Honest* Work

'Ting'

"…working on the railroad, all the live long daaaay…"

'Ting'

"…strumming on the old banjo!"

…

"I should probably take a break now…"

John lowered his newly acquired steel pickaxe to his side and wiped the sweat off his brow with his other arm, though it took quite some effort to do with all the training weights he was wearing.

"I should go take a break, get something to drink and probably call it a day."

And so, with that, John put the pick over his shoulder and started walking out of the mineshaft he had spent almost the last two weeks in, mining for money.

John nicknamed it the 'Money Pit'

Walking for about a minute, John makes his way to the entrance of the mine where he set up a simple chair, dining table with some clay mugs that he could refill and drink from, a free standing hammock just in case he wanted to rest for a bit, and a large circular fan to cool himself off if he gets overheated. John had considered perhaps buying a generator and getting some true air conditioning in the mine, perhaps even some lights, but that would be far too suspicious even for him.

One time Billy walked in to give John a surprise 'hello', and John had to come up with a quick lie saying that he found these things outside of the mine and he decided to use them. Billy bought it, but it kept John on edge for being caught with unusual or expensive things he shouldn't be able to get. So he kept it simple.

After picking up one of the mugs from the dining table and buying some water for himself, John sells the weights off his body, and takes a seat on the chair, leaning back and lounging comfortably.

John, in his moment of rest, decided to reflect on his previous two weeks of work to himself.

"Status."

{John Capet [Miner]}

[Currency- Around 238,070,000 Belly]

{Attributes}

Strength- 27

Constitution- 29

Dexterity- 32

Intelligence- 37

Wisdom- 50

Charisma- 50

{Skills}

(Mining [18])

{Abilities}

(Devil Fruit [Bāta-Bāta no Mi])

(Omni-Buying)

(Omni-Selling)

{Traits}

John could only smile to himself over the gains he had made over the two weeks, which was plenty, as he started to reminisce. Of course, there were three things he was most proud of.

The first thing John was proud of was the amount of money he had made, over two hundred million Belly, which was ten-fold of what he reasonably thought he would make in his time mining.

It was a pretty funny story, or at least John thought so.

John knew he was going to get money fast by mining. Even if he received no gold he would be able to sell the rocks and get some value from them, but his monetary luck turned after the third day of mining when he hit a specific patch of the rock wall, which he sold for a very large amount of money compared to what he was mining.

Curious about the gains he made, he re-purchased what was expensive within the rocks and was surprised to find a silver, metal like substance in his hand. From there, John went back to Billy to ask him to identify exactly what he found.

He was naturally confused when Billy wholeheartedly chuckled at his question. "Why, John, looks like you found some fools silver! It looks like regular silver, but it heats up too quickly to be useful to jewelry, plus its always stuck with other minerals that most people don't bother refining it. While that piece you got there is the purest piece I've ever seen, no one will buy it!"

And with that, John decided to buy a book of common rocks and metals from Earth to try to find out exactly what he bought. He could have just asked the system to write it on a piece of paper or something, but John wanted both a challenge and a break after toiling in the mine for a few days.

Plus, it apparently upped his Intelligence for some reason, so he supposed it was worth it.

It turned out that the metal he found was palladium, which was a metal that, on Earth at least, was rarer than gold and was used for multiple electronic devices. While John could not know for sure, he assumed that the inflated price of the metal to his power was from its rarity, not necessarily its demand from the One Piece world. That or Banaro Island was so secular that they did not know what anything was worth.

Either way, the next day when John went back to the mine and away from prying eyes, he cashed in what wealth he acquired in the last few days, just under 2 million Belly at the time, and turned it into a large, mishappen gold nugget.

When John returned to the town later that day, he presented the gold nugget to Billy (who was shocked and awed at John's 'luck' for actually finding gold), and then sold it to the small local bank in town for one million Belly, a loss of almost half.

While some may seem this as unnecessary, John decided to do this for three reasons.

Firstly, he wanted to establish his 'luck' to the other people in town. If/when John made it big, there was a chance that people would go snooping into his background and try to figure out where he got his wealth, leading to Banaro Island. So, by establishing his luck now, when he got to Water 7 and tried to cash in some gold to make a convincing story for where he got his starter wealth, it would seem legitimate.

Secondly, he felt bad for living in Billy's house and being in his care while John 'wasted' his days mining, so he wanted to pay him back. So, John gave Billy 500,000 of his Belly as thanks. Billy cried for a bit and thanked John for his generosity, which John then thanked Billy in return. Overall, a very heartwarming scene.

