Seaside System - Chapter 13.2 (Patreon)

Kaden couldn't help but laugh, "You could have said you were interested yourself," he pointed out, amused, "I have to work up my courage and all that you know, I'm just an inexperienced young guy here, in fact, you're totally taking advantage of me here."

"Yeah, I'm sure you're all torn up about it," Nami rolled her eyes, "Besides, don't bullshit me, inexperienced my ass. I wasn't born yesterday."

"Nothing worth recounting to be honest." he shrugged. A drunken romp with an older girl at a party in his own world and Honey Queen, which had been alright but been underwhelming due to his actual dislike of the woman.

"Kay, all the better then," Nami grinned, "So, Logia? What exactly do they do then?"

"In general they're the strongest devil fruits on average," Kaden replied, glad to move the topic back with his newest crew member, "Basically, when you eat them, they let you become an element or a chemical reaction, made up of energy or matter. Like fire, sand, ice, mud, gas and more. Outside of mythical zoan devil fruit and special paramecia's, they're the best kind of devil fruit, not just because of their sheer raw power, but because whoever eats them can turn into that element and reform their body. Which means, outside of whatever the fruits element itself has a weakness to, the ocean and the third type of haki I haven't went into yet, armament haki, they can't really be hurt."

"Eh……ehhh!?" Nami's eyes flew wide open and utter shock overtook her, "Like can't be hit at all?" she goggled.

"Beyond the weaknesses I said a second ago…and armament haki which is quite rare in the grand line until you get to the second half, yeah," Kaden nodded, "To the vast majority of people, even incredibly strong people, a logia user is completely unbeatable."

"…So that's why you said I'd be able to beat Arlong easily within a few days if you gave me that fruit," Nami uttered, realisation shining in her eyes, "As long as I kept away from the water with it, he wouldn't be able to touch me at all. No wonder you're so confident in how much it could sell for."

"Yeah, devil fruits are bullshit like that." Kaden laughed lightly.

"I'll say, frigging monsters and their weird fruits," Nami huffed, "I'm totally gonna die if I go to the grand line without an even bigger monster like you to hang over my shoulder."

"Well sea stone weapons work on them as well," he replied, then smirked at her, "But monster? Hurtful."

"The truth usually does hurt," Nami snorted, "Besides, you're the biggest monster I've ever seen and that's without taking your crazy devil fruit powers that I've yet to see fully put into action."

He thumbed his nose, "Hehe." he beamed, pride flaring in his chest.

"But seriously…I'm going to be next to useless beyond eye candy and navigating huh? And even then most of my navigational skills that I've learned won't even work as well in the grand line from what you're telling me." Nami slumped over and bemoaned pitifully.

"I mean I could teach you some of my techniques if you want, though you'd need to get way way physically stronger to use any of them," Kaden pointed out, "Or I could get you a devil fruit if you want."

The devil fruit encyclopedia alongside his knowledge of this world, made it so he had a unique advantage in that regard when it came to hunting devil fruits.

He knew who had devil fruit powers, knew where to find them and with the marines compiled knowledge, knew what many of them reincarnated into fruit wise.

"Pass…no way I'm doing whatever crazy training you did to get that monstrously strong," Nami immediately denied with a shudder, "…And I'm not so sure about a devil fruit either. Amazing as you've made them sound and how absurdly powerful they can get, I'm not sure how I feel about losing the ability to swim. If I did get one, I think I'd want like one that fits me as well, like is there one that can manipulate the weather?"

"I mean there's a Snow Snow logia, but it belongs to a Warlord's subordinate and not the one I'm aiming for," Kaden shrugged, "And there's the Rumble Rumble fruit, a lightning logia and one of if not the strongest logia in existence, it's even called the invincible fruit."

"Invincible fruit? And a logia? One of, if not the strongest at that?" Nami's eyes lit up, "I could definitely get behind that, I wouldn't need to worry at all with something like that. Do you know where it is?"

He in fact did.

"It's currently in the hands of a guy ruling an island nation in the sky in the grand line," Kaden helpfully let her know, "Thinks he's a god and basically has enough fire power to blow this entire island away with a little bit prep time."

Nami's excited gaze, shrivelled up and died with the span of a single moment, "…Why is that a thing?" she whimpered, and shook her head, "That sounds like something out of a nightmare."

"Yeah, I'd offer to get it for you…." Kaden trailed off for a moment, "But that guy would absolutely murder me right now. I need to master a few of my abilities before I'd be confident in taking him down."

Enel was just that bullshit. Fire power wise, he literally wouldn't have been out of place even in the end game fights he'd seen between Luffy and Kaido and shit before he ended up here. His physical ability wouldn't come close to them, but his fire power was just that absurd.

Nami gave him a deadpan look.

He shrugged, "I mean there's other ways to fight if you want," he continued, waving his hand idly, "I mean Clock Tower Island is full of artisans that have been learning to make weapons for the last few years and gotten pretty good at it. I can get a weapon made for you if you want, something to help you protect yourself or fight if you want."

Not to toot his own horn, because it would all be a stolen idea. But, with the artisans of Clock Tower Island and his knowledge, he could for sure get them to make a Clima Tact and with his abilities, he could literally speed run gaining the upgrades Nami went through with it if he wanted.

"…Well that sounds infinitely better than ever going near somebody you claim could beat you right now." Nami said drily.

And it wasn't like there weren't other things he could do for her if she needed it. Like…there was even something he could technically do right now.

His Flame Clouds were perhaps his most varied ability. They could both work like normal clouds, become solid and soft, or even become rigid and hard, harder than steel by his reckoning.

