NOVEL NEXT Chapter 42: Flying Exactly the Way Bricks Don’t
Summary: Up we go, into the wild blue yonder...
Warning! Chapters 40-43 were all uploaded back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!
Chapter 42: Flying Exactly the Way Bricks Don't
It was finally the day that the Knock Up Stream was due to arrive. The last several days had been, predictably but constructively, used to give their two new Spirit Fruit users a crash course in using their Fruits. In order to help them learn as fast as possible, Luffy had even bit the bullet and spent some of the Perk Points he'd had built up. At the same time, more than a little worried about Enel, he'd taken the same opportunity to pick up some additional advantages that might help against him. Where possible, he'd made those advantages into long-term benefits suitable against all sorts of threats. But at least one had been focused specifically on Enel, even if it might have knock on effects against others in the future.
Even as they prepared for cast off, Luffy once again took a glance at his updated status window…
(A/N): A reminder! New or updated parts of the stat block are fully bolded so you can more easily pick them out. Exceptions for money and shop points as those always change.
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Status
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Name: Monkey D. Luffy
Title: Inheritor of the Will
Age: 18
Level: 59
Spirit Fruit: Mythical Zoan - Model Raijū
Money: 273,157,012 Belli
WG Issued Bounty: 100 Million Belli
Shop Points: 257,000
Perk Points: 2
Spirit Coupons: 5
Stats:
Strength: 201
Dexterity: 201
Endurance: 200
Intelligence: 119
Wisdom: 122
Charisma: 131
Luck: 111
Free Stat Points: 51
Perks
Gamer's Body: Grants a body that allows for the user to live the real world like a game. Wounds healed on rest. Status Effects removed on Rest.
Gamer's Mind: Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through. Gamer can suppress negative emotions at will.
The Will of D: Bearer holds the inherited will of the Family of D. Effect: Live in Interesting Times, ?, ?
Outsider's Perspective: Imported save data increases relevant stats, as well as relevant skills when acquired.
Danger Sense: A combination of Haki and gut instinct for trouble lets you sense dangers to you and others near you. Whether or not you can do anything about them is up to your skills.
Designer (General): You're exceptionally talented at more than one field of design! You have an intuitive sense of how best to optimize designs you've come up with!
Elemental Resistance 3: You are naturally resistant to elemental damage. At this level, you resist or ignore 60% of all elemental damage. Note: Due to Gamer's Spirit Fruit, Gamer is personally completely immune to electricity or sonic damage, with Elemental Resistance 3 now making that true for even superior or more focused sources of such energy. Such as a more specialized Spirit Fruit power or natural lightning.
Empathy: Beyond merely your Haki, you have a very good idea what the people around you are feeling. You're nearly impossible to lie to and everyone finds you easier to open up to.
Fertility Control: Being a baby's daddy would cut your adventure short! Now that you've become active, you decided it was time to prevent any accidents. You'll only order a special stork delivery if you intend to.
Gifted Hands: You are naturally good with your hands. Anything from art to martial arts gets a helping hand. Your instincts for all such things are 10% better than they should be, and you get a 5% boost to XP gain for any skill based around working with your hands.
Gun Nut: Despite your age, you've managed to learn a lot about guns! How to clean them, how to make them, and even a little bit about how to shoot them! Gain instinctive knowledge of any gun you handle, as well as 10% faster XP gain for the Gunsmith and Gunslinger skills.
Haki Domination 5(Max): When two Haki users meet, the more skilled takes the contest. In direct clashes of equal or near-equal Haki, you will at least come out equal. You cannot be overpowered in terms of Haki potency any longer. The best of the best can only hope to have an even playing field against you.
Haki Savant: Having proven talented with all three forms of Haki at a young age, you are 30% better at wielding it and 15% better at teaching it.
Inspired Design (Ships): You never run out of inspiration when working on designs for a ship! The results of you following your inspiration improve the end quality of any ships you personally work on by 20%.
Inspired Design (Weapons): You never run out of inspiration when working on designs for a weapon! The results of you following your inspiration improve the end quality of any weapons you personally work on by 20%.