Thirdly, John wanted an excuse to make more money. You see, after John got the money from the bank, he suggested that he and Billy go drinking for the night to celebrate at the local saloon. While celebrating, John pretended to be drunk, and was waving his palladium piece he showed Billy earlier around the saloon like it was his pride and joy.

Then while John was 'drunk', he offered to spend all his 500,000 Belly and buy all the 'fool's silver' all the people in the bar could sell him. Excited to get rid of their 'worthless' metal, they sold it to John for insanely low prices.

When John woke up the next day, he pretended to regret buying all the fool's silver, and swore he would make what up the money he squandered by getting lucky in the mine again. Of course, he also made up a story about throwing away the fool's silver since it was useless, and claiming he never wanted to see anything silver covered ever again.

He made around 200,000,000 Belly that day.

It was a good day.

The second thing John was proud of was his increase in attributes, which was the other reason he chose to be a miner.

By swinging his pickaxe all day and pushing himself until he was tired, he increased his Strength by swinging the pick, Dexterity by twisting his body while doing some of the more powerful swings, and Constitution by trying to swing for as long as he could before he accidentally got tired.

Of course, his attribute gain was also (supposedly) aided by his use of weights on his body that he purchased using his ability. Inspired by other fictional stories and anime he had consumed in the past; he had hoped that it would aid him in gaining attributes faster.

Unfortunately, without an experience bar or something on his status page to give him information, he was not entirely sure if it was adding to how quickly he gained attribute points. Still, he was gaining them at a decent pace, so he was going to keep using them.

Of course, while he was mining/training he would occasionally ask variations of if he could buy attributes, or other various powers.

The answer always came back as no, but John could dream, right?

The final thing John was prod about was his new abilities (Omni-Buying) and (Omni-Selling). These weren't new abilities, just extensions of his Bāta-Bāta no Mi powers, but he was so excited about it them that he willed it to appear under his abilities tab.

It all started when on one of his mining days, he decided to push himself and up the heaviness of his weights. Unfortunately, he made it too heavy, and it really started to hurt.

While in pain, John asked for it too be sold, which it was. The thing was, he did not touch it with his hand, which is what he has been doing to sell things this whole time.

As it turns out, John could sell anything he touched with any part of his body, if he were able to.

The clothes on his body? Yep.

The floorboards of a building? Sure.

And perhaps the most interesting one of all, a baseball he 'threw' at himself with a purchased baseball throwing machine. He even 'gave' it to Billy, so it was considered a 'stolen' item. It still worked.

So, with this power, John became bulletproof. Anything that touched his body and that was a physical item cold be sold immediately. When testing with the baseballs he even confirmed that they didn't hurt when they touched him! John also confirmed he didn't need to see the item to sell it (though he did need to know what direction it was coming from), it just needed to touch him.

Finally, John had something equivalent to a combat technique in his arsenal.

Of course, this technique had its limitations. Firstly, it was not automatic, he had to be consciously wanting to sell things that were touching him in each direction. This could be tricky if he were fighting a person who could attack in many directions. For example, he could be fighting someone and only be trying to 'sell' bullets being shot at him from the front, and then get sneak attacked from behind. Of course, John could just wish that anything from any direction that touched him was to be sold, but then he had to be careful not to accidentally sell the clothes he was wearing, or the floor if he was not standing on a natural surface.

He had to run around naked a few times trying to get ahold of this new technique.

Secondly, it only worked on physical objects. So, say John was punched by someone wearing a glove, sure he could sell the glove, but he would still be hit by the fist. John also assumed anything imbued with Haki or made with Seastone would ruin his day as well.

Still, this was an unbelievably versatile ability for almost any situation. Heck, John imagined that he could become the greatest thief in the world if the played his cards right.

John told Billy he wanted to open a Pawn Shop, but every day new possibilities seem to emerge.

His second new ability was just the inverse of (Omni-Selling), which he named (Omni-Buying). It was a simple technique that allowed him to buy an item with any part of his body.

This had had less utility in John's eyes but was still especially useful. With this, he could buy clothes and instantly wear them, instead of having to put them on normally. He could also use it to buy weapons like blades and guns, like when he bought a small knife that fit inside his boot, or a gun inside a purchased coat's pocket. This ability was great for seeming completely innocent, then turning into a dangerous threat.

Using this ability, he could easily purchase masks and clothes to make himself a master of disguise or getting through places as an unarmed civilian then pulling out a weapon, becoming an effective assassin.

