"You're saying I should leave the Navy?"
"And Sister Tsuru and the Fleet Admiral actually agreed to this?"
Inside the villa's main hall, Gion—code name Momousagi, the Peach Rabbit—stared wide-eyed, her face filled with disbelief.
"That's right. The Training Center is one of Jun Lin's most heavily guarded secrets. If you want to use it, this is the only way."
"Of course, if you don't want to leave the Navy, we can pretend this conversation never happened. After the Doflamingo mission, you can return to your Navy, and I'll return to Jun Lin."
Luo Lan nodded calmly.
As for whether someone would join and remain loyal to their original faction—he wasn't concerned in the slightest.
Because after the 157th Division's headquarters was upgraded to a 15-story Grade B building, it gained two additional trait slots—unlike the previous 3-story Grade D version.
And one of the new traits he unlocked was downright overpowered:
> [Within the territory, all subjects' loyalty to the Lord increases by 1 point per day.]
Not 1%, but 1 whole point.
Luo Lan had asked the system about the maximum loyalty level.
The answer: 100.
Which was absolutely insane.
In other words, even if someone joined with 0 loyalty—say, a spy—as long as they entered the 157th Division willingly...
Within 100 days, they'd become a fanatical loyalist.
Of course, that was only if they joined voluntarily. Otherwise, the system wouldn't register them as a subject.
Luo Lan looked at Gion, waiting for her decision.
"I'll agree... but on one condition."
"Name it."
"If you can't help me break through in a year, I'll return to the Navy."
"No problem."
Luo Lan agreed without hesitation.
Forget a year—he believed two or three months would be enough.
Besides, after a year—with 100 points of loyalty—would she really be able to say she wanted to leave?
Luo Lan couldn't imagine a single scenario where he'd lose. So of course he agreed.
"Since you're now officially a member of the 157th Division, come with me."
"Where to?"
"The Training Center. Or have you already forgotten why you're here?"
---
Gion paused for a moment.
Then stood up and followed him.
Ten minutes later, when she arrived at the Training Center with Luo Lan, her worldview was completely shattered.
She had considered many possibilities.
But she never expected the Training Center to include gravity control—and up to 60 times normal gravity.
Seeing her stunned expression, Luo Lan felt a surge of satisfaction.
Crazy woman, shocked speechless, huh?
And this is just the beginning.
Wait until I show you Satou's section. That'll really blow your mind.
Tsk tsk... once you realize that as long as you have enough money, you can mass-produce Supreme Grade Blades... your entire understanding of reality will be flipped upside down.
The Training Center could rapidly enhance physical strength.
The Officer Villa Zone allowed passive mental strength training while sleeping.
The Super Naval Academy was packed with books covering every power system in the pirate world, including rare swordsmanship manuals.
The Forge Workshop could craft not just Supreme Grade Blades—but even weapons that surpassed them.
Granted, you just needed money.
Conveniently, Luo Lan had plenty of that.
The Navy Mess Hall served daily food that functioned like literal game-breaking buffs.
And more powerful buildings were still being developed.
Once all these features came together, Luo Lan refused to believe Gion wouldn't be able to take that final step forward.
---
Five days passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, Smoker returned with Hina.
In addition to bringing back a batch of recruits from Alabasta, he had also secretly picked up someone from Sabaody Archipelago.
A man around 40 years old, a Navy soldier under the Strategic Command.
He was also an intelligence agent who had been undercover for years, posing as a ship coater on Sabaody.
According to Tsuru, despite his intelligence role, after over 20 years of practice, his coating skills had reached master level—he was famous across Sabaody.
Of course, now that he was here, there was no going back.
Luo Lan hadn't said it outright, but Tsuru understood this unspoken truth.
Everyone was on the same page.
With a professional coater and a few barrels of sap for coating, they estimated it would take about a week to finish applying bubbles to all four warships.
After that, they'd be ready to set out.
Now, as for this mission—the person Luo Lan was most wary of wasn't actually Doflamingo.
It was... Blackbeard.
In the original story, before he acquired the Dark-Dark Fruit, Blackbeard's actual strength was unclear.
He ambushed and killed Thatch, and during a massive skirmish between the Whitebeard and Red-Haired crews, he managed to scar Shanks.
But later portrayals were... odd.
According to canon, without the Dark-Dark Fruit, he shouldn't have been able to beat Ace.
Yet Shanks claimed he hadn't let his guard down and still got wounded by Blackbeard.
These contradictions made his true strength a mystery.
Still, with Gion on his side—and with Blackbeard not yet in possession of the two Devil Fruits...
When the time came to take on Doflamingo, Gion could hold him off without much trouble.
Just to be safe, Luo Lan knew he still needed some backup plans.
With that in mind, he headed to the Science Division—a massive underground hive-like research facility.
"Captain! Perfect timing—I was just about to find you!"
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Seras rushed over, looking excited.
Luo Lan blinked. "What's going on?"
"That project you assigned me? We've had a breakthrough!"
"Which project?"
Luo Lan paused. He'd given a lot of orders lately. Which one did Seras mean?
"The one about extracting a Devil Fruit without killing the user!"
Ah, right. Luo Lan remembered now.
He had raised the idea because some people were dissatisfied with their current Devil Fruits and wanted to swap for different ones.
The challenge, of course, was that a Devil Fruit's power only leaves the body upon the user's death.
So the key issue was: how to extract the power without killing the user?
"You figured it out?"
"Yes! We'd been stuck for a while, but then Kaya said something that gave me the breakthrough!"
"Kaya..."
Luo Lan froze.
Her again?
Despite being less skilled than Seras, she had a knack for critical insights at just the right moments.
Now he was curious—what did she suggest this time?
"It's actually quite simple," Seras said cheerfully. "Since the Devil Fruit only leaves the body after the user dies, then—"
"We just kill them!"
---
Luo Lan's face twitched.
He stared at Seras with a look that said:
Are you f*ing kidding me?
---
https:// ko-fi.com/sami27