"The Arlong Pirates have a total of forty-six members. Most of them are in Arlong Park, while a small number are scattered around the villages on patrol. There is only one officer stationed by the sea, responsible for raising the Sea Beast brought from the Grand Line."
Nami explained the distribution of the Arlong Pirates' personnel as she led the way.
A Sea Beast. Nami suddenly turned and asked, "By the way, did you encounter an attack from a sea cow?"
Link nodded. "I did. I killed it."
Nami was slightly stunned, then she clasped her hands together, looking like an adoring fangirl. "So amazing! As expected of Lord Link!"
"Your acting is too exaggerated. Don't let me see it again," Link said, a dark line on his forehead.
"Hee hee... It's a habit."
Nami couldn't help but stick out her tongue, subconsciously treating Link like one of those foolish pirates.
"Knowing how many there are and where they are is enough."
Link suddenly stopped, then formed a hand seal and whispered, "Wood Style: Wood Clone Jutsu."
The next second, three branches extended from his back.
The branches rapidly inflated like balloons, taking on a human form at a speed visible to the naked eye.
After the branches detached from Link's body, they transformed to look exactly like him.
What was even more magical was that the several Links could move; they weren't puppets, but real people.
Seeing this scene, Nami's jaw dropped, completely speechless.
Link said to the three wood clones, "Go. I'll leave it to you."
The wood clones nodded, then, just as Link had when he left the small boat, they vanished into thin air.
Seeing the wood clones disappear, Nami finally came back to her senses. Recalling the photo she had once seen in the newspaper, she couldn't help but ask, "...Is that your ability?"
"Yes."
Link nodded.
A Bloodline Limit was indeed his ability.
As he and Nami walked towards Arlong Park, a series of system prompts continuously sounded in Link's mind.
"Ding! An enemy has been killed, 0.09% experience gained!"
"Ding! An enemy has been killed, 0.18% experience gained!"
"Ding! An enemy has been killed, 0.12% experience gained!"
"..."
"Ding! An enemy has been killed, 0.29% experience gained!"
"..."
As the prompts bombarded him, Link summoned a virtual panel that only he could see.
[Host: Link]
[Inheritance Template: Senju Hashirama]
[Unlocking Progress: 20.85% (+)]
[Experience: 1.75%]
Watching the rapidly increasing experience, the corners of Link's mouth curled up slightly. He thought to himself, "As expected of Fish-Men, whose strength is ten times that of humans. The experience they give is high."
Link was a transmigrator, twenty-one years old this year.
Waking up to find he had transmigrated to the world of One Piece in the year 1519 of the Sea Circle Calendar, and as a body-transmigrator at that, Link was initially bewildered and desperate.
After all, this world had numerous races, and even humans included mutated individuals several or even dozens of meters tall. A sub-healthy person like him couldn't even beat a common thug in this world.
Without eating a top-tier Devil Fruit—and unless it was a Mythical Zoan fruit—his physical fitness would be a critical weakness.
Even if he were lucky enough to eat a Mythical Zoan and develop it to its peak, without Haki, he still couldn't become a super-strong individual like one of the Four Emperors.
A person from another world might not be able to awaken Haki.
If he truly couldn't awaken Haki, his upper limit would be completely sealed. Such a hellish start couldn't help but make Link feel desperate.
Fortunately, Link activated a system.
This system couldn't speak and naturally had no name.
But based on its function, Link called it the Template System, or it could also be called the Inheritance System.
As the name implied, Link would obtain the template of a certain powerful individual and gain experience by defeating enemies to unlock the template's progress.
Each time the template was unlocked to a certain degree, it would pass on a portion of that powerhouse's abilities to Link.
Link's luck was good. His template was the God of Shinobi from the world of Naruto, Senju Hashirama, the number one person below the Six Paths-level powerhouses.
A Super Kage-level powerhouse corresponded to a Four Emperor-level powerhouse in the world of One Piece.
As the ultimate representative of the Super Kage-level, Senju Hashirama was also a ceiling-level existence in the world of One Piece.
As long as no Six Paths-level, other-dimensional powerhouses appeared in the world of One Piece, Link only needed to unlock the Senju Hashirama template to 100% to be able to walk sideways through this world.
