New World, a certain sea area.
A gigantic ship, broken into three sections, was slowly sinking to the seabed. The sea surface was covered in floating debris and corpses, clearly the aftermath of a ferocious battle.
Several hundred meters away, a pirate ship was anchored, flying the flag of the Blackbeard Pirates.
"Wiiihahaha! Captain Teach, they've all been taken out!" Burgess raised his arms, laughing loudly at Teach standing on the forecastle deck.
"Laffitte, did you find him?" Teach ignored Burgess, looking up instead at Laffitte, who was hovering in the sky.
"My apologies, Captain Teach. I've searched an area of twenty nautical miles," Laffitte's white wings flapped, and his body slowly descended.
"Murunfufufu... To think he had a Fish-Man subordinate with him. What a cautious fellow, escaping through the bottom of the sea at the crucial moment," Catarina Devon remarked, clutching a blood-dripping spear as she gazed out at the sea from the deck.
"Hoo... Hoo... That... was unexpected!" Doc Q lay panting on the deck, apparently exhausted from some immense effort.
"Zehahaha~"
Teach let out a huge laugh, shrugging. "Forget it. No one expected a Devil Fruit user to think of escaping via the seabed."
Suddenly, Teach looked at Laffitte as he landed on the deck and made a surprising announcement. "Laffitte, I'm going to trouble you to make a trip to the Clifford Kingdom. Tell Golden Ring Aeridar I want to meet him."
"Captain Teach, is this the right time to meet that man? What if…" Laffitte understood Teach's intent, but he couldn't help but frown.
"Yeah! Captain Teach, don't go and accidentally die over there!" Burgess said carelessly.
Catarina Devon, who was about to go change clothes and bathe, paused upon hearing Teach's words. She turned back and said, "If you die, this crew dissolves."
"Zehahaha... Zehahaha..."
Teach threw his arms wide in a crazy laugh, his arrogance soaring. "The world still needs me! It's not the time to fight him yet! He understands that!"
"Go, Laffitte!"
…
Ten-odd days later, Clifford Kingdom, Royal Capital, Nakor.
In the basement of the Palace Entertainment City, this was the most heavily guarded area in all of Nakor City. It was formerly the location of the Dasco royal family's treasury, riddled with various traps and self-destruct mechanisms.
Centuries of treasures belonging to the Dasco royal family were housed here. Aeridar later took over the area and added a huge amount of his own gold and silver. It was safe to say the wealth in this treasury could buy more than one or two entire nations.
"I can't believe Captain Homans' treasure contained this!"
Aeridar paced, looking at a gigantic, square blue stone in front of him, covered in dense, incomprehensible symbols—no, they were characters.
It was a Poneglyph!
"We didn't expect that the legendary Hyster Homans was actually a scholar from Ohara, which has long since vanished," Mina stood nearby, gently touching the Poneglyph.
At the same time, Mina handed Aeridar a thick book with a skull on its cover. "Take a look. Another fellow who studied the ancient script."
"An Ohara scholar! Who studied the ancient script!" Aeridar's eyes widened. He turned to look at Mina.
He quickly took the skull-covered book from Mina and flipped through a few pages.
The Will of D, The Void Century, the Erased History, the Ancient Powerful Kingdom, Unknown Ideologies, the Three Ancient Weapons... one shocking term after another appeared in the book.
Clap!
Aeridar snapped the book shut, asking solemnly, "Has anyone else seen this book besides you?"
"Don't worry, Captain. I've been carrying this critical item with me all the time." Mina knew just how astonishing the book's contents were—it was the ultimate taboo of the World Government.
"Phew... That's good!" Aeridar sighed in relief. Now was not the time to openly challenge the World Government, and the contents of this book absolutely could not be leaked.
"Captain, you should study this book when we get back. Let me first go over what we found this time." Mina pulled out a document, a list compiled after tallying the contents of Captain Homans' treasure.
"Gold, silver, pearls, jewels, calligraphy, porcelain... The total value is no less than 200 billion Berries. If this batch of goods were released, it would cause a huge shock to the market!" Mina closed the file in her hand. Behind her, the pile of gold and silver treasures formed a golden mountain, emitting a captivating, lust-inducing golden aura.
"Tsk tsk. He stole so much treasure. Truly worthy of being a great pirate who once dominated the seas," Aeridar muttered in amazement.
"Five people from the Elite Strike Team died for this treasure alone. That forbidden area in the native tribe even had various deadly poisons. Even Sriya almost died from the toxins!" Mina said indignantly.
"That powerful, huh.."
Aeridar was shocked. XT Agent was made using the blood of Calamodus as raw material, and Calamodus itself had a strong immunity to all kinds of poisons. Therefore, the Super Soldiers injected with XT medicine also had high poison resistance; even if they ingested arsenic, they would only get diarrhea.
It was safe to say that unless it was a poison that kills instantly upon contact with blood, it would be difficult to kill these Super Soldiers.
"Later, when I read this book, I learned that Captain Homans was not only a scholar of Ohara but also a medical master. He even used his own ability to develop a banned drug that significantly increases bone density, and the formula is in the book." Mina pointed with a trace of lingering fear at the skull-covered book in Aeridar's hand.
When that tribal priest, Apuli, took the banned drug, his strength clearly doubled. If the drug's effect hadn't been limited to only three attacks, it was unknown who would have won the fight between him and Mina.
"A banned drug that significantly increases bone density!" Aeridar was curious. "We should give this to Head Doctor Jason to study!"
Bones are not easily trained, much like internal organs. If a drug could dramatically increase bone density without side effects, it would be a revolutionary discovery.
"Also, the Devil Fruit I was looking for Millie has been found. Now all she has to do is eat it."
"The original box was rotten, so I got a new one."
Mina waved her hand. Gin came forward, holding a small sandalwood box. She took the box.
Click.
A smile curled on Aeridar's lips. He reached out and opened the box. Inside, a greenish-black, grapefruit-shaped fruit lay quietly. It was covered in swirling, arabesque patterns, looking quite bizarre.
After a careful inspection, the smile on Aeridar's face deepened.
"That's right, it is indeed that one. The Paramecia-type, Sense-Sense Fruit!"