Intuitive Combatant: You are naturally gifted at learning combat. You are 15% faster at learning any type of combat, from the use of guns to punching lights out with your bare fists!
Training Expert 5(Max): Get the most out of training! Not just for yourself, but for your crew too! Gain instinctive knowledge of the best ways to tweak your training for those GAINS BRO! 50% XP for Training your own skills, or for Training others in skills in which you outrank your trainee by at least 10 points.
Training Expert – Spirit Fruits 2: You have gained a unique insight into Spirit Fruits and can instinctively come up with good ways for someone to train their basic abilities. Rank 2 Addition: Having taken a second level of this perk, you now have an instinctive feel for obscure uses of any allies' Spirit Fruits and can help them figure out how they work.
Sage's Curve: You learn intellectual pursuits much faster than normal, and retain the knowledge more completely. You have a 20% boost to learning speed and memory retention of any intelligence or wisdom-based skills.
Skilled Lover: You are extremely quick to pick up on your lover's sensitive spots, desires, and needs. Learn how to push all their buttons with incredible speed.
Sword Enthusiast: Despite your age, you've managed to learn a lot about swords! How to clean them, how care for them, and how to identify them! Gain instinctive knowledge of any sword you handle, as well as 10% faster XP gain for the Blacksmith(Sword) and Swordsmanship skills.
Sword Savant: You have created a new sword style at an incredibly young age. Know its flaws and how to fix them instinctively.
Quick Shot: You have incredible accuracy with firearms while on the move. 100% natural aim while firing without sights.
Quick Draw: You are an incredibly fast draw with any weapon, be it sword or blade.
Weather Sense (Advanced): You can predict normal weather with considerably accuracy. Even on the Grand Line you can do so to an extent, though only if it's a type of weather event you've experienced at least once.
Ship Sense 4: You know when something is wrong with a ship you are aboard. You instinctively know what the problem is, where it is, and how to fix it. A invaluable ability for keeping your only means of survival at sea afloat in troubled times.
Spirit Fruit - Model: Raijū – Adaptation 2: You've crystalized what you've learned so far about your Spirit Fruit into reflex. You can more smoothly use both your lightning powers and shapeshifting.
Spirit Healing 2: By learning a certain amount about medicine and a great deal about the manipulation of Spiritual Energy, you've learned to heal others by infusing them with your Spirit. Accelerate someone else's healing by 1680% so long as you are actively healing them.
Spiritual Infusion: By using Spiritual Energy during the Crafting of a Rare or greater quality item, you've learned how to infuse a bit of Spirit into your creations. Items created in this fashion can be farther infused with Spirit over time, improving their basic stats.
Spirit Manipulation 3: Learning more about spiritual energy has granted you a more intuitive ability to use it. Your temporary boosts to your speed, strength, or endurance no longer cause exhaustion, unless you run out of Spiritual Energy. All Spirit Energy abilities are 20% more effective (Spirit Healing, Spirit Recovery, Etc.). You can now sense the general spiritual energy of a place.
Spiritual Recovery 3: Meditation allows you to tap into the Spirit of the World to recover your own more quickly. This ability will now heal your own physical wounds at the same rate as Spiritual Healing would for others. You can now do this via Moving Meditation, though the effect is weaker.
Spiritual Transference 3: By learning about Spiritual Energy and how it can affect others, you've gained an understanding of how to transfer energy to others to aid their recovery. Also improves Spiritual Healing by 40%. It can also now provide boosts healing of 1/3rd your total Spiritual Healing rate as a Heal Over Time effect. Duration dependent on how much energy you provide.
Spiritual Transference – Buff 2: You can copy your own boosts or resistances onto allies. At Buff 2, you require 3 minutes to do so, and the Buff will last for 3 hours. Note: This will not include benefits from any Spirit Fruit you may have.
Status Effect Resistance (Advanced): Even the nastiest of poisons will merely make you ill and you are immune to normal disease. Poisons or diseases with a Spiritual Component may still affect you but will have a reduced effect.
Bonus(Dex): Ambidextrous! Through hard effort, you've become genuinely ambidextrous. Provides a major bonus to attempts to dual wield, the ability to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time, and more!
