirates!
Thinking of this, Tashigi glared angrily at Alvida, her gaze fierce as if she wanted to eat her alive.
As the object of the provocation, Ivan remained unmoved. Having joined the Marines two and a half years ago, he already knew the cruelty of this world.
Just after transmigrating, he found himself on a battlefield against pirates. He had intended to rely on a System to survive that battle, but unexpectedly, the System got stuck at 99% installation progress, halting right at the final step.
Afterward, he summoned his courage and relied on his own strength to survive the battlefield. For the next two and a half years, he put in dozens of times more effort than ordinary people, thereby achieving his current rank and strength.
However, this strength was not enough!
Just facing pirates with bounties of a few million could result in injury, and in a heavily injured state, he was even being chased by Alvida. Like this, how could he ever become a powerhouse who roams the seas freely?
Thinking of this, Ivan made up his mind. He turned abruptly and walked back into the captain's quarters, paying no heed to Alvida's clamoring.
He quickly walked to a safe, opened it, and took out a strange-looking fruit.
This fruit was a black sphere in its entirety. It was the secret treasure of the sea—a Devil Fruit!
Ivan had obtained it accidentally a month ago, but he hadn't eaten it immediately.
Because he still had a dream of becoming a powerhouse, and the shortcut to that dream was undoubtedly eating a powerful Devil Fruit.
Ivan had not seen this Devil Fruit in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia and did not know its effects. If he ate it and obtained a trash ability, like the Human-Human Fruit: Commoner Model, he would truly be hopeless.
However, the current emergency allowed Ivan no hesitation.
Ivan gritted his teeth and bit down hard!
In an instant, a stench reminiscent of expired milk, cheese, stinky tofu, and eggs mixed together and fermented for a year assaulted Ivan's nasal cavity.
Despite this, Ivan opened his mouth as wide as possible, shoved the rest of the Devil Fruit in, and swallowed it whole.
Soon, Ivan felt a strangeness in his body.
A scorching heat flowed through his entire body, and powerful energy surged from within!
But just before this power fully formed, it suddenly stopped. The System installation progress bar before Ivan's eyes, which hadn't moved in two and a half years, suddenly jumped again!
[System installing...]
[Progress: 100...]
[Installation Successful!]
[Ding... Devil Fruit detected. Do you wish to sacrifice the Devil Power to draw a Character Template?]
[Yes/No]
Wait, the System!
Ivan hadn't expected the System to activate at this moment. Was there any need to hesitate?
He could vaguely sense that eating the Devil Fruit seemed to allow him to control his own weight. This kind of Devil Fruit was undoubtedly the inferior version of the Press-Press Fruit (Zushi Zushi no Mi) or Ton-Ton Fruit. Its upper limit was capped, and it had huge flaws.
So, the choice was definitely the System!
"Yes!" Ivan said without hesitation.
Soon, an exquisite System panel appeared before Ivan's eyes.
[Name: Ivan]
[Draws: 1]
[Template: None]
[Skills: None]
[Devour Devil Fruit abilities to exchange for draw chances, drawing Character Templates from the myriad worlds.]
At the bottom of the System panel, there was a deck of cards. The top card had the word "Draw" engraved on it.
With a thought, he clicked on the word Draw. The cards quickly began to flip.
During the flipping process, Ivan occasionally saw character templates he was familiar with.
Hanma Yujiro, Kurosaki Ichigo (Hollowfication), Uzumaki Naruto (Incomplete), Kudo Shinichi, Iron Man (Mark Suit Technology), Hulk (Incomplete)...
Soon, the draw result surfaced, and a card appeared before Ivan's eyes.
[Congratulations, you have obtained Template: Gojo Satoru (Incomplete)!]
[Congratulations, you have obtained Skill: Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue!]
[Please perform actions recognized by the template character to increase the Synchronization Rate. You will obtain a percentage of the template's power and unlock more skills.]
It was actually Gojo Satoru!
Ivan was very familiar with this highly popular character from the Jujutsu Kaisen world. He was the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer. With his strength, even in the One Piece world, he would be considered at the level of a Yonko's Vice-Captain!
Even an incomplete Gojo Satoru template could easily defeat Alvida!
Ivan opened the System panel to check his current status.
[Name: Ivan]
[Draws: 0]
[Template: Gojo Satoru (Incomplete): (Synchronization: 17%)]
[Skill: Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue: Creates a destructive effect by compressing gravity at a single point. Maximum output can reach negative infinity, approximating a small black hole.]
Ivan stared at the current synchronization: 17%. This meant he could exert 17% of this panel's power.
At the same time, he had some ideas on how to increase the Gojo Satoru template's synchronization.
Since he wanted to increase recognition, he needed to know what kind of person Gojo Satoru was.
Undoubtedly, he was relaxed, confident, and arrogant due to his immense strength.
Simultaneously, he was extremely indifferent to enemies, yet never lacked kindness.
To a certain extent, he shared some similarities with the Marines!
Rumble!
Outside the captain's quarters, another explosion sounded. Tashigi rushed in again, anxious:
"Lieutenant Ivan, it's bad, it's bad! The Alvida Pirates are about to board us."
