The sun was already high.
Marcus entered the kitchen and saw Alvida in her seat.
The table was already set with fresh food, clearly prepared by Sanji who must have returned to the ship earlier.
Honestly, if a woman had someone like Sanji taking care of her this attentively, it'd be hard not to develop feelings for the guy.
Unfortunately, Sanji was a flirt who showed that same level of devotion to every woman he met. His affection wasn't special because it wasn't selective. And women were possessive creatures by nature. Nobody wanted to share their partner's attention with every other woman who crossed his path.
"This sauce..." Marcus twirled pasta onto his fork. "Looks like Sanji discovered a new cooking technique."
"If he were a woman, she'd probably be the perfect catch," Alvida said between bites. "Can cook, super considerate, takes care of everyone's needs. Slurp."
She inhaled a mouthful of noodles with zero elegance.
Marcus couldn't help but remember the scene from the original story, Sanji being launched to Momoiro Island and forced into women's clothing by Ivankov and the okama residents. Sanji's "luck" with women was truly something else. Especially with the okama community, where he seemed to have some kind of bizarre attraction buff active at all times. And honestly, among everyone on the ship, Sanji and Bon Kurei actually had the best chemistry. Even though the "idiot trio" had grown to include a fourth member now, in terms of coordinated fighting styles and natural compatibility, Bon Kurei matched Sanji better than anyone else.
Which made Marcus wonder: if the story had changed this much already, would Sanji still end up at Momoiro Island? And if he did, what would happen if someone injected female hormones into him? Or into all the okama on that island?
Would they all transform into powerful, confident women?
And as a man who understood how men thought... if they all became actual women, the chaos they'd create would probably make regular women look boring by comparison.
He shook his head violently to clear away those disturbing thoughts.
Alvida noticed his strange reaction and smirked playfully. "What's wrong? Imagining something? Got excited?"
Marcus rolled his eyes. "Shut up and eat your noodles."
"Hahaha!"
Seeing him flustered made Alvida feel slightly better about their earlier sparring session where he'd managed to land more hits than she had.
"Look at you all nervous. There's no magical ability in this world that can just turn men into women, well, except for your weird body-swap power, but that's different."
Marcus didn't bother responding. Let her think what she wanted.
They ate in silence for a while.
After finishing her meal, Alvida headed off to take a proper bath. She hadn't had a chance to clean up properly since yesterday, and the quick wash earlier hadn't been enough.
Marcus, meanwhile, made his way ashore.
The beach where last night's bonfire party had taken place was still littered with empty bottles, leftover food, scattered blankets and cushions. The villagers had clearly partied hard into the early morning hours.
Luffy was sprawled out in the sand, snoring so loudly it scared away nearby seabirds.
"Yo, you made it," Usopp called out with a wave and a grin.
Marcus walked over to where the sharpshooter was sitting cross-legged in the shade, surrounded by tools and weapon components. He was fiddling with something that he recognized immediately, Nami's Clima-Tact.
"Is it broken?"
"Not exactly," Usopp replied, not looking up from his work. "But during your fight with her yesterday, she noticed a serious design flaw. If the Clima-Tact takes a heavy impact and bends even slightly, its effectiveness drops drastically. And if the ends get dented, which happened twice during the fight, it can completely mess with the weapon's functionality."
"So basically," Marcus summarized, "the material isn't tough enough."
"You could say that. But here's the problem, if I replace it with a harder material, the Clima-Tact's weather-manipulation performance will actually get worse. The current design relies on very specific material properties. Harder doesn't always mean better." Usopp sighed in frustration.
"Then just combine different materials. Use the hard stuff where you need structural integrity, and keep the original materials where they affect performance."
"Easier said than done. Fusing materials isn't that simple, and I'm no blacksmith. I don't know how to make alloys or composite materials."
"Why not just ask Goliath? He's got the Munch-Munch Fruit."
Usopp froze, then slowly turned to stare at Marcus. "Why didn't I think of that?"
Marcus grinned. Sometimes the simplest solutions were the ones people overlooked.
Goliath was summoned shortly after.
"Try fusing this with the Clima-Tact," Marcus said, handing him the items.
Before they started, he turned to Usopp. "Is there any irreplaceable material in the current design? Anything we absolutely can't lose?"
Usopp examined the disassembled weapon carefully. "Not really. If we need to, I can rebuild it from scratch. The design is memorized."
Marcus pulled out a netherite ingot. He handed it along with the Clima-Tact to Goliath.
"Let's see if you can merge these."
Goliath activated his ability. "Munch Factory, online!"
His mouth expanded, and he threw both items in and started chewing. The Clima-Tact slowly disappeared piece by piece as his Devil Fruit ability broke it down and restructured it at a molecular level.
