At the same time, the "charging process" was also quite troublesome, because it could only be carried out if Nami was present.
A single charge took several hours.
With this trait in place, manpower was basically freed up.
And the amount of geothermal energy was enormous. To put it bluntly, volcanoes were simply one of the manifestations of geothermal upwelling.
This method guaranteed an extremely stable source of energy.
Next was the Land of Glory trait. To sum it up, it fulfilled the legion's quantity requirements.
With a coverage radius of one hundred kilometers, each cycle would produce at least five hundred embryos—equivalent to five hundred fully matured angels.
And that was only the minimum. In theory, if the scale of supplied energy was large enough, the number of embryos produced each cycle would continue to rise.
As for the Angel Legion trait, there was not much to analyze.
It was more or less a slightly enhanced version of the Angels of Glory.
As long as the effect of Glory's Return was preserved, that was enough.
Ren did not ask for much else. After all, the chips in his hands for this round of the draw had not been limitless.
Then there was the Integrated Network trait, which combined communication-related needs. This, too, was inherited from the Angels of Glory.
One detail worth noting was its characteristic of using radio waves as a medium to affect Den Den Mushi.
That had been deliberately guided into the synthesis process by Ren.
Its purpose was to work alongside the Golden Den Den Mushi and ensure the operational reliability of a Buster Call.
In truth, he already had the rough outline of a plan in mind.
It was known that after the Marineford War, Sengoku would resign due to the devastating losses.
One had to remember that although the purpose of Ace's execution had technically failed, the Pirate King's bloodline had still been cut off by Akainu.
In essence, Ace had still been killed.
Even so, Sengoku had still chosen to step down of his own accord.
So if Ren was destined to interfere, things would only get worse, not better.
And once Sengoku's resignation became a certainty, the candidates for Fleet Admiral would only be chosen from among the three Admirals.
Kizaru was a slacker through and through. Despite wielding the "fastest" Glint-Glint Fruit, he somehow managed to do everything in an even more sluggish manner.
So from the very beginning, he was not a real contender.
Kuzan had Sengoku's support, along with that of many high-ranking Marines, but he could not beat Akainu.
In the end, it was Akainu—favored by the World Government and the Five Elders—who took the position.
But if… Ren did something in the middle of all this, would events still unfold the same way as before?
For example, that Golden Den Den Mushi he had obtained long ago belonged to Akainu's side.
Of course—
the premise for all of this was that Kuzan had to leave the Marines.
Otherwise, Ren would only be lifting a rock and smashing his own foot with it.
The reason it was only the "outline of a plan" was because there were too many uncertain factors, making it difficult to guarantee that events would move in the direction Ren wanted.
He could only wait for the right opportunity, then decide based on how the situation developed.
As for War Armaments—
to put it bluntly, it was the key trait that determined the upper limit of the angels.
The examples that appeared in its description—the Haki system and the artificial Devil Fruit system— were, in fact, the results of Ren's efforts.
Swinging blindly in every direction was meaningless. Trying to pursue everything at once would only lead to doing nothing well in the end.
What mattered most was convergence—bringing things together until they produced a qualitative change!
Holding to that principle, Ren had deliberately guided the synthesis so that the resources in his hands would move toward integration.
For one thing, Caesar had already cultivated artificial Devil Fruits.
The Iron Knights could serve as labor, and as for Redstone consumption, Ren could always go draw for more.
With Tesoro's support, that amount of money was not even worth mentioning.
If enough artificial Devil Fruits were poured into the process, sooner or later it would reach the domain of Zoan-type Devil Fruits.
Vegapunk could replicate Devil Fruit powers through science.
He could even recreate Paramecia abilities through Green Blood, allowing the Pacifistas' superior successors—the Seraphim—to possess those powers.
In other words, Devil Fruits were not untouchable miracles.
They were things that could be copied and mass-produced.
Of course, Seraphim with Paramecia abilities were extraordinarily expensive to produce.
The exact cost was unknown, but it absolutely exceeded the one billion Beli level.
But Ren was, after all, a cheater.
He had made it this far by relying on one thing alone—
"Dimensional Roulette, spin for me!"
So was it really strange if, through War Armaments' absorption-and-conversion function, he transformed all the angels' constitutions into those of Zoan-type Devil Fruit users?
Unlike the Gifters in Wano, War Armaments used absorption and conversion as a means of strengthening power.
Any negative side effects would be removed during the transformation process.
In other words, there would be no bodily mutations—only pure positive enhancement.
Of course, that was merely the most ideal projection.
The Haki system was the same kind of experiment.
But unlike artificial Devil Fruits, Ren had put in a tremendous amount of work on this front.
He had even used a prize at the one billion level to achieve the current result.
Put simply, angels born in this world theoretically possessed the same Haki aptitude as ordinary people.
Whether their composition was biological or not did not affect that outcome.
Yes—
and that was also one of the reasons why the Glory Sanctuary was categorized as a rule-based creation.
The most common effect of creations with that kind of prefix was that they violated physics—and even common sense itself.
Like that old iron farm machine from before, which could produce iron ore out of thin air.
All Ren could say was that the directed guidance of the Synthesis Scroll was truly incredible.
Sanctuary Conversion sounded nice.
But in reality, it was a facility inclined toward plundering external things to strengthen itself.
