One Piece: A Guide for Ordinary Players

Your level has increased from 1 to 2.

You have gained 5 attribute points that you can freely allocate.

Chapter 5: Hang in there, you'll be dead soon.

Robert's eyes lit up. He had been guessing what would happen after the upgrade, but he didn't expect that instead of the system automatically adding points, he would gain attribute points that he could use at will!

This was the best-case scenario in all his conjectures. Without the slightest hesitation, Robert allocated all his free attribute points to Strength according to his pre-planned allocation method!

[Strength 6→11]

Robert felt his muscles bulge, and a surge of confidence welled up within him, making him feel like he could defeat everyone.

The boning knife, which had been somewhat heavy in his hand, suddenly felt like a toy. Robert even considered not risking killing Ah Da and the other two, since with his current strength, it wasn't impossible for him to decompose all those beast corpses in one night.

But he immediately abandoned the idea. He was joking. Even if he completed the mission, would those people let him go?

Furthermore, although his strength had nearly doubled, his stamina had not been restored, so he still wouldn't be able to complete the mission. That's why he didn't choose to allocate his stat points evenly.

Increasing agility is actually the best way to improve combat power in the early stages, and it will definitely be more beneficial than increasing strength. However, even if I increase agility, I am still not confident that I can take down those three people at the same time.

Adding stamina isn't a good choice either. Stamina only makes you more durable, allows you to recover faster from being hit, and makes you work longer. This kind of stat is definitely not the right choice right now.

As for his mental strength, it goes without saying. A normal person has 5 points, but he only has 4. Other transmigrators may have poor strength, agility, and endurance, but their mental strength or intelligence is far higher than that of normal people.

But when it came to me, the neurasthenia caused by staying up late, working overtime, and other issues manifested itself in full.

Even if I put all 5 attribute points into mental strength and turned myself into a mentally strong guy, I still couldn't defeat those people who wanted to kill me by just shaking my hands, right?

Therefore, strength is the only solution at this moment. You must find the right opportunity to launch a surprise attack and take down one of them before considering the others.

Robert breathed a sigh of relief after glancing at his level 2 experience points.

[Level: 2 (4/200)]

Doubling the required experience points isn't unacceptable, but a rough estimate suggests that leveling up again in one night would be extremely difficult.

Robert dared not waste a second. With Ah Er's physique, even if he had twice the strength of a normal person, he would still be no match for him.

The first animal carcass had been cut up by Robert to almost nothing but the flesh close to the bone and the internal organs; there were still some pieces of meat left over from the last cut on the cutting board.

Robert skillfully skewered and grilled the meat, but when it was cooked, he couldn't help but frown.

[Level: 2 (7/200)]

I've tried my best to innovate the types of grilled skewers, but my experience has dwindled to the point where I only add 3 points to each cooking session.

Robert's analysis suggests that the experience loss is not due to repeatedly making the same dish, but rather that as the level increases, the experience gained at the same difficulty level is multiplied by a certain percentage coefficient.

This undoubtedly made matters worse for Robert, who was clinging to the idea that cooking could make him stronger, and his hopes of leveling up were even slimmer.

But the slim hope was not a reason to sit idly by and wait for death. As long as there was even the slightest chance of survival, Robert was unwilling to give up.

He started trying to grill fish from the bucket next to him, hoping to regain experience points by completely changing the basic ingredients.

The fish in the bucket were all quite large, but fortunately, Robert's strength had nearly doubled, so cooking them was relatively easy.

With a burst of strength, Robert pulled a strange fish with a large head and a short body out of the bucket. Suddenly, Robert's eyes were fixed on the bucket containing the fish.

Because Robert carried away the largest fish at the top of the barrel, a small fish about the length of a forearm in the middle of the barrel was stimulated and suddenly swelled into a ball, its fleshy spines opening up, making it both cute and ferocious.

Robert's breathing quickened. He knew this fish all too well. Its body, which was originally spindle-shaped, would rapidly expand into a ball when subjected to external force or encountering a dangerous environment. Its back had dark stripes that resembled those of a tiger. It was definitely the famous tiger pufferfish from the original world!

Not all animals in the One Piece world are completely separate from those in the real world, especially fish. Robert is a walking encyclopedia of pirates; he has seen real-world creatures on the cover or in the cover story more than once, and pufferfish are one of them.

If it were just seeing fellow countrymen, Robert would never have been so excited. The main reason for his excitement was that, in addition to its delicious meat, this pufferfish had another famous characteristic—pufferfish toxin!