Thus, Link began to frantically grind monsters to level up.
He first experimented with animals to see if he could gain experience.
After discovering he couldn't, he started with drunken thugs.
When the progress reached 1%, Link received his first feedback, obtaining Senju Hashirama's—or rather, Ōtsutsuki Ashura's inherited from the Sage of Six Paths, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo—true Sage Body.
After obtaining the Sage Body, Link immediately transformed from a sub-healthy weakling into a monster.
When the progress reached 2%, Link obtained immense spiritual and physical energy, which fused to form his own chakra.
At that time, Link discovered that he would receive feedback for every 1% of progress.
This feedback not only included Senju Hashirama's constitution but also his chakra.
However, the chakra would be broken down by the system into pure spiritual and physical energy, leaving behind none of Senju Hashirama's, Ōtsutsuki Ashura's, or even Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo's will, thereby accelerating the growth of Link's Sage Body.
With only 2% of the progress unlocked, Link had already cleared the East Blue.
Even with only two percent of the God of Shinobi's chakra reserves, and even with an undeveloped Sage Body, Link was an invincible existence in the Four Seas.
After all, in the final battle of the Naruto world, Naruto, with the addition of half of the Nine-Tails' chakra, only earned this evaluation from Senju Hashirama: "He's almost catching up to me!"
That's right, "almost catching up to me," not "surpassing me."
This meant that Senju Hashirama's chakra reserves were greater than Naruto's, who also possessed a true Sage Body that was not fully developed and had half of the Nine-Tails!
Such a quantity of chakra, even at only 2%, was measured in 'Kakashis'.
Relying on his astonishing chakra reserves, even though Link didn't know the Monster Strength Fist, by simply releasing his chakra crudely, every punch and kick was like a Monster Strength Fist and a Heaven-Splitting Kick.
With such strength, Link was fully capable of entering the Grand Line.
But he didn't do so, continuing to lay low in the East Blue, hunting weaker opponents to develop.
He received feedback for every 1% of progress. Before reaching 10%, besides several explosive increases in his spiritual and physical energy, Link obtained the Three Basic Jutsu and the advanced versions, several elemental ninjutsu, as well as Water and Earth Style nature transformations.
When the progress reached 10%, Link finally obtained Senju Hashirama's world-pacifying Wood Style Bloodline Limit.
What is powerful is not the Wood Style, but Senju Hashirama.
But the reason Senju Hashirama was so strong was because he possessed a true Sage Body.
When Link also had the Sage Body and Wood Style, the strongest foundation was already laid.
At the same time, Link also discovered that after unlocking 10% progress, the experience provided by weaker opponents had decreased, and some guys didn't give any experience at all.
Thus, Link began to participate in wars, using numbers to push his progress.
After influencing the outcome of a dozen or so kingdom wars and killing an unknown number of soldiers, the template progress finally reached 20%.
At this level of progress, Link's chakra reserves were an unknown number of 'Kakashis'.
Link didn't lack for chakra; he only lacked powerful ninjutsu and Wood Style techniques.
Unfortunately, the system only provided feedback on Senju Hashirama's abilities, not his combat experience or memories of developing ninjutsu.
With Link's own abilities and comprehension, he couldn't develop ninjutsu on his own.
After the progress reached 20%, those kingdom soldiers could no longer provide Link with experience.
It was then that Link decided to leave the East Blue.
But before leaving, Link thought of the Fish-Men, whose strength was ten times that of humans. These Fish-Men could definitely provide him with experience.
If possible, Link wanted to recruit a navigator, so that after entering the Grand Line, he wouldn't have to constantly stare at the Log Pose and man the helm.
In the year 1520 of the Sea Circle Calendar, in the East Blue, there was no better candidate for a navigator than Nami.
Although Link didn't know the location of Cocoyasi Village, he knew that Captain Nezumi was colluding with Arlong. Captain Nezumi wasn't hard to find; the 16th Branch of the Marines could be found on a map of the East Blue.
Thus, Link first went to the 16th Branch of the Marines, interrogated Captain Nezumi to learn the location of Cocoyasi Village, looted his private treasury, and killed him on the side.
And that was the reason Link appeared here