Bonus 2(Dex): Heightened Precision! Through extreme training and body awareness, your movements have become far more precise than a normal person can achieve. From dancing to heart surgery, your body moves the way you want it to, often in ways that baffle others.
Bonus 3(Dex): Inhuman Reactions! The first step of catching bullets is the ability to see them move! To you, even that has fallen behind your perception and reaction speed. Little short of light itself can move quickly enough to keep you from tracking it. MODIFIED: Presence of lightning manipulation ability in System Host means even light can't outspeed your perceptions. Whether you can react fast enough to what you see is another matter entirely.
Bonus(Endurance): Damage Mitigation. You've toughened up to the point that 15% of all physical damage dealt to you is mitigated outright.
Bonus 2 (Endurance): Damage Mitigation 2. You've toughened up to the point that 30% of all physical damage dealt to you is mitigated outright.
Bonus 3 (Endurance): Damage Mitigation 3. You've toughened up to the point that 45% of all physical damage dealt to you is mitigated outright.
Bonus(Intelligence): Accelerated Thought. During moments of intense effort or danger, you can think much faster than a normal person, allowing you to break through blocks in your workflow or create desperate plans on the fly!
Bonus 2 (Intelligence): Eidetic Memory. You remember everything you've ever read or heard with near perfect fidelity. Unfortunately, while this does apply retroactively, it only does some from the point you got your System onward. Your Past Life's memories will be recalled perfectly only if you think to review them manually before they fade.
Bonus(Strength): Power Strike. You've gained the ability to focus all your strength to a fine point, doing far more damage with your hits than you ought to, though only in short bursts.
Bonus 2(Strength): Shatter. Things that normally shouldn't shatter do, for you. A pulse of strength allows you to shatter most physical objects, so long as you can bring that strength to bare.
Bonus 3(Strength): Strength Diffusion. Trying to pick up a house generally fails as the brick crumbles in your hands. You, however, had learned how to diffuse your strength into an object so it remains intact when you pick it up…
Bonus(Luck): Fortune's Favor. Lady Luck likes you, in any situation involving luck, you can feel what the results will be, as if dice were tumbling in your head. Is it truly chance if they fall more often in your favor than not?
Bonus 2(Luck): Fortune's Favorite! When you feel the tumblers of chance rolling, you can put your thumb on the scale to influence it in your favor.
Bonus 1 & 2(Wisdom): Voice of the World (Lesser). You can hear the history of a place or objects speak to you more completely than someone with only a Faint gift. Grants a type of Psychometry that lets you know the history of objects or places that had a strong enough spiritual presence. With the Lesser modification, the required spiritual presence is significantly less. What once applied only to objects with great spiritual weight, can now be heard with objects that have meaning even for a single person.
Bonus(Charisma): Magnetic Personality. People are drawn to you, even if they don't know why. How that manifests varies from person to person. Friendship, hate, love or lust, all of them can be the result of your magnified Charisma. Everyone agrees that you simply stand out in a way they find pulls them to you.
Bonus 2(Charisma): Improved Relationship Panel. Your Observation ability can now see deeper into people. Based on your observations of even small things you might normally have missed, you can how build a history and personality profile of anyone who is at least an Acquaintance. Works equally well of enemies, so long as you know them reasonably well.
Skills
Brawling: 85
Blacksmithing: 89
Carpentry(Ships): 92
Gunslinger: 89
Gun Smithing: 85
Haki(Conquerors): 65
Haki(Observation): 98
Haki(Armament): 87
Knowledge (World History): 65
Knowledge (Navigation): 72
Medicine: 62
Observe: 95
Sailing: 85
Sciences: 73
Spirit Circulation: 55
Spiritual Manipulation: 62
Spirit Fruit (Model: Raijun) Mastery: 67
Sword Mastery(Wave Dancer Style): 96
More…
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Luffy was not overly happy to see his Perk Points so low. He liked having a backup supply of them. Unfortunately, he wasn't the sort of fool who would hold onto them like a Skyrim player hoarding potions until well after the game's main story ended. They were meant to be spent, and Enel was by far and away one of the scariest motherfuckers he was likely to meet anywhere on the Grand Line. It was as such that Luffy had invested heavily in things that would help either him personally or his crew as a whole.
