A single spark had been lit, and now it was spreading. Nothing could stop it.
The future belongs to equality, the future belongs to the people...
Marcus had heard similar words echoing through history before, back in his old world. Revolutionary slogans that had toppled empires and changed the course of nations.
To the people of this world, those words carried no less weight than when the Pirate King had declared the beginning of the Great Pirate Era.
The power of it, even Vivi and Marcus couldn't have predicted how far it would spread.
Right now, Koza was completely overwhelmed by what was happening.
Because of that single sentence, the 700,000 rebels hadn't just become more united, even more people were joining their cause.
In less than half a day, their numbers had nearly reached a million.
"This situation is way beyond what I ever expected," Koza muttered, staring blankly as reports kept flooding in from scouts and messengers arriving every few minutes.
It had taken six full years to build up 700,000 rebels.
Now one sentence had nearly matched the strength they'd accumulated over those years. Entire villages were abandoning their homes to march here. Merchants were closing their shops to join. Even some royal guards had been spotted deserting their posts.
Marcus spoke thoughtfully, "It's more accurate to say that 700,000 were the ones forced to the edge of survival. But the people who aren't starving? There are way more than 700,000 of them, and now even they're choosing to join."
The words only carried real power when shouted from a place of oppression. That's what gave them their unexpected impact.
Vivi noticed what was happening too. Her expression was both relieved and sorrowful.
Relieved, because her ideals were finally being recognized by countless people.
Sorrowful, because even though Arabasta was supposedly a prosperous, well-known kingdom, the number of people who were starving and couldn't make a living was far beyond what she'd imagined. The supposedly thriving Arabasta was already riddled with holes beneath the surface.
Just then, Kebi emerged from a tent. His face carried an expression that was hard to describe.
"What's wrong?"
"Our food reserves won't be enough. And just like we suspected, with Baroque Works exposed, our food and water supplies have been cut off completely. Plus, the intelligence network we used to rely on has totally collapsed."
"We've got maybe three days of food left, and that's if we cut rations in half."
Koza had already expected this news, but hearing it confirmed still hit hard. It basically meant that everything he'd accomplished up to this point had only succeeded because others were secretly pulling the strings from shadows.
"Those bastards played us for six years," he said bitterly.
But Vivi just smiled. "Remember what I told you before? My companion has a way to make sure we can eat our fill and drink clean water."
Marcus rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. Time to get to work.
Ever since he'd first met Vivi, he had been thinking about one major problem: how do you quickly provide food and water for 700,000 people? Now it was nearly a million, and the number was still growing.
Water wasn't too much of an issue in emergencies; he could handle that with some basic construction. But food? He couldn't just buy it from some magical shop or craft it from thin air. Well, he could, but to fill one million stomachs… he didn't have that many EMC points. And to be honest, he didn't want to spend millions of points on strangers he had just met. Even if he did have the points… what about tomorrow? And the day after? Or when he was gone?
So agriculture was the solution again, just like in Cocoyasi Village.
Bone meal could speed up the growth of pumpkins, watermelons, and other renewable crops. That was useful for supporting civilians gradually, helping them become self-sufficient over time.
But for nearly a million rebels? The daily food consumption was mind-boggling. They'd need thousands of tons of grain just to keep people from starving.
He could dig a simple water pool easily enough, but planting wheat would run into the problem of insufficient farmland. Minecraft farmland needed water sources within a four-block range to stay hydrated and productive.
A simple reservoir wouldn't cut it for the scale they needed.
That's when he remembered a video he'd seen online back in his old world, about how far a single water source block could irrigate farmland through careful engineering.
He'd been amazed when he first watched it. The guy in the video had managed to irrigate hundreds of blocks.
The concept was basically triangular: one water source could spread seven blocks in each direction. And if you dug down one block at the seventh position, the water would spread another seven blocks, theoretically extending infinitely, layer by layer.
He didn't plan to build a massive fountain, and he didn't need to cover endless farmland. Instead, he'd use the triangular spread principle, controlling the edges so water would pool only where he wanted it.
Creating a water column system that could feed an entire city.
As for stacked farms? That would need redstone circuits, which he didn't have access to yet.
He paused, thinking about whether redstone even existed in this world. Unless he somehow obtained a mod that let him farm redstone in the Nether, he'd need to find alternatives in the One Piece world.
His first thought was the Red Line, that massive red stone wall that stretched around half the planet. But the more he considered it, the more he realized it probably wouldn't work. The Red Line seemed more like obsidian in terms of hardness and properties. It was geologically inert rock, not something that would conduct energy signals like proper redstone.
