Having just swallowed the fruit, he met the surprised looks of everyone present.
Sheila looked at him with confusion.
Saint Charm had the look of someone looking at a homeless child. And Vice Admiral Eugene looked as if Murphy had just committed sacrilege.
He's going to die soon anyway, and he managed to eat the Devil Fruit. Isn't that a waste?
A wave of heat washed over everyone, and Akainu appeared on the scene. He too had seen Murphy swallow the Devil Fruit, and although there was a flash of surprise in his eyes, there was more annoyance.
After leaving his mission to escort the Pirate King, he came here to capture someone who wasn't even a pirate? He was Akainu! When did he become a Tenryuubito lackey?!
Akainu brought the cigar to his lips, inhaled, held the smoke, and slowly blew it out. Circumstances were stronger than man. As long as he served in the Marines, he would have to obey orders. After all, the Marines belonged to the World Government, and the World Government obeyed the Tenryubito. And to realize his Absolute Justice, he would have to climb even higher.
"So this is the boy?" Akainu asked.
- Yes, grab him! I want him to be subjected to all the tortures of this world! - Saint Charm stamped his foot, shouting.
"Why not just kill him?" Akainu said discontentedly, not showing the slightest pity for the teenager.
- If you can catch him alive, then you have to take him alive! I want him to spend his whole life in hell! And as for that mermaid - she has to be alive, I want to keep her in a cage!
Akainu's eyes flashed with impatience, but he didn't respond, only moving closer to Murphy step by step. Towering almost three meters, he completely eclipsed all light, just standing in front of the boy.
Even though Akainu was currently a vice admiral, his aura was amazing - Sheila, who was standing next to him, trembled in his presence.
- Kid, did I hear you killed Bernard?
To Akainu, both Bernard and ordinary people were creatures that could be sent into oblivion with a single blow. But the fact that Murphy could defeat Bernard at such a young age truly made him a rare talent. It was a pity that a criminal would remain a criminal. Since he had sided with the opposite of justice, he would only be punished.
— ... — Murphy didn't react at all, as if he hadn't come to his senses.
"Hey, kid?" Akainu asked, puzzled.
— ... — No reaction again.
"Murphy, what's wrong with you?!" Sheila shouted from the side.
She, too, had noticed that something was wrong with Murphy. He'd eaten some fruit, so why did he have this glassy look in his eyes, like he'd suddenly gone stupid?
- Are you pretending to be a fool? Then kick yourself - you'll become a cripple!
The impatience on Akainu's face reached its limit. He clenched his right hand into a fist and aimed a punch straight at Murphy.
Boom!
....
Back to when Murphy had just eaten the Devil Fruit. In this deadly situation, every second counted. And before the battle even started, he opened the system without hesitation!
Then, without wasting any time, he opened Enhancement and looked at the list.
Murphy's eyes gleamed—he was right. Just like with Will and Sword Technique, a new section called "Fruit Enhancement" suddenly appeared in the "Enhancement" interface. Normal fruit development would probably have resulted in the same thing as previous owners of the speed fruit—a simple increase in speed.
Murphy, as an alien with a rich imagination, would probably find more ways to use this power. But none of it would compare to the system. He was confident that with the system's auxiliary training regimen, he would be able to squeeze the maximum out of the fruit's power.
Of course, he didn't open the system for the purpose of strengthening - a few thousand points is clearly not enough to strengthen the fruit's abilities. But even without strengthening, he could get a guide to development, since many items had corresponding descriptions. If [Fruit Strengthening] also had a description, it could save him a lot of time in experiments.
Without hesitation, he opened the section of the fruit and took a look at it. The moment he saw the contents, his heart almost stopped.
This fruit... it seemed to be not just good, but surprisingly strong.
[Basic Level]: Can double the speed of oneself or objects. Does not affect other living beings.
[Intermediate]: Can change the speed of himself and objects upon contact. Does not affect other living beings.
[High Level]: Can briefly affect the time of some objects. Does not affect other living beings.
[Awakening]: Can affect surrounding objects without touching. Does not affect other living beings.
He immediately noticed the word "time" in [High Level], and anything related to that word couldn't be bad. And [Mid Level]... he didn't understand at first, but then he realized - the description was talking about speed, not movement speed. That also promised great possibilities.
[Awakening] is the highest level of power available to all fruits. It can only be used after mastering the fruit's abilities perfectly.
As for [Beginner Level]...
He tried clicking on [Beginner Level].
[Spend 10,000 points to purchase the entry-level Speed Fruit?]
He didn't have that many points yet. Although it was a bit of a shame that he couldn't get the initial abilities right away, it didn't stop him from realizing that the initial level was like the Mori-Mori fruit - double the speed.
Realizing this, he was about to close the interface and face the inevitable disaster, when suddenly, his attention was drawn to a sudden change in the interface...
The entire interface was static, but the score counter suddenly started jumping, very noticeably.
Murphy took a quick look and immediately froze in amazement.
The points kept jumping, and it wasn't +1 or +2, it was +1234, +4321, +2333 - they were growing at a crazy speed. This had never happened before. One moment everything was calm, and the next moment a storm broke out.
Murphy had been expecting this kind of glasses explosion for a long time, and after a moment's thought he realized the reason. It had been more than an hour since he had contacted Morgans, and the special edition of the paper was already being distributed around the world by the news agency.
News of Roger's voluntary surrender began to spread.
And his glasses went through the roof.
In a short moment, the number of points exceeded fifty thousand and was approaching one hundred thousand.
[Spend 10,000 points to purchase the entry-level Speed Fruit?]
- Yes.
Instantly, a flood of information rushed into Murphy's mind. Indeed, it was a doubling of speed. It was easy to experiment with, and while spending 10,000 points might seem unreasonable, gaining the ability directly in such a situation was extremely valuable.
As for the stories of people crashing into the sea because they were going too fast, Murphy thought about the information he had received and realized that this was indeed possible, but if you were thinking fast enough, it could be avoided.
Fortunately, his agility was not bad, and along with it, his speed of thought and reaction.
He tried to click on [Mid Level]. If he had a hundred thousand points, he could get it right away.
[Not enough points. One million points required.]
A message popped up that both shocked and disappointed Murphy. Only level two, and already requiring so many points, it looked like there was no chance of getting it yet.
However, this also meant one thing. To reach the cultivation level of the previous owners of the Speed Fruit, only ten thousand points were required. But the next stage required a whole million points - a completely different level. And now that he understood the use of the fruit, he had an escape plan.
Although the chances of success were still low, at least some hope appeared.
While Murphy was rejoicing, he suddenly felt a strong sense of danger. He came to his senses abruptly and felt a heat enveloping his entire body, and heard Sheila standing next to him shouting something in alarm. At the same time, Akainu stood in front of him with an irritated face, raising his fist, pulsing with magma, ready to fall on him.
Ten times the speed!
Murphy suddenly grabbed Sheila's arm and dodged to the side.
Boom!
The place where Murphy had just stood exploded, and fragments of rock mixed with magma flew in all directions.
"Dodged? Devil Fruit power?" Akainu's face showed surprise.
Akainu's strength and speed were already at the level of an admiral, and even his casual strike was far from something that anyone could dodge. Also, the way Murphy had dodged just now clearly surpassed his previous escape speed, which surprised everyone present...