(Transplanting Devil Fruit abilities onto machinery... I feel like I've heard of this technology somewhere before.)
Gently pushing up his glasses, Sherlock reminisced for a moment before a sharp glint suddenly flashed in his eyes.
(That's right! Vegapunk, the greatest genius scientist in the history of the Marines!)
(I heard that besides developing the method for Marine warships to safely cross the Calm Belt, he has also been conducting research on Devil Fruits. It seems his work involves this specific field of technology, though I'm not sure how far he's actually progressed with it.)
Though the Sorcerer had previously only been active in the East Blue, he possessed a fair amount of knowledge regarding such classified intelligence. After all, as one of the World Government's top taxpayers, Sherlock was quite curious to know what kind of strange projects his hard-earned Berries were being spent on, aside from general Marine military expenditures.
(Does this mean the Ark outside had Enel's lightning power transplanted into it? No, that can't be right. I can see a massive discrepancy between these two sets of blueprints.)
Sherlock cast a suspicious glance at the massive golden Ark outside. Although he had only skimmed the design documents, the Sorcerer was absolutely certain of one thing: aside from the machine that generated the thundercloud (Despair), Enel's Ark Maxim was essentially an ultra-simplified version of Golden Lion Shiki's Ark. Whether it could even fly under normal circumstances remained an unknown.
(However, based on the description of the thunderclouds in these documents, it isn't impossible for that "Thunder God" to use this golden Ark to destroy everything in the sky.)
Sherlock continued to leaf through the weathered blueprints, hoping to find more valuable information. Unfortunately, there were no exciting discoveries until he reached the very last page.
Compared to the previous pages filled with headache-inducing technical designs, the final page was much simpler. It bore only two signatures—likely the authors of the blueprints.
One name was Dr. Indigo.
As for the other name, it was one that Sherlock knew all too well.
"Sarsalian Fresnel... Grandfather??!!"
Staring silently at the name, which had become slightly blurred from years of storage, Sherlock found himself at a loss for what expression to make.
(What's going on? Wasn't my grandfather an archaeologist from Ohara? Did he have a side job as a scientist too?)
Sherlock gripped the blueprints tightly, his mind racing. There were plenty of people in this world with the same names, but the Sorcerer was certain that his grandfather's name was unique.
(And how did he get involved with a dangerous figure like Golden Lion Shiki? Right, the journals he left behind mentioned that he once traveled to many places aboard a friend's ship. Could that "friend" have been Shiki?!)
(Just what on earth was my grandfather doing after he snuck out of the Holy Land, Mariejois?!)
Faced with this succession of shocking revelations, even someone as calm as Sherlock felt overwhelmed. He suddenly felt as though the entire world had become surreal. At this point, if someone told him that Crocodile was actually Luffy's biological mother, the Sorcerer would probably just treat it with skepticism rather than immediate denial.
Nothing else—it was simply because this world was too crazy!
Sherlock took a deep breath to steady his racing heart. Habitually pushing up his glasses, he looked at the blueprints in his hand and fell back into deep thought.
(Let's organize the known information. First, my grandfather, Fresnel, was an archaeologist who studied in Ohara. Based on what Robin said back then, she had never met him. This means he left Ohara at least 28 years ago, after leaving behind those two peculiar codebooks.)
(Neither Lisanna nor I ever met him, but the house was filled with those travel notes. This suggests that by perhaps 27 years ago, my grandfather had already met Golden Lion. He even designed this Ark—which was transplanted with Devil Fruit power—alongside a scientist named Dr. Indigo.)
(I truly wonder what other earth-shattering things he did after that.)
Sherlock couldn't help but let out a strange smile. He was finding himself increasingly impressed by this grandfather he had never met.
As a World Noble—a Celestial Dragon—the man didn't stay in the Holy Land of Mariejois to live a life of lazy extravagance. Instead, he ran away from home and through sheer self-improvement became both an archaeologist and a scientist. Even more bizarrely, he struck up a relationship with an infamous Great Pirate. One had to admit, his life was legendary enough.
(But if that's the case, my grandfather should have been quite famous during his lifetime. Wait... "lifetime"...)
When Sherlock was very young, his father told him that his grandfather had unfortunately passed away in a shipwreck after going out to sea. Sherlock had always believed this. But looking at the evidence now, a man like Sarsalian Fresnel wouldn't have died so easily.
The Sorcerer's pupils suddenly contracted to the size of pinpricks as a wild thought surfaced in his mind.
That was: his highly eccentric and talented biological grandfather might very well still be alive and well!
However, while a certain bespectacled man stood frozen before the workbench lost in thought, Aisa could no longer contain herself. She cautiously glanced again at the poor souls who had been charred by the electricity on the floor and shouted to the motionless Sorcerer:
"Hey! Sherlock, what are you dazing off for? And what's that stuff in your hand?"
"Oh, these are the blueprints for that big ship outside."
Snapping back to reality, the Sorcerer calmed his emotions. He pushed the mountain of sudden theories to the back of his mind and stored all the blueprints from the workbench into his Mirror Space.
"Let's head out—huh? This presence is..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Sherlock's Observation Haki suddenly detected an unfamiliar presence appearing on the Ark Maxim outside. The appearance of that presence was so abrupt—it was as if he had moved instantaneously.
"It's Enel! Oh my god, why is he suddenly here?!" Aisa, who sensed the same thing, turned pale with fright. She truly hadn't expected to run into the "Final Boss" here.
According to her logic, the Thunder God should still be shut away in his shrine!
Near the massive Ark Maxim.
Enel—bare-chested, wearing a white bandana, and with four taiko drums attached to his back—sat atop a "Ball Cloud" floating in mid-air. He watched Sherlock and Aisa as they slowly walked out from the distance, offering a backhanded compliment:
"Oh? You sensed my presence and yet you didn't choose to run. Commendable courage, Yahahaha!"
"Who... who's running?! What is there to be afraid of with a guy like you?"
Aisa stared at the Thunder God sitting on the cloud with a face full of terror. She then took a deep breath and shouted, "As a warrior of Shandia, I won't run away just because I'm afraid of someone like you!"
The red-haired girl's shout was full of momentum—though it would have been much more convincing if she hadn't hidden most of her body behind Sherlock.
"Oh? Nothing to be afraid of? It seems there is a truth you don't quite understand."
"Actually, people do not fear 'God'..."
Looking at Aisa's bluffing expression, the perverse Enel rarely refrained from immediate anger. He twirled the golden staff in his hand a few times and looked down at the two of them from his high vantage point.
"...It is terror itself that is God!"
CRACKLE! BOOM!
The moment he spoke, several terrifying bolts of lightning erupted from Enel's body. Though the blinding blue-white light was fleeting, the destructive aura contained within was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
It was nothing less than the instinctive awe that living beings feel toward the power of nature.
"Hiss—" Aisa couldn't help but gasp at the sight. Her small frame shrank further behind the Sorcerer as she tightly gripped his coat.
Sherlock, however, showed no reaction. He gently patted the red-haired girl's hand to comfort her, then looked calmly at the Thunder God, who wore an expression that screamed "I am supreme under the heavens."
"Do you have business here? God Enel." Sherlock pushed up his glasses, the clear lenses reflecting two sharp streaks of white light.
The direct confrontation between the Sorcerer and the Thunder God had finally begun!
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