This is a biological toxin that can kill a person with just a few milligrams of it. Whether ingested and acting on the digestive system or flowing into the bloodstream and directly stimulating nerve endings, it can kill a person in a very short time!

Robert swallowed hard. At culinary school, the teachers didn't teach these novice chefs how to cook pufferfish, but some teachers did brag about which parts of the pufferfish were the most poisonous, such as the gonads or the liver.

What was originally meant to be a cautionary tale has now become Robert's cooking guide. He finishes off the sulking little cutie with a single slash and removes all its internal organs in no time.

Fish gonads are easy to identify, a large white patch, and the liver is also very distinctive. Robert quickly took them off and put them in a bowl. Just as he was about to find something to crush the internal organs, the door behind him was pushed open.

"Hey kid, get me some..."

Robert tensed up; it was Ah Er's voice.

Before he could finish his sentence, he erupted in fury: "I told you to break down the ingredients! What were you doing?! Were you trying to prove to the boss that you can cook so you could oust the rest of us?!"

As they were talking, Ah Er had already quickly come up behind Robert, his left hand grabbing hard at Robert's shoulder, his right fist raised high, ready to flip him over and punch him hard in the face.

Robert's body suddenly turned around with Ah Er's force, but as his body turned, he clenched his left hand and threw a handful of chili powder at Ah Er's face.

Ah Er reacted extremely quickly, closing his eyes as soon as he saw Robert sprinkle the powder.

This is when you can see that although Ah Er is in extremely strong physical condition, he is not very experienced in fighting.

When facing enemies throwing things like chili powder or lime powder to blind you, in addition to closing your eyes as quickly as possible, you should also kick hard at the enemy's location in your memory to interrupt their follow-up moves. It would be best to use the force to take a few steps back and create distance.

Robert had never put down his cleaver, and when the chili powder worked, he immediately swung the cleaver.

With the power of 11 points, the sharp meat cleaver suddenly slashed towards Ah Er's neck, but Ah Er's face revealed a cruel smile.

Robert's all-out swung knife only managed to cut a few millimeters into the skin of his neck before it was clamped tightly by powerful muscles.

"A piece of trash like him actually dares to..."

Ah Er's words came to an abrupt halt, because he was too preoccupied to speak, breathing heavily with all his might, as if what was once an easy action had now become extremely difficult.

The smile shifted to Robert's face: "Relax, it's normal to have difficulty breathing. Pufferfish poisoning takes effect quickly. Just hang in there a little longer, and you'll die."

Chapter 6: Are they treating me like a eunuch?

Robert's knife had been used to cut open the flesh of pufferfish. In the emergency just now, with his back turned, he only did two things: first, he grabbed a handful of chili powder with his left hand, and second, he used the blade in his right hand to gently cut a few times on the pufferfish's ovary.

The toxicity of tetrodotoxin is said to be thousands of times that of cyanide; those few cuts must have left quite a bit of it.

Even if Ah Er's body is exceptionally strong and far surpasses that of ordinary people, these toxins should still severely weaken him.

Judging from the current situation, the effects of this poison are extraordinary. Ah Er, who is as tall as a small mountain, is now kneeling on the ground, pressing his hands tightly against his heart, his whole body convulsing.

Robert didn't have time to test the lethality of the pufferfish poison. He grabbed the boning knife next to him and stabbed it into Ah Er's eyes with all his might.

A sharp knife, almost the length of a forearm, penetrated deep into the brain. With a twist of his wrist, Ah Er lost his life completely, his body falling to the ground.

There was no discomfort whatsoever from killing for the first time. Robert was barely able to save his own life, so he couldn't afford to think about anything else.

When Ah Er came in just now, he only said half of what he was saying, and Robert didn't know what he was going into the storeroom to get.

Regardless of the circumstances, even if Ah Da and the others didn't hear what they were doing inside because of the noise outside, Ah Er's prolonged absence would still arouse suspicion.

Robert dipped the knife into the pufferfish innards again and carefully tucked them into his lower back. He then stored the remaining pufferfish innards and chili powder in his food storage space. With these two powerful weapons in hand, he instantly gained confidence.

Robert picked up a large bundle of firewood from the ground and quickly walked out of the storage room.

Only Ah Da was busy in the huge kitchen; Ah San was nowhere to be seen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ah Da glanced at Robert, who was carrying firewood, and cursed, "I'm out of meat! What are you doing bringing out firewood! Ah Er is a good-for-nothing too!"

Robert feigned a startled shrunken neck, but didn't stop, taking a few more steps closer to Ah Da: "It was Mr. Er who said he'd bring out some firewood for later use. He's processing meat in the back... I... I've been cutting up some meat..."

