Time–Space: Creator.
Among its abilities, the [Time–Space: Creator Domain] was essentially a cultivation chamber capable of controlling the flow of time—an artifact that could drastically compress the training time required for groups.
The fundamental reason it could exist was the extremely rare phenomenon known as Rainbow Mist, a form of temporal turbulence.
Its origin was most likely a permanent effect left on a region by an awakened user of a time-type Devil Fruit.
However, from Ron's observations, the sea area within the Rainbow Mist back then didn't have anything particularly unusual about it.
Perhaps it was simply a place where a time-type Devil Fruit user had once acted.
But regardless, with the prerequisite of obtaining the Earth Card, the Rainbow Mist's temporal turbulence became a true artifact in the literal sense.
That said, there was a very serious problem.
Insufficient time-consumption units.
Time-consumption units were the foundation of the Time–Space: Creator card—much like electricity to a machine. Without them, it simply couldn't operate.
Yet the source of these time-consumption units could only be obtained after activating the Time Mist trait, harvesting life from within it to intercept "future time."
And the conversion loss was enormous—only about one-tenth was retained.
The reason Ron had demanded pirates aboard the Gran Tesoro was precisely because the time harvested on Ruluka Island had been insufficient to sustain consumption.
Even after harvesting, it was still uncertain how long the current time units could last.
After all, the consumption of time units depended on how much would be required when the results produced within the Creator Domain were exchanged into the real world.
In short,
The Time–Space: Creator Domain was bound to be extremely powerful, but the amount of time units Ron currently possessed was nowhere near enough to support an effect like "ten years in heaven, one day on earth."
Unless he was willing to go to sea and target civilians—slaughtering them in large numbers to extract time.
But that would run directly counter to his own ideals.
Ron sought power to realize his ideals, and one part of those ideals was that civilian lives mattered too.
Therefore,
Under the premise of limited resources, choices had to be made.
"Thinking it over carefully, although I did plan different systems for my clones back then,
In practice, because it was too vague, everything ended up fragmented when actually implemented.
So even now there are no concrete results—and we're already close to seven-in-one."
Ron reflected on his oversights and problems, tapping the table with his fingertips.
"This time I need to learn from that. Even if I have plenty of money,
The Pirate King's world is ultimately a world of the strong. A single peak combatant is far more important than ten thousand grunts—so important they're not even replaceable.
Trying to cover everything or dabble in everything is, in reality, inferior to specializing in one path.
That is to say, I now need to consolidate and subdivide my cultivation routes.
Of course,
With my abilities and the Dimensional Roulette, it's not that I'm forced to choose only one due to lack of resources.
It's that the efficiency is too low—so I'll specialize in a few areas and pour resources into breaking through to higher realms.
So, in terms of combat power, which paths suit my current situation best?"
As Ron organized his thoughts, the answer quickly surfaced in his mind.
[Calabash Golden Steel]
The First Brother template, Second Brother template, Third Brother template, Fourth Brother template, Fifth Brother template, and Sixth Brother template were all already collected.
The only thing missing was the Seventh Brother template—the grand prize of this draw.
This path represented multiple abilities: the First Brother's divine strength and gigantification; the Second Brother's clairvoyance and super-hearing; the Third Brother's invulnerability; the Water Brother's river-devouring, flood-controlling abilities; the Fire Brother's flame manipulation and lightning; and the Sixth Brother's invisibility, light-transmitting body, and cloning techniques.
At the same time, it provided a massive boost to overall three-dimensional attributes.
Among them, the First Brother, Third Brother, and Fire Brother templates were all growth-type templates that increased all attributes from moderate to large extents depending on the host's base attributes.
The other Calabash Brother templates, when fused in a seven-in-one state, could also provide synergistic boosts during fusion.
Most importantly,
After completing seven-in-one, Ron could still use the Time–Space: Creator card to summon other versions of himself from future timelines.
At that point, a further fusion would only be even more terrifying.
[Haki Martial Path]
Haki was one of the major combat systems in the One Piece world. Ron had previously invested hundreds of millions in chips to enhance his Haki aptitude.
It was equivalent to sharpening the axe before chopping wood.
Qi was a powerful ability system from the Scissor Seven world. Its representative figure, Seven, had once demonstrated slicing a robot apart with a single strike.
Da Chun's feats were also absurdly strong—placed in the One Piece world, he would absolutely qualify as peak combat power.
Moreover, the Qi system had a complete structure, from cultivation methods to techniques to advanced disciplines—almost everything was included.
Ron was confident he could draw prizes related to this path.
And it was certain that Haki and Qi had already formed a positive fusion, complementing each other.
Additionally, because the Purple Qi from the East cultivation method had strong compatibility,
Although the Haki Martial Path was currently stuck at the Purple Qi Foundation stage, as long as stronger methods were obtained through future draws, it would enter another explosive growth phase.
The only drawback was that it required long, steady grinding.
Which could be meaningfully compensated for within the Time–Space: Creator Domain this time.
That said, one thing needed consideration—
Ron's target for draws still needed to be rapid-progress Qi cultivation methods.