Usopp felt a little excited inside. That small black ingot was incredibly hard. He had been trying to figure out how to work with it for weeks without success. He actually kept a piece of the stuff in his workshop back on the ship.
Why didn't he carry it around? Because it was absurdly heavy. Dense enough that a piece the size of his palm weighed as much as a cannonball.
As if sensing that concern, he quickly asked, "What about the weight? Nami doesn't have your kind of strength. If the weapon gets too heavy, she won't be able to use it in combat."
"We'll adjust it little by little," Marcus replied. "Start with a small amount of netherite and test the weight. If it's too heavy, we'll dilute it with lighter materials."
With the Munch-Munch Fruit, they could merge most metals with objects from this world and even create entirely new composite materials. He had been meaning to experiment with this for a while but never found the time.
Shhhk...
A small hatch opened in Goliath's belly, and a mechanical voice announced, "Weapon upgrade complete."
Marcus chuckled at the video game-style notification and reached into the opening to pull out the modified Clima-Tact.
The weapon was now entirely black, but under the sunlight, golden reflections shimmered across its surface.
He hefted it. The weight was odd, his own forged weapons normally felt weightless to him due to his abilities, but this registered mass.
He gave it a test swing. Air whistled through the hollow tubes with a deep hum that was noticeably different from the original's higher-pitched sound.
"Feels solid," he commented, then immediately handed it to Usopp. "Here, check the balance."
The moment Usopp took it, his arms dropped from the unexpected weight.
"Whoa! This thing is heavy!"
It weighed more than twice what the original Clima-Tact did. Usopp could manage it, but whether Nami could swing it in combat was another question entirely.
For now, he set that concern aside and began testing the weapon's core functions. He disassembled the modified Clima-Tact carefully, removing each tube to test individually.
Cool Ball. Heat Ball. Thunder Ball.
The cold and electric functions worked normally—no significant change from the original specifications.
But the Heat Ball... that had been noticeably enhanced.
Before the modification, it produced a warm, uncomfortable heat. Now, when he activated it, the temperature spike was intense, like putting your hand directly over a freshly boiled kettle. Hot enough to hurt but not quite enough to burn.
"Looks like the netherite enhanced the thermal properties," Marcus observed. "If that's the case, we should optimize the other tubes too. Add copper to the Cool Ball tube for better heat dissipation, and increase the gold content in the Thunder Ball tube to improve electrical conductivity."
He hadn't actually mined copper ore yet in his explorations, it was one of the few ores he hadn't encountered naturally. But that didn't matter. He could use the transmutation tablet to transmute copper from other materials and then manually forge it into ingots.
He rummaged through Usopp's tool bag, pulled out several copper sheets and examined them briefly before taking all of them.
"Make these into a larger block," he instructed Goliath, who swallowed the copper pieces without comment. His ability processed them, and a neat little cube appeared in his belly hatch, compressed copper that Marcus could work with.
Transmute.
Cost: 18 EMC.
The copper instantly transformed into a refined Minecraft-style copper ingot. He held it up to examine, satisfied with the result.
He repeated the process to create several more copper ingots, then pulled out gold as well. He handed both materials to Goliath along with the Clima-Tact tubes.
"Merge these into the appropriate sections."
Very soon, all three different materials had been incorporated into the weapon.
The Clima-Tact was completely transformed.
Its appearance now featured three distinct sections, the lower and middle portions shone with a brilliant golden luster, while the top section was deep black streaked with golden highlights.
But compared to the dramatic enhancement the Heat Ball had received from the netherite, the improvements to the other two functions didn't stand out as much.
"Alright, let me test the structural integrity first," Usopp said, examining the modified weapon carefully. "If the durability is good, we can work on weight reduction next."
He held the modified Clima-Tact, and looked around for a target. His eyes settled on a massive tree that would take three people linking hands to wrap around its trunk.
He gripped the weapon with both hands. Ever since the competitive atmosphere had spread through the ship, he'd been pushing himself harder too. Getting shown up by Clucky had lit a fire under him. If a chicken could train that hard, what excuse did he have?
With a sharp exhale, he swung the staff with all his strength.
CRACK!
The giant tree toppled like it had been hit by a cannonball.
He stood there, staring at the fallen tree.
"I don't think I swung that hard?"
In his mind, this was supposed to be a simple collision test to check the weapon's durability and get a feel for the weight distribution. He'd expected to maybe dent the bark.
He definitely hadn't expected to one-shot a tree that size.
Looking down at the Clima-Tact in his hands, something occurred to him. He rotated it around and tested with the other end, the section without the Heat Ball tube.
This time, the same effect didn't happen.
The staff only dented the trunk about five centimeters deep, impressive for his strength, but nowhere near the tree-splitting power of the first hit.
Same swing technique, same amount of force behind it, but completely different results.
He examined the weapon again. But he couldn't see anything obviously different about the construction. It was just metal fused together, right?
