A few days later.
The New World.
Rocky Port.
A string of bubbles suddenly bubbled up from the rolling surface of the sea.
Beneath the water, a dark shadow expanded rapidly.
With a loud splash, spray scattered in all directions as a pointed mast pierced through the bulging surface.
Enveloped in a layer of resin bubbles, a single-masted sailboat no more than ten meters long leaped out from below the waves.
With a crisp pop, the resin bubble burst.
Foam carrying the distinct fragrance unique to the Yarukiman Mangroves splashed onto the deck, landing on a white-haired youth leaning against the side.
Carlo stood up straight.
He glanced at the outline of the island coming into view, then crushed the military Eternal Pose at his feet with a single step.
“So I’ve arrived…
Rocky Port.”
Feeling the blood surge inside him and excitement welling up in his chest, an irrepressible smile curled the corners of Carlo’s lips.
“It starts here—my legend.”
“System!
Display my current attributes!”
“Ding!”
[Attribute Panel Opened!]
[Physique: 5-Star (58.383)]
[Haki]
[Observation: 6-Star (65.275)]
[Armament: 6-Star (68.002)]
[Conqueror’s: 7-Star (73.528)]
[Devil Fruit: 2-Star (20.212)]
[Overall Rating: 6-Star]
[Comment: In the eyes of top-tier powerhouses, someone like you is a loli at best.]
Seeing the comment popping up in his mind, Carlo’s face darkened instantly.
“Screw you and your loli!”
“System, you’re the loli!
Your whole family is!”
The system inside his mind offered no reply to Carlo’s tirade.
It was as though it had never been there.
Only when Carlo called upon it would it surface again from the depths of his mind.
No one other than himself could detect it.
Yes.
Carlo had a system.
A system that could display his personal attribute panel.
This was the golden finger he had obtained upon reincarnating into this world.
When he first awakened the system, Carlo had been wildly ecstatic.
And once he finished figuring out all the functions of this damned system, his mood became just as abysmal.
Because his system didn’t have a point-allocation feature.
Nor did it issue quests.
It didn’t have daily sign-ins either.
There was no system mall to exchange items from the myriad realms.
And it wouldn’t transform into a cute catgirl or a succubus.
Apart from displaying his current attributes across the three dimensions of Physique, Haki, and Devil Fruit, it had no other functions at all!
Oh, wait…
It wasn’t entirely useless.
At least it came with a soul-crushing, venomous evaluation…
To hell with it!
Trash system!
Give me back my youth!
Get the hell out of my head!
I, Carlo, would rather jump off this ship than use such a useless system!
[Ding!
Strong intent detected from host.
Unbinding process initiated…]
“I’m sorry, System Daddy!
I was wrong!
Please don’t leave me!”
Carlo apologized at lightspeed, begging for the system’s forgiveness.
Fine, he admitted it.
This trash system wasn’t completely useless.
At the very least, those attributes precise to three decimal places allowed Carlo to understand his power level with absolute precision.
They let him know exactly how much progress and growth he gained with every single workout.
This bit-by-bit progress…
Watching the slow crawl of his three-dimensional attribute numbers…
Feeling his own strength steadily rise…
It truly was his greatest motivation to tirelessly hone himself.
Often, people are unwilling to persevere in long-term effort simply because they cannot see their own growth in the short term.
But with a system that allowed him to clearly view his attributes at any moment, Carlo’s rate of progress over the past few years had been visible to the naked eye.
And after years of exploration, Carlo had a rough idea of what these attribute numbers actually meant.
Overall, the maximum attribute value was likely 100.
The closer a number was to the cap of 100, the stronger the power.
Furthermore, the scaling of the numbers wasn’t linear; it was more like leveling up in a game.
The higher it went, the harder it was to raise.
And the strength gained per point was vastly greater.
Take Carlo’s current average attributes, sitting just above 60.
The system gave him an overall rating of 6-Star.
Setting aside Conqueror’s Haki and his Devil Fruit, his baseline strength fell somewhere between a Marine Headquarters Vice Admiral and a Buster Call Elite Vice Admiral.
7-Star ranged from Elite Vice Admiral to Admiral Candidate or an Emperor’s First Mate.
8-Star went from Admiral Candidate / Emperor’s First Mate to top-tier fighter.
9-Star was true top-tier powerhouse level!
Encompassing the so-called Admirals, Emperors, Kings, and Gods.
Which meant an average across the three primary attributes reaching 90 or higher.
Note that the system’s three-dimensional star rating standard calculated only [Physique], [Observation], and [Armament]—the three powers that anyone could potentially acquire.
The rarer Conqueror’s Haki and Devil Fruits possessed by only a few were excluded.
They counted as extra combat power bonuses for the individual.
So with the bonuses from Conqueror’s Haki and his Devil Fruit, Carlo’s actual combat capability was far beyond that of an ordinary Vice Admiral.
Far beyond it, in fact.
Of course, actual combat performance couldn’t be judged purely by an attribute panel.
Factors such as battle experience, environment, and personal mental willpower had to be taken into account.
Moreover, the system’s star rating was both extremely vague and incredibly absolute.
It was vague because the power gap within a single star level was immense.
For instance, among top-tier powerhouses who were all 9-Star, the power gap between an Admiral like Ryokugyu, Rocks, and Imu was immeasurably vast!
The gap between 90 in Armament Haki and 100 in Armament Haki wasn’t a mere ten or twenty percent.
It was a difference of tenfold, or even more!
And it was absolute because it relied on a strict mathematical average of [Physique], [Observation], and [Armament].
For example, Carlo’s 6-Star rating didn’t require his Physique, Observation, and Armament to all individually exceed 60.
Rather, the average of all three had to exceed 60.
If the average topped 60, it was 6-Star.
Otherwise, even a gap of 0.01 left it at 5-Star.
Take his current stats: his three primary attributes were somewhat lopsided.
Compared to his Armament Haki at 68, his Physique score of 58 lagged behind by a full 10 points!
Still, there was no helping it.
After all, he was just a normal human.
And humans had limits.
Training one’s Physique was the hardest among all the stats.
In Carlo’s eyes, it was even harder than Conqueror’s Haki!
Especially in the later stages.
Physical strength growth slowed down more and more until hitting a dead bottleneck.
If one couldn’t break through, progress stalled for a lifetime.
And then, with age, it would steadily decline.
Don’t be fooled by his seemingly low 58 points in Physique—in terms of raw strength alone, Carlo’s physical body was already close to that of a normal adult Giant!
A single arm commanded a terrifying strength of ten thousand tons!
Just as Carlo was absorbed in the numbers on his attribute panel…
*Rumble!!*
A massive roaring explosion suddenly echoed from the direction of Rocky Port, visible in the distance.
Startled back to reality, Carlo looked up and saw fire rising above the horizon in the distance.
Even in broad daylight, the flames were strikingly obvious.
This instantly piqued his interest.
“Oh?
Someone’s actually attacking Rocky Port?
This is Rocks Pirates territory—who’s so bold?”
“Wait, isn’t this…”
“…stealing my job?!!”