What Nami was thinking, Li Ke didn't know.
The only thing he knew for certain right now was this:
"The ocean is honestly so boring."
After a full day of training, Li Ke sat on the deck staring at the vast expanse of blue, feeling a profound sense of psychological torture. He had games to play, but they required charging; there wasn't a spare power outlet in sight, and relying on solar power took forever.
During these stretches of time, aside from physical training and honing his abilities, there was truly nothing else to do.
Ever since Robin was "overcharged" to the point of fainting that first time, she had started using her clones to brush him off whenever he made a request. While everyone still got their kicks, Li Ke couldn't help but feel like something was missing.
Furthermore, intimacy wasn't something you could just do on a whim. Cleaning up was a nightmare. Fresh water was incredibly precious on the open sea, so Li Ke limited himself to one real bath every few days after intense cultivation; the rest of the time, he just had to deal with the grime. It was a frustrating reality—even in the modern era, fresh water logistics remained a hurdle.
On Robin's ship, things were okay at first, but eventually, even Li Ke was forced to switch to drinking rum. The stored water had started to take on a "funk" and required either constant sunning or being mixed with alcohol to remain potable.
Li Ke finally understood why pirates had such a hard time saving money. Their coin had to go toward booze—not because they were all alcoholics, but because in this era, if you didn't drink, you simply didn't survive.
At this point, the only entertainment left was watching Roger's daily comedy routines.
"It's exactly because the journey is so difficult and dull that the successful adventure is so soul-stirring!"
Whenever Li Ke complained, Roger would just let out a boisterous laugh and take a deep swig of his rum, completely unfazed.
"Ugh, seriously..."
Li Ke flicked his palm, and a stream of water manifested before him. But whenever he tried to summon flames at the same time, his efforts fell flat.
It wasn't that his powers were clashing; it was a simple matter of multitasking. It felt like trying to swing a broadsword with one hand while simultaneously practicing spear forms with the other—the physical and mental dissonance was overwhelming.
For now, he intended to stick primarily to fire in this world. Given that fans back home joked the Mera Mera no Mi was "dog-tier" late in the series, fire was certainly powerful here, but it wasn't exactly rare or suspicious. He could easily pass it off as some high-level stage magic or a minor trick.
Controlling the ocean's currents, however, was a completely different story.
Even as a relative amateur, he could already stir up whirlpools in the open sea. They weren't massive, but they were large enough to capsize a couple of ships—a terrifyingly broken advantage in naval warfare. While plenty of people in this world could affect seawater—using vibrations, gravity, or steam—none could manipulate the water itself as directly as Li Ke.
He was a literal one-of-a-kind specimen. Unlike fire, which was common enough to be ignored, direct water manipulation would mark him instantly. Because of this, while he continued to train his Waterbending in secret, he had no intention of using it in a real fight unless he was absolutely certain there would be no survivors to tell the tale.
The alternative was a lifetime of being hunted.
Just then, Roger's voice boomed across the deck, filled with sudden excitement.
"Ooh! Hey! It's a circus!"
Moving like a nimble monkey, he scaled the rigging in a few bounds to reach the crow's nest. Li Ke pulled out a high-powered telescope he'd bought back in the Shokugeki no Soma world—one powerful enough to see the craters on the moon—and peered in the direction Roger was pointing.
It took a moment of searching the horizon, but he finally spotted the "circus" Roger had seen. Or, to be more precise, it was a pirate ship dressed up like one.
Even though most of the crew were decked out in circus costumes, their actions in the small town were far from entertaining. They were storming from one house to the next, dragging out valuables and ransacking everything in sight.
Li Ke also noticed a mountain rising behind the town, where a crowd of residents had fled, their faces etched with misery as they watched their homes from afar.
"Pirates, huh? But a circus theme... that should be..."
Li Ke paused, his thought interrupted by Roger's startled shout from above.
"Eh?! Is that Buggy? Wait, wait! That really is Buggy! But what the hell is he doing in the East Blue?! And why is he so damn weak?!"
Roger's critique was as blunt as it was loud. He took a light leap from the crow's nest, landing squarely on the deck and grabbing the helm.
