ragged looking door was thrust open by a young man of seventeen. He stepped though the door into an equally shabby room with a rickety bed with a straw
mattress and thin blanket on top.
The young man observed the room and let out a bone weary sigh as he stepped into it and closed the door behind himself. Not that the door was likely to keep anyone with even an iota of determination from getting into the room.
The young man walks over to the shuttered window and swings it open. The room is bathed in light from the slowly setting sun reflecting off of the calm blue ocean.
The view was the one redeeming feature of the cesspool the young man lived in. He watched the sun setting over the ocean for a while before he turned from the sight and began stripping the rags generously called clothing from his body.
What was revealed was a malnourished body as thin as a twig. So malnourished his ribs could clearly be seen. He carefully folded the shirt and carried it to a pile of similarly shabby clothing. As much as he hated his clothes, he had to treat them well as they were all he had.
He could afford to ruin even a single shirt by throwing it on the ground. Not to mention it would also make washing it by hand even harder. He wasn't about to give his overworked body even more work!
With the shirt taken care of, he walked around to the side of his bed and gently sat on it. Today had been... well the same as any other day.
He'd spent it looking for work and begging for money. He'd gotten lucky and got a job working on the docks unloading cargo. He dug in his pocket and pulled out two crumpled bills. Flattening them out he looked them over and shook his head.
Even after living in this world for seventeen years, he still couldn't get over the fact that he was being paid with actual Belly. In this case, two-thousand belly for a full day's work, which was roughly twenty dollars in buying power. Not much.
The young man scoffed and pulled open the drawer to his little night stand, the only other piece of furniture in his room.
The drawer contained a few more wrinkled bills of various denominations, his life savings. Leaving it in the rented room wasn't the wisest course of action but carrying it on himself at all times would be even worse.
He'd learned long ago that the world was cruel and carrying his money on him was an invitation to get mugged. It was pretty much pure luck that the landlord of the place never bothered to look in his tiny room.
He closed the drawer and then placed his hands behind his head as he flopped down onto his back on his bed. He didn't even have a pillow to rest his head on.
He stared at the ceiling while thinking to himself, 'Tomorrow I turn seventeen. I can't believe I've been in this world for that long. I can't believe I used to be so excited to be living in the world of One Piece.
Watching Luffy and his crew made it seem so easy to live in this world, as long as you were determined and had a dream you could make it. Bullshit. I've worked my ass off since I was a kid and I'm still nowhere near having enough cash to buy a ticket off of this hell hole.
It might not have been so bad if I was born in the East Blue, but nooooooo, I had to be born in West Blue.'
It might not have been so bad if I'd been given something. Hell, it might have been better if I'd even been given parents to help out! Whatever bastard parents I have dumped me right after I was born.
They only pinned my name to a blanket and left me on the doorstep. The fuck kind of named is Peter D. Dragon anyways?! Were they trying to be funny?! It's even worse when said in the proper order! Fucking Dragon D. Peter. It took all of five seconds before I was being called 'dragon penis'. Fucking kids.'
He continued to grumble and complain to himself until he fell asleep. He might bitch and moan to himself, but that didn't stop him from working hard and struggling every day.
He wanted to make something of himself but he had nothing going for him in the world. Even if Garp was a dick about it, he trained Luffy to be strong, made sure he was fed and cared for, and even made sure he had friends his age.
Peter had been doing chores since he could walk, working since his age hit double digits, and living off of scraps. The most help he'd gotten was as a child unable to fend for himself in any way.
Soon enough, the sound of light snoring filled the room. Time passed by while the moon rose in the night sky. Eventually, midnight came around and a silent change ripped through the room.
Where there had been nothing a moment before, a small vial had appeared on the end table within Peter's room. The vial contained a strange liquid that was mostly green but had swirls of silver swimming around inside of it all on their own. The whole thing glowed with a soft green light. Strapped to the top of it was a small piece of paper. It sat there, glowing silently while Peter slept, unaware he had officially turned seventeen moments ago.
Peter groaned as he woke with the rising of the sun. Years of being beaten if he didn't wake up on time had made it a habit at this point in his life.
Alarm clocks did exist, they were just so expensive they were restricted to the rich. Like the nobles living on the other side of the island. Peter turned to sit on the side of his bed and tried to figure out what he was going to do for the day.
It didn't take much thinking since his days were almost always the same, even if today was his birthday.
He let out a depressed sigh and climbed to his feet. There was no use putting it off. He needed to go beg for a job, or just plain beg. He turned toward where he kept his clean shirts but stopped. Something was wrong. Something was different. Years of having to watch his back to keep alive kicked in. He curled his hands into fists and began looking around for what had triggered his instincts. It didn't take him long to notice the vial of strange liquid right there on his nightstand.
Peter's eyes widened and his nostrils flared while his heart began to hammer in his chest and adrenaline flooded his system. Someone had gotten into his room, made it all the way to the side of his bed, and left something there without waking him up? That was horrifying! He was an extremely light sleeper by necessity. Just the smallest creak from his door opening should have woken him up!
Oh no!
He rushed over to the nightstand and ripped the drawer open. Seeing the dirty crumpled money still there had Peter relaxing slightly. Now that he was closer, he could get a better look at the vial and piece of paper and found himself staring at it weirdly. He'd never seen anything like the thick looking green liquid with the silver flowing through it. His first instinct was that it had to be some kind of poison. Though, honestly? If they could so easily sneak into his room it would have been a whole lot easier to just slit his throat than leave a vial of poison hoping he'd drink it.
He looked at the piece of paper tied to the top of the bottle and let out a sigh before grabbing it. Might as well see what it said. Imagine his surprise when he opened it up and saw that the writing wasn't in the local language, but in one he knew didn't exist in this world, English!
Congratulations on surviving 'Hard Mode' until adulthood! We were honestly quite surprised as you're the first to do so out of 7,920,432 participants! Really, well done! As a reward for your accomplishment we present to you the Essence of the Mad Doctor! Please enjoy your reward. We look forward to seeing what you accomplish now!
Sincerely, The ROB Conglomerate
Essence of the Mad Doctor
Perfect memory with infinite storage.
Beyond genius level intellect in the associated fields.
Can make potions that can do almost anything, from immortality, to regeneration or even cause someone to fall in love with a specific target.
Immunity to disease and poison mundane and magical.
Immense knowledge on occult and alchemical lore that updates itself should you find a way to travel to different worlds.
Supernaturally skilled at medicine, can cure just about anything with some research, already know how to tackle most ailments.
Master of life and biology, able to create homunculi that are superior to regular versions of their species in all areas including being ageless and perfectly loyal to you.
You may also create other creatures like sewn together Frankenstein abominations, chimera, or other mutated beasts.
Can conjure ingredients from thin air.