Above the skies of Rhodes Island, at an altitude of 10,000 meters—
A massive airship hovered silently in place.
Beneath it, attached to the underside of a suspended cargo bay, was an unusual protrusion—a highly advanced radar system.
This wasn't an ordinary radar. Its scanning range reached an astounding 3,000 kilometers, capable of surveilling most of the East China Sea. Even a large portion of the Great Sea Route fell within its surveillance radius, including half of the so-called "Paradise."
It was borderline absurd.
The most crucial detail? The radar was mobile—because it was mounted on an airship.
With this system in place, and once the optical camouflage tower under construction was completed...
Rhodes Island's security would reach unprecedented levels.
The only remaining obstacle was the 10,000-square-kilometer territory requirement.
Without that, no matter how much Berries one had, it would be impossible to upgrade to an S-class Fortress Builder.
To solve this, Luo Lan continued flipping through the system's building module interface.
Eventually, he found a new structure available after reaching A-class Fortress Builder:
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[Island Expansion Module]
Grade: A-class
Placement Requirement: Adjacent ocean area connected to the territory
Construction Requirement: 3 A-class construction teams
Build Time: 30 days
Materials: Standard construction materials
Blueprint Cost: Points
Trait Slots: 0
---
According to the system, this structure extends the island territory outward.
Put simply, it's like a maritime platform—but physically connected to the island, expanding it outward like a natural extension.
Each module covers exactly 10 square kilometers.
Rhodes Island currently spanned around 400 square kilometers. To reach the 10,000 square kilometer threshold, it still needed 9,600 square kilometers more.
That meant building 960 Island Expansion Modules.
That was insane.
Even without needing to repurchase the blueprint for each duplicate, each module required 880,000 points worth of standard materials...
That totaled 8.448 billion points, or 8.448 trillion Beli.
Luo Lan couldn't help but wonder—did the entire One Piece world even have that much money combined?
It was beyond ridiculous.
He dismissed that option immediately.
But then, what other method was there to expand territory?
Continuing to browse through the system, Luo Lan soon discovered another special A-class structure:
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[Island Fusion Module]
Grade: A-class
Placement Requirement: Connection point between two islands
Construction Requirement: 3 A-class construction teams
Build Time: 60 days
Materials: Standard construction materials
Blueprint Cost: Points
Trait Slots: 0
---
Like the previous module, this one also had no trait slots.
But its function…
According to the system, it could fuse two adjacent islands together, not just on the surface, but also under the sea, forming a structurally stable connection.
The result? A 10-kilometer-long solid link, guaranteeing complete stability post-fusion.
Compared to the expansion module, this was obviously much more practical.
He only needed to find a large island, sail Rhodes Island to it, and begin construction.
If that island wasn't large enough, he could gather some smaller ones nearby to fill in the gap.
Of course, there was one prerequisite—
He had to find the Golden Lion and seize his Float-Float Fruit.
But all this wouldn't happen overnight.
Because once this plan began, Jun Lin would be exposed.
After all, every large island in the world was already charted on naval maps. Finding a completely undiscovered island?
Nearly impossible.
No matter which large island Luo Lan tried to fuse with, Rhodes Island would inevitably be revealed.
So until he had fully prepared for exposure, Luo Lan decided not to rush into becoming an S-class Fortress Builder.
He didn't need to overthrow the World Government outright—just gain enough strength to stand against them in the short term.
Only then could he emerge openly into the world and begin the path toward upgrading to S-class.
---
Meanwhile…
Alabasta was facing some trouble.
The World Government had recently noticed that Crocodile had been missing for quite some time.
Though he wasn't the most competent, he was still one of the Seven Warlords—a representative of the government.
If he'd been secretly killed, that would be a huge scandal.
So the government dispatched CP9 operatives to investigate his disappearance.
They quickly discovered that Crocodile's last appearance was on Volcano Island. Moreover, for the past two or three years, he had been secretly hiding in Alabasta, plotting something in the shadows.
His disappearance happened on the return journey from Volcano Island back to Alabasta.
Whatever the reason, CP9 was convinced Crocodile's disappearance was deeply connected to his schemes in Alabasta.
As a result, the agents—Jabra, Fukurou, and Kumadori—turned their attention toward the Kingdom of Alabasta.
After more than half a month of investigation, they finally uncovered a clue.
For example—
Alabasta had recently conducted multiple military recruitment drives, amassing a total of 30,000 new soldiers.
This wasn't abnormal for a massive kingdom of over 10 million citizens, with a standing army of hundreds of thousands. Annual recruitment and retirement cycles were common.
30,000 wasn't a big deal.
However, their covert investigation revealed that only 18,000 of those recruits were in training with the official army.
Which meant 12,000 soldiers were unaccounted for.
No matter how they investigated, there was no trace of them.
Each time, batches of 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers vanished overnight—as if they evaporated into thin air.
Not a single sign of them remained in Alabasta.
There was no direct evidence, but the agents had a strong hunch—solving this mystery would lead to a breakthrough in the Crocodile case.
So they gave up the covert approach and appeared publicly as government agents, demanding an audience with King Cobra.
As expected, Cobra dodged the request using pre-prepared excuses.
Of course, the agents didn't believe a single word.
What happened next?
They returned to their usual methods.
That night, Princess Vivi was abducted by unknown assailants within the royal palace.
Her whereabouts: unknown.
Desperate, King Cobra placed a call for help—
To Luo Lan.
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(COMPLETED)