Luffy's attack frequency was so insane that even obsidian couldn't withstand it. In the game, breaking obsidian by hand took four minutes and ten seconds. But Luffy? He could land ten punches in a single second without breaking a sweat. And these weren't even full blocks, just half-slabs with half the durability.
The moment the Gum-Gum Storm connected, cracks spider-webbed across the surface. The half-slab disintegrated first, then the hopper below it crumbled under the assault.
Fortunately, beneath all that was bedrock. No matter how many more punches he threw, nothing else broke.
But there was another thing that remained completely undamaged: the enderman.
When the dust settled and Luffy's attack finally stopped, the creature stood there completely unscathed. If Marcus didn't know better, he'd swear the damn thing looked smug about it.
The entire Straw Hat crew stood frozen in shock.
"That... that thing actually dodged everything?!" Usopp couldn't believe it.
Everyone who'd witnessed the entire exchange was struggling to process what they'd just seen. Nami's earlier warning about the Nether being dangerous was starting to carry a lot more weight now. After all, this was a creature that had casually evaded Luffy's ultimate close-range technique.
Sanji and Zoro both wore serious expressions. Zoro in particular looked eager. If he could cut down a monster like this, wouldn't that push his swordsmanship to an entirely new level?
---
Meanwhile, Luffy had landed on the ground and was getting more excited by the second.
"That was incredible! You're the first person I've ever met who could dodge my Storm completely!" He cracked his knuckles, grinning like a maniac. "Alright then, next time I'm getting serious."
Steam began rising from his body.
He vanished from sight in an instant, and appeared directly in front of the enderman. His hands were already at the target... But this time, the expected teleportation dodge didn't happen.
With a sharp, distorted scream, the enderman simply... ceased to exist. An ender pearl clattered to the ground where it had been standing.
"Huh?!"
Luffy stared at his fists, then at the pearl on the floor.
Everyone else was equally confused.
"That's it? It's already dead?" Usopp muttered.
The crew blinked. Just moments ago, this creature had survived an impossible barrage of attacks, looking like it could keep dodging forever. And now it was just... gone? After one hit?
Marcus, however, didn't seem surprised at all. He'd been half-expecting this outcome.
Luffy was having the hardest time accepting it. He scratched his head, pointed at the ground where the pearl had fallen, then looked up at Marcus floating above with the most confused expression.
"Uh... what?"
Marcus spread his hands helplessly and called down, "Let me explain something about these creatures!"
The crew gathered around as he descended to ground level, picking up the dropped ender pearl.
"Endermen have a very specific property, they're completely immune to any projectile or ranged attack. Nothing that doesn't involve direct physical contact can hurt them."
Usopp immediately spotted the logical problem. "But Luffy used his fists! That should count as melee combat, right? I mean, he was punching it..."
Marcus shrugged. "Apparently, when Luffy stretches his limbs out like that, it counts as a ranged attack."
"That's... what?" Usopp's brain was trying and failing to reconcile this information.
Several other crew members had similar expressions.
Marcus tossed the ender Pearl aside and began repairing the damaged floor. Even though monsters wouldn't naturally spawn on bedrock, his future construction plans required the half-slabs and hopper system to remain functional in this area.
Naturally, Luffy walked over to watch. He'd gone into Gear Second, and this thing was supposedly only immune to ranged attacks? He felt like he'd gotten all worked up over nothing.
"This is... this is..."
"I know," Marcus said while placing the last replacement block. "You get used to it eventually."
Luffy still looked like he wanted to argue but couldn't figure out what to say.
Marcus finished the repairs and stood up, dusting off his hands. Then he pointed toward the distance where another enderman had just spawned.
"Tell you what, if you're still not satisfied, there's another one over there. Try hitting it with ranged attacks this time. If you can actually damage it that way, then you'll know you've made progress. Oh, and please don't break my floor again."
Luffy's eyes immediately locked onto the distant enderman. The moment their gazes met, the creature entered its aggressive state.
"Alright! Round two!"