After all, under the Scissor Seven worldview, "ten years to sharpen a blade" was perfectly normal.
If conditions allowed, it would also be best to enhance his martial aptitude.
[Thunder–Fire System]
There wasn't much to say here. Ron had cultivated a Goro Goro version of Nami, and even had her study thunder-related meteorological knowledge.
Not leveraging the power of natural disasters would be an outright waste.
And if the Devil Fruit on Punk Hazard worked out, then Nojiko would also join this cycle.
Thunder, fire, wind—
The sisters' combination was no different from a true natural catastrophe.
What Ron needed to do was strengthen his control over thunder and fire, and prepare prizes that allowed for efficient utilization of this massive power.
[Ability System]
The trait system was added after Ron gave it serious thought.
It focused on draw tendencies such as increasing reaction speed, dynamic vision, recovery ability, burst power, and so on.
For example, his consideration of reaction speed arose only after encountering Kuzan.
Previously, thanks to the Sharingan, his dynamic vision was extremely strong, and coupled with Spider-Sense, he was almost never ambushed.
But after meeting Kuzan, Ron truly realized what "powerlessness" meant.
You knew he was going to make a move. He knew you knew. He even performed the opening motion right in front of you.
And yet—you simply couldn't react in time.
By the moment you became aware of it, your body had already been struck.
Then there was recovery ability.
How strong the breathing-based regeneration trait was had been fully demonstrated during Skypiea—and it had been enough to intimidate Kuzan back on Jaya Island.
Part of that was due to the Time–Space card, and part of it was because the breathing regeneration trait provided a safety net.
There were also traits or skills related to burst power.
If he could obtain a few more similar traits, Ron believed he would become even stronger.
"Four directions… with my current savings… it should probably be just enough, right?"
Having made his decision, Ron opened the light screen and checked his chip balance.
[Chip Balance: 28 billion]
Of the 30 billion obtained from the Gran Tesoro, he had kept 2 billion back because the initial funding for constructing the Heavenly Punishment ship was insufficient.
Heaven knew what modifications those Weatheria scholars had made to that thing.
In any case, the investment was massive, and the construction time wouldn't be short.
Something like Franky pulling all-nighters to rush out the Thousand Sunny simply wasn't possible here.
All he could do was hope it would be worth the cost.
With that thought, Ron began preparing to draw.
He planned to first fill in the grand prize progress via trait-related draws. So far, the Golden Prize Pool's progress stood at 83 draws.
The 81st draw had been Gambler's Misfortune. The 82nd and 83rd were drawn back then to ensure Kuma's storyline—resulting in him pulling almost the entire One Piece anime and manga set.
Seventeen more draws… I wonder what I'll get?
Ron began by offering a sacrifice to the sea.
This time, the offering he tossed in was a synthesis box.
.
[Sea Sacrifice Judgment: Success!]
[Not bad. Though I already have one.]
[Divination — Triggered!]
.
Compared to the previous great success, this synthesis box only yielded a normal success.
But Ron wasn't greedy. As usual, it came with a lucky double-hit.
The multicolored roulette spun, and six beams of light were instantly flung out.
{Drawn — Talent Fusion Scroll}
{Drawn — Bullet Flash}
{Drawn — Death Premonition}
{Drawn — Sixth Sense}
{Drawn — Intuition}
{Drawn — Killing Intent Perception}
What appeared in Ron's hand was a small, delicate scroll.
It was also the only physical prize from this draw.
A prompt popped up on the light screen.
.
[Talent Fusion Scroll]
[Origin: Game Dimension]
[Type: Rule-Type Item]
**[Effect: A scroll composed of code imbued with powerful force. It can extract talents from the user and designate 1–6 talents for fusion.
The fusion incurs loss, but allows the user to define a direction for integrated enhancement, forming a stronger talent.]**
[Uses: 1/1]
.
Without a doubt, this was the prize most suited to the current situation.
Ron briefly examined the other items—they were all perception-related talents.
Sixth Sense, Intuition, and Killing Intent Perception were all in the same category, differing only in description.
Sixth Sense referred to sensing omens of unfavorable events before they occurred, without conscious awareness.
However, it couldn't accurately sense every bad event.
Intuition, Provided a sense of good or bad outcomes regarding a specific matter, but seemed to carry a degree of bias.
Killing Intent Perception targeted hostile intent, allowing wide-area detection of those harboring killing intent.
But it couldn't distinguish the strength of such individuals or the level of danger they posed.
Overall, these were relatively low-quality items within the prize pool.
After all, this was the Golden Prize Pool—one hundred million per draw.
Still, there were weaker items, and there were better ones.
The remaining two prizes were somewhat different.
.
[Bullet Flash]
[Origin: iPartment]
[Type: Rule-Type Passive]
**[Effect: A passive derived from an unknown existence extracting a "concept." This passive is active at all times. At the instant an enemy with hostile intent makes contact with the user's skin—
Regardless of whether the user is consciously aware of the contact, or whether the body has time to react, Bullet Flash will immediately activate.
It executes a counterattack at a speed faster than that of the hostile target.]**
[Cost: Stamina]
.
(End of Chapter)