Pirate: It’s not a phantom beast, it’s a phantom god!

Chapter 46 Assessment
At night, in the Beast Diner.

"Hahahaha! What's wrong, Ossi? Why are you so sad? You almost beat me! You will be a big shot in the Beasts Pirates in the future!"

Burfat drank the specialty liquor of Fishman Island in big gulps while patting Ossi's shoulder hard.

"That's right! Sister Osi, although you lost to Brother Burfat, your strength is enough to make you dominate the group!"

The pirates on the side also put on their servile smiles and poured juice on Osiris's cup.

"Sister Osi, come here and let me toast you."

"I didn't expect you to be so powerful, Sister Osi! We'll have to rely on you to protect us from now on!"

"That's right. As long as you accumulate more practical experience, it won't be long before you surpass me. How do you say that? The new generation is like the old generation."

……

"Ah~"

Osi ignored the pirates around her who were flattering her. She just held her chin with one hand and aimlessly forked the steak on the plate with the other.

[Something's wrong~ If it were any other time, this little girl's tail would have been up in the air. What's wrong with her today?]
Seeing Ossi's depressed look, Burfat turned to ask Obe.

"What's wrong with you guys?"

"Tsk~"

Ou Bei also did not respond, but stared at his sleeves with a frown, as if he wanted to see every thread on it clearly.

"Hey! Jin, do you know?"

Having hit two snags, Burfat had no choice but to ask Jhin beside him if he knew the inside story.

At this time, Jhin was having a rare meal in the cafeteria. He took off the lower half of his mask and was concentrating on eating the flying fish sashimi on the plate.

Ever since he had eaten it once while out at sea not long ago, Jin couldn't forget the taste. Finally, today, there were a few flying fish on the cargo ship from outside. Jin bought them at a high price and sent them to the cafeteria to be made into sashimi.

"It's probably because of that exam La mentioned earlier."

Jin wiped his mouth and handed the last plate of flying fish sashimi to Burfat and the others.

"Try it, it tastes good."

"I don't like fish, so I'll give it to you two little brats!"

Burfat seemed to be not interested in seafood, but since Jhin was willing to share, he couldn't refuse, so he looked at the two little ones next to him who were always frowning.

"Here, you two try it. This is what the stingy guy Jin bought at a huge price."

"Ahh, huh?!"

While thinking, Osi subconsciously picked up a piece of sashimi, put it in his mouth, chewed it twice, and then spit it out.

"Pfft...Pfft~ Why is it raw?!"

"Sashimi is of course raw."

"Take it away, take it away. I don't eat raw food." Osi quickly picked up the juice on the table and rinsed his mouth.

"Then..." Burfat turned to look at Ober again.

"I won't eat either."

The three sisters, or wandering spirits, rarely disliked anything, and raw food was one of them.

I remember that one time You Ling invited a friend to dinner. His friend chose a Japanese restaurant and out of curiosity he ordered a salmon sushi.

I have to say it looked good, but after putting it in my mouth I almost spit it out in front of everyone.

You Ling still can't remember what the sushi tasted like, as if his brain selectively forgot this memory.

"If you don't want to eat it, forget it. Come here! Guys, try it. This stuff is several times more expensive than the meat of sea kings." Burfat handed the plate directly to the younger brothers who were surrounding him.

……

"What should we do? There's only one day left, tomorrow."

"How about asking Sister La for a few more days?"

"Then go talk to your elder sister."

"No, you go."

"I don't want it either."

"Alas~" ×2
"By the way, what exactly is this assessment you guys have?"

After hearing about the assessment from Jin, the drunken Burfat came over and asked curiously.

Osi and Obei blushed upon hearing this, with the former cursing angrily, "Ugh~ You stink of alcohol! Go away, go away! Can't you see we're getting annoyed? You stinky rascal!"

"Why are you a scoundrel? I didn't do anything to you! Besides, I'm a fishman, I wouldn't look down on a girl like you!"

"Why don't you tell us the content of the assessment and we will help solve it together." It was a bit surprising that Jhin actually spoke at this time.