The only downside of this ability was that, for whatever reason, the things he bought cost a bit more if they were not going directly into his hands. The cost was negligible, only about 100 Belly per item, but it was still there, and John had no idea why. He tried doing some small amounts of testing, but eventually got tired after a long period of no results, so he decided to shelve it for another day.

While John found it less exciting than (Omni-Selling), it had a lot of potential.

With all his reminiscing done, John downed the last of his water and got off his chair. It was time to head back and meet up with Billy.

And so, John sold his nicer pickaxe, re-purchased the one Billy gave him days ago, and headed back, making sure to try and keep a brisk pace.

After about 15 minutes of what could be described as light jogging, John arrived at the edge of the village, and slowed down so he could walk the rest of the way. Once on the main road of the village, many people called out to John on his way to Billy's house, smiling, waving, and some people asking how his day was, and John responded in kind.

Of course, John knew that not everyone was truly being sincere. Some people were genuine with their greetings, others showed him pity, and others he was sure thought he was humorous since he bought all that 'fool's gold' when he was drunk. Still, he responded to most everyone with a smile of his own and made sure to call them by name if he knew them.

Of course, his system helped a bit with that.

{Markus}

{Maria}

{Justin}

{Older Maria}

John figured out that he could tag peoples names above their head so he could remember who they were easier. The system did not tell them their names though, he waited for them to introduce themselves first. He could also do this with other things too, like palladium which he tagged in case he runs into some floating around in the future just in case.

That said, he did not name everyone, just people he met often enough, or actively greeted him. Some people just had nicknames based on their looks, and one older man John had the displeasure of meeting he just named {Jack*ss}, since he was one.

Moving along the road, John eventually reached Billy's house, and let himself in. Once inside, John was greeted by Billy and his son John just sitting down for dinner.

Billy looked up at John, smiling widely. "Well, look who's home early today! Come on, let me grab you a plate!" Billy abruptly stands up and heads over to the kitchen counter, grabbing a plate and dishing out some beef and carrots onto a plate.

"Thank you, I am starving!" John stated while pulling up a chair and taking a seat himself. John was quite hungry. Even though he can get food and water whenever he wants, his more active lifestyle led to a greater demand for food. Plus, he did not try to act like he was full whenever he could, he doubted Billy would ever get suspicious of him, but he wanted to stay on the safe side.

Billy then came over and placed the plate on front of John. "Here you go, one Beef Surprise!" Billy said as he went to the other side of the table and sat next to his son.

'Beef Surprise' was the name he gave meals made with beef and a random vegetable. John supposed he gave it this name to seem more exciting for his son.

"So," John asked, starting on his food, "how was your day?"

"Pretty good, just helping the boys at the wharf since their lines are wearing out. You?" Billy spoke with his mouth full, yet still articulating clearly. John was amazed how he could do that.

"Pretty good. Nothing good yet, but I have a good feeling! Plus, I can feel myself getting stronger."

"I know what you mean, you still are a bit skinny, but I can see you are workin' on it." Billy nods at John, a smile on his face. Though John noticed he unconsciously flexed his arm, and his son looking at him in awe.

They really get along well.

"So, are ya confident you can get the money to get out of here?"

"Yeah, I can feel it in my bones!" John replied in a happy tone. To be honest, he was going to be a bit sad to be leaving this place. There was a lot of heart and soul here, and he would have loved to stay longer. But with Enies Lobby and Blackbeard looming around the corner, he needed to get out of here and gain power and connections fast.

Whether John used those powers and connections to hide and make a living or intervene and mess up what he believed would happen, he still wasn't sure. However, his new goal after establishing himself was to try to find a way to help this place out. Whether that meant stopping Blackbeard, or helping rebuild, he wasn't sure yet.

Billy looked sadly at John, a carrot in his hand, of course not using the fork on the table. "Are you sure you gotta go?"

John put a determined look on his face. "Yes, I need to find my place in this world, discover my adventure. But…" John's expression softened as he looked at the father and son, "that doesn't mean I can't visit from time to time, share some stories."

And at that, Billy's face lit up once more. "True that! Well, then, let's finish eating and take it easy."

The happiness on Billy's face then turned into mischief. "But before we leave, we half to have some drinks at the saloon! Don't worry, I will make sure you don't make any bad buys."

John couldn't help but smile and chuckle to himself.

Even though he had spent much of his time in the mine, he was not going to forget the good times he had here.

He hoped to make it up to them someway, somehow.

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