After returning to the Shogun's residence in Wano, Kurosaki Rei was still completely dazed.
He had only casually handed Kaido a strategic blueprint, yet somehow ended up becoming the Beasts Pirates' military strategist, the fourth All-Star—the Fourth Calamity.
And now Kaido trusted him completely… while dumping all the work onto him.
Clearly, that simple-minded "strongest creature on land" hadn't really understood the logic behind the plan at all. He only wanted results.
"Ah, well. Being tired is fine—as long as it's not for nothing."
Kurosaki Rei had now completely abandoned the idea of going out to sea and fooling around. Not only because he was deeply bound to the Beasts Pirates, but also because he realized that the benefits of sticking around here were far greater than he'd expected.
Setting aside the authority he gained from becoming the Fourth Calamity, just the spatial benefits alone were enough to make his hands numb from collecting rewards.
In a massive open-derived world like One Piece, he had already obtained 47.8% World Exploration Progress. This would greatly boost his overall evaluation and earn him a large number of settlement rewards.
From what Kurosaki Rei understood, world exploration progress became harder to obtain the larger and more complex the worldview was.
For example, in worlds like Demon Slayer or Kengan Ashura, it was relatively easy to gain exploration progress. Those derived worlds were small, with few key characters. As long as you interacted with them and killed the controller of the world core, you could gain a huge amount of exploration progress.
But worlds like Bleach or One Piece were completely different. Back in the Bleach world, Kurosaki Rei had interacted with many plot characters, yet the exploration progress he gained was pitifully small.
That was because his degree of plot deviation wasn't enough. Simply put, his impact on the world had been too limited, so he couldn't obtain much exploration progress.
But now things were different.
He was the Fourth Calamity of the Beasts Pirates—one of a Yonko's forces. He held real decision-making power as a military strategist, and was actively reforming Wano.
In the long run, his impact on this world would be enormous. That was why he could gain so much exploration progress.
If he went even further—truly reforming Wano and laying a solid foundation for Kaido—then if Kaido eventually toppled the Celestial Dragons, Kurosaki Rei would effectively be rewriting the entire history of the One Piece world. At that point, reaching 100% exploration progress wouldn't be impossible.
Just looking at the current situation made it easy to imagine: a harmonious and prosperous Wano was gradually being born. In another five or six years, the people of this country would likely no longer hate Kaido, but instead thank him for bringing them a wealthy life.
And twelve years later, when Luffy arrived in this country, Momonosuke's attempt at restoration would be utterly impossible.
First of all, Luffy wasn't the kind of person who acted without reason. If he saw that the people of Wano were living happily, there was no way he'd help Momonosuke "restore the country" and destroy the hard-earned peace.
And second—if Luffy and Kaido actually talked about their ideals?
That would be disastrous. Who knew—maybe the two of them would end up charging straight into Mary Geoise together.
"Brother Rei, what are you thinking about?"
After Yamato entered the room and saw Kurosaki Rei sitting at the desk in a daze, she asked curiously.
"I'm thinking about how to handle Wano's infrastructure."
Kurosaki Rei said with a headache. Even though he'd talked big to Kaido and had a clear sense of direction, actually implementing things was extremely difficult.
Especially infrastructure—he was completely clueless.
Building factories was easy enough. Just throw them up on already-polluted land. Planning didn't matter much there.
But if they wanted to comprehensively upgrade Wano's infrastructure, they'd need to consider urban planning, waterways, reservoirs, and more.
That was entirely outside Kurosaki Rei's area of expertise. Knowing what was needed and knowing how to do it were two completely different things.
"Ah, that. I actually met Lord Yasuie this afternoon. He said he wanted to discuss infrastructure with you. Why don't you go see him?" Yamato suggested.
"That's a great idea. Yamato, you're getting smarter by the day."
Kurosaki Rei praised her, then immediately left the Shogun's residence.
It wasn't until late at night that he finally met Yasuie, whose lights were still on.
After a long discussion, Kurosaki Rei was pleasantly surprised to discover that Yasuie was extremely knowledgeable about city planning.
Thinking about it, that made sense. Back then, Yasuie had planned Hakumai's port city in an orderly fashion, with excellent economic development.
He was not only a qualified administrator, but also possessed Wano's traditional craftsman spirit, with a deep understanding of what infrastructure required attention to.
Thus, after staying with Yasuie for several days, Kurosaki Rei finalized an initial plan for Wano's infrastructure, preparing to arrange for the Numbers and unemployed vagrants to carry it out.
While massive reform and construction were underway in Wano, Marine Headquarters was thrown into no small uproar after receiving the news.
Because of Kaido's overwhelming strength and his clear hostility toward the World Government, he had always been a key observation target.
As a result, the government had long stationed spies to secretly investigate Wano's situation.
Some time ago, when the government heard that Wano's shogun had changed—and that Kaido had placed his daughter Yamato on the shogunal throne—they sensed something unusual.
Sure enough, over the next one or two months, Wano changed rapidly. Kaido seemed to have had a personality shift, suddenly adopting a "soft" approach toward the people of Wano.
