Marineford, No. 73 Marine Training Ground.
"Black Spear · Giant Iron Thorn!"
Accompanied by Hina's low shout, a gigantic black iron bar emerged above her outstretched hands.
She hurled the massive, heavy iron bar.
"White Smoke · Jitte Cut!"
Opposite her, Smoker was fighting her.
At that moment, Smoker did not choose to use Elementalization to dodge the attack.
On the contrary, the White Hunter, already drenched in sweat, merely tightened his grip on the weapon in his hand—the Jitte. White smoke coiled around his wrist as he swung the club and smashed it against the iron bar.
"Boom!"
The enormous iron bar was smashed in two by his blow and crashed heavily to the side.
"Huff, huff."
"Haha."
At that moment, both Hina and Smoker had clearly expended a considerable amount of stamina.
Even so, their actions were perfectly synchronized. One took out a lady's cigarette, while the other pulled a cigar from his chest. They lit them at the same time.
"Whew." *2
After each exhaled a mouthful of smoke, their expressions seemed to relax.
Then—
"You..."
Hina had just been about to say something when she suddenly stopped.
At that moment, she saw a News Coo flying over Marineford drop two bundles of newspapers. They were clearly newspapers intended for the two of them.
"Newspapers from the World Economic News Agency. Isn't it still too early for the next issue?"
Hina frowned slightly.
"An Extra Edition? What happened?"
Smoker reacted the same way.
She reached out, and an iron bar caught the newspaper. On the other side, Smoker also rolled up a cloud of smoke and took the newspaper into his hand.
The two of them simultaneously looked at the headlines of their respective newspapers.
Then—
Both of them furrowed their brows, and astonishment flashed through their eyes at the same time.
"This really is... a major incident."
Hina's voice was filled with solemnity.
At the very top of the newspaper's headline section, a line of large, bold characters was clearly printed.
[Shichibukai 'Crocodile' Has Been Killed]
A simple sentence like that was enough to shake the seas.
But that was not even all of it.
The truly crucial details were in the report below.
"The Government claims that the person who killed Crocodile was the president and leader of the Grand Line criminal organization 'Baroque Works,' codenamed 'MR. 0.'"
"But after this reporter confirmed the information, an insider provided news—MR. 0 called himself 'Dragon of the Chen' and seemed to be connected to Rooster, the criminal behind the 'Celestial Gold Robbery' that recently shook the world."
"They both came from a mysterious organization known as—[the Twelve Zodiacs]. Baroque Works might be a subordinate organization of theirs."
By the time he read this, Smoker had already clenched the newspaper tightly.
"Crocodile actually died. Dragon of the Chen... and Rooster came from the same organization?"
His voice was low, and his words were filled with gravity.
"Yeah. Last time, they stole Celestial Gold. This time, they directly killed a Shichibukai. The Twelve Zodiacs... they seem to be a very troublesome organization."
Hina took a drag from her cigarette.
"'Big News' Morgans. He really had the nerve to report something like this. Isn't he afraid the Government will cause trouble for him?"
She was a very meticulous person.
She knew perfectly well that the Marines had thoroughly sealed all information related to Rooster.
Aside from the Marines led by Luo Yi who had directly participated in the affairs at Master Port, almost none of the other Marines knew many details about Rooster.
Yet now, information related to Rooster had appeared in the World Economic News.
Since this newspaper was also a sudden Extra Edition, Hina could almost guess that Morgans had probably not informed the World Government beforehand.
"A guy like Morgans, who's afraid the world might not be chaotic enough, wouldn't it be strange if he didn't do something like this?"
Smoker shook his head.
Then he decisively tossed the newspaper aside. "Let's continue training. We're still 83 throws short of today's target."
"..."
Hina's expression stiffened when she heard Smoker.
"So... what's wrong with you?"
"You don't care at all about something capable of shaking the seas, and you only want to train. Have you been through some kind of shock lately? Hina doesn't understand!"
She could not help complaining.
Recently, Smoker had dragged her into training with him almost every day, and the intensity of the training was frightening.
Even Hina, who had never disliked training, felt that she could barely keep up.
"Shake the seas? I never thought the Shichibukai should exist in the first place."
Smoker bit down on his cigar. "Compared with worrying about who defeated that man, I have more important things to do."
What he said was indeed true.
Normally, he might have cared somewhat about a Shichibukai being defeated, especially an organization called the Twelve Zodiacs. As Morgans had intended, the appearance of that name was absolutely enough to shake the entire sea.
But the problem was that he had something more important to deal with now.
That was the Three-Army Martial Arts Tournament!
"Luo Yi."
Smoker was a competitive man.
As a peer and friend, he naturally possessed some competitive feelings toward Luo Yi.
Before this, although he admitted that Luo Yi's strength was formidable, he had always believed that he was stronger than Luo Yi.
After all, he was a Logia Devil Fruit Ability User, while Luo Yi was not an Ability User.
But after witnessing Luo Yi's battle with Zephyr firsthand last time, his thinking had naturally changed.
"That guy has quietly grown to that level..."
