Recruitment

I think you're insulting my intelligence!!!

Train snarled inwardly, baring his fangs.

"Ha, ha, ha! How could there possibly be sharks in the sky... Holy shit! There really are?!!!"

After two dry laughs, Train looked up at the sky in speechless disbelief. Before he could finish, however, two dark shapes came crashing down at incredible speed!

From the fleeting glimpse he caught, one was indeed a bizarrely shaped shark, and the other was a person.

Then...

BOOM!!!

The terrifying impact swept across the entire warship. The mountain-like vessel rocked violently, kicking up wave after wave. Train swallowed with difficulty as he stared at the massive crater smashed into the deck, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

"Say, Vice Admiral Garp..."

"What is it?"

"Since you spotted the falling objects in advance, why didn't you knock them away?"

"They were still alive! Were you trying to make me kill them?"

"So you chose to let them fall to their deaths?"

"Yep!"

Even Garp could not save someone from such an absurd falling speed. He could withstand the horrifying inertia of a high-speed descent, but who knew whether the other person could? If a pile of meat paste ended up splattered all over him, he would not need to eat for days!

After saying that, Garp lay back down in his beach chair, silently furrowing his brows.

At that rate of descent, the height they had fallen from must have been terrifying!

But how could a person and a shark possibly get that high?

Could it be... Sky Island?

Train: "..."

Seeing that Garp did not want to discuss it further, Train turned around and summoned the soldiers with a headache, covering his face. "Send someone to inspect the cabins and tally the losses! And... once it's cleaned up, patch the deck first."

After falling at that speed, aside from the New World Four Emperor "Hundred Beasts" Kaido, whom he had never met, anything else would have been reduced to meat paste!

The giant warship War Beast was a weapon of war the Navy had specially developed to fight the monsters of the New World. Its overall construction was exceptionally sturdy, and it would not be so easily smashed through. Train was not worried about the safety of the hull.

But just then, Garp happened to turn his head. His gaze suddenly sharpened, and he reached out to stop the soldiers.

"Careful! Don't go over there!"

"Uh... stop! Hold your positions!"

Under Train's puzzled gaze, Garp looked toward the deck, a trace of astonishment flashing through his eyes.

"Those things crawling around are... lightning?!"

"Could it be?!"

The Rumble-Rumble Fruit!!!

Legend had it that the previous Rumble-Rumble Fruit User had died on Sky Island!!

The thought of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, which had vanished for nearly three hundred years and was known as the "strongest Logia," reappearing immediately piqued Garp's interest.

Sure enough, lightning snakes slithered across the deck, continuously converging toward the center. Beneath the glaring sunlight, the thumb-thick Sky Blue Lightning was not particularly noticeable. Several soldiers accidentally got a little too close, and their hands and feet immediately went numb as they began to tremble. Seeing this, Garp sprang forward and, with a speed utterly unbefitting his age, grabbed several soldiers and flung them away.

"Ow!"

"Tha..."

The soldiers hit the ground, cried out in pain, and then thanked Garp.

But Garp had no time to pay attention to them. Noticing the increasingly brilliant lightning glowing from within the crater, his eyes lit up.

"It really is the Rumble-Rumble Fruit!!"

Discharging electricity was an irreversible process of energy release; it could not be gathered back together. Even Homie Zeus, belonging to one of the Four Emperors, Charlotte Linlin, had to follow that rule.

Only a Rumble-Rumble Fruit User could make lightning gather together, because their very body was lightning!

Train also realized that something was wrong. He ordered the soldiers to draw their weapons, and after the lightning vanished, he gave the signal. Musket after musket was leveled over the edge of the crater, forming a circle around it.

When Ron climbed up from the bottom of the crater and looked up, this was the scene that greeted him.

A burly old man built like a tiger, with gray hair and beard, wore a white cloak and stood with his arms crossed, grinning at him. Around him, Navy soldiers in white uniforms raised their guns and aimed at every part of his body.

A middle-aged man dressed as an officer squeezed out from the crowd, brandishing a blade as he shouted viciously, "Who are you? Why did you attack a Navy warship?! Seize him!"

"Hold on!"

Ron waved a hand, stopping Train from continuing.

"Uh... that fall scrambled my brain. Where're my legs?"

As everyone watched in bewilderment, he looked left and right. Then his face brightened, and he hopped toward a corner before picking up a clump of lightning and stuffing it into his stomach.

