Rakuya's eyes went wide. Being Sea Overlord was already broken, but those extra skills were flat-out absurd.
"One last question. If Poseidon shows up, who is in charge? Who do the Sea Kings obey?"
"You. They obey you."
"So Poseidon basically stops working, right?"
"Not exactly. As long as you are not summoning at the same time, there is no conflict. If you and Poseidon summon together, the Sea Kings listen to you. In fact, you can even summon Poseidon."
"What, seriously?" Rakuya was dumbstruck. This system was ridiculously generous.
"Poseidon will be the future Shirahoshi, and she is a mermaid. Does that mean the fish-men and merfolk will also take my orders?"
"Only Shirahoshi, Host. The other inhabitants of Fish-Man Island will not heed you."
"Oh."
He felt a twinge of disappointment, but it lasted only a heartbeat before his mood snapped back, blazing.
"Fine. If the mermaid girls will not obey me, that just raises the difficulty. Makes it more fun anyway."
"..."
"Host, proceed with the exchange?"
"Proceed. What else am I going to do with the points?" Rakuya waved grandly. Roger really was a walking fortune. Twelve Devil Fruits, enough for several max-level upgrades.
"Ding. Exchanging. Exchange complete. Cost 3,600 points. Sea Overlord maxed. Host may now command the ocean at will, summon wind and rain, and marshal sea-born forces."
"Beautiful." Rakuya snapped his fingers, giddy enough to forget the shrinking number on his points counter.
"Beep. Detected an element that can be raised to max. Promote?"
"What is it this time?"
"Flesh, to max."
"Flesh to max?"
He paused. With repulsion at his command, almost no one could get close to him anyway. Did he even need this.
"What does maxing flesh do?"
"Ding. Flesh at max, first benefit: you can withstand any attack. No matter how strong your enemy is, no matter how many times they cut you, you will feel no pain. Even if you walk a mountain of blades, boil in oil, or jump from the Sky Islands, the impact barely registers."
"Is that just numbing the nerves?"
"No. Your body will be so tough that those attacks amount to negligible sensation."
"Hold up. If I cannot feel pain, will there be no pleasure with Momousagi either?"
"That will not be affected."
"Good." He relaxed, then asked, "Anything else besides that?"
"Yes. At max, you can redirect pain."
"Redirect pain? How do you control pain?" He blinked. This system really did have a trick for everything.
"Simple. If someone cuts you, you can transfer the damage entirely to someone else. Think of it as striking through a mountain, except vastly beyond that. A perfect reflection. You choose who gets hit."
"Now that is nasty."
Rakuya clicked his tongue.
So flesh max had this kind of use. That was straight 666.
"Anything more?"
"Yes."
Honestly, he had been asking out of habit. Those two perks alone were enough to make him untouchable.
"You can also reshape your body at will. Grow larger, grow smaller, however you like, to ridiculous extremes."
"Pff."
He nearly sprayed a mouthful of old blood. By that logic, he could apply it to... certain parts. Bigger when it counts, longer when it counts, and the girls would cheer.
Glorious. A divine tool.
His was not small to begin with, but on-demand sizing was just too fun.
"Anything else?"
"Yes."
"What else?"
He must have looked haunted. Max flesh was outrageously overpowered.
"Your body becomes invincible, and the shadow it casts is also invincible."
"Excellent."
Delight burst out of him.
Put simply, max flesh pushed every bodily sub-attribute to the limit.
In short, it granted four broken sub-skills:
"First, complete disregard for any attack. This is not numbing pain, it is that your body is so strong enemy damage has no bite."
"Second, transfer incoming damage entirely to someone else."
"Third, freely change your size."
"Fourth, an invincible shadow."
So yeah, max flesh was monstrous.
He had thought it would be marginal. Turns out he had been thinking too small.
"Host, promote flesh to max?"
"Promote."
"Ding. Promotion complete. Flesh maxed. Four sub-skills unlocked. Cost 7,000 points. Remaining points: 0."
"What. Come on."
The grin slid off his face. He stared at the system pane, dumbfounded by the number.
"Hey, system, get out here. Did you skim my points?"
Points were his lifeblood. He had just raised two things to max and burned through 10,600 points. During the last system update he had shaken it down for 500 points while it knocked him out. Add the 10,100 he got for the fruits and he had 10,600 total. Gone in a blink.
He could not believe it.
"System. Front and center."
"Host..."
"Spit it out. Did you shave my points?"
"No."
"Then why did the last repulsion upgrade only cost 1,800, and now just two promotions cost me 10,600."
He jabbered like a market auntie haggling over cabbage.
"Each max-level promotion scales up the cost, nearly doubling. For example, if the first took 1,800 points, the next will be around 3,600, and the one after that around 7,200."
"So it is that predatory." He stood there slack-jawed for a long moment before managing a single word.
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