"Bonez, we're going out to do some shopping. You and Tant stay behind at the dock. If there's any problem, report it right away."
Vane decided to take Meowth, Lena, Martha, and Hambak to Bliss Street on Bliss Island to shop. He and Meowth were going to buy shipbuilding materials, while Lena and Martha were going for medicine and food.
Bonez watched Vane and the others leave the scrapyard. He turned his gaze to the people clearing the open ground in the scrapyard and called over two Rocket Team grunts.
"What is it?"
"You two go pick out two wooden clubs you think feel the best to use and bring them here."
The two Rocket Team grunts, looking confused, picked out what they thought were the handiest wooden clubs from the ruins.
When they came back, they saw Bonez had already taken off his upper clothes completely.
Bonez beckoned to them. "You two, use the clubs and beat me."
The two grunts looked at each other. The clubs in their hands suddenly felt very heavy—why were they suddenly being told to start beating someone?
"You go."
"I'll go, then I'll go."
They were both pretty muscular now. If they hit an ordinary person with a handy club like this, it would break several bones at least.
But they knew Bonez was a Dice-Dice Fruit user. His defense was basically iron—blades and cannonballs couldn't shake him, let alone the two wooden clubs in their hands.
As he spoke, one of them swung his club and smashed it hard into Bonez's back.
Pa!
The sound was wrong. That was the sound of hitting flesh. Bonez's body should be as hard as steel!
Bonez: "Hiss—"
That scared the club-swinging grunt half to death. "Why didn't you use your Devil Fruit ability?"
A clear red mark appeared across Bonez's dark-toned back.
"If I use the Devil Fruit ability, my progress will be too slow."
Ever since he ate the Dice-Dice Fruit, the only time his body had been injured was when Vane cut him open. That time, he tasted pain again.
So he decided to set his Devil Fruit ability aside for now and train his physical techniques.
Vane had just taught them the training methods of Rokushiki. Setting the others aside, Bonez took a liking at first glance to the move "Tekkai."
Logically, he himself was iron already. Tekkai seemed to overlap with his ability, but Bonez felt it was still worth learning.
Developing a Devil Fruit ability requires one's own body to bear it. If his body itself became very tough, then when he used his Devil Fruit ability, wouldn't it be hard on top of hard?
Even if the two couldn't stack—or even if the stacking effect wasn't obvious—training Tekkai wouldn't be a loss. It was said Tekkai had some connection with Armament Haki, so he could treat it as laying a foundation for Armament Haki.
"Don't worry. Keep using the clubs to hit me."
The two Rocket Team grunts had no choice but to swing again. At first they didn't dare use much strength and got scolded hard by Bonez, so they had to put more force into it.
Crack!
One club suddenly snapped. The grunt felt like he'd just struck steel.
Bonez felt it and shook his head. "No, just now I used my ability. Keep going!"
Just now he hadn't been able to endure the pain and accidentally used his ability—it wasn't that he had already mastered Tekkai.
"Really working hard, Bonez. I can't fall behind either. Electabuzz, hurry up and shock me."
Seeing how hard Bonez was working, Tant was fired up by his 'grind' gene and dragged Electabuzz over to start "electrotherapy."
...
Bliss Island, Bliss Street.
"Gambling Street, Flower Street, Arms Street, Market Street… this really is a huge place."
After entering the inner circle of Bliss Street, they all felt their eyes open wide. Every street had its own distinctive feature. For example, Flower Street had dazzling white wine and fragrant long legs… no, fragrant wine.
Pulling his gaze back from the dazzling white, Vane decided to head to Market Street.
Market Street sold everything except weapons, and could meet most of their shopping goals this time.
"Materials, materials…"
"Medicine, medicine…"
"Ingredients, ingredients…"
As soon as they entered Market Street, they split into three groups. Vane and Meowth went to buy the most important shipbuilding materials.
"Customer, take a look—everything here is top-grade shipbuilding material. Look, this is wheelwood that's been air-dried for several years…"
In a large ship-materials shop, the owner enthusiastically introduced the timber for shipbuilding to Vane and the others.
"Boss, do you have that… material from the Adam Tree?"
Vane didn't really know what kind of material the Adam Tree was, but in the pirate world this was recognized as the most suitable timber.
The boss's expression immediately turned serious.
"Material from the Adam Tree… we do have some, but the price…"
As the cargo distribution center of the West Blue, Bliss Island did indeed have this kind of top-grade material. But this shop owner only had a little—hardly enough even to make a ship's keel.
They could only run to many shops, gathering a bit here and a bit there. They practically went through the entire Market Street's ship-materials shops before scraping together what they needed for the keel.
Of course, besides Adam material, they also bought quite a lot of other high-quality materials. They couldn't exactly go out to sea sitting on just a keel.
"80 million Belly. Just buying these basic materials cost 80 million Belly! So expensive."
80 million Belly was enough to buy two decent pirate ships.
First, Vane's ship was relatively large. He estimated the final size would be at least twice that of the Thousand Sunny.
Then there was the no-compromises on materials. Adam Tree material was precious, and the materials Meowth needed—electrical components and the like—were all relatively rare in today's pirate world, like electrical appliances in the 1980s.
But even after purchasing so much, they were still empty-handed just like when they came. Everything had been packed into Meowth's body.
"Sure is convenient. This Castle-Castle Fruit ability stuffed so many things into my body, and I don't feel a thing, meow."
Meowth patted his belly. Inside were piles of materials bigger than houses. There was no burden at all—he even felt he could load more.
"Otherwise, why would they say Devil Fruits are the sea's secret treasures? A good Devil Fruit is especially precious."
Meowth nodded in strong agreement. Suddenly his nose twitched.
"I think I smell fish."
"Fish? What's strange about that kind of smell?"
In a world of the sea, a keen nose catching the scent of fish was perfectly normal.
"No, meow. This smell has fish, but it also has the smell of people mixed in."
Fish and people? Vane stopped in his tracks. Right in front of him was a huge slave shop.
A slave shop… There being such a thing on Bliss Street didn't surprise Vane at all. After all, the slave trade in the pirate world was a gray industry protected by many forces.
"Slaves… Let's go in and take a look, Meowth. I think I know where that smell is coming from."