Chapter 79: The Return of the Je'daii

Chapter 79: The Return of the Je'daii

Chapter 79 The Return of the Je'daii

Rayleigh stood before a familiar workstation that contained numerous tools and an advanced, holographic display. This was his Lightsaber Customization Kit, and the method he used to Save changes made to his Lightsaber so that said changes would not revert when the Lightsaber was returned and restored from his Inventory.

The Kit could Save multiple versions of his Lightsaber, so there was no fear of going too far in one direction and being unable to return. At the moment, he was looking at the Holographic display of his latest Save and the information contained within.

The Devil Fruits within his Kyber Crystal were causing something of an Error, within the Customization Kit. It still Saved fine, but the problem was when he tried to revert the Lightsaber to one of the previous Saved States. According to the messages that popped up, reverting the Kyber Crystal from the current state where it contained the Devil Fruits to a state where it did not possess the Devil Fruits would also permanently erase the Saves that contained the Devil Fruits.

In a way, it made sense. According to what he learned, when a Devil Fruit User dies, their Devil Fruit is supposed to be reborn somewhere. So if he erases the Devil Fruits from his Kyber Crystal, the Devil Fruits will be reborn back in the Pirate World, meaning he can't revert the Kyber Crystal back to remember the state of having them because they will be gone. It was like having a Video Game Save File from a game that had DLC. Deleting the DLC would prevent the Save that contained the DLC from being useable.

It was weird, but it meant that he couldn't just cheat the system. Considering how much of a cheat this Customization Kit was, that was ironic. Although the Kit could only save multiple versions of Lightsabers he made using it, it could also be used to customize other Inventory Items, like the Zoldyck Family Adjustable Training Weight Set, and the changes would be retained when the Inventory Item was brought back out.

Seeing that things like Divine Script could be used on Inventory Items and saved using the Customization Kit, HK-47 had already requested a new body, made indestructible using Divine Script. Rayleigh said he'd do it, mostly just because he knew he'd enjoy watching the chaos that unfolded when he unleashed an indestructible assassin droid, but that would have to wait until he returned to the Jedi Galaxy.

Divine Script was not unbeatable, but it was still very useful. Any effect you created with it required a downside to balance it out, and the stronger the downside, the stronger the effect. This could be easily taken advantage of though. Rayleigh's training weights were inscribed to be indestructible, but the downside was that the weight increased the more indestructible he made it. The Nen String made by Kite and the Nen Box made by Ging were both indestructible but made with an Achilles' Heel of complete destruction in the presence of even incredibly weak Nen. But Nen was not common in the Jedi Galaxy, so that method or something similar could be used to make HK-47's dream come true, while also letting him become a nightmare to everyone else.

After confirming the changes, Rayleigh returned the Customization Kit back to his Inventory and got out a newspaper that had been placed in his room. It had been a week since the Battle of Marineford and Rayleigh was squatting on Titan's ship and completing his recovery. Although his wounds were mostly restored after two days, he needed proper rest to achieve greater strength.

In anime worlds, it was common sense that getting stronger meant going beyond your limit, and then recovering afterward. Rayleigh's training embodied this. If he just used Ren, it would take almost two full days to exhaust his aura, making Limit Breaking Training very time-consuming. But each of his Hatsus required using three times his normal aura usage, so using all three at the same time meant he could exhaust his aura twenty-seven times faster. If he spammed ridiculous and high-energy moves like flying Nen slashes, he could double the aura usage further.

The benefit of doing so meant that he could train to reach his limit much faster, achieving limit breakthroughs over and over. The downside was that this 'inefficient' power boost method greatly reduced the duration he could go all out in a fight. Rayleigh didn't mind this, however. His 'All-Out' was reserved for one-on-one fights against God-Like Beings. Against anything else, his 'All-Out' could take out armies in minutes. The only reason it had been a close call in his most recent battle was because that Elder had a weird form of Immortality. Normally, he'd be fine with just using Overdrive. Overdrive directly boosted his speed and strength but didn't prevent him from killing or using other force powers.

During Rayleigh's time on the island that Mihawk dumped him on, he would train to exhaustion while wearing millions of kilograms of Nen-Enhanced weight, using all three Hatsus, his most intense Sword combos, and push himself until he was going to pass out, then push further. Only when he felt the threat of death was right behind him would he stop and enter 2nd Stage Zetsu. In 2nd Stage Zetsu, he could still use his Empty Sword of Babylon to train Haki, sword skill proficiency, and physical fitness while using the Law of Weakness and Law of Training to further enhance the effect of his training while still wearing his weights. After his aura and physique were exhausted, he'd keep training as long as he could until he literally dropped unconscious. Then he'd rest until he fully recovered.