"Yeah, there's strength in numbers. Let's talk about it and let everyone have a say."

Ossi and Oubey looked at each other and nodded.

"The test is as follows. Suppose you are a... well, how should I put it? Suppose you are a user of the Nature-type Devil Fruit mentioned earlier. How do you control the elements and make them become a piece of clothing on your body?"

Ober didn't mention anything about divine power or energy, and probably because they wouldn't understand, he just thought of a similar example.

"Nature type! Is Ra a nature type esper?! Or are you two?"

Burfat was a little surprised to hear that the test content was related to elementalization.

"Oh~ Neither Sister La nor we are like that! It's just an analogy, for example!" Seeing that everyone was focusing their attention on the person with natural abilities, Osi quickly corrected.

"Hmm~ This is a bit troublesome. There are no users with nature-type abilities in our pirate group. Most of them are animal-type." Burfat felt a little tricky.

"I've seen several people with natural abilities, and they seem to only be able to elementalize their own clothes, but not other things."

Jin found some information about people with natural abilities from his memories.

"Yeah, those nature-type guys are weird. How come even their clothes can be elementalized?"

Burfat also remembered a natural ability user he had met before, and then looked at Jin.

"Speaking of which, you animal-types are the same. Even though your bodies are only mutating, your clothes are changing with it. Boss Kaido is so huge after turning into a dragon, but his clothes are fine after he turns back!"

Jhin did not answer, because this involved the rules of a higher dimension, which he did not know either.

"Okay, now's not the time to discuss tearing clothes... Uh~ well, it's not that bad actually."

Osi suddenly remembered that Jhin could manipulate flames flexibly, so he asked expectantly: "By the way, Brother Yantou, how do you control the flame? I see you put it on your head sometimes and on your wings sometimes. Do you have any tricks to control it?"

"Controlling fire is a talent of our clan, or you could say an instinct, just like breathing. There's no skill that can be taught." Jhin didn't care about Osi's address.

Well, maybe he cares a little, but he won’t say it.

"Like breathing? Jin, can you manipulate the flames to form a piece of clothing?" asked Ober.

Ever since the competition, Ouba never called Jin the Masked Man again. Mainly because whenever he mentioned Masked Ouba, he would think of that distorted face, and then...

"To form clothes? I can cover my entire body with flames, making it look like clothes, but it consumes a lot of energy and doesn't have much practical value."

Jhin said as he stood up and demonstrated.

He folded his wings, and then the flames behind him ignited and covered his whole body, as if he was wearing a flaming cloak.

But after just a few seconds, he quickly lifted it.

"So what kind of clothes are you talking about?"

After seeing Jin's demonstration, Burfat felt that this was still a little different from "clothes".

"like this."

Oubey lifted the hem of her skirt.

"?"×n
All the pirates, including Jin and Burfat, were confused.

"The skirts Osi and I are wearing were woven by Sister La using the energy of similar elements." Obei explained further.

"?!"×n
"You, what did you say?! The clothes you are wearing are not real?!" Burfat's eyes widened, and he directly touched the hem of Osi's skirt next to him.

"It feels like just ordinary silk, doesn't it? The only thing that's special about it is that it feels ridiculously good."

Meanwhile, Jin was staring closely at Ouba's skirt. He didn't touch it, but his trembling pupils showed that he was not at peace either.

"This is flame! And it's an extremely special kind of flame! I sense an aura from this flame that is hard to look at directly!"

Jin told the material of the skirt right away.

"I never thought that one day I would be afraid of fire."

His race, the Lunalia clan, are born children of fire, and fire is like a part of their body.

But now, Jhin actually felt tremendous pressure from this gentle object in front of him, which had none of the brutality and heat that fire should have.

But after suppressing his fear and carefully observing the two people's skirts, Jin discovered a fact that surprised him even more.

"This... this is actually the process of spinning flames into silk threads and then weaving them into clothes! It's an unimaginable skill, it's simply a miracle from God!" He stood up suddenly and lost his composure for once.

"Eh? There's fire? Sister Korra clearly said she just used pure divine power?"