"How's it?" Marcus asked.
Usopp twisted the Heat Ball tube. Hot air bubbles immediately rushed out from both ends at an impressive rate.
The speed and intensity were exactly what he'd hoped for, this part of the upgrade had gone according to plan.
"I think I made something weird."
"How so?"
Usopp explained what he'd just experienced.
Marcus thought for a moment. It seemed that after fusing with the netherite ingot, the Clima-Tact had been classified by the system as a weapon rather than just a tool. And the fact that it could increase destructive power so dramatically was the first time this property had been demonstrated so clearly.
The weapons he had crafted before didn't add elemental damage when hitting people. They just hurt more on impact. He'd noticed that back during the fight with Jango in Syrup Village.
But since the extra pain factor wasn't particularly significant, and strong opponents could endure it easily, he hadn't paid much attention to the phenomenon after that initial observation.
Could it be that non-Minecraft items gained damage bonuses after being fused with Minecraft materials?
He thought about Sanji. The cook relied entirely on kicks for combat, and he definitely hit harder when wearing diamond or iron boots. But that had felt more like a hardness enhancement, like wearing brass knuckles. Basically, the punch power stayed the same, but the impact was more effective because the material was tougher.
This time, the effect felt like an actual damage multiplier. It almost reminded him of enchantments from the game.
Wait... if that was the case, then the other staff sections with copper and gold should also have similar effects, right? But they clearly didn't.
Only this particular section seemed special.
He shared his theory with Usopp, who scratched his head.
"Could it be the Heat Ball triggering some special property when it impacts something? Since the damage increase only happens with that end, maybe the heat element is the key?"
It was a reasonable hypothesis. The netherite had enhanced the thermal properties, maybe it had also added some kind of fire-based impact damage.
Marcus decided to test whether this was unique to the Clima-Tact or a general property of netherite fusion.
The experiment was simple enough.
"Zoro! Where'd you put Kashu?"
Kashu was one of the 50 Skillful Grade Blades. He'd acquired it from Mr. 11 back in Arabasta.
Since he preferred using swords, he'd given Kashu to Zoro for safekeeping. But as a later addition to Zoro's collection, it wasn't one of the three blades he carried regularly for combat.
"In my locker," Zoro mumbled sleepily from where he was sprawled in the sand. Despite being woken up, he answered automatically before his eyes even opened.
"Alright, go back to sleep."
"'Kay."
Zoro immediately started snoring again.
That instant sleep ability was honestly enviable. Ever since Marcus had introduced Minecraft-style beds to the ship, several crew members had developed varying degrees of dependency on them.
The women especially had gotten hooked. Once you got used to waking up feeling completely refreshed and energized, going back to regular wooden bunks felt awful. You'd wake up stiff, groggy, irritable. After extended use of the Minecraft beds, trying to sleep on normal ones could even cause restlessness and insomnia.
Clearly, once your body adapted to that instant-rest mechanic, it was hard to go back.
Marcus returned shortly with Kashu in hand. He gave it a test swing, and the damaged tree that Usopp had been experimenting on earlier split cleanly in half.
"So this is what a Skillful Grade blade can do," Marcus couldn't help but comment appreciatively.
It was actually his first time properly using a katana rather than just carrying one around.
But even as he admired Kashu, the Shichiseiken at his waist began emitting a faint, resentful ghostly aura, apparently displeased by his lack of loyalty.
Here he was, wielding some "outside sword" instead of the cursed blade that was comparable to a Supreme Grade weapon.
Feeling that sulky energy radiating from the Shichiseiken, Marcus was a bit baffled. But he decided to hand Kashu over to Usopp rather than continue the test himself.
"I probably won't get accurate results testing this myself. You do it."
The moment he said that, the aura from the Shichiseiken immediately faded away, becoming quiet again.
He was honestly speechless. Ever since he'd roughly coated the Shichiseiken in Armament Haki that one time, the cursed blade had... changed.
Before, it had been crazy and possessive, full of bloodlust and malice. Now it seemed to have retained the possessive part while losing most of the murderous insanity.
Basically, it had gone from "psychotic yandere" to just "yandere."
He pushed those weird thoughts aside.
Usopp picked up Kashu and began testing it by hacking away at various targets. Since he'd never properly trained with swords, his technique was more like wielding an axe than performing proper sword forms.
"So sharp." He couldn't help but appreciate Kashu's quality. "No wonder having a quality blade can affect a swordsman's combat capability so much."
He examined the edge carefully. Despite his rough treatment, the blade showed no nicks or damage.
He hesitated, looking between the sword and Galiath. "If he swallows this thing, will it stay intact?"
"Should be fine. The Munch-Munch Fruit can even perfectly replicate cannons after swallowing them. A sword should be no problem... probably."