The only reason he had not crippled himself was because of the Law of Training. Limit Breaking Training was like rolling a 20-sided die. If you rolled 15~20, you'd have gains. If you rolled 8~14, you'd have gains, but also injuries. If you rolled 2~7, you'd have injuries and no gains. And if you rolled a 1, you would have permanently injured yourself. And those were generous odds. In Anime Worlds where Training Montages were a thing, it was the Law of Training that heavily skewed these numbers to prevent the Main Character from getting crippled and allowing for fast gains.

It usually only took a day or two for Rayleigh to fully recover from each session of limit breaking, but the accumulated damage from his recent fight was far more severe. His Red Sword of Babylon could not even be used without taking substantial damage and fighting while damaged only made the damage worse. Then there was the fact that his 'Avatar of the Force' mode ignored all his damage and physical limitations and went crazy. He was already satisfied that he had not permanently crippled himself during the fight and would not whine about how long his full recovery was taking.

Reading the news had become a decent pastime. Although he didn't ask about what happened after he passed out at the end of the war, he could still see the repercussions of the war in the news and make guesses based on that.

From what Rayleigh had gathered, Invisible Man had been present during the war but had not done any fighting. Instead, he acted as the Cameraman, using the video camera that Captain Jack had given him. Thanks to this, he got closeups of many of the most intense fights and all the best scenes. The newspapers were filled with pictures taken from the broadcast of this video and it was taken from perspectives Rayleigh did not recall anyone being. That meant that Invisible Man could not be sensed by Haki, the Force, or En. Theoretically, this meant that Invisible Man could kill Rayleigh while he was using his 3rd Hatsu since that state removed his physical defenses, but using the Sword of Babylon meant that Rayleigh would be moving as fast or faster than most bullets, so unless he stood still, Invisible Man would not be able to attack him easily.

From the newspapers, Rayleigh read how Sengoku essentially saved the Marines from being completely disbanded. After learning that the actions of the World Government were known to the whole world, Fleet Admiral Sengoku made three declarations. The first was that the Marines would no longer blindly follow any order the World Government issued. They were allowed to refuse orders directly given and only the Fleet Admiral's orders could not be refused. If this declaration had not been made, then every Marine would fear the World Government ordering their death and being unable to do anything about it.

The second of Sengoku's declarations was that he would step down as Fleet Admiral. He was basically taking the fall for the entire mess and telling everyone to blame him, and not the Marines. And the final declaration was to make Admiral Kizaru the new Fleet Admiral. He had seen Aokiji save his disciple after Goddess of Ice went against the Elder. That scene was not shown on the World Broadcast, but Sengoku knew that making Aokiji the Fleet Admiral would make things worse.

The World Government knew the consequences of not backing down and accepted all three declarations. At least from their perspective, Kizaru was still very loyal to them. If they had not openly acknowledged these things, then they would never be able to recruit more Marines and the existing ones would definitely quit. Besides, the World Government had its own problems.

The Holy Land of Mary Geoise had been locked down, neither allowing anyone to go in, nor out. Rayleigh suspected that Captain Jack's information about Mary Geoise being a farm for raising food for whoever had that Devil King Fruit had gotten around.

Rayleigh wondered if they would successfully convince the so-called Celestial Dragons that everything was fine. If they didn't then the Devil King might be forced to harvest his entire crop early. If that happened, he would become far stronger for a while. Something to look forward to for the future it seemed.

The main reason that the status quo survived mostly intact was that Captain Jack had been very selective of the information that he freely gave out. It ruined the World Government's image, but it did not actually impact their power. The world was shaken, but Jack had left out information that would have overturned the world, either because he didn't have it or because he was waiting for a more appropriate time.

The current newspaper in hand had a picture of Luffy. Rayleigh was not the slightest bit surprised to see that he was alive and seemed fine. He recovered even quicker than Rayleigh did, but Luffy had the Main Character Devil Fruit so such recovery speed was expected. The picture was of Luffy standing in respect and mourning at the location that Ace had died in the middle of Marineford. It seemed that a very cool-named guy who was the former First Mate of the Pirate King got Luffy back to Marineford so he could get that picture. Marineford was mostly destroyed and understaffed, so he came and left very easily with the well-named First Mate of the Pirate King's assistance.

Everyone else from the Battle had gone their own way. Mihawk seemed to have some words for Doflamingo and then returned back to his island. Titan had taken Whitebeard's body and returned it to the Whitebeard Pirates to be buried alongside Ace's body. Most of Whitebeard's crew were hesitant to join Titan and Dragon Chef's crew, but after Dragon Chef defended Whitebeard's home town from some invaders and also declared that he would protect Fishman Island, many of the Whitebeard Pirates agreed to join, if just to protect the old man's legacy.