Ossi rubbed the hem of her skirt with her hands, trying to create some sparks, but she failed. The smooth, warm texture was more like early summer stream water than flames.

"Hey, is that really that exaggerated? I can't believe you can make such an expression."

Burfat stood aside, finding it hard to understand what was so special about these ordinary-looking clothes that could make Jin lose his composure.

"Burfat, your Murloc Karate is a fighting style that manipulates water flows. So can you control the water flows to mix silk threads and weave them into a piece of clothing like this?" Jhin made an analogy to Burfat.

"Are you kidding me?! I can turn water into thin threads, but weaving them into clothes? I'm not a sea god, how can I do such a thing! The best I can do is temporarily cover my body with sea water like you." Burfat couldn't help but feel it was absurd when he heard Jin's analogy.

"Wait, you mean the clothes on these two kids..."

"Yes, it is woven with threads made of flame."

"Hiss~"×n
This is simply a miraculous work!
The pirates around gradually understood the horror of it and gasped in shock, making the cafeteria suddenly cooler.

"Your eldest sister is a monster, right?! So the assessment for you two is..."

"Well, Sister La asked us to knit a set of clothes like this ourselves. If we don't finish it by then, she will... uh~uh~..."

Oubei quickly covered Osi's mouth. The following words could not be said in such a public place!

"This is impossible, just give up."

Jhin said this directly and decisively. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't even dare to imagine that a skirt woven with flames really existed.

"Oh~ There really is no other way..." Osi was a little frustrated. He had tried all the possible methods and was at the end of his rope.

unless……

"At this point, we can only resort to tricks!" Ou Bei seemed to have made a decision.

"Trick? How do you trick?"

"This way... then that way..." Obe whispered his plan into Osi's ear.

"Is this even possible?! This is totally cheating!?"

"You don't have to."

"Let's get ready now!"

"..."

after one day.

This is something that cannot be detected by any instrument... cough, in this empty space with no one around, Obe and Osi looked at La in front of them with trepidation.

Because the training ground has now become a tourist attraction on the island, it is crowded with people every day, so it is a bit inappropriate to take the exam there.

"So, this is the homework you handed in?" La's tone didn't convey any emotion.

“…Yes.” ×2
Osi and Obei answered with a stiff upper lip, their words full of guilt.

Now the two of them are like the class monitor and study committee member who take two or three homework books and tell the teacher that they have collected them all.

"You guys are taking advantage of the situation."

It was still that gentle and calm tone, but when it fell into the ears of the two little ones, they trembled all over.

"..."

After a suffocating silence, Ossi was the first to break down.

"Guah! I'm sorry, Sister La, I had no choice. It was Oubei who instigated me." Osi hugged La's thighs and began to cry.

"you!"

Osi's actions made Oubei's eyes almost pop out. She didn't expect Osi to be so shameless.

"Don't listen to her nonsense, sis! I didn't..."

"It was you, you who tricked me into saying things like 'At this point we can only resort to trickery' and 'Big Sister won't do anything to us'. It was you!

Sister La, please believe me. How could someone as honest as me possibly come up with such a cheating method? Only a wicked guy like Ou Bei would not only cheat but also try to drag me down with him!

"You, you bastard! You're talking nonsense, making false accusations, and slandering me!"

"Ah Ba Ah Ba Ah Ba...Anyway, you were the one who mentioned cheating first, and I'm just an accomplice at most.

No, I should be a poor hostage, a poor wretch you used as a shield. Woohoo~ Sister La, Oubey is such a bad guy~"

"Okay, stop acting. I know your personalities very well. You figured out the trick, Oubey, right?"

La grabbed Ossie's collar and pulled her off his lap.

"Sister, I..."

"And you definitely didn't object, Ossi, did you? On the contrary, with your personality, you might even push Ouba forward."

"Big sister, you are wise!" Ou Bei's tone was excited, as if Dou E met Bao Zheng, and the warm sun melted the snow of injustice.

"Well, Sister La, how could you think of me like that..." Osi still wanted to make some shameless excuses.

