In One Piece World, My Appearance Is Maxed Out

The assessment had barely been underway for ten minutes.

Yet word had already spread like wildfire throughout the training grounds: Nao had shattered the elite camp's speed test record, outpacing the second-place runner by nearly double.

Some were awestruck.

Some admired him.

And some—like Shiryu—stood there, dumbstruck.

"You smoked little Rosinante by eight hundred meters? Out of a twelve-hundred-meter sprint?"

In the strength test area, Shiryu glanced sidelong at Nao, a cigarette dangling from his lips and his tone soaked in enough sourness to pickle a lemon.

"You haven't slept in over a week, right? Practically living on the training field. And you still have this much gas in the tank?"

"Eh, more or less."

Nao gave a nonchalant shrug, though he was a little annoyed himself. He'd really tried to hold back on the run—just lost control a bit during the final sprint. Still, the damage was done.

Well, if laying low didn't work, then screw it—go all out.

He decided to stop pretending. From here on, he was going full throttle for the rest of the tests.

In the strength assessment zone, a line of recruits had formed—about a dozen in total. Nao and Shiryu were at the back. At the front stood a hulking machine, black and glossy, shaped oddly like a slot machine.

According to rumors, it was one of Vegapunk's inventions from the Marine Science Division.

There was a sunken pad in the middle—land a punch there, and the dial at the top would spin and display a number indicating the force of impact. A clean, no-frills way to measure raw strength.

"Baruk, 450. Rank B!"

"Shia, 630. Rank S!"

"Kawakami Shuma, 519. Rank A!"

Brandon—still the overseeing instructor for this section—stood on his toes to read the screen, the top of his head barely reaching the machine's shoulder.

"Next up, Shiryu!"

"You're up," Nao clapped his shoulder with a totally insincere smile. "Even though your tone makes me want to punch you, as your dear friend, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Go get 'em."

"Shut up. When has anything sincere ever come out of your mouth?"

Shiryu snorted, walking up to the machine, rolling up his sleeve, and channeling all his power into his right arm. With a loud shout, he struck.

Thud!

The machine trembled slightly. A bold number lit up on the display.

"777! Rank S!" Brandon read aloud, nodding. "Not bad, Shiryu! Much improved from last time."

"Nothing special."

Shiryu exhaled smoke and returned to the line without fanfare. He was aiming for higher, but a jump from just over 600 two months ago wasn't bad.

"Next—Nao!"

My turn?

With everyone watching, Nao stepped forward. But instead of punching, he stared at the dial for a few moments, then turned to ask:

"Mr. Brandon… If I break this thing, I won't have to pay for it, right?"

That machine looked high-tech and expensive. Probably worth tens of millions of Berries. At his allowance of 20,000 Berries a month, he'd be paying it off for the next few decades.

"Break it?" Brandon blinked, then laughed.

"Come on, don't be ridiculous. That machine's got a cap of at least 2000—I've hit it a few times myself and never maxed it. You're not gonna break it."

"But what if—"

"Quit it! If you break it, I'll pay for it myself, alright?"

Whoa. That's bold of him.

Nao cast him a sideways look, then decided to dial it back a little. No sense busting the thing and making life hard for a decent instructor.

"All right… 70 or 80% should be enough to get close to the cap."

He focused.

Tightened his fist.

And—without a sound—threw the punch.

Boom!

The machine gave a deep rumble and swayed slightly, but didn't explode. It stood its ground.

Nao glanced down at his fist, suddenly sheepish. Maybe he'd gotten ahead of himself earlier—thinking he might punch through it. That was just arrogance.

Humility, man. Gotta stay humble.

"Huh?"

Brandon tiptoed up, squinting at the dial. "No way… 777? Same score as Shiryu?"

What?

Nao's heart skipped a beat. That didn't make sense.

"I could've sworn your strength should've been higher…"

Brandon muttered to himself, until his nose twitched.

"…What's that smell?"

He turned toward the machine—and froze.

A thick plume of smoke was rising from the top of the strength tester. The smell of burning wiring started wafting out, catching the attention of everyone nearby.

Clatter.

Brandon's pen fell to the ground.

Frozen like a statue, the instructor stared in horror while Nao… quietly slipped away.

Next came the Six Powers assessment:

Rankyaku, Soru, Shigan, Tekkai, Kami-e, and Geppo.

Nao aced five out of six, with Shigan being the only one he hadn't fully mastered. Still, he walked away with top scores in each individual category.

Same for marksmanship and swordsmanship.

The sword test was a bracketed sparring tournament—one-on-one bouts, ring-out rules, last person standing wins. Simple.

Nao made it to the finals in a landslide. Most of his matches were over before his opponents could blink.

The final was different. He and Shiryu fought toe-to-toe for more than thirty minutes before Nao finally edged out a win.

He'd intentionally held back his strength and speed, keeping it on par with Shiryu's. This was about pure swordsmanship—not brute force.

Shiryu got it. He didn't complain. Just fought his heart out and accepted defeat.

That is, until Shia ran over with a towel and water bottle, and Shiryu had to turn away, groaning in despair and lighting twenty-three cigars in a row. Twelve went into his lungs. Ten into the wind.

One nearly suffocated poor Rosinante.

By 2 or 3 PM, most of the day's testing was finished.

Nao had swept every event. It was clear to everyone that he'd locked in the top spot.

At first, people were shocked by his monster-level performance. But after a while, they got used to it—somewhat numb to the absurdity.

Until the final test of the day: Stamina.

The rules were simple.

Each batch of recruits was to run laps around a two-kilometer track with 100 kilograms of weight. No stopping. No falling below minimum speed. The number of completed laps would determine ranking.

Under the afternoon sun, Instructor Brandon—fresh from hauling the busted machine to the Science Division—sat on a bench, exhausted but still dutifully flipping scorecards to track each runner's lap count.

To his surprise, the majority of recruits pushed past 30–40 laps. Some even cracked 50.

"Man, this test is a breeze compared to earlier…"

Brandon took a sip of iced orange juice, leaning back in rare contentment.

"No equipment to break, no surprises—just flipping cards, logging scores. Easy."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Brandon!"

Speak of the devil—Nao jogged past, waving and grinning like he wasn't wearing 100 kilos on his back.

"…?"

Brandon frowned. That should've been his first red flag.

But he shrugged it off and sipped his juice.

Stamina test, right? No gadgets to break. What could possibly go wrong?

If that monster somehow managed to punch a hole through the running track, then Brandon would gladly mop the floor with his own tongue and call it even.

Time passed. Most recruits had finished or dropped out. Only a handful were still going.

Brandon, now fully reclined in his chair, flipped cards lazily every few minutes, his thoughts drifting to dinner.

"Sun's almost down…" he muttered, staring at the golden sky. "Just hang in there, Brandon. Half an hour more and you can eat…"

He clutched his grumbling stomach. He hadn't had lunch—too busy hauling that machine—and now all he could think about was food.

"Keep it together, Brandon. Finish this, then dinner…"

And just then—

"Good evening, Mr. Brandon!"

Nao jogged past again, waving and toweling off sweat like he was still warming up.

"Hey, sorry—I lost count. Mind telling me how many laps I'm at?"