And he could cut them off from his will, with imparted instructions. It was in fact one of his plans for helping out Alabasta in the future he'd thought of over the past few days. He was going to create two massive flame clouds over Alabasta. One that would collect water from the ocean and return to the sky and boil the water under the hot desert country sun, and the other to capture the steam the water turned into, with it then raining down the now purified pure water over the country.

On that note, it should be very much possible for him to create a Flame Cloud, that would simply obey Nami's orders with an autonomous order to protect her.

"Well, we can put a pin in that for now I guess, adding amazing combat ability on top of my number one world class navigation abilities, beautiful face and amazing figure isn't the biggest priority right now. Besides, I might not be a complete monster like you, but I can handle myself alright in a fight, " Nami pointed out, "And like you said we won't be going to the grand line anyway until you get a better handle on your abilities like you said you wanted to. Honestly, what's more important is planning ahead. Like, we need a ship, though you said you already have a bunch of them under your command so we can get one of those. But beyond that, we obviously need more crew members than just me, you and….Hachi."

Oh yeah.

"How do you feel about that, by the way?" he hedged.

"Honestly, I'm not sure what to think," Nami admitted with a deep sigh, shaking her head, "After everything you said earlier when fighting Arlong and what I overheard you say when talking to Hachi earlier, I can understand at least. I'm not happy about it at all, and it doesn't mean I forgive any of them for what they did in the slightest, but I at least get it." she bit out and leaned against his shoulder with her own.

"I don't blame you," Kaden bumped her shoulder a bit comfortingly, "If it were me and they killed someone I cared about and hurt the others? I would have brutally murdered them without an ounce of mercy, and I probably would have had some massive hatred of fishmen as a whole. The fact you don't, goes to show how good a person you are."

"…Flatterer," Nami giggled a bit, before pulling away and slapping her cheeks, "Still, moving on from this heavy topic, what's the plan going forward captain? Ship? Crew? How long are we even gonna stay in the East Blue before heading to the grand line?"

…How long did he actually need?

Going by the growth he'd went through before getting his devil fruit, and the fact he only had two rokushiki left to get down, barring Rokougan, and taking into account how by his estimations, he had an echo of Kaido's own skill within him, as he'd noticed his haki usage becoming more skilled and instinctual through simple use over the past few days…

"Three months I'm thinking once I actually get to training," Kaden mused aloud after some thought, "As far as recruiting crewmates, none really come to mind I'd want here in the East Blue besides you to be honest. And, I kind of want to get a bigger and better ship than any of the ones I have, all the ones I have are decently big, but they're cruisers. I'd prefer one like a marine battleship or bigger if possible."

"Three months huh? Not exactly a lot of time," Nami mused, before giving him the stink eye, "But seriously? No other crew mates and you want a ship that massive? How the hell would we even sail it?"

"I could lift this entire island if I wanted to and fly it around with my flame clouds, a ship of that size isn't a problem." Kaden pointed out with a snort. Also, even if he didn't, he could probably make some flame clouds to cover specific jobs while sailing to make up for a lack of crew members.

Honestly, while far from the most powerful of his abilities, that belonged to the Blast Breath, they were definitely both the most varied and useful.

After all, if he was back home he could even send a flame cloud to pick up the television remote without ever getting up off the couch. Now that, was true power.

Nami blinked, before just staring at him, "…You've gotta be kidding me, there's no way you can do that."

"I totally can," Kaden grinned at her, smugly, enjoying her reaction, "I did tell you didn't I? The best of the best devil fruits are the mythical zoans barring maybe a couple outsiders of Paramecia and Logia and mine is pretty much one of the contenders for the strongest mythical zoan of all."

"…You sure are bragging a lot for a guy who just said a minute ago he couldn't beat a man made of lightning." Nami deadpanned.

"Hey, hey, that's only cuz I can't reliably hit him right now," Kaden denied, "I could kill him in one shot with my strongest attack if I could actually hit him with it."

"Excuses," Nami rolled her eyes and snorted, "Then we don't even need a ship. We could literally just find a big empty piece of land, get a fortress built on it and have you fly us around on it."

"We could," Kaden agreed with a nod, "But I don't want to. If you're gonna be a pirate you need a pirate ship Nami, don't be so dumb."

Left unsaid was the fact that there was a limit to even his almighty unstoppable hella useful flame clouds. While he could in fact make autonomous ones, they were quite a bit less potent than ones directly controlled by him when it came to…the sheer weight they could lift.

"I don't wanna hear that from an idiot like you!" Nami glared at him.

"You just don't understand a mans romance Nami," Kaden snorted, "Like if you're in a desert and find a stick, you need to use it as a walking stick. Or that hitting your opponent harder is a viable strategy when none of your attacks worked before."

"…Here I thought romance was just romance," Nami huffed, "So what was wanting a date with me for then if you've already got such riveting avenues of romance besides girls." she asked drily.

"Saving a fair maiden who's beauty could make dozens of countries go to war, is also a mans romance," Kaden stated honestly with a shrug and grinned, "I've seen the pirate empress Boa Hancock herself before, the woman thought to be the most beautiful in the world, you can easily give her a run for her money."

Nami's cheeks burned and she looked away, "…Well when you put it like that, I guess I can't really be mad about it," she giggled. It took a moment before she shook her head and turned back to him, "But fine we need a ship, and a big one. Where are we getting it? One would cost a ton to buy or get made, unless you plan on stealing one from somewhere, like the marines."

…Well actually seeing as marine battleships tended to come equipped with sea stone lining the bottom, then that would probably be for the best. He could just get one customized after that fact and-

"Nyuu, if it's a big ship you want, I might be able to help there." the voice of Hachi broke him from his thoughts as the tall octopus fishman made his way out of the main building of Arlong Park, a multitude of large sacks held in his tentacled arms.