If you were to ask Kael Vane when he was most nervous, he would tell you: every time he pulled cards.
[Use Ten-Pull?]
Kael stared at the prompt for half a second—like staring could change the outcome.
Then he exhaled.
"Confirm!"
Starlight flashed across the screen.
Kael clasped his hands together like he was about to pray to every god he knew.
"Gold! Gold! Gold!"
He squeezed his eyes shut… then carefully opened one eye to peek.
His face froze.
No gold.
Not even purple.
Seven blue and three white.
For a second he thought his eyes were playing tricks. He rubbed them hard and looked again.
No.
Ten cards.
Ten pieces of trash.
That's right. No gold, no purple. Just a pile of blue.
Kael's eyelid twitched.
"System! Why is there no gold?!" he yelled.
[??? Host, what are you talking about? I don't understand.]
"I said, why is there no gold?!"
[Isn't that normal? The guarantee is for 100 pulls, not 10. The chance for a gold is 1%. The chance in a ten-pull is 9.56%. Not getting one is the most normal outcome.]
Kael choked on the word "normal."
"Then what about purple? Why no purple?"
[Host, you're looking down on purple cards. The chance for a purple is only 5%. The chance in a ten-pull is 40.13%. It's normal to not get one.]
"..."
Kael's math wasn't great. He just now realized the odds were this miserable.
The system didn't stop.
[Host, your luck before was just amazing. You got gold on every ten-pull. You even got a purple on a single pull.]
[But that doesn't mean your luck will always be that good. Getting gold or purple is a surprise. Getting green and white is normal. You're actually pretty lucky you got seven blues.]
Kael's eye twitched again.
Lucky.
Seven blues.
He could practically hear the system's tone, even without hearing a voice.
"I don't believe it!" Kael snapped. "I'm a transmigrator! The chosen one with a system! My luck can't be this bad! I have the goddess's blessing, plus the pulls I've saved up! With all that, I have to get gold!"
[Use Ten-Pull?]
Kael's fingers hovered—then he stabbed the confirm like it owed him money.
"Confirm!"
Starlight flashed again—brighter, louder in his head.
Kael leaned in, staring so hard his eyes started to sting.
White… blue… white… green… blue… white… blue… green…
Eight stars.
No gold.
His heart sank.
Another bust—
Whoosh—!
A purple star flared to life.
"It's purple!"
Kael's grin snapped on instantly, like a switch.
A purple card. It might not be the "ceiling" of an anime, but it was still a top-tier fighter.
Like Kisame. He was very strong. Might Guy had to open seven gates just to beat him.
And the eight-gate Guy was the one Madara had called the strongest.
So, purple cards were just a small step below gold.
Kael barely had time to breathe before—
A bright, golden star fell from the sky.
"It's gold!"
Kael shot to his feet.
Overjoyed didn't even cover it.
He pointed at the screen like it had personally insulted him a minute ago.
"System," he said, loud and triumphant, "talk to me now!"
[...]
The system was speechless.
Maybe this host's luck really was that good.
Maybe he was the chosen one.
No… a 10% chance isn't that low. The idiot just got lucky.
Kael didn't care what it thought.
He watched as the cards flipped over one by one.
He skipped the white, green, and blue. They were just fuel.
He was waiting for the purple and gold.
Finally—the purple card.
It flipped.
"It's really him!"
Kael was shocked.
The card showed a man with black hair, freckles, and an orange cowboy hat. The hat had a "smile" and "frown" badge. He had a red bead necklace and black shorts. He was shirtless, showing off a perfect body. A dagger was on his hip.
That's right.
It was one of the most tragic characters in One Piece…
'Fire Fist' Ace.
The entire Marineford war was because of him.
Whitebeard had led his whole fleet to war just to save him.
Looking back, it was a suicide mission. But he had to go. He was Whitebeard.
It was just a shame he was past his prime, and the Marines' forces were too strong.
They did manage to save Ace, but the cost was huge.
In the end, Ace died protecting his little brother, taking a magma fist from Akainu through the chest.
Kael had cried when he saw that scene. He couldn't believe he had pulled Ace's card.
Ace was strong. Even though Haki became more important later, a Logia fruit was still top-tier.
The joke about "even a dog wouldn't eat the Flare-Flare fruit" was just a joke.
He knew no one would refuse it if it was right in front of them.
Ace's only weakness was that he appeared too early, before Haki was fully developed.
But even with Haki, he probably couldn't have stopped Akainu. Akainu had one of the strongest attacks in the series.
Maybe that's why he was a purple card. But he was at the very top of the purple cards.
Kael swallowed and looked at the last card.
The gold.
This was the main event.
The room felt quieter, like even the air was waiting.
The last card hovered on the screen for a beat.
Then it flipped.
When Kael saw the picture, he went still.
His breath caught.
"It's really him!!"