Marcus wasn't entirely certain, but doing something was better than nothing. And they needed to know if this phenomenon was limited to the Clima-Tact or applied to all weapons.
Kashu was handed over to Galiath. Without hesitation, he swallowed the blade, then gulped down a netherite ingot immediately after. This time, visible steam began rising from his body, more than during the previous fusion.
"How is it?" Marcus asked.
"Pretty energy-intensive," Goliath said with a strained smile. His stamina system was tied to iron ingots, essentially, his body used iron as fuel for his abilities. Previously, merging netherite into the Clima-Tact had only cost the equivalent of one iron ingot worth of energy. But fusing netherite into Kashu and changing the sword's material composition had drained thirty-three iron ingots worth of energy.
That was a terrifying cost. For context, you only needed thirty-six iron ingots to construct an entire iron golem. Merging a single netherite ingot into a high-quality sword had consumed nearly that much energy.
Marcus, however, wasn't concerned about the cost. Iron was easy enough to obtain. He was more interested in examining the sword itself. When Goliath's belly hatch opened, he pulled out the newly transformed Kashu.
The netherite had clearly fused perfectly with the original blade material.
"Want to try it?"
Usopp took the modified Kashu.
With the same strength he'd used for his earlier tests, he swung downward at the ground.
The blade sank straight into the earth up to the hilt like cutting through water.
"What?!"
He was stunned. He hadn't felt like he'd used much force at all. The blade had just... slipped through solid ground effortlessly.
It was heavy when he held it stationary, yet impossibly light when in motion, like the weapon was eager to cut.
At that moment, the wood fragments he had cut through suddenly ignited.
Flames spread rapidly across the fallen tree sections.
"Shit!"
They hurried to douse the flames with water and sand, finally getting them under control.
"Your netherite doesn't just increase raw attack power," Usopp said once the fire was out. "It also adds fire damage to items that already have flame attributes."
He was already somewhat familiar with Kashu's properties. The sword was stored in the boys' quarters, and he often helped with cleaning, so he'd held it and examined it before out of curiosity.
Zoro had even asked him once if he was thinking about learning swordsmanship, which had sparked a brief conversation about the blade's characteristics and history.
"So it's true," Marcus said thoughtfully.
In Minecraft, equipment without enchantments didn't have special effects, improvements were purely in raw attack or defense stats.
But this wasn't too surprising when he thought about it.
Minecraft food combined with ordinary ingredients could create potion-like effects when Sanji cooked with them. So merging Minecraft materials with ordinary weapons to produce enchantment-style effects wasn't impossible.
But was it only netherite that was special?
What about copper, iron, or gold... could they also produce unique effects when fused properly?
Or did those ores simply lack inherent "magical" properties?
Come to think of it, the cold and electric tubes in Usopp's Clima-Tact had also been enhanced with netherite, but their effects had been fairly ordinary, probably just improved durability and structural integrity.
Wait a minute.
Minecraft food alone didn't create special effects either. But when combined with regular ingredients and Sanji's cooking expertise, it created powerful buffs.
Could netherite work the same way? Different forging techniques and material combinations yielding different results?
If that was the case, it would explain why only the Heat Ball tube had special damage properties while the other two sections didn't, even though those had received additional copper and gold enhancements.
Marcus' gaze drifted to the blade at his waist.
"Come to think of it, isn't the Shichiseiken also flame-attribute? Its ghostly energy can ignite things."
As if sensing his thoughts, ghostly flames flickered to life along the Shichiseiken's blade. But the flames seemed weak, almost nervous.
Clearly, even the sword itself was uncertain about this idea.
"You don't want to?" Marcus asked.
The ghostly aura suddenly flared up more intensely, as if protesting the suggestion.
He could feel the cursed blade's internal conflict, wanting to become more powerful, but terrified of the process.
He turned to Goliath. "Can you handle it?"
Goliath hesitated. The memory of Marcus losing control to the Shichiseiken's curse was still vivid in his mind. That had been scary to witness. But when he saw the expectant look in Marcus' eyes, his resolve firmed up. He'd been created to serve and assist. That's what he would do.
"Yes!"
Marcus didn't hesitate any longer and drew the Shichiseiken from its sheath, holding it out.
The ghostly aura quivered, but in the end, like a concubine resigned to her fate, the cursed sword seemed to bite down on an imaginary handkerchief and accept what was coming.
Goliath nervously took the blade. He was relieved when it didn't lash out or try to invade his mind with its curse.
"Try swallowing it without chewing, just take it whole if you can."
He stared wide-eyed at Marcus, then at the Shichiseiken, which was nearly as long as his entire torso.
"You can't?"
"Of course I can!" A man couldn't be questioned like that.
He straightened his posture, tilted his head back, and proceeded to perform what looked like a live sword-swallowing act from a circus.