"Damn it, there must be Nezumi on the ship!" Marine Seven, who was in charge of checking logistics, complained incessantly about the tomatoes on the ground that had been bitten several times.
"Alright, let's adopt a few ship cats when we dock again... But why did you bring Tomato this time?" another marine advised Seven, but then also showed curiosity.
Well, Seven was also very curious—this fleet, consisting of one main ship and four escort ships, actually chose tomatoes, an unpopular and difficult-to-store vegetable, for its fruit and vegetable storage!
If Gion didn't receive kickbacks from the tomato supplier, then there's only one possibility— Zoan - Mythical Zoan - Vampire Form Devil Fruit, whose prototype is a tomato, and he brought so many tomatoes for easy recycling.
That's right, the Corporal "Seven" in front of us is none other than Sig who sneaked onto the ship!
The Navy has a formal organization, and the duties and rest areas of each marine are all regulated, unlike pirate crews. If it were Sig from before, it would be very difficult for him to infiltrate.
However, Sig is no longer a "Telepathist" but a "Psychiatrist"—possessing the ability to "Psychological Suggestion."
While unlike the Sequence 6 "Hypnotist" who can directly influence a target's Mind Body with Psychological Suggestion and modify their subconscious, they are still enough to make people overlook some "unimportant" things.
Sig was hiding directly on the warship, while on the other side of the horizon, on a small boat, Yasopp was keeping a close watch on Gion's fleet from a distance. Morio and Ooo, one human and one monkey, each held an oar to steer, while Bananaman provided power.
Relying on his Observation Haki, Yasopp followed directly out of the opponent's sight.
The difference between Yasopp's Observation Haki and Sig's is fundamental. Yasopp's Observation Haki is not area-of-effect, but rather greatly enhances his vision and projectile calculation abilities, unlike Sig's Observation Haki, which is more like a range-of-effect centered on himself. The effects of Observation Haki are different for different individuals.
On the vast ocean, Yasopp's vision, amplified by his Observation Haki, had an unusually wide range...
Just in case, Sig also hid on the main ship.
As for Bananaman... Sig originally wanted to keep him with him, but Gion seems to have an extra ability to sense Zoan Devil Fruit users, so Sig left him with Yasopp.
Even now, apart from Gion and a few officers, the other naval personnel are still unaware of the true purpose of this trip, believing that going to Eternal Night Island is just a temporary stop.
Although Sig now possesses a more direct ability to read minds by contacting the other person's Mind Body, this requires putting the other person into a semi-hypnotic state, making it impractical in real combat. Furthermore, since he cannot alter memories now, it lacks secrecy.
Sig estimates that the Devil Fruit ability of Pudding, the Three-Eyed Tribe in the original work, is equivalent to a portion of the ability of a "Dreamwalker," a higher-level Sequence 5 Devil Fruit ability is just that unreasonable, allowing ordinary people to immediately master a considerable amount of Sequence power. However, in terms of comprehensiveness, it is definitely not as good as the Paths of the Divine.
At this point, Sig had reached Sequence 7 and was gradually mastering the power of Sequence 7. The mystical system of "Spirit Body, Astral Body, Mind Body, and etheric body" was becoming increasingly clear to Sig.
Even though Sig had read Lord of the Mysteries before, he only had a superficial understanding of these things. He only knew that the Spirit Body was the most essential and the etheric body was the most external. He couldn't really distinguish between the Astral Body and the Mind Body.
However, now that he has truly mastered the ability to contact "Mind Body," Sig has gradually come to understand them.
In short...
If we consider this world as a large-scale RPG game...
The Spirit Body is essentially a person from the real world, but without a client, it cannot significantly alter the game world, unless... someone in a high-ranking position directly sets the rules and shuts the game down.
Astral Body are the client, or rather, "Human + client." This naturally makes humans "players," who can participate in the game and influence this level of ability. They can either make someone leave the client and cease to be a player, or modify someone else's client to prevent them from playing normally.
The Mind Body is the character created after entering the game. "His" joys and sorrows are the true joys and sorrows of the people in this (game) world, and "his" background setting is the true character setting. The Psychiatrist's mind reading is aimed at the Mind Body. Moreover, ordinary people can only create one character, while Visionary Path can create multiple characters after reaching Sequence 4.
The Etheric Body is the character attribute panel after entering the game. Here you can see the character's buffs, and the effects on this layer are the most direct— the Telepathist's "mind reading" is actually looking at the Etheric Body's emotional buffs.
For those without the Paths of the Divine, they are like NPCs in a game, beings of this world, only they cannot affect things outside their etheric bodies; at most, they might kill other people's game characters.
However, once one ventures into the Paths of the Divine, there is the possibility of tampering with other people's clients and arranging fights via internet connection...
The specific level one is involved in does not necessarily indicate the extent of their power. For example, the Tyrant Path has almost no abilities outside of the Etheric Body, but their fists are powerful enough to repeatedly guard corpses and kill people until they delete their accounts.
The ability to directly affect the essence of the Spirit Body sounds impressive, but there are actually big differences. The more advanced one is to directly identify the player's identity and crush them with power that transcends the game level, while the less advanced one is just equivalent to trash talk that makes the player angry.
Of course, even the lowest level requires someone with Paths of the Divine to achieve this. NPCs won't directly insult players; they'll only insult game characters. Unless the player puts themselves in that situation, it has no effect.
Less than a day into the voyage, Yasopp saw a "Big Mountain" drifting in from the distant horizon—such a massive Accumulating Emperor Cloud was quite imposing, and when it was directly overhead, it would completely block out the sunlight!
Sig now realized that the Navy had indeed deliberately timed their landing precisely when Accumulating Emperor Cloud left Eternal Night Island...
After passing through the sea shrouded by the Accumulating Emperor Cloud, and experiencing the "day and night alternation" within half an hour, Gion on the main ship could already see Eternal Night Island.
Eternal Night Island is not large, and from a distance it seems no different from an ordinary island. However, once you get a little closer, you will find that there are no tall trees. Instead, there are huge mushrooms, some as tall as several people, with canopies that can shade several people.
At this moment, it's not very noticeable, but these mushrooms, unique to Eternal Night Island, swirl above the Cloud of Accumulating Emperor Cloud, emitting a faint glow even when the entire island is in eternal night, keeping it in a state of darkness, but not complete darkness.
The environment of Eternal Night Island also means that there won't be many residents here; there's only a small town, and no country exists here.
The only town, being a link in the Grand Line, is constantly visited by pirates and merchant caravans who trade local specialties for their necessities.
Since there is no country, there is naturally a direct naval presence...