Chapter 21: The Frustrated Oda

After leaving the factory, the two continued heading west.

Along the way, whenever they encountered groups of zombies, they would get out of the car to fight.

To train his Haki, Ao Xin no longer activated the Blue Dragon’s power.

Ao Chen had not yet awakened her Haki and was quite weak, but thanks to the speed boost from the Treasure Rat, she was able to fight zombies with relative ease.

They traveled westward like this for three days.

“Brother, my blade is dull.”

After another fierce battle, Ao Chen sat in the passenger seat, catching her breath. Her knife was an ordinary naval blade, and after so many battles, it had dulled considerably, reducing its effectiveness against zombies.

Ao Xin took the long knife from her hands and examined it. Besides the chipped edge, the blade had curled, and even the connection at the handle was slightly loose.

This was exactly why he refused to exchange for swords.

Ordinary blades were not useful.

Even a good quick blade didn’t catch his eye.

To sustain prolonged combat, at least a large quick blade-level weapon was necessary.

At that level, combined with the continual cultivation of Armament Haki, the weapon’s quality could be steadily improved until it became indestructible.

“Just replace it if it’s dull.”

Ao Xin didn’t mind and spent a hundred points to exchange for a new ordinary naval blade for Ao Chen.

As for her old blade, it wasn’t unusable. With some sharpening and repair, it could still serve.

But lacking the equipment and time, he had the Divine Gift Space recycle the dull blade, recovering fifty points.

Although a bit of a rip-off, for his sister’s strength improvement, he had to endure it.

In these three days, they hadn’t found any Devil Fruits.

This dampened Ao Chen’s initial enthusiasm.

She even began to doubt whether her ability was faulty or if there simply weren’t many Devil Fruits in the world.

But Ao Xin told her this was normal.

In his previous life, living into the Second Divine Gift era, a powerful force had counted over ten thousand different ability users.

Although far more than the less than a hundred Devil Fruits in the manga, when averaged over nearly ten billion people worldwide, it was still exceedingly rare.

One in a million!

To have obtained five Devil Fruits consecutively in just a few days was already exceptional.

“Brother, let’s go in that direction.”

Ao Chen put her new knife into her treasure space and pointed to a small path beside a fork in the road.

“There?”

Ao Xin was surprised and looked at the map. That path led into the mountains.

They had now reached the outskirts of the Divine Capital, surrounded by mountain ranges.

If they ran up into the mountains, there would be fewer zombies. In his previous life, many people had fled deep into the mountains to wait for the apocalypse to end.

But the apocalypse soon destroyed human civilization completely. Those who fled into the deep mountains, while avoiding the zombie tide, lost the chance to grow stronger.

Either they starved for lack of food, were infected by the increasingly viral air and turned into zombies, or were killed by wild beasts.

“I feel there will be something good there.”

Ao Chen wasn’t too sure herself, since intuition was a mysterious thing. The times she had followed her gut before hadn’t yielded any treasures.

“Alright, I’ll follow your lead.”

Ao Xin trusted her and immediately drove towards the mountains.

With no zombies blocking the road, the car surged forward at full speed. Ao Chen stretched out her fair legs in front, swinging them as she snacked and browsed videos and posts in the Divine Gift Space.

“Ha ha ha, this is so funny!”

Suddenly, the girl laughed nervously.

Ao Xin was puzzled, but Ao Chen had already exited the Divine Gift Space, laughing as she shared some gossip with him.

“Brother, I just saw a post where someone’s complaining about not getting any Devil Fruits!”

Ao Xin: ???

What’s so funny about that?

He wondered if his silly sister had lost her mind.

Seeing his expression of disbelief, Ao Chen was displeased.

“Hey, hey, what’s with that face?”

“Do you know who’s complaining?”

“Who?” Ao Xin thought no one could make that funny. Devil Fruits were so rare; not getting one was normal!

“It’s Oda!”

Ao Chen laughed loudly, naming the famous creator.

Ao Xin was stunned.

What the hell?

Then he also burst out laughing.

It really was hilarious!

The old trickster Oda must be infuriated!

“You don’t know, this post is going viral in the Divine Gift Space. Some even want Oda to teach Haki techniques, but Oda said, ‘I’m just a lousy artist; what do I know about Haki!’”

“Hahahahahaha!!!”

Thinking back to his previous life, Oda indeed didn’t make much of a name for himself.

Even though the Divine Gift used his created world, it no longer had much to do with the original author.

Deep in the mountains, in a dilapidated Taoist temple, a frail old Taoist was forcefully thrown out by three burly men.

“No! You can’t do this!”

The old Taoist was too old, his legs weak and unsteady.

If not for his lifelong cultivation and Qi practices, he would have long since been infected by the airborne zombie virus.

But his constitution was fundamentally strong, though his body was extremely decayed.

“Stinky Taoist! Using your temple is an honor for the Tao Ancestor! Keep whining, and I’ll kill you!”

A fierce-looking bald man kicked the old Taoist, who was struggling to sit up, knocking him back down.

“Brother Zhou, I checked just now. There’s still some rice behind the temple. If we ration it, it’ll last a month. With the supplies we brought, we should be fine hiding from the zombie tide.”

A skinny young man emerged from the temple, grinning as he reported his findings to the bald man.

“Hmm.”

The bald man nodded with satisfaction.

“This godforsaken place won’t have zombies. We just wait for the military to wipe them out before we return.”

As they turned to go back to the temple, another big man dragged a five- or six-year-old little Taoist child and threw him onto the old Taoist.

“Damn, you’re hiding a little brat? Stealing my food? I’ll kill you!”

He brandished a dagger, gesturing threateningly at the two Taoists, then sneered and left, slamming the temple’s gate.

Inside, the sound of things being tossed around echoed.

“What kind of crap is this? Tear down that altar—it can be used for firewood! Take down the statues; they take up too much space!”

“Brother Zhou, the main hall’s statue is too big; we can’t move it!”

“Can’t move it? Smash it! Maybe there’s some gold inside! When we get back, we’ll make a fortune!”

Two small statues were thrown out from the wall, landing on the old Taoist’s leg, which was already brittle from osteoporosis, fracturing it.

“Ouch!”

The old Taoist cried out in pain, but what hurt more was seeing the temple’s statues treated like garbage.

“You will be punished!”

“The Thunder Ancestor will punish you!”