But there might be other options. Dials from Skypeia could work, those things stored and released various forms of energy. Crushed dial material might function as redstone dust. Then there was seastone, though that had weird interactions with Devil Fruit powers that might complicate things. Adam Wood shavings were another possibility, since that legendary wood had special properties.
The most promising option, though, was something he'd heard about from the Fishman Island stories, dust from the roots of the Sunlight Tree Eve. Those roots conducted light energy down to the ocean depths, which was basically what redstone did with power signals. If he could get his hands on some of that root dust, it might be the perfect redstone substitute.
So, without restone, he'd have to work with simpler mechanics for now.
"Kira, let's go. Time to get to work."
He left the tent, with Vivi and Koza watching curiously. They saw him hop onto Kira, who had fully transformed into her bird form, and soar into the sky.
Higher and higher they went, until they were just a tiny speck against the clouds. People throughout the camp pointed upward, wondering what the hell their mysterious ally was planning now.
From that altitude, Marcus could look down and see most of Arabasta. The desert stretched endlessly in all directions, broken only by the occasional oasis or settlement.
"This height should work perfectly," he said to himself.
From his inventory, he pulled out a stone block and tossed it upward into the air.
This was his latest construction method, no need to build up slowly from ground level like some medieval mason.
He held lava in one hand, a water bucket in the other. Targeting the floating stone block, he released both at the same instant.
The lava solidified on contact with the water, then the lava source disappeared, leaving the obsidian block suspended in midair.
After storing the water bucket, he leaped onto the floating block and began his construction project.
Kira landed on the platform once it was large enough, quietly watching Marcus work.
"Alright, let's see if I remember this correctly," he muttered to himself as he started placing blocks.
First, he built a simple hollow pyramid frame. After studying the structure, he modified it from what he'd seen in that video, adapting it for his specific needs.
The original design had been for a small farm. This needed to feed a million people.
He used cobblestone to shape the water channels into U-forms so the flow wouldn't spill over the edges and would be properly contained.
Then he began duplicating the structure, stacking one pyramid inside another, building upward until the final platform was about thirty meters above the ground.
The work was really tedious.
Naturally, such an operation drew the attention of countless onlookers below.
People saw the pyramid-like structure rising in the sky. Some were terrified, after all, what kind of thing could just be built out of nothing in midair? Afraid it might collapse and crush them, they kept their distance, whispering prayers to whatever gods might be listening.
Others stared without blinking, marveling at the impossible sight. Children pointed and laughed, thinking it was some kind of magic show.
"Is that guy building a palace in the sky?"
"Maybe he's trying to reach the clouds."
"What if it falls on us?"
"Shut up and watch. This is incredible."
Marcus could hear some of the chatter from below, but he was too focused on his work to pay much attention.
By the time he completed his work, several hours had passed. He wiped sweat from his forehead.
The finished product was a hollow pyramid hanging in the sky with smaller pyramids nested within its frame like Russian dolls.
The people who had witnessed the entire construction process couldn't help but swallow nervously. If that thing fell, wouldn't the whole city be flattened?
But Marcus wasn't done yet. The hard part was still coming.
He climbed to the very top of the structure, pulled out a single water source block, and paused. This was the moment of truth. Either his calculations were correct, or he'd just built the world's biggest waste of time.
"Here we go," he muttered, and placed the water block.
Immediately, the water began to flow outward, following the channels he'd built.
In less than a minute, that single block of water had spread to cover all of Katorea.
Soon after, streams of water began falling from the sky, flowing into the one-block collection basins he had pre-dug throughout the city.
Beneath those basins lay the underground farms he'd already prepared.
He'd chosen underground construction partly to avoid blocking sunlight. Even though the pyramid was hollow, there were simply too many levels, better not to interfere with the city's natural illumination.
Underground, he'd installed glowstone for lighting.
There were four stacked farming levels beneath the city.
The top level was planted with wheat, the staple crop that would form the backbone of their food supply. Fast-growing, nutritious, and easy to process into bread.
The second level featured melons.
The third level housed different varieties of fruit trees for long-term sustainability and trade value.
The bottom level was a pool system, future fisheries that would provide protein and could be stocked with fish from the rivers.
In just half a day, the entire city had been transformed.
From a desert settlement that depended on outside supplies, it had become a place with inexhaustible water resources and the capacity to feed itself indefinitely.
Marcus had created what looked like a city wrapped in flowing water.
He'd used water blocks to encircle the settlement at the edges, leaving four openings, north, south, east, and west, for access and trade routes.
The water walls stood three meters high, tall enough to be impressive but not so high as to block sunlight.
It was a breathtaking sight.