Ten or so days passed in the blink of an eye.
At Hachinosu port, the flagship of the Rocks Pirates, the gibecks sword, slowly rose from the sea and floated into the sky under the awe-struck gazes of many pirates.
On the deck, the four of them—Rocks, Whitebeard, Golden Lion, and Carlo—were playing cards.
Each of the four had a stack of Berries in front of them.
Everyone's eyes were flickering with red light, looking as if they all had pink eye.
Rocks grinned as he threw down a pair of threes.
"I'm telling you in advance, Harald is a good friend of mine, and Elbaf is his country. Although we are the notorious Rocks Pirates, I don't want to mess with my brother's territory. So, please do me a favor and don't cause trouble in Elbaf."
"No problem. I haven't seen Harald in a long time either. I must drink my fill of Elbaf's strong liquor this time. I hope he won't be stingy, cough cough." Whitebeard coughed and gave Carlo, who was sitting next to him, a look before throwing down a pair of fives.
"Since the Giant Race are your friends, why would we plunder them? Rocks, your worries are unnecessary." Carlo understood the hint and casually threw down a pair of Kings in front of Golden Lion.
"Damn it!" Seeing the Kings in front of him, Golden Lion's face turned dark. He threw his cards onto the deck in frustration and pointed at the other three, shouting:
"What the hell is the point of playing! Everyone is using Future Sight; the cards are predicted before they're even played. We might as well just play with our hands open! Carlo, you brat, you knew I didn't have anything higher than a pair of Kings. You're teaming up with Newgate to mess with me, aren't you? I'm done!"
"Hey, hey, hey, calm down. It's just for fun. Why get so angry? I'll count this round as two losses for me." Rocks calmed Golden Lion down and also threw his cards away.
Then, Whitebeard happily took 100,000 Berries from Rocks.
Meanwhile, Carlo took 50,000 Berries from Golden Lion.
Rocks took the initiative to shuffle the cards. He pulled out a box of cigars and flicked a gold-leafed cigar to each of the three.
He bit into one himself and looked at Carlo across from him while shuffling.
"Carlo, you know I was talking about you just now. Don't play dumb with me."
Carlo snapped his fingers, and four tiny arcs of electricity shot from his fingertips, lighting the cigars in their mouths.
He exhaled a puff of smoke. "Why talk about me? I'm not going to plunder the Giant Kingdom."
Golden Lion twitched the corner of his mouth and looked over sideways.
"You won't plunder, but you won't be able to resist challenging that big guy Harald. Don't deny it; you've always been like this, brat. As long as someone is slightly stronger than you, you'll annoy them to death. I've been annoyed to death by you these past few years. If you dare challenge me again next time, I won't hold back."
"Hold back? Gularararara! You really shouldn't hold back anymore, Shiki. Carlo has already mastered Haki Entanglement. If you hold back again, watch out for an upset; he might just take your second division captain position."
Whitebeard reached out his large hand and patted Carlo's shoulder.
He was exceptionally polite to Carlo.
Not only because Carlo had followed him to Hachinosu to join the Rocks Pirates.
But also because over the past two years, Carlo had frequently lent him money so he could send it back to his hometown.
This made Whitebeard quite willing to accept Carlo's challenges.
It was also a way to repay some of the favors he owed Carlo.
"Hmph! It's just a preliminary mastery of Haoshoku entanglement. What's the big deal?" Golden Lion bit his cigar, looking disdainful.
Rocks began to deal the cards. "Newgate is right, Shiki. You'd better not be too arrogant. Carlo's progress is too fast. If things keep going like this, it won't be long before he catches up to you guys."
As soon as the cards were dealt, the eyes of all four immediately flickered with red light.
Simultaneously, four terrifying bursts of black-red lightning erupted from them, swirling around their bodies. They countered each other, interfering with the others' Observation Haki perception.
Under the influence of this violent, heaven-like aura, even the sky above them was cracked with massive, crisscrossing fissures from the clash of their presences.
The entire sky was suddenly split into four parts!
Seeing the others using the same technique in unison, all four of them twitched their mouths.
"Future Sight plus Observation Killing, is it?"
"Are we going to play this damn game or not!!"
A few days later.
Elbaf.
Looking at the sky-piercing tree that appeared before their eyes, as massive as a sky-piercing mountain, the four standing on the flying gibecks sword couldn't help but marvel.
"So this is the adam tree, the largest tree in the world."
"It's also the best wood in the world. My gibecks sword was built using the wood from the adam tree that Harald gave me."
"Who said Elbaf is poor? Isn't this tree the largest gold mine in the world? If we cut this tree down and sell it, it could probably be exchanged for a massive fortune of several trillion Berries."
This last sentence was said by Carlo.
After he finished speaking, the gazes of Rocks and the other two turned toward him, staring at him speechlessly.
Carlo bit his cigar, looking innocent. "Did I say something wrong? It's a fact. You know, a ton of Adam wood is worth at least a million Berries, and it will only get more expensive in the future."
"Even if we don't sell the whole tree, just cutting off one branch could probably sell for hundreds of billions of Berries, maybe even more. Look at how big that tree is; one branch probably weighs more than tens of millions of tons. Hmm, I might have miscalculated. At this rate, just one branch would be worth over ten trillion Berries."
*Gulp.*
Golden Lion's throat moved as he swallowed. His gaze toward the sky-piercing adam tree instantly became burning hot.
Even his breathing became a bit heavy.
Even Whitebeard's gaze took on a strange meaning.
Of course, given his personality, he wouldn't do something as despicable as stealing the adam tree to sell for money.
Old White simply felt that the value of this tree was too high.
But as for Golden Lion, it was hard to say.
Seeing that Carlo's few words had piqued Golden Lion's greed.
Rocks had a look of a headache on his face.
"Hey, hey, hey! I told you to do me a favor and not mess with this place. Carlo, you bastard, why did you suddenly say that? Several trillion Berries... even I'm starting to get tempted, damn it!"
He reached out and slapped Golden Lion's shoulder, saying irritably:
"Hey! Shiki! Wipe away your drool! I'm warning you, you'd better not get any ideas about this treasure tree. Otherwise, even if I don't move against you, Harald won't let you off. You know his strength."
"Harald..." Golden Lion barely snapped out of it, seemingly recalling Harald's strength. Then he clicked his tongue and curled his lip disdainfully:
"So what? That big guy is strong, but can he catch up to me? If he pisses me off, I'll just pull the rug out from under him and make this tree float tens of thousands of meters into the sky..."
As he spoke, his voice grew smaller and smaller, finally trailing off under Rocks' dangerous gaze.
"Alright, alright, I'm joking. I'm not that greedy. I'm not John. Money is enough as long as it's sufficient; only power is what I pursue."
Seeing that Golden Lion's eyes were clear and he didn't seem to be lying, Rocks finally felt relieved.
"Then let's land on the island. We're going to find Harald."