For himself, he'd completely maxed out his Haki Domination, to the point that no one who didn't massively out skill him would be able to suppress or best his Haki. Given that his own Observation Haki was bordering on true mastery, he was confident that he could now at least match Enel's Mantra. Possibly even suppress it. Likewise, the Elemental Resistance was partially for himself. He might have lost some details about One Piece over the years due the slow deterioration of his pre-system memories, but he sure as fuck did not forget how Ace's Mera Mera no Mi had been completely overcome by Akainu's Magma Fruit.
Enel had the Logia for Lightning specifically, whereas Luffy's own Fruit allowed him to manipulate it only as one of several effects. Normally, Luffy was virtually certain that lightning-to-lightning, Enel's Fruit would overpower Luffy's own. Possibly, just possibly, Luffy's full ball-lightning form might make it an even competition. But Luffy wasn't inclined to risk it on a 'possibility,' doubly so when he wasn't at all sure what Enel's level of Mastery over his own Fruit was. He'd shown basically zero creativity in its use that Luffy could remember, but he'd shown quite a high level of mastery, in the form of control.
Being able to form lightning kilometers away from his own position? That sort of thing was not normal for logia users. Certainly, Haki helped with that, and Luffy could personally attest to how much his Fruit boosted his Observation Haki. But Luffy had attempted the same trick and gotten only a fraction of the distance. Asking Ace about it when he'd had a chance had revealed that even the distance Luffy managed to pull it off at was abnormal.
So, Luffy wasn't taking the chance. Instead, he'd used Perks to seal off any ability for Enel to overcome his own resistance. Then he'd segued into providing at least some measure of protection to his crew via his new ability to copy buffs onto them. They would only get the 60 percent resistance that he would have without his Fruit, but that was still a serious boost to resistance for everyone. Those of his crew that could use Armament as well were likely to be able to outright shrug off at least a few blasts once buffed in such a way. Nami, too, with the boons granted by her new Spirit Fruit, would likely be able to outright ignore anything but a seriously concentrated blast after he boosted her. Which was a massive relief.
His last purchase, the first two ranks of Training Expert – Spirit Fruits, had been entirely for the benefit of his crew. In truth, he would have been kicking himself for not taking it earlier, if he hadn't been absolutely sure that it hadn't been there before. As his best guess, he'd likely ticked off a prerequisite that he hadn't known existed. Either in his own personal mastery of his Fruit, or by his previous maxing out of the more general Training Expert Perk. Possibly even some combination of both, or even something else entirely. Whatever the case was, it had been there when he'd checked his options, and he'd taken the first two ranks without hesitation. It had helped a great deal with letting Nami and Kaya both hit the ground running, and he'd even been able to give some advice to every other member of his crew that had a Spirit Fruit. Even Robin, easily the most experienced of them with her own, had found his new insight helpful in developing her own powers.
Luffy just hoped that all of it would be enough. He was a lot more nervous about this fight than he had been about the one with Crocodile. Closing his System Menu, he stepped out onto the deck even as Nami called for the crew to up anchor…
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Luffy had to be honest, he was pretty sure the South Bird had been a totally unnecessary addition to this little expedition. While the Knock Up Stream might be building, the cloud cover hadn't reached a point that it blocked out the simple, reliable navigation beacon that was the Sun. Not until they'd been almost on top of the location the Saruyama's sonar and diving had identified as the location that the undersea current was building up at. Since Luffy had insisted they leave early, they weren't even in the rush that he remembered the original Strawhats had been due to the Knock Up Stream arriving a bit early. Nor did everyone freak out and panic when the whirlpool began to form around them. Luffy wasn't nearly as stupid as his canon counterpart and had made sure everyone had a detailed understanding of how this was supposed to work.
Unlike what Nami had stated in the show, the Knock Up Stream wasn't 'a current of the sea' that they needed to navigate. Properly used, the Knock Up Stream was closer to an elevator than a current. Shandora certainly hadn't ridden a current like a ship, and some of its occupants had survived. That little detail was important to understanding how to work this phenomenon, even if only Luffy was currently aware of it. Even that massively overpowered version had been survivable, so long as the stream had enough surface area to lift you by without shredding you or what you were riding on.