The ship Rayleigh was squatting on was anchored on some unnamed island in the first half of the Grand Line. Each day he would leave the ship, enter the Tavern, and eat a hearty meal to assist in the quality of his recovery. Although he wasn't contributing anything to the ship, he already promised that when he left he'd be inviting everyone who wanted to come to a Grand Feast in the Tavern, funded by his point balance. Knowing that he was almost fully recovered, Titan and Dragon Chef had not eaten anything in two days in preparation for the feast.

The longer he waited, the more he'd spend on the feast, so he intended to leave today, but the point cost didn't bother him. To others, Tavern Points could be used to convert items into inventory items and purchase Easy Masteries to speed up their training, but Rayleigh didn't need any more Easy Masteries and there were no items in the Pirate World he wanted to take into the Jedi Galaxy. His points were mostly spent in the Tavern's Arena, allowing him to fight and gain useful combat experience.

After confirming his condition, he sent a message to the Pirate Chat.

[Swordsman: The Party is starting in an hour. Don't blame me if you miss it.]

[Dragon Chef: Miss it? Wouldn't dream of it. I could eat a whale. Do you think the Tavern serves whale?]

[Titan: Only one whale? You're a growing man, don't limit yourself to kiddie portions.]

[Invisible Man: I can't tell if these two are serious. And this coming from me, you know you should be worried.]

[Captain Jack: Pretty sure they are just trying to get a rise from Swordsman. I was there when he told Titan, 'My treat.' I didn't know people's eyes could actually take the shape of meat on a bone. I'm still not sure if that was a hallucination or not.]

[Fire Queen: I can't blame them. Dragon Chef's cooking is delicious, but the Tavern's food is unmatched. If I wasn't saving points, I'd eat there every day.]

Akar Kesh, the Temple of Balance, was on top of a massive stone pillar that usually rose above the clouds. In the many months that Rayleigh had meditated here, the clouds had always been below the edge of the pillar, but they were above and below and a frigid wind reminded him that this place was seemingly between Force Storms at the moment, so the weather was far worse than it used to be.

Rayleigh looked around for a moment to get his baring. He left Jedi Master Dyanameez's lightsaber around here between some rocks so it would not get blown away and he wanted to retrieve and return it if she was still alive.

After walking for a few moments, Rayleigh stopped. His eyes whited out and lightning rolled through the clouds both above and below him. The world seemed to spin as a vortex formed overhead and rumbling thunder and multicolored flashes of light shined through the cloud cover. A moment of silence passed before a dozen bolts of lightning clawed out from the clouds in every direction and struck a singular point a few meters in front of where Rayleigh had been standing. Bolt after bolt slammed and smashed into a specific location, tearing the rock to pieces and shaking the very temple itself.

Moments later, the clouds became silent. Rayleigh had unconsciously used Force Silence to separate himself from the deafening thunder and he was unharmed by the lightning. His eyes returned to normal and he shook his head in confusion as if he was not aware of what had just transpired. He did feel something had happened, but he also decided that it didn't matter. He took a turn and walked in the direction of the rock outcropping where he left the stolen lightsaber.

A few meters away, the rock that had been struck dozens of times by lightning had been obliterated. Its lone crime was accidentally snagging and keeping a certain very itching robe from being blown away for many years. Both the rock and robe had been erased from the face of Tython, never to be seen or heard from again.

After retrieving the Lightsaber and making sure it still worked, Rayleigh walked over to the Tho Yor. For Players, this thing was an Easter Egg that allowed them to teleport from one to another. If Rayleigh wanted to get picked up, he needed to go to a working landing strip that could broadcast a signal that a ship could lock in on and the only one of those that he knew of was where he came to this planet on, near the Temple of Knowledge's buried Tho Yor.

The giant pyramid-shaped structure was the same as when he left it and welcomed him inside. Had he known for certain that the door would always open for him, he would have left the Lightsaber in here instead of out in the elements, but it had survived so things were fine. Rayleigh touched the pedestal and was slightly disappointed that there were no new locations available. Sure, he had a plan to get off the planet, but if there had been a cheap way like instant teleportation to an inhabited world, he would have been fine with that too.

Rayleigh selected Kaleth, the Temple of Knowledge, and was shifted to the first Tho Yor he encountered when he arrived in this world.

A moment after stepping outside and into the dark cavern where the Thor Yor slept, Rayleigh hopped to the side, did a back flip, jumped, and did a side step while dodging the enormous poisonous claws of the Terentatek slashing at his vitals.

The Terentatek that followed Rayleigh here decided to just go back to sleep after losing its prey and didn't bother choosing another location. It had still been asleep until a few moments ago when a mighty Force presence took control of the power of Tython for an instant. This, understandably, woke it from its slumber.