Marcus chuckled and shook his head. If anyone actually managed to damage an enderman with projectiles, he'd be impressed. The game mechanics should make that literally impossible.
Just as he turned around, Kira descended from the floating platform with the rest of the Straw Hats who'd been observing from above.
"You guys want to try fighting them too?" he asked curiously.
Usopp immediately shook his head so hard it looked like it might fly off. "Nope! No thanks! I'm good just watching!"
But Sanji and Zoro both looked eager to test themselves against these strange creatures.
"Fine, have fun. Just a heads-up though, their attacks should count as... true damage? Even if you try to block their hits, you might still take damage that bypasses your normal defenses."
He paused to make sure they understood the seriousness. "If you ever feel drained after getting hit, throw an ender pearl immediately."
He distributed ender pearls to everyone present, making sure each person had at least two. Then he looked around and realized that aside from Alvida and Kira, all the other women had disappeared.
"They went back to the ship," Kira explained with a smile. "Nami said something about the heat being unbearable, and the others agreed. Robin wanted to stay but Nami dragged her through the portal."
"Fair enough. Once you guys are done playing down here, make sure everyone gets back safely."
Marcus started digging some nearby blocks to expand his work area.
After all, when he returned to the real world, everyone else's ender pearls would be useless. And with Luffy around, who knew what kind of accidents might happen? Better to give Kira the responsibility of making sure no one died down here.
He wandered off to continue his construction projects deeper in the Nether.
Among those who remained, only Kira, Usopp, and Chopper didn't immediately rush off to find endermen to fight. Everyone else spread out across the area, searching for targets.
Fortunately, the monster spawn rate in the Nether was pretty decent, especially after Marcus' modifications. The creatures now spawned on specific fixed platforms he'd constructed, making them easier to farm efficiently.
To make enderman farming even more convenient, he'd built a special soul sand platform earlier. Since it wasn't connected to the floating soul sand ceiling that formed naturally in this dimension, it counted as normal soul sand blocks.
On that platform, ghasts, wither skeletons, and endermen could all spawn. Any ender pearls dropped from kills would automatically be collected by the hoppers installed beneath the half-slabs.
Watching Sanji take down an enderman with just two or three well-placed kicks emboldened the others. Soon the sound of combat filled the air.
Kira's gaze drifted toward Alvida, who was punching an enderman. Though she wasn't particularly interested in violence for its own sake, seeing all her companions engaged in battle stirred something inside her too.
She began thinking seriously about her own fighting style for the first time.
"Now that I think about it, Marcus mentioned that Chimeras can breathe fire... I wonder if I can do that too."
She'd never actually tried using any combat abilities. Her life had been focused on supporting the crew through farming and resource management. But maybe it was time to see what she was capable of.
Meanwhile, Chopper wiped sweat from his forehead. He was still thinking about what Marcus had said earlier about "true damage."
What would that kind of injury actually feel like?
Usopp, unfortunately, made a critical mistake while watching Chopper and accidentally locked eyes with a nearby enderman.
"Ah! Crap crap crap!"
The enderman didn't hesitate. In an instant, it teleported directly in front of him, its long arms already swinging down.
BOOM!
Acting purely on instinct, Usopp triggered one of his explosive decoys. The device detonated between them, creating a fireball and shockwave.
When the smoke cleared, the enderman was gone, having taken fatal damage from the explosion. An ender pearl dropped to the ground and was immediately sucked into the nearest hopper.
He patted himself all over, checking for injuries. Finding none, he burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! That's it? That thing wasn't so tough after all! Your captain's still got it!" He puffed out his chest proudly, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't actually the captain.
"I was standing right next to you!" Chopper shouted, having been blown backward by the blast wave.
He got up and smacked Usopp on the head with a hoofed hand.
"Ah, sorry! Got caught up in the moment and forgot you were there."
"Honestly..." Chopper sighed, wiping more sweat from his brow.
He looked at Usopp, then shared what he'd been considering earlier about wanting to experience true damage firsthand.
