Cultivation

Den Den Mushi were peculiar natural creatures, and they did not resist being bred by humans.

Den Den Mushi used biological electrical waves as their transmission medium.

Each individual Den Den Mushi possessed its own unique electrical waves, but there was also a channel used to transmit public information waves. In other words, each individual served as an information relay station. Even if it could not interpret the public waves it transmitted, it could still pass them along through itself.

Every Den Den Mushi had to perfectly imitate the creature before it before it could be considered qualified for deployment.

The moment Ling Donglai got hold of the Den Den Mushi, he sensed that this creature... might allow his Current Drive to reach an entirely new and profound realm.

That was assuming he could truly crack the Den Den Mushi's mechanisms.

"You can leave." Ling Donglai held the Den Den Mushi and carefully examined the thing.

The man in the suit bowed once more, then left the ship without a word.

Only then did his face darken.

Not only had he failed to recruit Ling Donglai this time, but he had also lost the Log Pose and the Den Den Mushi. What was he supposed to do now?

"Captain, now that we have a Log Pose, should we head straight for the entrance to the Grand Line?"

Nami moved close to Ling Donglai, bringing with her a fragrant breeze. She curiously watched the little creature, occasionally reaching out to poke it with a finger.

The Den Den Mushi was rather dull-witted too. Whenever it was poked, it shrank back.

Other than the numbered buttons on its shell, there was nothing else.

"More haste, less speed. Let me deal with that Sea King first."

The ship headed for Loguetown, while news that Ling Donglai had slaughtered the Pirate Alliance had already spread across these waters ahead of them.

At sea, apart from heading into the Calm Belt to challenge Sea Kings, there was only drifting with the currents and feasting on seafood. If such days repeated endlessly, even Ling Donglai would grow sick of them.

After all, he came from the Age of Great Entertainment. Unlike the local pirates, who had grown accustomed to this kind of life and saw nothing strange about it.

They took such days in stride because they had no other forms of entertainment.

"Nami, let's rest in Loguetown for a week before setting out again." Ling Donglai believed in balancing work and rest.

"Sure. Loguetown is one of the most prosperous places in the East Blue."

Nami nodded, then relaxed comfortably.

"But there'll be a storm over the next few days. I'm afraid we won't be able to have much fun." After sensing the weather for a while, Nami spoke dejectedly.

"Another storm?" Ling Donglai looked up at the clear, cloudless sky. Nami's skin-based sensing ability was a little too powerful.

"Since there's going to be a storm, we'll just extend our entertainment time."

Current Drive was constantly active anyway. Even when he was playing games, he would grow stronger.

It was just that without Sea King meat, the speed at which he grew stronger would slow down.

"That's great!" Nami jumped up on the spot.

The ship docked at Loguetown. Ling Donglai removed the iron chain around Momoo's back. "Go play nearby. We won't be heading out to sea for a while, so go into the deep waters."

The sea cow nodded, then swam toward the depths.

"Captain, what if Momoo runs away?" Nami asked from the shore.

"A domesticated giant sea beast is more than one level weaker at hunting than its wild kin. If it's smart enough, it won't run away. If it isn't, then it doesn't matter."

There was more than one tamed giant sea beast on these seas. Sooner or later, someone would master the art of taming them. He could just catch another one then.

As long as I'm strong enough, everything will work out!

"First, let's rent two rooms." Nami began planning out their future vacation.

"Welcome, welcome. You two are father and daughter, right? Our inn has just launched a family room package..."

Nami: "?"

The innkeeper rubbed his hands together excitedly.

Before he could finish speaking, Nami, whose expression had already turned sour, grabbed Ling Donglai's hand and dragged him out of the inn.

"What kind of innkeeper was that? He had no eye for people at all!"

Nami fumed, then looked up at Ling Donglai.

The height difference between them was simply too great. She was one and a half meters tall, while Ling Donglai was already one point nine meters...

The difference really was huge...

But even so, there was no way they could be mistaken for father and daughter. Judging from their temperaments alone, it was impossible.

Ling Donglai rubbed Nami's head, then found another inn and rented two rooms. Only then did Nami's expression improve somewhat.

Pushing open the window, Nami closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she looked down below.

"Looking down from high up feels so refreshing~"

"Later, there's Sky Island high in the heavens. I wonder what it would feel like to look down from there."

"Sky Island is in the sky. Can you find it just by looking up?" Ling Donglai walked to the window and saw pedestrians below moving about like ants.

They were tiny, but orderly.

Nami said, "Of course not. The direction is wrong, and our eyes can't see that far up into the sky."

"That will be what you feel when you look down from Sky Island." Ling Donglai turned away.

"They truly have no regard for the Marines."

Smoker wore a broad Marine coat as he received another report from his subordinate. Ling Donglai had defeated the pirate coalition, then openly appeared in Loguetown and rented a room. It looked as though he intended to stay for a long time.

The one speaking was a young woman with glasses named Tashigi.

"Colonel, aren't we going out to arrest them?"

"That man doesn't consider himself a pirate, so there's no need for us to concern ourselves with him. Besides, there are many doubts surrounding this wanted poster. At present, we can only confirm that there's something wrong with the 16th Branch. We might as well investigate that fellow first."

Smoker lit a cigarette and puffed away in the Marine office.

"Still, I do want to see what that guy is capable of. Just how did he manage to bring out Armament Haki?

"With his physique, while impressive, he still shouldn't have naturally comprehended and used Haki so quickly. There must be a version more advanced than the Haki Guidance Technique circulating on the market."

Smoker tapped Ling Donglai's wanted poster.

Both Armament Haki and Observation Haki were powers contained within the body, but becoming aware of them and then drawing them out was extremely difficult.

Almost everyone relied on tempering their bodies until those powers naturally awakened. This created the misconception that only those with powerful bodies could draw out Haki.

In reality, with a special cultivation manual, one could easily draw out the power of Armament Haki. Take Amazon Lily, for example. They had their own cultivation manuals and claimed that everyone could use Armament Haki, even applying Haki to the arrows they fired.

However, because they were generally not very strong, their Armament Haki arrows had only managed to hurt Luffy when facing him.

A late-night update batch. I've basically made up for last week's missed updates, so let's look at this week's. There are currently two bonus updates owed for recommendation votes, with the total at 1277. The recommendation-vote bonus will now require two hundred votes per week, because after signing the contract, I've been posting three chapters almost every day. I've reached 80,000 words without even getting a recommendation slot. Please vote~