For many righteous Marines, this was actually a good thing. At least the people wouldn't suffer anymore, which made them feel a bit better.
But the successive reports that followed made the World Government gradually realize the seriousness of the situation.
It was as if Kaido had received guidance from a master—Wano was truly being governed better and better. Not only were the people beginning to rally behind him, but factory output was also increasing compared to before, and his overall strength was growing rapidly.
The World Government's top brass didn't care at all about how the people of Wano were living.
But if Kaido's strength was growing rapidly because of this, that was something they absolutely couldn't tolerate.
After all, some of the World Government's higher-ups knew very well what Kaido wanted to do. Letting a war maniac like him quietly develop in Wano—how could that be acceptable?
Thus, the World Government held meeting after meeting these days, discussing how to respond to Kaido's changes.
In the end, due to internal factional disagreements, no conclusion was reached about going to war with Yonko Kaido. The decision remained: continue surveillance.
When the news reached Marine Headquarters, they were likewise astonished at the changes and growth of the Beasts Pirates.
But their current duty wasn't to fight the Beasts Pirates.
It was… to produce new wanted posters and adjust the bounties of the Beasts Pirates.
After heated discussions, a new batch of wanted posters was finalized and sent flying across the world by News Coo.
...
At the entrance to the Grand Line, an explorer from the Divine Space stepped into this vast world with hope in his heart, preparing to make a name for himself on the Grand Line and raise his world evaluation.
He was a Second-tier Explorer, born in the North Blue. With his strong foundational strength, he quickly made a name for himself there, even joining forces with two other explorers he encountered to form a pirate crew.
All three of them were top-tier Second-tier Explorers—absolute powerhouses in this world. Together, they swept across the North Blue with almost no opposition.
In just two months, they'd earned high bounties, which served as proof of their strength.
Now, they were preparing to enter the Grand Line—not only for its scenery and potential opportunities, but more directly, for higher bounties.
Through communication, they discovered that explorers entering the One Piece world had no main quest. However, after triggering certain conditions, they could receive hidden or side quests.
For example, they all currently had a side quest obtained when they were first issued bounties. The higher the bounty, the richer the rewards at world settlement.
Riding the surging currents past the Red Line and entering the vast Grand Line, the three of them sat on the ship, gazing up at the clear sky with smiles full of anticipation.
Because they saw seagulls.
News Coo—distributors of wanted posters.
"We did so much. Our bounties should've been updated, right?"
One explorer leapt up, snatching the bundle of wanted posters from beneath the seagull, his face full of excitement.
"Probably. I bet mine's at least twenty million."
Another laughed as he leaned in to look.
Wanted posters were only distributed when bounties were updated. Normally, you wouldn't see posters of old pirates. If their names weren't in the stack, it meant their bounties hadn't changed.
The posters were arranged from low to high, so before long they found their own names.
"Hahaha! Thirty million bounty! I'm basically at Luffy's level now, right?"
"Only thirty million? I've got thirty-five million—stronger than you. At this rate, I'm destined to become Pirate King!"
"What the hell? We did everything together—why am I the lowest? Only twenty-eight million!"
The three explorers joked and bantered as they continued flipping through the stack, gathering information.
Since explorers' names usually differed from common names in this world, they could identify other explorers through the wanted posters and judge how well they themselves were doing in comparison.
"Whoa—Black Lily's here too? That's troublesome. I really don't want to run into her at sea."
The leading explorer frowned as he stopped at one poster.
"A famous Third-tier powerhouse?" someone asked.
"No. She's Second-tier, but her abilities are bizarre. I saw her once in a world contention battle and barely survived."
There was clear apprehension in his eyes. "But she's active in the West Blue right now, so the chances of us running into her are low."
"Black Lily… that name—could she be from the Botanical Garden?"
Another explorer frowned in thought.
The leader nodded. "Yeah. Best not provoke her. Everyone in that group is insane. Let's just steadily raise our bounties and see if we can snag a Devil Fruit."
"Hey! Come look at this!"
The shortest explorer suddenly shouted. "What the hell is this? Am I reading fake manga?"
The other two stopped their discussion and moved over in confusion, only to find him holding a wanted poster and having flipped to the New World section.
Spread out in front of them were several wanted posters from the Beasts Pirates. That alone wasn't strange—there were still ten years before the original plot, and for a behemoth like the Beasts Pirates, bounty changes were bound to be frequent.
But when they saw the poster the short explorer was pointing at, all of them froze in disbelief.
Because the face on that wanted poster didn't belong to any Beasts Pirates officer they knew.
And the poster clearly stated that this person was the newly appointed All-Star of the Beasts Pirates.
The wanted poster showed a masculine, handsome man—clearly East Asian in appearance—with short black hair and sharp eyes. Dressed in black, wielding a black blade, he looked every bit like a ruthless figure.
Below the image was his title and name:
Calamity of Heaven — Kurosaki Rei
And beneath that, the bounty was clearly marked:
790,000,000 Beli
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