Usopp immediately shook his head vigorously. "No way! That's something you should let Luffy test! He'd love it, trust me. You don't need to risk yourself for this."
But Chopper's expression was serious. "No, this is something I need to experience personally. According to Marcus, this isn't normal physical trauma. As a doctor, I need to understand how it works so I can treat it if someone gets seriously hurt."
He took a deep breath and transformed into his Heavy Point form, the muscular brute version that maximized his defensive capabilities. He turned his attention to a freshly spawned enderman standing motionless about twenty meters away.
"Let's see what this 'true damage' really feels like," he muttered to himself.
The moment their eyes met, the enderman let out a screech.
Then it vanished.
"It's coming!"
He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
The enderman materialized directly in front of him.
Thump.
The impact was... strange. He had been bracing for intense pain, the kind that came from broken bones or torn muscles. Instead, there was barely any sensation at all.
But something was definitely wrong.
He could feel it, something flowing out from inside his body.
"You okay?!" Usopp called out nervously from a safe distance.
"I'm... I'm fine? It didn't hurt as much as I expected." Chopper lowered his guard slightly. "I need to test this again."
"What?! Are you crazy?"
"Trust me on this. I'm a doctor, I need to understand how this works."
Usopp looked like he wanted to argue but eventually nodded reluctantly. "Fine, but the moment things look bad, I'm blasting that thing into next week."
This time, Chopper didn't raise his guard at all. He stood there completely exposed, waiting for the enderman's next attack.
The creature didn't keep him waiting. It teleported again, and its fist connected with Chopper's chest.
This time, without any defensive stance, the sensation was much clearer.
It felt like someone had opened a tap inside him, and something vital was draining away.
"This feeling..."
Thump.
The enderman struck again before he could finish his thought.
This time, he stumbled backward involuntarily, his legs suddenly feeling weak. The world tilted slightly, and he had to catch himself before falling.
"That's enough!"
BOOM!
Usopp immediately rushed forward, one of his explosive rounds already loaded. The device detonated right in the enderman's face, sending it screeching into oblivion.
"Are you okay?! What were you thinking, just standing there and letting it beat on you?!"
Chopper had already reverted to his regular form, panting slightly.
"I figured it out, Usopp! It's a loss of life force! That's what the attack does, it directly drains your life energy!"
"Life force? What are you talking about?"
"Way back when I first developed the Rumble Ball, I lost control of the transformation. When I finally woke up afterward, I didn't have any obvious external injuries, but I felt terrible. Weak, exhausted, like I'd been sick for a week. At the time, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, there was no physical trauma to explain it. But this! This is the same feeling! My body has no wounds, nothing that would normally cause weakness. But my life force has been depleted."
"So that's why Marcus' food heals injuries so fast without any side effects, it's restoring life force?"
"Exactly!"
Chopper had been struggling with a crisis of purpose lately. When Marcus had first demonstrated the healing properties of his food, he had felt... unnecessary. Why would anyone need a doctor when eating a single piece of pork chop could heal you?
His medical knowledge felt obsolete. Even his combat forms weren't particularly special compared to the raw power of the other Straw Hats. The only thing he'd really been able to contribute was providing ideas for potion recipes, but he couldn't even operate the brewing stand himself. That task fell to Marcus.
It had left him feeling lost, questioning his place on the crew.
But now...
If I understand how life force works, I could develop new types of medicine! Maybe even... Maybe even the panacea I've always wanted to create...
"Hey, Chopper? You okay, buddy? You're kinda zoning out there."
Chopper blinked and shook himself, realizing he'd been standing there lost in thought for who knows how long. "Sorry! I'm fine. I was just thinking about what life force really is."
"If you say so..."
---
Meanwhile, Marcus was mining netherrack blocks deeper in the Nether when he suddenly noticed something odd about the zombified piglins in the area.
Their behavior had changed. They'd all turned to face the same direction. Every single one of them.
Then, as one, they started moving.
He looked in the direction they were heading and spotted Luffy in the distance, probably having gotten bored with endermen and decided to see what would happen if he punched one of the pig creatures.