Ren understood clearly that strength would never come from nowhere. Even freakishly powerful angels still had to follow the law of growth curves.
At the very least, at this price point, this method offered a much higher upper limit.
But sometimes, waiting for growth was an agonizing process.
At the same time, once an angel died, she would reset.
One of the main purposes of this trait was to sustain war through war itself, fitting one of the core principles of the legion style—
snowballing.
Its secondary purpose was group enhancement on a legion scale: by crushing and capturing prey, they could obtain "materials", thereby accelerating the angels' growth from the side.
But there was yet another hidden, highly specific experiment—
one even Ren himself did not truly dare hope for.
Seizing Devil Fruits!
Devil Fruits could be seized.
Whether it was Blackbeard seizing the Tremor-Tremor Fruit in the original story, or Ren seizing the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—both were proven examples.
But in the former case, Ren did not have the Dark-Dark Fruit, and Blackbeard was certainly not going to help him.
As for the latter, it carried enormous risks.
So could he exploit a bug?
That thought had existed in Ren's mind for a long time, and now he had finally received the answer—
Yes, he could!
He could forcibly convert a Devil Fruit user he had his eye on. Even if there were some loss involved, it would not matter.
Or he could transfer the Devil Fruit power onto himself.
Of course, considering that in the original story the curse of the sea was described as the "Mother Sea's" curse upon those who possessed power beyond ordinary humans, then if Ren acquired a Devil Fruit power, he most likely would not be exempt from that curse either.
At best, he could use a Weakness Transfer Rod to shift the weakness away.
So choosing a Devil Fruit power required caution.
But converted angel units had no such restrictions.
"In one of the movies, there was that World Destroyer or whatever—also a great criminal from Level 6 of Impel Down.
His ability could amplify the size and mass of any object he touched by a hundredfold. If that power were used on me… could it magnify my energy scale a hundred times out of nowhere?"
Ren pondered whether he could use this trait to obtain unimaginable power.
It might not compare to the Mother Flame, but a hundredfold enhancement still sounded pretty good.
The only downside was that he might have to fight as a giant.
Finally, there was the Divine Favor Blessing trait.
The stronger Ren became, the more he could support; and the more he could support, the stronger the angels became.
It was equivalent to creating mini-boss units.
At the very least, once Ren maxed out his resistance-related attributes—even if only part of that blessing was bestowed onto the angels—
it would still be enough to bring a qualitative leap in strength to those already incredibly durable angels.
As for the cost…
{Chip Balance: 0}{Diamond Roulette Progress Count: 16}
The one hundred billion in funds he had just obtained was now completely gone.
Ren did not care much.
Ever since obtaining that batch of gold, even someone as obsessed with money as Nami was no longer particularly enthusiastic about wealth.
After ending this round of the draw, he began waiting for the right moment to act.
At the same time, he thought about where to place the Glory Sanctuary.
First of all, it definitely could not be on a Sky Island, nor could it be on the Judgment.
The Glory Sanctuary required geothermal energy and a stable location.
Second, it could not be too far from the Grand Line.
Because the angels did not possess teleportation abilities, nor were they suited for ultra-long-distance sailing.
Ren's main battlefield would still be here in the Grand Line.
But it also could not be placed within the Grand Line itself.
The first half, Paradise, was crawling with Marines—put bluntly, there was a small base every three steps and a big base every five.
As for the second half, the New World was basically all territory ruled by the Yonko.
With his current reputation, if he occupied any inhabited island, it would absolutely attract Kaido's enthusiastic visit.
And Kaido would probably blow the island he settled on straight to hell while he was at it.
As for uninhabited islands…
The angels still needed combat, drills, and training exercises.
If their numbers were small, that would be manageable. But once they reached the thousands…
the scope of their activities and movement would be enormous.
Most importantly,
the angels' living environment also needed to be considered, because they were not machines in the absolute sense.
"If that's the case… then Kuja Island in the Calm Belt?"
Ren thought of that place.
"The only truly terrifying thing in the Calm Belt is the Sea Kings, but the angels can fly, so that biggest obstacle is removed.
The people of Kuja Island can carry out their usual plundering routines, and it's not too far from the Grand Line.
Kuja Island is also fairly large, and because of the outside environment, ordinary Marine forces can't get in.
The only ones who could come are the few warships with Seastone embedded into their hulls—but Seastone technology isn't foolproof either, and it could still disturb the Sea Kings.
Most importantly, the Calm Belt makes it nearly impossible for eyewitnesses to exist, and my next-stage plan just happens to require going there anyway."
Fine.
He could admit it directly.
Ren's first thought really was to place the Glory Sanctuary on Kuja Island.
He had absolute confidence in controlling the Empress. It was not as if he had no way to tame that troublesome woman a little, either.
Among One Piece fans who had watched the story, how many could truly ignore Boa Hancock?
Ren was just relatively rational. Under normal circumstances, if there was no conflict, he would not provoke extra enemies for no reason.
But this time was different.
Two buffs had stacked on the Empress, and she was now practically walking the path of courting death.
As for what kind of "death" that would be…
that would depend on the situation.
After giving it some thought, Ren did not rush into action.
Instead, he began steadily laying down one move after another, making preparations for the many preliminary steps of his plans.
Until several days later—
a transmission from an Angel of Glory reached him.
"Edward Weevil has been located!"
(End of Chapter)