"Well, it's my fault that I didn't notice it at the beginning and let you take advantage of the opportunity.

Perhaps the task I assigned was too difficult, forcing you to resort to this method to try to get by."

La looked at the "clothes" on the two people.

Under the loose long skirts that La had woven for them was a set of real clothes bought from a store in town, and the two of them evenly imbued their divine power into every strand of silk thread, forming another set of "clothes".

This is almost identical to the entanglement technique of Armament Haki.

It was equivalent to asking the two men to hand over an original painting, but the two of them directly copied another one, directly on the original.

However, what made La feel relieved was that both of them covered it with their own "powers". For example, a faint golden electric current could be seen flashing on the surface of Osi's clothes.

This was beyond La's expectations. After all, she had only said that her clothes were woven with divine power, but she did not say that she also applied the power of fire to it to ensure a comfortable temperature - this involved more advanced energy control.

[I didn't expect them to notice this. They're really thoughtful.]
Although in La's opinion, the arrangement of the two's divine power and the micro-manipulation of their authority were still very crude, and completely incomparable to her natural flaming dress, La was still very pleased with their proactive attempts.

At least we have subjective initiative, right?

What she didn't know was that this was actually discovered by Xianjin, who was extremely sensitive to fire. After knowing this, Osi and the others probably thought, "Don't be too perfunctory," so they also copied him and added their own powers.

However, even if you take shortcuts, it is still not easy to complete this dress.

Forget about divine power, it's also about stably bestowing power on clothes... This sounds simple, but the control required to dynamically control this energy, to keep it stimulated while not damaging the actual clothes inside, is also quite terrifying.

At least going from being able to simply release power to the current level within a week is a huge improvement for both of them.

Facts have proved that when people are pushed into a corner, they can do anything, except advanced mathematics.

But when God is pushed to the limit, he can even solve advanced mathematics!

La dispersed his own power and watched as the plain dress made of flames and divine power turned into a point of light and disappeared, revealing the golden and indigo "fabric" underneath. It was Osi's thunder and Obei's gale.

"Well, although it's a bit crude, you must have put in a lot of effort to achieve this in such a short time."

[Looks like there's a play!]
Hearing what La said, Osi and Obei's eyes lit up and they looked at her hopefully.

……

……

……

"Let's just say you passed." After a long silence, La let the two of them pass the test.

"Great!" Osi jumped up and hugged Obe next to him.

And Ou Bei, who was tightly entangled, breathed a sigh of relief, and his heart was finally at ease.

"But don't be too happy too soon. Letting you go this time doesn't mean you won't have to weave this 'dress' again."

Just like all class teachers would do, after giving a sweet date, they would follow it up with a big stick.

"This assessment will continue until you can truly complete your own clothes. By then, you will be considered as my apprentices, and I will no longer control you."

"I know, I know."

At this time, Osi didn't seem to take it to heart at all. He just wanted to enjoy life today and it would be fine as long as he got through it this time. No one would really read books during the holidays after taking an exam, right?

At least now Osi’s mind is full of going to sea.

"I understand, eldest sister."

On the contrary, Ou Bei was particularly serious this time. After all, if there was no other way, Ou Bei really didn't want to be perfunctory like today.

In her eyes, this 'big sister' who was of the same age as her and came from the same family always took care of her and Osi like an elder.

She saw the shadows of her parents in La more than once, but of course she looked more like her mother.

She always walked ahead of him and Osi, whether in battle or in study... Obei didn't know what the scenery in front of her eyes looked like, or how far into the future her vision was. He wondered if she already had plans for the future in her heart...

Every time Oubei looked up, all he could see was that small golden figure. She blocked out the entire sky and even the sun.

This made her feel at ease, but also conflicted and a little frightened.

She was afraid that if the figure in front of her disappeared one day, and then faced with completely unfamiliar scenery, would she have the courage to continue walking?

She wanted to be someone she could recognize, a sister who wouldn't hold her back, a sister who could walk alongside her.

[Next time, I won’t let you down again. Big sister…]
(End of this chapter)