"Of course he did," he sighed. "I should've seen this coming the moment we brought him down here."
The guy had an almost supernatural ability to cause chaos wherever he went.
But honestly? It wasn't really a problem.
Luffy had full diamond armor. He could tank a few hits without any serious danger. And this might actually help Marcus' construction project. His void area was already halfway complete, and the spawn density of zombified piglins in this section was incredible.
With Luffy drawing all their aggro away, he could mine in peace and maybe even boost his collection speed.
Still, he needed to test something first.
He moved into the path of one of the marching piglins and watched its reaction.
The creature's eyes shifted to him. It raised its golden sword and charged.
"Yep, they go after anyone once they're angry. Good to know."
With a throw, he launched an ender pearl toward the floating soul sand island. The teleportation effect was instantaneous, pulling him out of danger just as several piglins converged on where he'd been standing.
From his vantage point, he could see the full extent of what Luffy had unleashed.
Hundreds, no, thousands of zombified piglins were streaming toward Luffy's location from every direction. And since the terrain was honeycombed with holes and cliffs from his mining operations, many of them were simply walking straight off ledges in their single-minded pursuit.
---
"What is going on?!"
The rest of the Straw Hats suddenly stopped what they were doing to stare at the hostile creatures.
The sight was terrifying.
"Uh... sorry about that. I might've accidentally hit one of those guys over there." Luffy scratched his head with an embarrassed grin.
The crew let out a sigh. Of course it was Luffy. It was always Luffy.
"Get on!"
Kira transformed into her massive bird form. Her chimera abilities made her the perfect evacuation transport.
The Straw Hats climbed aboard quickly, even Zoro moving faster than usual. When zombified piglins went into rage mode, even he wasn't stupid enough to stand his ground against thousands of them.
When they arrived at the floating soul sand island, they naturally found Marcus waiting there.
"Sorry about that," Luffy offered with his goofy smile.
"It's fine. Think of it as refreshing the local piglin population."
Zoro wasn't so sure. His relatively new Observation Haki was picking up the overwhelming wave of pure malice radiating from below. "You sure it's fine? Because that feels like a lot of very angry creatures down there."
"It'll settle down soon."
Marcus had tested this before during his construction projects. After about an hour, the earlier wave of piglins would despawn, and the aggression radius would gradually shrink until it disappeared entirely.
"You guys should head back to the ship. I've got more work to do down here anyway."
The Straw Hats reluctantly filed back through the portal, though not before giving Luffy a thorough scolding about "thinking before punching things next time."
Once they were gone, Marcus jumped down to his storage area and began collecting the results of Luffy's chaos. Ender pearls, gold nuggets, rotten flesh, and even a few gold swords filled his chests rapidly.
Looking at the handful of surviving piglins who hadn't managed to walk off a cliff, he pulled out his diamond sword and dispatched them one by one.
Against Minecraft creatures, the diamond sword dealt consistent damage regardless of how strong the target was. And with his own strength added to the weapon's inherent properties, even a full-health zombified piglin went down in one or two hits.
This was exactly why he'd brought Luffy and the others along in the first place. The only real danger in the Nether was that special soul sand, and even that could be managed with proper precautions.
Time passed quietly. he glanced up periodically to check on the piglin situation. Eventually, the suicidal march stopped as the rage timer expired and new, calmer zombified piglins began spawning.
He gathered up all the drops from his storage chests, converted most of them into EMC value, and prepared to return to the Going Merry.
Using an ender pearl, he teleported back to the floating soul sand island one last time. He noticed a few blocks were missing from his earlier work and quickly replaced them, wanting to keep the platform intact for future mob farming.
What he didn't notice was the small wisp of gray-brown substance that escaped from the soul sand the moment he placed the replacement block. It drifted a few blocks away, and after he'd left, it quietly sank back into another patch of soul sand.
After Marcus had completely left the Nether and the portal had closed behind him, something strange began happening beneath the floating island.
