Under the azure sky, a massive island drifted slowly.
This was the Golden Lion Pirates' largest Floating Island, with castle-like buildings constructed atop it.
It was also the headquarters of the entire Pirate Crew. Most of the misfits originally under Golden Lion's command stayed on this island.
However, as the IQ experiments continued, more and more pirates began to grow larger. Pirates four or five meters tall could be seen everywhere at a glance, and at the same time, their appetites grew day by day.
As a result, there was not quite enough food to go around.
Golden Lion did not care much about such matters. If he had to handle it himself, he would at most raid other islands on the sea.
Minos, the first mate, truly could not stand this situation any longer. In truth, Golden Lion's Floating Islands had more than enough space to support their inhabitants; they did not even need one-tenth of the land.
Minos directly redistributed the pirates to the other smaller islands. After being enhanced with IQ Potion, the deadly poison of those IQ Plants no longer affected them. On the contrary, the animals in those forests had grown quite large under the plants' influence.
With a wave of his hand, Minos told them to go hunt in the forest. It would serve as training as well.
At the same time, since there was no longer a need for huge quantities of IQ Plants to create savage animals, IQ production requirements for humans were actually quite low. They could simply pull up large numbers of IQ Plants and turn the land into farmland, making the entire Floating Island's self-sufficiency system more convenient.
Honestly, if not for the isolated conditions created by Golden Lion's Float-Float Fruit, none of the ordinary people on those Floating Islands would likely have remained. They would have all fled.
Minos directly established rules to minimize the harm pirates caused to ordinary people. It was also a way to develop productivity. After recovering his health, Golden Lion supported Minos's actions—he understood clearly that the Four Emperors were completely different from ordinary pirates. A self-sufficient territory was the foundation upon which a Four Emperor stood.
In the past, his mind had been filled with destroying the East Blue, so he could ignore such matters. Now that he wanted to rule the world, things were naturally completely different.
Minos landed on the ground in his Jet Boots. Behind him followed the little girl Baby5. The two quickly arrived at a side entrance of the Main Island castle. After pushing open the door and walking a few steps, they soon reached a staircase leading downward.
They entered a hidden basement, which turned out to be a prison. A group of Marines was being held there.
Rather surprisingly, the prison was guarded by fourteen-year-old Reiju. Upon seeing Minos enter, Reiju quickly stood up. "Lord Minos!"
"Long time no see, Reiju." Minos walked in with a grin. Among the Vinsmoke family, Reiju was the only one Minos treated somewhat well. Part of it was because Reiju was beautiful, but it also had to do with her personality.
She was hardly a good person, but within the Vinsmoke family, she was the one with the most humanity. As for the others, Minos did not want to deal with them at all.
Three emotionless mission machines, and one ambitious man who was inwardly weak yet outwardly patient, fierce in appearance but cowardly at heart. No matter how good his relationship with them became, it would be a waste.
"Why are you the one watching these people this time?" Minos asked curiously.
At fourteen, Reiju was probably the second-strongest fighter in the entire Vinsmoke family. After all, even her eldest younger brother, Ichiji, was only eleven years old.
Ten years later, twenty-one-year-old Ichiji might be stronger than twenty-four-year-old Reiju, but right now, fourteen-year-old Reiju could absolutely crush eleven-year-old Ichiji.
As a modified human, Reiju's combat strength matured quickly. She had once ranked fourth in the entire Golden Lion Pirates. Although Baby5, who was the same age as her, had eaten the powerful Arms-Arms Fruit, she truly had not been Reiju's match in the past.
A powerhouse like her did not seem like prison guard material no matter how one looked at it. The Golden Lion Pirates were not the World Government, tossing a pile of sea monsters into Impel Down.
"Uh... there was no choice. You know what those pirates are like, Lord Minos. Even with your orders, letting them guard the prison would be far too likely to cause trouble."
"So in the end, we could only have Germa 66's clones guard the prison. But the clones can only obey orders from our Vinsmoke family, so I had no choice but to serve as the prison warden."
The bunch of misfits under Golden Lion were not especially strong, but they had learned the vile habits of pirates perfectly. If Minos had not feared his Karma Points rising and deliberately come to inspect the Marines' condition in the prison, it would have been perfectly normal for half of these Marines to have died.
Especially Hina, that pretty little beauty, and several female soldiers. Good thing Minos had arrived quickly, or it probably would have turned into **that kind of situation.
These pirates had stayed on Golden Lion's Floating Islands for nearly ten years. Because transportation here was inconvenient and there were few ordinary residents, even an old sow would probably look delicate and pretty to them. Much less a little beauty like Hina, who was also a Marine.
After that, Minos tightened the prison's supervision system, afraid that these pirates would cause more trouble.
Now that Germa 66's clones had taken over, there was indeed no need to worry about such issues.
"By the way, Lord Minos, what did you come to the prison for?" After speaking for a while, Reiju finally realized it and asked curiously.
"These Marines' injuries should have mostly healed by now, right?" Minos blinked. Instead of answering Reiju's question, he directly asked one of his own.
"They have recovered! Lord Minos, you showed restraint when you attacked them. Aside from that white-haired one, Smoker, everyone else only suffered flesh wounds."
Minos nodded. Smoker had simply been unlucky. His physical body had been caught while he was transformed into smoke, and Minos had had no way to tell whether he had struck a vital point. The fact that Smoker had managed to keep his life was already fortunate.
"In that case." Minos turned his gaze toward Baby5 behind him. "It seems you will not lack opponents for combat training."
Reiju was slightly stunned and looked at Baby5. "Are you planning to use those Marine prisoners as opponents?"
Minos nodded. "That's right. Baby5's Fruit ability has improved again recently. This is the perfect chance to use these Marines to see how much stronger she has become!"
Baby5's improvement was closely connected to Germa 66 as well. With the blueprints for many weapons and raid suits from Germa 66, Minos had exchanged another powerful weapon blueprint from Golden Paradise, one perfectly suited to Baby5's Arms-Arms Fruit.
Baby5 had spent quite some time before mastering the transformation power of that "Ultimate Weapon."
Before you continue