I managed to copy all of Luffy's abilities and skills, and because of that, I managed to find something out. I found valuable information about the system. Man, talk about the gift that keeps on giving. If an ability has a similar component to another, you can combine them, and once you combine the two similar skills, one or two things can happen.
In one instance, the stronger abilities will devour the weaker ones and become stronger. For example, I copied the Pirate Prodigy skill from Sabo, and I copied the Pirate Genius skill from Luffy. When I got them, I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine them, and so I did. The cost of combining them was fifteen points, and it's as if the skill Pirate Genius ate Pirate Prodigy and became stronger.
In other cases, when you merge two similar skills, they become a new skill entirely; it's like you multiply them. It's not a perfect example, but when Itachi was explaining the case of the eternal mangekyou sharingan, when Madara had Izuna's eyes implanted, they became the eternal mangekyou sharingan with a merged pattern of the two eyes with no drawbacks from the original mangekyou sharingan.
For example, I awakened the skill of strong disposition, and I got iron will and Burning spirit from Luffy, and I used thirty-one points to combine the three of them. It took a day for the process to finally finish, and the three combined skills became a new skill entirely called Unbreakable Willpower. It's as if you take all three skills and break them down, and you fix them, except when you fix all three as a single unit.
I did the same thing with leadership intangibles and unintentional charisma, although for that one, I only needed twenty-three points and half a day to combine. When the combining process was over, I got the Magnetic Personality skill. Although combining all those similar skills is a serious pain, it's better this way; it's what you would call an investment.
What I mean by saying that for me, every skill, just like devil fruits, is not equal, but to the system, every skill is equal. What I'm trying to say is to get a skill to the next grade level, you need to multiply the points you used to get that skill to the current level by two and I'll be acquiring skills every chance that I get, and to upgrade every one of them individually, when I can combine them would be a waste of points, points better spent on another skill.
Now what I'm trying to say is close to what your parents usually tell their children growing up: focus and go to school, sacrifice your freedom a little while you're young, to reap the benefits later on in life. Although not quite, it's extremely close to that message. Use the number of points you need to combine the skills that can be combined now. Later on, when you would've needed to worry about upgrading two or three skills, you're upgrading one skill that is worth two or three skills.
Man, this system is so cool. I was right when I said that I would never see its true potential before I take to the seas. I wonder what else it could do. Only time will tell how powerful this system is and how much stronger I can become because of it. I'm trembling with excitement right now.
I always think of how versatile I can be because of this system, but it's pretty clear to me now that I've had it backward for a while. I never thought about it that way, but the system itself is extremely versatile. There are so many different things it can do that I never thought possible. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I have the best gift of any pirate past or present, including Joyboy, the first person who ever became a pirate, and Luffy, who's heavily implied to be the reincarnating will of Joyboy.