If it were a few minutes ago, hearing this news would have made Ivan quite cautious.
But now...
What is an Alvida?
Ivan walked up to Tashigi, rubbed her head, and said in a gentle tone:
"Tashigi, you must never lose your cool in any situation. Don't worry, Alvida will be taken down by me!"
Ivan draped his Marine coat over his shoulders and walked toward the deck.
Amidst the raging wind and rain, the coat fluttered wildly. Thunder exploded, illuminating the dim sky, making the word "Justice" on the coat even more conspicuous.
Tashigi stared blankly at this scene, unconsciously touching her messy hair, her cheeks already flushed red.
She suddenly snapped back to reality and jumped up: "Lieutenant Ivan, wait for me!"
At this moment, the deck was in chaos.
The Alvida Pirates had officially boarded the warship.
Dozens of pirates swarmed onto the deck, engaging the Marines in battle.
At the very rear of all the pirates stood the obese "Iron Mace" Alvida. Behind her was a short pirate with a mushroom haircut.
Seeing her pirates gradually suppressing the Marines, Alvida laughed loudly:
"Hahahahaha, you bastards are doing great! Let them see the power of the female pirate, Iron Mace Alvida!"
"That's right!"
"Kill them!"
"Take them down and snatch that pretty-boy Lieutenant!"
After boosting morale, Alvida glanced at Coby hiding behind her and roared angrily:
"Coby, you coward! What are you doing? Hurry up and attack!"
Looking at the battlefield filled with flashing blades and swords, Coby trembled in fear. He was only fifteen years old now, and due to malnutrition, his body was much smaller than his peers.
If he charged in, he would definitely be killed by the Marines!
Coby didn't dare disobey Alvida's order, but he also didn't dare rush forward to fight. So he could only say timidly:
"Captain Alvida, but I'm not good at fighting..."
But before he could finish, the impatient Alvida grabbed him and threw him onto the warship:
"Coward! Even if you die, die on the battlefield for me!"
"Aaaaaah!" Coby's piercing scream rang through the battlefield, momentarily drowning out the roars of the Marines and pirates.
Just as Ivan stepped onto the deck, what he heard was the rapidly approaching scream.
The Gojo Satoru template, aside from skills, had significantly enhanced his constitution.
This allowed him to instantly capture the figure flying toward him at high speed. Just as he was about to use Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue to tear this figure apart, he suddenly paused.
Because he discovered that this figure seemed to be a familiar plot character—Coby!
Ivan reached out, grabbed Coby by the collar, and lifted him up. He narrowed his eyes slightly and asked:
"Hey, kid, are you a pirate too?"
Coby looked up. He never expected that right after leaving the tiger's den, he would enter the wolf's lair.
After being thrown by Alvida, he had actually landed in the hands of the highest-ranking officer on the Marine side, Lieutenant Ivan!
Coby remembered the information about Lieutenant Ivan clearly.
Although he couldn't compare to those monsters, Lieutenant Ivan was considered a legend among ordinary people.
What made him most famous was his astonishing beauty.
Because of his handsome appearance and elegant temperament, he even had a unique title on this sea—White Dove.
At this moment, Coby couldn't care less about Alvida. He knew that if he surrendered, he might be reckoned with by Alvida later, but if he didn't surrender, he would die right now!
So Coby hurriedly waved his hands, denying it tremblingly:
"Of course... of course not, Lord White Dove! I am a civilian forcibly abducted by Alvida! I have always wanted to become a Marine!"
Hearing Coby's answer, Ivan nodded in satisfaction.
Although the "200 times effort deserter king" theory was a bit nonsense, there was no doubt that Coby was a guy with talent.
If cultivated properly, perhaps in the future, he could have an Admiral-level subordinate.
Ivan casually tossed Coby behind him. His height of 1.97 meters looked somewhat slender, but the Justice coat fluttering behind him made him appear even taller.
Coby stared at Ivan's back, lost in thought, when Ivan's calm voice came from the front:
"Very good. I see a bit of potential in you. After this battle, come and be my subordinate. I'll give you a chance to join the Marines!"
Unexpectedly, instead of being killed, he was acknowledged. Coby clenched his fists, looking excited.
He could finally become a Marine!
"Yes!" Coby responded excitedly.
However, just then, a figure leaped violently from the pirate ship, smashing onto the deck in front of Ivan.
Due to the massive impact, the deck immediately cracked. Amidst a cloud of dust, a tall, obese figure walked out.
Alvida looked furious and savage. She stared deadly at Ivan and Coby, gritting her teeth:
"Coby, I heard everything! You actually dare to betray me? You know clearly that I hate betrayal the most!
Stop joking around! You will never have the chance to join the Marines, because right now, I'm going to smash you into meat paste!"
Looking up at the tall figure walking toward him, Coby trembled uncontrollably.
If he were hit by that thick, long iron mace, he would definitely die!
Damn it!
Just when there was hope of escaping the current predicament and joining the Marines, was he going to be killed?
He was so unwilling!
But at that moment, a figure that wasn't particularly burly blocked Coby's front, intercepting all the fear and pressure for him.
Ivan raised his voice and shouted:
"Alvida, if you want to kill my future subordinate, you have to get past me first!"