Although Rayleigh could not use the Sword of Babylon to kill it and it was heavily resistant to lightsabers like the one in his hand, Rayleigh wasn't worried. The ferocious beast was blurry in the Force but crystal clear in his En and easily predictable with his Haki. And although Rayleigh couldn't use the Sword of Babylon to kill it, that did not mean he could not kill it.

A line of aura glowed on the underside of Rayleigh's hand as he swiped it, releasing a flying nen slash of transmuted sword aura toward the Jedi killer. The Terentatek's body was cut, but not completely through.

Even without a sword, his aura was dense enough and sharp enough to cut metal, but it had only reached about bone deep in this beast. Rayleigh dodged a few more strikes and sent another flying slash while keeping his senses to the max. After witnessing the next strike, Rayleigh determined the cause.

Terentateks are beings of the Dark Side and the corrosive nature of the Dark Side is also with them. Once the lines of aura entered the creature's flesh, the corrosive nature of the Dark Side literally corroded the lines of sharpened sword aura before they could slice completely through the beast's body.

Rayleigh shrugged noncommittally. If he couldn't slash it to death, he had other options.

After dodging another slash, Rayleigh took a provoking stance with an arm raised. Although not considered intelligent, the cruel beast recognized Rayleigh's 'bring it on' stance and Rayleigh could almost feel the creature thinking to itself, 'the audacity of this bitch!'

Completely falling for the taunt, the hulking creature threw all its weight into its next slice with enough force to shred Rayleigh into multiple sections.

The sharpest, hardest, most poisonous tip of the claw met Rayleigh's guarding wrist and was stopped. Under the defense of Rayleigh's Haki and Ren, the Terentatek's claw could not even break Rayleigh's skin and its mightiest attack could not cause any fluctuation in his stance.

Before the Jedi Killer could understand its new location on the food chain, Rayleigh slammed his fist into the creature's gut with all the skill and poise of a Heavyweight professional Boxing Champion.

The innards and spine of the Terentatek erupted from the other end of the creature's body from the force of the punch. A complete look of bewilderment and disbelief seemed to mar the creature's face before the light left its eyes and it collapsed to the ground.

Its reaction was not surprising. Powerful Jedi could use the Force to strengthen the impact of their blows to match or at least get close to what Rayleigh displayed, but not against Terentateks. Their nature made any usage of the Force in their direct presence muddled and difficult. Telekinesis didn't work on them, Stasis didn't work on them. And if you made contact with their bodies, the amplification effect you applied at the point of contact would also be dampened.

The best a Force user could do was use telekinesis on a rock and smash the Terentatek, but without the ability to move objects and defend yourself at the same time, doing so would leave you vulnerable. Plus, a Terentatek's hide was very thick. Rayleigh used an application of Haki that granted heavy penetration of force and enhanced that with Nen. It was probably overkill, but there was no point in holding back if he wasn't practicing.

Rayleigh was about to walk away and find his way out of this place and back to the outside, but he saw something appear next to the Terentatek and start to glow.

As any proper video game Player would do, Rayleigh walked over and picked up the loot that dropped from the Terentatek's corpse. It didn't look like anything he was familiar with, but the pop-up that appeared when he made contact with it told him exactly what it was.

[You have discovered an Easter Egg, Ancient Star Map (Incomplete). Collect 4 to reveal the location of the Star Forge.

Note* The Star Forge's location will be hidden and invisible to all other means of detection outside of a complete Ancient Star Map.]

Rayleigh had no idea what that was. He wondered if HK-47 knew.

*Author's Note*

After going over every battle from the Clone Wars, I discovered a problem. Realistically, speaking, the Players can't really do anything. The Jedi Players will try to save the Jedi, the evil Players will try to gain more power, and the independent Players will just do their own thing.

Palpatine controls both sides of the war, so even if the Players help shift one side, Palpatine will just make adjustments to the other side. Palpatine has plot armor until the fall of Vader, so he can't be targeted or killed.

After bouncing around a number of ideas, I decided that this was the best way to go. Although this means that the plot ends up being similar to Outlaw Star. There is a treasure that they spend some episodes finding clues to and every faction races to get the treasure before anyone else. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If I didn't add something extra, this entire arc will just be battle after battle, and eventually, readers will just read for the sake of reading, waiting until the arc ends for something new to happen. I wouldn't want that done to me and I won't do it to you! So we are low-key bringing in the plot of Knights of the Old Republic to spice up the Clone Wars a bit. Palpatine still wins at the end, but Players may or may not have a working Star Forge at that point. That's something to look forward to, right? And this one is not the same one from KOTOR, that one was destroyed, this is a second one. It is not located in the same place, so HK-47 won't be able to give him the coordinates.

Next chapter we meet the Players of the Jedi Galaxy!