Twin Cape, beneath the lighthouse.
The sea breeze turned strange—blowing left, then right, with no pattern at all.
The clouds overhead moved at an unnerving speed, as if an invisible hand were casually stirring the heavens.
Crocus sat on a stone stool, holding a cup of hot tea, his gaze sweeping over the group of young pirates before him with clear puzzlement.
"So… you rushed in here without knowing anything at all, huh?"
He let out a sigh, his tone growing heavier.
"This is unbearable. You're not here to go on an adventure—you're here to throw your lives away!"
Nami clenched the ordinary compass in her hand, its needle still spinning wildly. Her face was pale.
As a navigator, her greatest pride was her grasp of the sea—her intuition, her control.
But here, she felt like a baby who had just learned to walk, standing helplessly before a fog-shrouded wasteland.
"All common sense no longer applies in these waters," Crocus said, pointing at the compass in her hand. "That compass isn't broken."
"…Could it be the magnetic field?" Nami suddenly looked up, realization flashing in her eyes.
"Exactly."
Crocus nodded.
"Every island in the Grand Line is rich in minerals. As a result, the entire route's magnetic field is in a state of extreme chaos."
"An ordinary magnetic compass is bombarded by countless interferences here and becomes completely useless."
"As a navigator, you should understand how terrifying that is."
The compass slipped from Nami's fingers and clattered onto the table.
"Indeed…" Her voice trembled, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
"If we can't determine direction… if we don't even know whether the next step is east or west…"
"Then on the sea, we're nothing but blind people."
"That's… absolute despair."
"H-Hey, hey… isn't that seriously bad?!" Usopp broke out in a cold sweat, his legs shaking.
"Hmph. That's why I said you're rookies."
Crocus set down his teacup and raised one finger.
"To sail the Grand Line, ordinary methods won't work. You need a special tool—a Log Pose."
"A Log Pose?" Nami frowned in confusion. "I've never heard of it."
"It's a special compass that records magnetic signals," Crocus explained.
Just as everyone started worrying about not having such a crucial item, a figure quietly moved toward the two captives tossed aside in the corner.
It was Ronan.
He walked straight up to the tightly bound Princess Vivi.
Despite the dust covering her and her disheveled state, her blue eyes still burned with defiance.
"W-What are you doing?!" Vivi recoiled as she looked at the calm man with piercing eyes, a sense of dread rising as she struggled backward.
"Sorry. Borrowing something."
Ronan didn't waste words. He squatted down and reached straight into her pockets, searching.
"Ah—!!!"
Vivi instantly exploded, her face flushing bright red as she screamed in humiliation and fury.
"You—You filthy pervert!! Stop it! Where are you touching?! Freak! Deviant!!"
Sanji's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw this.
"That bastard Ronan… daring to do something like that to a beautiful lady! Let go of her! I'll—no, let me stop you!"
Ronan ignored both Vivi's curses and Sanji's noise entirely.
His hand precisely slipped into a hidden pouch at her waist, touching something cold and hard.
"Found it."
The corner of Ronan's mouth lifted as he withdrew his hand.
In his palm was a strange device resembling a wristwatch, with a small glass sphere floating at its center.
Inside the sphere, a red magnetic needle pointed steadily in one direction, completely unaffected by the surrounding chaos.
As a reincarnator, Ronan naturally knew that these two Baroque Works agents possessed a Log Pose—otherwise, they could never have returned to Whiskey Peak.
Rather than racking his brain to obtain one, it was easier to simply "appropriate" it.
"Give it back! That's mine!!" Vivi shouted, tears welling in her eyes as she glared at the stolen Log Pose. "You thief!"
Ronan weighed the device in his hand, then turned to Crocus.
"Is this it, old man?"
Crocus looked at Ronan with mild surprise, clearly impressed by the young man's sharp instincts.
He nodded.
"That's it. Without a Log Pose, it's impossible to advance even a single step in the Grand Line."
"That's amazing!!"
Nami's eyes instantly lit up like she'd found a priceless treasure.
She snatched the Log Pose from Ronan, all despair vanishing in an instant, replaced by pure elation.
"Ronan! Great job! We're saved!"
She strapped it onto her slender wrist and carefully examined the floating sphere.
"So this is a Log Pose… no dial at all, just a floating needle… incredible."
With the navigation crisis resolved, Crocus's expression softened slightly.
He looked at the energetic young crew, a faint trace of nostalgia flashing through his eyes.
"Listen carefully, navigator."
Crocus pointed at the device on Nami's wrist and began his final lesson.
"All the islands scattered throughout the Grand Line are linked together by a special magnetic rule."
"There is a flow of magnetism between islands."
"The Log Pose captures and records an island's magnetic signal."
"Once it fully records the magnetism of one island, it will automatically point to the next."
"In other words—"
Crocus's voice turned solemn.
"In the waters of the Grand Line, the only thing you can rely on is the magnetic record shown by the Log Pose."
"Trust it. Even if it points to hell… that is the only path to survival."
Ronan stood quietly to the side, watching the eccentric yet unfathomable old man.
He understood—only because it was Luffy and his crew would Crocus go to such lengths to explain everything so carefully.
From the moment Luffy appeared at Twin Cape wearing that iconic straw hat—
From the moment he painted that crude yet warm symbol on Laboon's head for the whale's sake—
Crocus had already seen the shadow of his long-dead captain, Roger, in that boy.
A care and inheritance that crossed generations.
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