New soul sand blocks silently appeared where none had been before, growing like a fungus in the darkness.
Far away, among the newly respawned zombified piglins, one particular creature began emanating faint blue-pink spiral particles.
Its previously dull, lifeless eyes suddenly flickered with something that almost looked like... intelligence.
---
Back on the Going Merry, Chopper entered his medical cabin.
The room was cramped but efficiently organized, with shelves of medical supplies, brewing equipment Marcus had provided, and his own research notes scattered across a small desk.
He walked up to the cauldron first. Reaching up to the shelf above, he grabbed a potion bottle filled with pink liquid. This was a healing potion, the most basic kind brewed from ghast tears.
Then he inverted the bottle over the cauldron's opening.
Slowly, drop by drop, the pink liquid began to flow out.
Such a small bottle, yet it was pouring out an impossibly large volume of liquid. In the past, this kind of spatial anomaly would've fascinated him for hours, but right now most of his attention was focused on the work ahead.
He grabbed one of the main herbs from his collection and placed it in his mortar. Then he started grinding.
Regular herbs and Minecraft herbs just didn't play nice together. They behaved like Sanji's early cooking attempts, where the two ingredients remained stubbornly separated no matter how much you mixed them. Even when he had tried chopping MC fruit into tiny pieces and shredding it, the result was the same.
The same went for brewing. If you wanted MC herbs to do anything useful, they could only be combined with other MC ingredients. That was the rule Chopper had discovered through trial and error.
He finished grinding the herb into a fine powder, then carefully poured it into the cauldron.
This was something Marcus had mentioned might work. Might being the key word. And it was something Chopper had been trying to figure out for days now.
He watched the powder sink into the pink liquid and disappear without a trace.
He was stuck at this exact step. Again.
"Is it really impossible for any herb to interact with this stuff?"
He glanced over at the shelves lined with various potions.
Grabbing his stirring rod, he began mixing the potion, hoping against hope that maybe this time the ingredients would fuse properly.
Then he took out an empty bottle and placed it into the pink liquid to extract the result.
The liquid in the cauldron vanished instantly, flowing back into the bottle as if it had never left.
But when he examined the bottle, his hopes died. The potion was completely unchanged.
He carried it to Marcus, who took the bottle and checked the label floating above it in his vision.
Healing Potion.
Just the basic version.
He shook his head.
Chopper let out a sigh. This wasn't the first time he'd gotten this result. And it wasn't even the tenth time.
Seeing Chopper's disappointment, Marcus found himself puzzling over the problem too. Theoretically, this shouldn't be happening.
After all, the composter was proof that Minecraft mechanics could interact with regular materials. You could throw normal food scraps into it and get bone meal out. So why wouldn't the cauldron work the same way?
"Have you tried using ingredients that I didn't create?"
"Yeah, I tried that early on. They just sink to the bottom and won't mix with the potion at all. At least stuff you make looks like it dissolves, even if nothing happens."
This was frustrating for both of them.
But Chopper wasn't ready to give up. "Let me try again."
Marcus wasn't about to tell him no. He smiled and nodded, then headed to Chopper's dedicated medical cabin.
Opening the herb storage chest, he pulled out a large quantity of various medicinal plants. Then he went to his crafting table and produced a bunch of basic healing potions. He hesitated, looking at Chopper. "You sure you don't need anything else?"
"Just healing potions are fine," Chopper said seriously.
Marcus didn't argue. He set down half a chest worth, 27 bottles total, since potions couldn't stack.
Then he watched as Chopper pulled out a small knife and started carefully cutting MC herbs into smaller pieces, clearly planning to experiment with different amounts to see at what point the potion would stop accepting the material.
The scene felt familiar. It reminded him of Sanji's endless experiments trying to get MC fruit to ferment with regular alcohol, constantly adjusting the ratio and hoping for different results.
In the end, Sanji had succeeded thanks to Shira's Shroom-Shroom Fruit powers and that weird white mist she could produce. Whether it would work with potions was anyone's guess.