Crackle!

Bzzzt!

As lightning spread, the missing foot quickly grew back... As a newly awakened Logia, Ron was still not very skilled at reassembling his body. He had been so dazed from the fall that he only noticed he was missing a foot after getting back up.

After finishing that, he walked back to the edge of the crater, looked up, and shouted, "Hey, up there! What year is it now?!"

"I'm full, I'm full..."

Beneath the warm sunlight, with the sea breeze blowing gently, Ron leaned against the railing and yawned comfortably.

As one of the strongest Fruit Abilities among the Logia, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit offered more than destructive power. After Elementalization, Ron could use the intense heat of lightning to convert thermal energy into kinetic energy, allowing him to fly. However, Elementalization was also a process that consumed Fruit Ability power and required a great deal of stamina. After being struck by that old bald man's blast, Ron's stamina had long since run dry. At the same time, the Blue Sea was vast and boundless. Water stretched as far as the eye could see, and Ron did not think his half-baked proficiency and remaining stamina could support him all the way to the next island.

But heaven never barred every road, and the outcome was a good one...

Not far from where he had fallen was a ship. Ron gathered his strength and used Elementalization, intending to fly up onto the deck. At the same time, he grabbed the Sky Shark in one hand and took off with it, planning to make a jaw-dropping entrance. After all, shark fin was top-tier cuisine!

But he had overlooked one thing: just how fast was lightning?

Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit definitely could not reach the speed of light, but the Rumble-Rumble Fruit could certainly reach the speed of lightning!

With just a burst of acceleration, Ron vanished from midair. The world spun before his eyes, and even he had no idea where he was flying.

By the time he forcibly canceled his Elementalization and opened his eyes, the warship was already right in front of him.

And so...

He crashed through into the lower deck.

Fortunately, the warship was sturdy enough that he did not smash through it. Still, the impact had exhausted him. After eating his fill, his previous severe injuries healed even faster, while the lack of blood flow to his brain left him too lazy to move. His head bobbed as he began to doze off.

But while he did not want to move, someone else did.

Tap tap tap...

The middle-aged First Mate Traine jogged over with a stack of documents in his arms. After saluting, he reported to Garp, "Report! Vice Admiral Garp, according to Headquarters' reply, there are no matching records for this person among the known pirates, assassins, Dark World brokers, Pirate Hunters, or figures from various countries!"

"So... his background is clean?"

Garp's eyes lit up, gleaming so brightly that Ron, who was about to fall asleep, immediately shuddered.

Not a pirate, not an official from any country, not a criminal from the Dark World, not even a Pirate Hunter!

In other words, he was a civilian, right?

"Uh... judging from the current information, yes."

Traine hesitated briefly before nodding.

Although Ron's palms had calluses, his muscles were evenly proportioned, his skin taut and glossy. One look was enough to tell that he had lived a pampered life. Furthermore, there was not a trace of viciousness about him. His eyes were clear and bright; he could not possibly have come from an evil background.

In the One Piece World, as long as someone had no criminal record with the Government or the Navy, their background was considered clean!

A Rumble-Rumble Fruit Devil Fruit User with a clean background—what more was there to say?!

Smack!

Garp flashed to Ron's side, crouched down, and slapped a hand onto his shoulder. At that moment, Ron had actually wanted to run... That old rogue's gaze was too terrifying, and Ron could not beat him anyway.

But Garp clearly understood that the Rumble-Rumble Fruit possessed Movement Speed no worse than the Glint-Glint Fruit. His explosive burst of speed was so fast that Ron could not react at all. At the same time, a strange power coiled around Garp's hand... Though his palm had not turned black, it was undoubtedly Armament Haki.

Soru combined with Armament Haki pinned Ron in place with a single slap, leaving him no chance to move.

His wrinkled old face leaned closer as Garp grinned like a child of seventy or eighty. "Kid, do you want to join the Navy?"

"So it really was this!!"

This book was released in a rush, so I did not go through the internal signing process. I finished writing and proofreading it on the plane, then posted it as soon as I got to the hotel after landing. Then, after waiting so long, I realized... I released the book at eight o'clock on Thursday night... Over the weekend, not only was I off work, but the editors were too!! Damn it, the contract probably will not happen until next week now. And factoring in delivery time... Sigh! Since Big Tree is so pitiful, please add it to your favorites and vote for it.