<><><><><><>
The North Blue.
On the blue sea, a warship cut through the waves like a mighty beast, sending plumes of spray into the air. The wind howled, whipping through the soldiers' hair.
Cannon fire crisscrossed the water, creating a dense net of destruction, all of it aimed at a fleeing pirate crew.
Their jolly roger was a smiley face.
"Captain, what do we do?!" Bepo the polar bear was in a full-blown panic. "We're surrounded by the Marines! We're finished! We're gonna die, we're gonna die!"
"Hey, Bepo, if you've got time to scream, you've got time to help," Shachi snapped.
"Ah! I'm sorry!" Bepo said, bowing deeply.
At the head of the flustered crew stood their captain, a young man clutching a long sword: Trafalgar Law.
They were the Heart Pirates, four years at sea and already making a name for themselves in the North Blue.
Trafalgar Law himself had grown from a rookie into a meticulous and unshakable pirate captain.
Faced with five warships and a net of steel, he stood at the prow of his ship, as steady as a mountain.
There was no gap between the warships?
Then he would make one.
"ROOM!"
The incoming cannonballs froze within the newly formed hemisphere of light. Then, they were all sent flying back toward the Marine ships.
The Paramecia Op-Op Fruit.
Within the surgical "ROOM" he created, he was a god, able to control anything and everything—with the exception of enemies whose Haki was strong enough to resist his power.
It wasn't a matter of strength, it was that their auras were so dense they could warp the space around them.
The cannonballs rained down on the Marine ships, and the sea erupted in a series of explosions.
"Now! Hard to port! Full sail! Break through!"
The Polar Tang surged forward.
"Stop them!"
The Marine soldiers, though shaken, were not routed. They quickly took aim and opened fire. But it was too late. The Heart Pirates had broken through the encirclement.
A moment later, the ship submerged, disappearing completely from the Marines' sight.
"Dammit," Captain X Drake of the Marines growled in frustration. "They got away again."
The Heart Pirates' ship was a yellow submarine.
It had been built on Swallow Island by a man named Wolf, a self-proclaimed genius scientist who had taken Law in. After setting out to sea, it had been named the Polar Tang.
The submarine was equipped with advanced medical instruments. Combined with Law, it was the most advanced mobile hospital in the world.
—————————
Fifty nautical miles away, the Polar Tang surfaced.
The yellow hull opened, revealing the crew's smiley face insignia.
On the deck, a black sail, emblazoned with their jolly roger, was hoisted on the mainmast. The ship's hull was made of a precious metal, it could even burrow through the ground.
"The sea is calm, the wind is fair... this is nice," Bepo said.
Just as everyone was finally relaxing, Shachi, who had been scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars, suddenly shouted, "Hey! What's that? A ship?"
"Hm?" Law took the binoculars and looked in the direction Shachi was pointing.
On the horizon, where the sea and mist met beneath a sky of dark clouds, a ship with no sails unfurled was tearing across the water, carving a brilliant white wake at an impossible speed.
"Huh?" Law was stunned. He thought his overuse of his Devil Fruit was making him see things.
He looked again.
It was closer.
Close enough that the rest of the crew could see the black dot, dragging a white line behind it, without binoculars.
They were all dumbfounded.
What kind of speed was that?
The helmsman, Hakugan, his face hidden behind a white mask, was visibly shocked. He swallowed hard. "I'd estimate its speed at over sixty knots."
Was that even possible for a ship?? They'd never seen anything like it.
"Is it a racing sloop?" Penguin guessed. He'd heard of speed fanatics who designed ships built for nothing but racing.
"No," Law said. "At this distance, it doesn't look like it. Wait... I think... it's coming for us..."
"Captain!"
Though he was shocked, Law was still calm. "Submerge! Now!"
"Sir!"
—————————
In the distance, the demonic carrier was cutting through the waves, unleashing its terrifying power.
The weather in the Grand Line was too chaotic for Jin to risk such speeds, but the North Blue was a different story.
The open sea was like a highway. He couldn't resist the urge to open it up.
"So that's the Heart Pirates' Polar Tang," Jin said, clearly seeing the ship as it sealed its deck. "It's trying to get away. Ai, more speed!"
"You got it, Captain! Let's get fired up!"
Onboard, the BGM of "Wellerman" began to blast from the ship's speakers.
"There once was a ship that put to sea..."
They were all songs from his phone.
Jin watched the submarine as it began to descend beneath the churning waves.
Nine days ago, he had returned to Drum Island. The news of his trade agreement with Alabasta had arrived, and he had expanded the Ice Mushroom farming. He'd left Dorry to protect the island.
Seven days ago, he had sent Brogy to Hannabal to stand guard.
And, using the Munch-Munch Fruit, he had forged new weapons for them from the refined steel and rare metals he had acquired.
Before, Jin had been more focused on developing his own potential, his own stats, his own Haki. He hadn't put much effort into developing his Devil Fruit abilities.
It was only after he had decided to develop his own technology that he had begun to seriously study the fruits.
The fruits the demonic carrier had eaten first needed to be developed before Ai could replicate and use their abilities.
There were two reasons for this.
First, the carrier itself did not possess "intelligence."
Second, Ai was still an AI. It lacked creativity and could only operate based on the data it had stored. The development of the Mushroom-Mushroom Fruit, for example, had been based on an analysis of big data, an integration of possibilities. The final decisions, the guiding hand, had been Jin's.
As for the Munch-Munch Fruit, Jin had primarily used its "devour" ability.
But as Wapol had demonstrated, it also had a "synthesis" ability.
For example, it could fuse scrap metal into a new, non-existent alloy. It could turn garbage into toys. It could even be used to eat one's own body and change one's physical form.
After some practice, Jin was now able to perform simple syntheses, like creating swords and shields. But the process was still largely random. To create standardized equipment, he needed to understand the detailed structure of the synthesized object.
The toys Wapol sold were actually just random junk he fused together, their inconsistent forms were what eventually led him to create Wapometal by accident.
So, synthesizing precision instruments like firearms would require more practice and careful calculation of material and component ratios.
But Jin wasn't in a hurry. Once he succeeded, once he had a standard, Ai could use soul crystals to mass-produce it.
<><><><><><>
~ 60 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)
~# Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter!
~# Add to Library!