When he thought of the Three-Army Martial Arts Tournament that would begin in a few months, as well as the harsh words Luo Yi had thrown at him back then—
"If I really lose to that bastard, he might demand that I become his adjutant. If that happens, I'm afraid he'll mock me for the rest of my life."
He did not want his brother to suffer, but he also did not want his brother to drive a luxury car. That perfectly described Smoker at this moment.
That was why his training had become so insane recently.
In fact, even after training so crazily, Smoker still felt uneasy.
"He's become Instructor Zephyr's disciple, and Instructor Zephyr said he would pass on the essence of his physical techniques to him."
Smoker was deeply worried. "Half a month has already passed. That guy... he must have been training hard every day lately. He's probably become much stronger, right?"
At the thought of this, even the cigar in his mouth seemed to lose its flavor.
Thus, he looked toward Hina, who still wore a bewildered expression. "Quick, keep training. I've changed my mind. We're doing fifty more repetitions today."
"Huh?"
Hina frowned and tilted her head.
Looking at Smoker's solemn expression of I absolutely can't lose, she could only shake her head helplessly. "Hina is speechless."
While Smoker was thinking about his good brother and training enthusiastically, he naturally had no idea that—
Inside the dormitory of Zephyr's exclusive 'Z' Training Ground—
"Buurp!"
A loud belch rang out.
Although the sky was already bright, Luo Yi was still sprawled limply on the bed.
"Ah, that hit the spot! I actually finished an entire bottle in one go. As expected, I've become much stronger!"
Looking at the Coke bottle in his hand, Luo Yi's expression was extremely satisfied, as if he had accomplished some remarkable feat.
Hard training?
That was, of course, impossible.
It was not that Luo Yi himself was lazy. Rather, the situation on Zephyr's side was somewhat strange.
In fact, after Zephyr said that he would take Luo Yi as his true disciple and pass on the essence of his physical techniques to him, Luo Yi had indeed prepared himself to undergo devilish training.
But the reality was that after bringing him to the training camp, Zephyr only made him perform some basic strength training every day.
If anything could be called special, it was that the training covered an extremely wide range.
Muscles, bones, strength... Zephyr had him train and record data in every aspect.
Aside from that, Luo Yi rarely saw his nominal teacher.
Luo Yi was perfectly happy with that arrangement.
He did some basic strength training every day, then sampled Coke and basked in the sun, followed by more Coke. Life could not have been better.
Especially over the past few days—
"Baroque Works' business is already in my hands, and after some time, the Belly King Cobra promised will also be delivered to Dragon of the Chen."
At this thought, Luo Yi almost could not hold back his laughter.
From the very beginning, he had targeted Crocodile in his Alabasta plan.
As a famous criminal organization on the Grand Line, Baroque Works had more than two thousand members.
An organization of that size naturally did not exist just to eat free food.
Its business network, involving bounty hunting, black-market transactions, mercenary work, and hunting Sea Kings, was extremely extensive.
Because of its special internal circumstances, Luo Yi had set his sights on it long ago.
His plan had also proceeded quite smoothly. The carefully arranged Dragon of the Chen really did possess an Ability that countered Crocodile.
After dealing with Crocodile, Dragon of the Chen had now officially become MR. 0 with Nico Robin's help.
From here on, Baroque Works belonged to him.
"However, the nature of the business needs to be changed slightly."
Of course, Luo Yi still had certain principles in this regard.
He would never touch businesses such as human trafficking or prohibited drugs.
Even so—
"Baroque Works' business alone can generate at least six billion Belly in net profit each year after deducting the basic funds needed to keep it operating."
"It's a shame Crocodile spent most of the liquid assets on the Utopia Plan. Otherwise, I'd already have plenty of money in hand."
After learning about Baroque Works' situation through Nico Robin, Luo Yi was naturally delighted.
It was no wonder that in the original story, Crocodile had been able to establish such a massive organization as Cross Guild, and even use enormous sums of Belly to place bounties on Marines.
That ambitious man might not have been the strongest in terms of combat power, but he certainly knew how to make money.
And that was not all. One must not forget that Luo Yi also had a partnership with King Cobra.
Previously, King Cobra had already paid fifteen hundred million Belly as compensation for the several instances of rain.
In addition, the reward for saving the country would also be delivered to Dragon of the Chen later.
At that time, another three billion Belly would be added to his account, enough for Luo Yi to strengthen quite a few more Devil Fruits.
Of course, to Luo Yi, that was not even the greatest gain.
The truly important gain was the illusory Light Screen floating before him.
[Fruit Encyclopedia] [Holder: Luo Yi Amos] [Current Encyclopedic Fruit Types: 34 (Paramecia—16, Zoan—12, Logia—5, Special Paramecia—0, Mythical Zoan—1)] [Number of Fruit Slots: 3 → 4] [Current Belly Held: 1,275,430,000] [Currently Equipped: Ox-Ox Fruit: Rhinoceros Form LV2, Dragon-Dragon Fruit: Model Pterodactyl LV3, Human-Human Fruit Model: Great Buddha LV1, Empty] [After the number of Devil Fruits analyzed cumulatively reaches 60, the fifth Fruit Slot will unlock the Special Fruit Slot—'Fruit Fusion Slot']
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