On the island, at the ruins of the former castle,
Inside a simple stone house hastily constructed by zombies after a week of labor.
Luffy, Robin, and Brook sat on the left side of a long oval table, while Moria and his three crew members sat on the right.
Luffy leaned forward with both hands on the table and got straight to the point.
"I'll just say it directly, what I need is for the Shadow-Shadow Fruit's power to create a large number of powerful zombies. They'll be used for training, to make us stronger."
"Training?" Moria was stunned. It was the first time he'd ever heard someone suggest using zombies for training.
But then it hit him,
Zombies don't feel pain, and they can fight at full strength indefinitely. They're basically the perfect sparring partners!
Moria glanced at Luffy.
No wonder he's this strong at such a young age. It takes someone obsessed with improvement to wield such power effectively.
Unbeknownst to Luffy, a single sentence of his would later become the driving motivation for Moria for quite some time, until the day this plan finally came to life…
Luffy, unaware of Moria's internal thoughts, continued speaking.
"Moria, before, you focused on luring nearby pirates. But have you ever considered using Sea Kings instead?"
"Sea Kings?" Moria hesitated for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
"They won't work. Their bodies are soaked in seawater for extended periods. They're saturated with salt. The moment a shadow is placed in them, it's immediately expelled and flies off uncontrollably."
"I see…" Luffy frowned, a bit disappointed, he hadn't thought of that.
The zombies' weakness to salt was a big limitation…
After a brief pause, Luffy asked again,
"Then what about the shadows of Sea Kings?"
The room fell completely silent.
Perona glanced at Moria, confused why everyone had suddenly stopped talking.
Meanwhile, Moria clenched his fists, regret welling up inside.
The shadows of Sea Kings… of course!
Why had he never thought of that?
Because he was a Devil Fruit user, he had never seriously considered doing anything underwater.
He used to hear this all the time:
"There are no weak Devil Fruits, only weak users."
And now, for the first time, he truly believed it.
He stared at Luffy with a complex expression.
Luffy wasn't even a Logia user, yet he could develop his abilities to such a level.
In that moment, Moria realized:
The difference between people... can be bigger than the difference between people and pigs.
Forcing himself to stay composed, Moria finally responded.
"Using Sea Kings' shadows in zombies is possible. However…"
He looked around and noticed that among them, only Dr. Hogback, who had zero combat power, wasn't a Devil Fruit user.
"But catching Sea Kings is extremely difficult. No one here seems capable of going into the deep sea to capture them. Zombies can't go near seawater either. So the first step is figuring out how to catch them.
"Also, Sea Kings in the Florian Triangle are quite rare. So I suggest we leave this area and head to the Calm Belt instead. That region has an endless supply of Sea Kings.
"Some islands in the Calm Belt also produce incredibly powerful creatures. We could gather some high-quality corpses while we're there.
"There's also the matter of storage. Sea Kings are massive. If we try transporting them during the day, there's no way to avoid sunlight.
"That means we'd only be able to extract shadows at night. So we'll need a massive underground storage chamber. The old castle had one, but now that it's in ruins, we'll have to build a new one from scratch.
"Given the size of the Sea Kings, this will be even more difficult.
"One last thing: Sea Kings aren't particularly intelligent. They might not be able to follow precise commands, so they might not form an effective combat force quickly."
Moria had laid out a long list of problems, but deep down, he knew these weren't deal-breakers, just inconveniences.
First: Tools could be crafted for deep-sea shadow extraction from the surface.
Second: While their ship's mast was completely shattered, repairing it was only a matter of time.
In Moria's view, if something could be fixed with time, it wasn't truly a problem.
Third: As for storage, they could simply expand the original castle's storage area.
Lastly, the issue of combat intelligence wasn't even a concern. If you had a thousand zombies, each strong enough to punch through a mountain, who cared if they weren't precise? Sheer force would be enough to instill fear.
In short, Moria was really saying:
"This can be done, but it will take time."
In his eyes, this was a brilliant plan. He was even starting to admire Luffy a little.
Unfortunately… Luffy didn't quite see it that way.
"Uhh…"
Moria's flood of concerns had completely thrown Luffy off. He just sat there, blinking at Moria, unsure how to respond.
Deep-sea hunting? That part was easy. Moria mistakenly thought Luffy was a Devil Fruit user, but he wasn't.
Luffy could do the hunting himself. After all, shadows were reusable, and using Moria's powers was far better than Luffy killing things with his own hands.
But traveling all the way to the Calm Belt? Who knew how long that would take?
And storage… yeah, that could be an issue.
Maybe they could dig a giant pit on the island and flood it with seawater?
But then… what if the whole island sank?
As for combat capability?
Please… Luffy wasn't raising zombies to fight other people. He was going to farm them for EXP and loot.
They were all going to die by his hand anyway. Intelligence didn't matter.
Seeing Luffy unusually silent, Robin seemed to catch on and quickly stepped in.
"In that case, let's outline a plan."
"Repair the mast and sails completely. Set course for the Calm Belt at full speed." "Construct a large storage facility with anchor systems to hold Sea Kings." "Create as many corpses as possible. On the way to the Calm Belt, we'll begin capturing Sea Kings."
"In the meantime, gather every usable zombie and assign them tasks."
"As for the rest… leave it to Luffy."
Luffy looked at Robin, surprised.
Then he smiled and nodded calmly.
"Yeah, let's do what Robin says."
Perona and the others exchanged glances, then looked toward Moria.
Moria, still thinking over Robin's plan, nodded slowly and said in a neutral tone,
"We'll carry out the plan as proposed. If there are no objections, let's begin."
The word "carry out" didn't sound forced at all coming from Moria.
It was clear he'd accepted his new role.
"Alright, go for it," Luffy said without hesitation.
"Mm." Moria nodded again and walked out of the stone house with Perona and the others in tow.
As soon as they were gone, Luffy turned toward Robin, and just happened to meet her gaze
The two of them exchanged a knowing smile.
This is why they say education is important.
People like Robin, well-read and sharp, could see the core of a problem immediately, outline it clearly, and still preserve the captain's authority. She was the perfect first mate.
With the external matters handled, Luffy decided it was time to address something internal.
"Alright, everyone!" Luffy suddenly slapped the table and leapt to the other side, onto the chair Moria had just vacated.
Robin and Brook instantly turned to look at him, curious.
Luffy's expression grew serious.
"This morning, I discovered something very important!"
Seeing how solemn he looked, both Robin and Brook straightened up, giving him their full attention.
"I realized, " Luffy dragged out his words dramatically. "That, "
"Our pirate crew doesn't even have a name yet!!!"
"HUH???"
"HUH???"
==========
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