By the time Carlos returned to Iron Island, he had already wiped out five more bands of pirates. They had all been pirates with nothing more than ordinary ships, and most of them did not even have cannons.
Carlos had dealt with those pirates personally. Though displaying his formidable strength had made those who followed him to sea fear and respect him even more, it also left Carlos somewhat annoyed.
Damn it, did every worthless band of pirates have to make him step in personally? That was seriously beneath him.
In the end, his rise had simply been too recent, and there were too few strong fighters under his command. In the entire Lucifer Family, only he could truly be called powerful. The others' individual combat strength was enough to throw their weight around only in the region surrounding Iron Island.
That was only because Carlos had put them through rigorous training after taking control of Iron Island's Mafia. Otherwise, they would have been even more pathetic.
It also made Carlos realize that most of the Mafia under him could only be used as minor grunts. Even the captains and leaders were nothing much in the fiercely competitive pirate world...
Of course, if they were carefully trained for another decade or so, those captains and leaders should become useful. But the problem was that the Great Pirate Era had already begun. This was the perfect time to expand, and there was not enough time for his underlings to slowly develop.
If he missed the wave that would reshape the world's balance of power, then once the structure solidified, rising again would become several times harder!
So Carlos had already begun preparing to seek out his backbone—his core crewmates. He had no interest in the position of One Piece, but he