The two were less than five steps apart. Just as Ah Da was about to get angry after hearing Robert's words, he saw Robert seem to trip over something, throw the firewood in his hand, and stumble towards him.

The firewood in mid-air blocked his view, and Ah Da, disregarding everything else, subconsciously turned to the side to avoid it.

Robert slammed into Ah Da. Before Ah Da could even get angry, he felt a chill under his armpit, followed by excruciating pain.

Robert used the same boning knife that he used to finish off Ah Er. Now, only the hilt of the knife remains outside Ah Da's body; the rest of the blade is completely embedded in his body.

Robert quickly retreated after landing a successful attack. Although Ah Da was not as tall as Ah Er, he was still a strong man over 1.9 meters tall, and his body was the kind that was fat and muscular, so he must be quite strong.

Sure enough, he let out a wild shout and was about to pounce on him to fight, but Robert moved his feet lightly and slipped behind a long table.

Ah Da only took two steps forward before he started breathing rapidly and staggering, just like Ah Er had done earlier.

Robert pulled out another meat cleaver and cautiously walked towards Ah Da. Because fat people have more fat, they are generally more tolerant of toxins than others. Robert didn't want to be caught off guard and killed.

Ah Da's face twisted in pain: "You...you're dead...the boss said...he wanted some meat broth, so if he kills me...you'll too..."

Even at this point, he was still thinking about the boss's dining requirements, which shows just how terrifying the boss was in his mind.

But he didn't get to finish his sentence. Although the fat man had a higher tolerance to the poison, his cardiopulmonary function was also worse. Before Robert could finish him off, the myocardial spasm caused by the poison took his life.

Robert looked at Ah Da expressionlessly and said in a low voice, "You're a pretty good person, aren't you? Even on your deathbed, you didn't forget to tell me what the boss wanted to eat."

Having confirmed that Ah Da was dead, Robert pulled a long table over to shield him from view of the body on the ground from the food serving area.

Robert glanced back at the soup pot on the stove and gave a disdainful smile: "You call this meat soup?"

The largest steamer was set up directly on the stove, and half a fat sheep was dragged out of the storage room and cut into small pieces with a few strokes of a cleaver.

There are normal sheep in the world of One Piece too; Fleet Admiral Sengoku even kept one to use as a paper shredder.

With his 11 o'clock strength at this moment, cooking was like adding wings to a tiger. He poured cold water into a large pot, then chopped some scallions, ginger slices, and garlic cloves and threw them into the water. Finally, he put in the chopped lamb with bones.

Putting meat into cold water allows blood and other impurities to seep out, and also prevents the outer layer of the meat from shrinking due to sudden heating, which would result in a poor texture.

While waiting for the water to boil, Robert took out a large fish, removed its head and internal organs, and then fried it in a frying pan on the stove until both sides were golden brown. He then found a large bamboo cloth and put the fried fish inside.

After skimming off the foam from the mutton stew, Robert threw the cloth used to wrap the fried fish directly into the pot to stew with the mutton.

"Fish and mutton together sound fresh. Although I've never seen the fish in this pirate world, something made with crucian carp and mutton soup shouldn't be too bad, right?"

Normally, making soup requires simmering over a low flame, but Robert can't wait that long. Thinking about how Ah Da dared to call that mushy stuff meat soup and serve it to the boss, the mutton soup he made by quickly simmering it over high heat is definitely not worse than that stuff.

The broth had turned a rich white color, and Robert added carrots and white radishes to the pot as garnish.

I scooped out a little with a soup spoon and tasted it. The soup made from that unknown, strange fish from this world was surprisingly delicious!

Finally, he sprinkled some salt on top and stirred it briefly. He then sprinkled some chopped green onions on the surface of the soup, and Robert carried the huge pot off the stove and placed it on a small cart next to him.

Looking at his attribute panel, Robert wondered how much experience this fish and mutton dish had given him.

[Level: 2 (137/200)]

The numerical values ​​stunned Robert. Even if the mutton soup tasted pretty good, he had been lazy and skipped a lot of procedures. There was no way it could have given him hundreds of experience points!

Without time to think about anything else, since there was no upgrade anyway, it was more important to continue with the plan. Robert pushed the cart and walked straight out of the kitchen.

There weren't many customers in the restaurant; only one table of pirates was still drinking with each other. Because there weren't many customers, the upper floors of Wild Cherry were not open.

The owner was wiping a glass behind the bar when he saw Robert pushing the soup cart out, and he was somewhat surprised.