On the bay's beach, the sea breeze swept over mountains of treasure.
Carina toyed with the empowered coin in her hand. Once her excitement subsided, she calmed down, carefully sensed its effects, and gave a small shake of her head.
"Still, this thing isn't absolutely perfect."
Looking at the coin in her hand, Carina candidly explained the limitations she'd sensed in the Devil Fruit's power. "The radio waves I send out are essentially an extremely faint fluctuation of energy. If they encounter experts who've trained their Observation Haki to a certain level, or people who are naturally extremely vigilant, they might sense the odd feeling that someone's watching them."
"All it takes is a sweep with Observation Haki, and this disguise attached to an inanimate object will be exposed."
"That's good enough."
Ace casually picked up the coin with his broad, sturdy hand and tossed it twice. "The top experts who truly excel at Observation Haki are few and far between on these seas. For infiltrating ordinary underground black markets, Warlord Fortresses, and even low-ranking Marine bases, this undetectable method is already a godsend."
"Now that we know what the fruit can do, let's try it out on our own people first."
Sabo stood nearby, fascinated by a power that could upend traditional methods of communication at sea.
"Sure. Then hold out your hands."
Carina held out both hands. Ace and Sabo stepped forward and pressed their palms against the backs of hers. Buggy happened to be passing the beach after finishing a load of heavy lifting, just as he was preparing to slack off. Sabo grabbed him and forced him to put his hand down, too.
"Relax. Don't resist with Haki."
Carina closed her violet eyes.
The next second, a curious yet entirely harmless ripple passed through their fingertips and silently seeped into the depths of their minds.
The sensation was faint, like a radio switching frequencies with a tiny click before suddenly tuning in to the right station.
"Contract established. Can you all hear me?"
A clear voice suddenly rang directly through Ace, Sabo, and Buggy's minds.
Carina hadn't opened her mouth, and her vocal cords hadn't vibrated, yet that was unmistakably her voice!
Sabo's eyes widened slightly as he tried replying in his mind. "Loud and clear. No delay at all. It's even more stable than a Den Den Mushi signal."
"Holy crap! You really can talk inside our heads! This fruit is downright creepy!" Buggy was startled by the sudden voice in his mind.
"Red Nose, why are you so loud? You're giving me a headache," Carina replied dismissively in their minds.
"What's it to you? I nearly threw out my back hauling that stupid Black Steel just now, and now I have to be a test subject for some new girl? I'm definitely taking a few extra gems from the treasure pile as compensation!"
Buggy instinctively started scheming about how to skim a little spending money from the treasure.
But the moment he finished grumbling to himself, the air on the beach fell into an eerie, deathly silence.
Carina and Sabo both stared at him with extremely odd expressions.
"Red Nose."
Ace's steady voice, tinged with a hint of pressure, slowly rang through the channel. "That embezzlement scheme you were just cooking up was broadcast straight to everyone in the group chat."
"What?!"
Buggy stiffened all over, cold sweat instantly soaking his back. Only then did he realize that as long as he was relaxed and not deliberately blocking the connection, the Frequency Contract shared his strongest thoughts with everyone.
"Misunderstanding, Captain! I was joking!" Buggy hurriedly cut off his thoughts and waved both hands in surrender.
After ending the test of the mental group chat, Sabo rubbed his chin and looked at Carina, asking the most important tactical question.
"Carina, does this ability put much strain on your body?"
Sabo analyzed the matter calmly. "If we get more crew members, or you set up hundreds of tiny bugs out in the world, would maintaining such a huge network and sharing all those sights overwhelm your mind? How much stamina does it use?"
Hearing this question about the ability's limits in combat, Ace turned his gaze toward her as well.
"That's the most overpowered part of this fruit."
Carina opened her eyes, confidence shining in them. "The contract and surveillance are essentially a 'passive rule.'"
"It's like setting up a transmitter in the middle of the sea. Signing a contract or imbuing an object with a ripple does take a little stamina in that moment. But once the mark is in place, maintaining the connection on that frequency takes no extra stamina or mental effort from me."
Carina snapped her fingers. "Unless I remove it myself, or someone who's been marked uses powerful Haki to shatter and erase the ripple from within, the contract will exist forever."
No ongoing cost. A passive effect that lasted forever.
That remarkably robust underlying logic made a glimmer flash in Ace's eyes.
As long as no expert whose Haki far surpassed Carina's understanding forcibly broke through the system, she could expand this intelligence network without restraint.
"If it takes no effort, and we can share what we see..."
Ace slowly raised his head and looked past the beach toward the sky above the nameless island.
Thousands of giant seagulls and other birds of prey circled in flocks between the steep cliffs, searching for food and filling the air with noisy calls.
"Carina, try making them your contract targets instead."
Ace pointed his broad hand at the flocks wheeling in the sky, his voice carrying a hint of far-reaching strategic vision.
"We're short on eyes right now. Why not use what we already have?"
Watching the birds fly among the clouds, Ace calmly laid out the first line of defense for the Eclipse Pirates' future. "Seagulls, hawks, even albatrosses. Any bird we can tame could become a radar flying higher than anything else on these seas once we sign a contract with it."
Sabo immediately grasped Ace's intent, his eyes lighting up.
"Add shared vision to the flocks! Even if an enemy has powerful Observation Haki, they'll just see ordinary birds. That means that whether we're sailing across the sea or landing on an unfamiliar island, every change within dozens of miles will be laid bare to us!"
"So we'll use flocks of birds as natural scouts."
Looking at the birds filling the sky, Carina could already picture countless pairs of eyes bearing the Eclipse Pirates' perspective, spread across the heavens. It was the ultimate early-warning system, one every organization could only dream of!
"Leave it to me."
Carina pulled out a handful of dried nuts for bribing animals and headed toward the cliffs at the edge of the island. "Getting a few greedy seabirds on our side will be a piece of cake for a master thief like me."
As Carina walked toward the cliffs, a far-sighted ambition and sharp resolve flashed in Ace's deep black eyes.
He knew full well that with Carina's ability, if they spread objects bearing radio-wave marks or trained birds across every island along their route, the Eclipse Pirates would gain more than just an intelligence network capable of monitoring the world.
They would also have a global navigation system immune to magnetic interference.
When that time came, they would break free of the Log Pose's rules once and for all. They would no longer have to sail blindly along the established routes like ordinary pirates, following them step by step. Every shift in the tides of the world, every major historical event, and every hidden, peerless treasure would be laid bare to the Eclipse Pirates, free for them to plan around and seize.
In the Lower Deck, Jeno swung a heavy hammer. The clang of each strike sent sparks flying, mingling with the rumble of the Mechanical Exoskeleton as Starfall Black Steel was gradually incorporated into the Eclipse's frame.
Deep in the forest, Leona emerged carrying several enormous beasts, ready to prepare another calorie-packed feast.
On this deserted island far from the main routes, every piece of the Eclipse Pirates' puzzle was undergoing its final transformation and upgrade at an astonishing pace. The beginnings of a vast empire, one capable of turning the entire world into a chessboard, had quietly taken shape here.
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