He was about to mention this possibility to Chopper when the reindeer suddenly froze mid-motion.
Chopper was staring blankly at the brewing stand, apparently having some kind of revelation. He didn't even notice the herbs scattered at his feet.
"What's wrong?"
He turned to Marcus, and pointed at the blaze powder sitting in the fuel slot of the brewing stand. "Is it possible I'm missing the burning step?"
"What?"
"Think about it! When herbs fuse normally, they react with liquid on their own. In regular circumstances, just combining them is enough. But your ability seems to require sequential steps. If you don't add blaze powder to the brewing stand, the whole process stops. It won't brew at all."
"So you're saying it needs heat?"
"Maybe!"
Marcus felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.
He quickly set up a campfire beneath Chopper's cauldron. In Minecraft, placing a campfire under certain blocks could heat them up. He wasn't sure if this would translate to the cauldron, but it was worth trying.
He lit the campfire, and small flames began dancing beneath it.
Chopper immediately started repeating his previous steps, grinding the herb into powder and sprinkling it into the healing potion.
Both of them leaned in close, watching intently.
"No change," Marcus observed after a few seconds.
"Yeah, nothing's happening," Chopper agreed, sounding disappointed.
"Should we try stirring it?"
"I'll give it a shot."
Chopper began stirring the mixture with his rod, and something miraculous happened.
The potion that had previously shown zero interaction with the herb powder suddenly began forming spiral patterns. The pink liquid and the herb powder were actually mixing!
"It's working!"
They'd actually figured it out.
Chopper quickly grabbed a bottle and began extracting the new potion from the cauldron.
Marcus examined the result:
Health Restoration I
Energy Boost I (0:30)
It was nearly identical to what the brewing stand produced when you combined the same basic ingredients.
He wasn't sure what to say. On one hand, they'd succeeded. On the other hand, the result wasn't really any better than what he could already make.
But seeing Chopper's expression, he decided to be honest. "It shows Health Restoration I and Energy Boost I, lasting thirty seconds. Basically the same effect as what comes out of the brewing stand."
"That's perfect!"
Chopper was overjoyed, and Marcus realized he'd been looking at this the wrong way.
For Chopper, this wasn't about creating something better than what Marcus could make. It was about being able to use his medical knowledge and contribute something beyond just providing recipe ideas. The reindeer had gone from only being able to watch Marcus brew potions to now being able to craft them himself. That was huge for him. And there was more potential here too. Since the cauldron accepted herbs, that meant the amount of medicinal ingredients wasn't strictly limited to Minecraft's usual portions. He could potentially add complex herbal formulas to create medicines rather than just simple potions.
Even ordinary prescriptions might achieve miraculous effects.
Marcus decided not to interrupt. Instead, he opened a large chest and started loading it with nether wart, glowstone dust, golden melons, and other brewing ingredients Chopper might need.
Finally, he added about twenty regular golden apples and one enchanted golden apple.
He'd explained these items to Chopper when he first obtained them, and the doctor had even tried one. Since Chopper hadn't been injured at the time, all he'd felt was a sudden burst of energy and well-being.
But now, those golden apples might actually be useful for developing new medicines.
Seeing that Chopper was already deep in experimentation mode, Marcus quietly left the medical room to give him space.
The moment he stepped outside, he crashed straight into Kira.
"Whoa! What's wrong? You running somewhere? Someone sick?" he asked in confusion.
She shook her head quickly. "I came looking for you."
"Oh? What's up?"
She grabbed Marcus' arm and started pulling him along without explanation.
"Hey, wait, where are we—"
Unfortunately for both of them, this scene of Kira urgently dragging Marcus away was witnessed by Alvida, who happened to be passing by at exactly the wrong moment.
"Well well well..."
Her expression shifted from surprise to something almost mischievous as she tracked their direction with her eyes.
They were heading toward the Nether Portal.
"Can't even do it on the ship, huh? Got to find some privacy," she muttered.
She began following at a discreet distance, curious to see what exactly was about to happen.