"Yo, kid! How about we head over there and take a look?"
Li Ke lowered his telescope. He hadn't seen any bodies in the town yet; it seemed the residents had been smart enough to retreat into the mountains before the pirates made landfall. However, their life's earnings and supplies had been left behind, and they were currently being plundered with reckless abandon. Some of the pirates had even started torching houses just for the fun of it.
Li Ke had no love for men like these. But for Roger's sake—and because he hadn't witnessed any actual murder yet—he suppressed his irritation.
"...Whatever you want."
If he remembered correctly, wasn't this around the time Nami made her entrance?
Then again, it wasn't a certainty. Fleeing from pirates was a basic survival skill for people in this world; he could just as easily run into Nami or Luffy later. He didn't know exactly how many people Buggy the Clown had killed or how many villages he had pillaged. In the anime, Buggy had always been framed as a complete gag character, so Li Ke had never really taken him seriously as a threat.
Roger was taken aback by the coldness in Li Ke's tone. He quickly realized that Li Ke likely detested this kind of looting. Over the past few weeks of observation, he had finally begun to get a handle on the boy's temperament.
"Well, don't you worry. He knows where to draw the line," Roger chuckled.
He didn't take Li Ke's coldness to heart. On the high seas, everyone had their own way of living; as long as Li Ke didn't treat him as an enemy or insult his crew, his personal opinions weren't a dealbreaker. Roger understood why someone wouldn't like the pirate lifestyle, so he remained completely unfazed.
"Ah, the nostalgia. I wonder what kind of face Buggy will make when he sees me," Roger mused, rubbing his chin. He was practically giddy at the thought of seeing his former apprentice's reaction when his 'decapitated' captain suddenly appeared before him, alive and well.
Li Ke, meanwhile, decided it was time to retreat to the cabin. He wasn't some self-righteous hero, but the idea of sitting down to share a drink and a laugh with someone like Buggy? No thanks.
Now that I think about it, Roger and I see eye-to-eye on almost nothing...
The realization hit him hard. All that time he spent training like a madman instead of chatting with Roger probably wasn't a coincidence; it was a subconscious avoidance of their conflicting worldviews.
From the very beginning, their relationship had been purely transactional. He provided Roger with a chance to reunite with his family, and in exchange, Roger taught him how to get strong. They hadn't even shared a proper meal or a celebratory toast, save for that one bottle of rum Roger tossed him after they cleared the Calm Belt.
He hadn't really noticed it until now, but seeing a real-time robbery in progress highlighted the massive gap in their values and identities.
"Forget it. No point overthinking," Li Ke muttered.
He headed back to his room. Robin, noticing his foul mood, sighed softly after a moment's thought. Soon enough, Li Ke felt something soft and warm press against him. He looked at Robin in surprise, but she simply kept her eyes on the English textbook she was reading, giving him a casual reply.
"Don't be too rough. And make sure you clean the bed when you're done, or you're sleeping on the deck tonight."
She could tell that while Li Ke could coexist peacefully with Roger, he would never get along with these low-tier, bottom-feeding pirates. She didn't know why an acquaintance of the Pirate King was hanging around the East Blue in such a tasteless manner, but she knew Li Ke had no desire to meet him, let alone attend whatever 'banquet' followed.
In that case...
Someone naturally had to keep him company.
"Thanks," Li Ke said with a grin, pulling Robin's manifested clone into his arms. He wasn't actually planning on sleeping; he was going to spend the next few hours thoroughly "distracting" himself with her legs, her curves, and every other detail of her body.
I just hope my underwear doesn't get soaked, Robin sighed to herself, offering a dry internal commentary on the situation.
Even though she had grown to enjoy the intense pleasure Li Ke provided, there was a recurring complication: every time Li Ke used his [Fire Healing] on her, her body seemed to reset to its original, "untouched" state. Because of this, she remained as sensitive as she had been the very first time, making every touch an overwhelming trial for her self-control.
The moment Li Ke stepped into the cabin, Robin felt his hands begin their restless wandering over her chest and hips. She was forced to clamp a hand over her own mouth, stifling a gasp to ensure that Roger and his wife, still out on the deck, wouldn't catch on to her "condition."