That, of course, was what all the extra surface area they'd added, as well as the reinforcement, was all about. The Discovery even had the whole thing easier, rather than harder, because it already had a massively wide footprint compared to a regular ship. Completely plating up the divide between hulls had resulted in a wider span than something like the Going Merry would have had, even with the wings that had been tacked onto it. All while the Discovery actually had a significantly lighter displacement than a wooden vessel of her size. Frankly, now that the linkages between the two hulls had been thoroughly reinforced, she was honestly better suited for this trip than virtually any other ship in existence.
None of that kept it from being thoroughly disconcerting when the whirlpool collapsed and they were left in free fall as the water was all sucked down to the seabed.
Thankfully, the free fall only lasted for a few brief seconds, before the Knock Up Stream properly erupted. Despite having been warned and every crewman having strapped themselves to something, there were shouts and screams as the Discovery was violently rocked and carried upward on the giant waterspout that was the Knock Up Stream. Since they were riding it properly, rather than 'Improvised Nami Style,' there was nothing any of them could do but hang on for dear life as they were carried up, and up, and up.
After less than two minutes, they punched their way through clouds that were absolutely more solid than they should have been. For horrible moments, they were surrounded by something that was somehow halfway between water and air, the Devil Fruit users aboard even feeling a bit of weakness set in from the seastone lacing in the clouds. Then, they breeched, and Luffy forced himself into action. This was the moment where the vast majority of those 'all or nothings' became 'nothings.' The Knock Up Stream was at its peak, and they couldn't still be on top of it when it faltered. If they were, they would fall right back through the hole it had just punched in the 'floor' of the White Sea.
Thankfully, the altitude hadn't had a chance to weaken them yet, and both he and Nami were on the ball. The sails sprang out in full, catching the wind, and pulling them off of the Knock Up Stream's top. There was a bit of a fall, as it had carried them a few dozen meters above the Sea Clouds. But they splashed down with insufficient force to push back through those clouds, the Discovery's design once more came in clutch as the twin-hulls prevented it from dipping anywhere close to dangerously into the White Sea.
Then, as they sailed away from the Knock Up Stream that was starting to falter, the two of them collapsed. They would need a few minutes to adjust to the altitude. Hopefully, that Ass Wiper dude wasn't around to cause mischief…even if Luffy was pretty sure both he and Nami's Devil Fruits would allow them to adjust before he really caused them serious issues if he was.
For the moment, Luffy just let himself soak in the moment. They'd made it. And from the feel of the ship, she'd barely even strained herself in doing so. He grinned despite his huffing and puffing for air. The Grand Line was amazing!
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A/N 1: Fun fact...chapter 43 was originally chapter 42. I pushed it back because I absolutely could not pass up the Douglas Adam reference that is the title of this chapter. It fit too perfectly with the Knock Up Stream shenanigans.
A/N 2: I can practically hear the 'Ugh, a stat sheet,' groans from people. I've done well, I think, in keeping those down to a dull roar. This one, I explicitly included in full to show something important though. Specifically? How drastically Luffy's power gain has slowed down. Since entering the Grand Line, he's only gotten a single level, which was mostly on the back of his fight with Croc. This is, in part, why I wasn't too worried about his early strength. At this point, he NEEDS strong opponents to hone himself against. Training still gets him very slow gains since his crew are strong enough to spar with, but he's only really going to jump up in power when he hits serious opponents. This isn't God Mode Luffy. It's simply a Luffy that is strong enough to legitimately tackle the shit that happened in canon, without leaning on Shounen Protagonist Plot Armor for almost literally everything...
A/N 3: My interpretation of how the Knock Up Stream works might well be wrong. But it's the one that makes the most sense to me. The way that they used it in canon not only has some major physics issues (which, okay, its anime, so that's normal)...but also doesn't explain how Upper Yard got up to Skypiea with some of Shandora's people ALIVE. They sure as hell didn't 'sail' the island!