Arrangements [Seeking Collection]

For the development of this contract ability, Dawn's plan was to set a "contract" concept aura within the "void" aura, then pair it with Ouroboros to develop this power.

And if Ouroboros could become a soul creation similar to a "Nen Beast," then a conscious soul creation would naturally be able to supervise the contract conditions.

This Ouroboros would then record the contract between two people; when the contract was broken, Ouroboros would annihilate their soul.

This was equivalent to opening a hole in the soul—perhaps not as overbearing as the Soul Fruit, which could directly seize souls, but it could restrict others.

Relying solely on the Aura Fruit, even if the Contract Aura was developed, it would be useless, because it was too complex—after all, how could something without consciousness judge whether a contract was established?

Dawn hadn't developed some powerful ability akin to the rules of the world.

But if he could "activate" a part of the other party's soul to supervise itself, that would be very convenient.

However, this first required Ouroboros to become an existence with intelligence.

Then, by borrowing the "one copy for each party" split of the Contract Aura, Ouroboros would gain the ability to enlighten the other party's soul into becoming an Ouroboros itself.

After all, contracts were always made in duplicate, so a "split" effect would naturally occur.

And if Ouroboros could control this part of the aura to merge into the other person's body, fusing with their soul to create a brand-new Ouroboros, then naturally this ability could be developed.

But if that were the case, Dawn would need to first let Ouroboros grow, then have Ouroboros absorb the Contract Aura, only then could this ability be developed.

If it really worked, then doing things in the future would become much simpler.

After thinking it over, Dawn abandoned this tempting idea, suppressing the urge to immediately develop this ability and setting it as a mid-term goal.

Because the prerequisite for all of this was sufficient strength—that was the foundation of everything.

The urgent task now was to first improve his strength, then come back to develop this ability for future plans and schemes.

And during this critical period of the era's upheaval, the arrangements for Dawn and the others were also finalized.

Aokiji would lead the team, taking Dawn and the others to the North Sea for actual combat. Along the way, they would eliminate pirates. After settling Dawn and the others in the Ishtar Kingdom, Aokiji would lead the fleet to be responsible for suppressing the North Sea.

After the turmoil following Roger's death, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the world was in chaos. The Marines were severely short-handed.

After discussing with Admiral Sengoku, Kong decided to have Aokiji take charge of suppressing the North Sea. As for Garp, he would naturally be responsible for the East Blue. The remaining South and West Seas would be handled by Kizaru and Akainu respectively.

With these four in place, the Four Seas wouldn't have any problems. And Aokiji would conveniently place Dawn and the others from the training camp in the Ishtar Kingdom of the North Sea—Dawn's country—for training.

This also conveniently brought Dawn and Adolf back to the Ishtar Kingdom.

After contacting them via Den Den Mushi with Admiral Sengoku, the king of the Ishtar Kingdom, Dawn's father and mother, were already eagerly anticipating their child's return.

Coupled with their already close relationship, they naturally agreed with heartfelt gratitude to Sengoku's request for Dawn and the others to be stationed in the Ishtar Kingdom.

In his view, this was just an excuse to give Dawn the opportunity to stay in the Ishtar Kingdom for a long time.

Gaius was very grateful to the Marines for helping find his child, and he readily agreed to Sengoku's request to help train and look after these seeds.

Sengoku was also very satisfied with this arrangement. Although these Marine seedlings were young, most of them had already mastered part of the Marine Six Powers.

Plus, with Dawn, a good seedling, leading them, their growth rate was much faster than previous classes, so they could start actual combat early. But most importantly, there was no spare manpower to guide Dawn and the others now.

There was a severe shortage of personnel. Not only were the Four Seas being suppressed, but he and Zephyr also had to suppress the Grand Line with the Vice Admirals.

The only good thing was that the New World didn't need to be guarded—that was a piece of good news.

No one had caused trouble during Roger's execution, and now the pirates of the New World were fighting each other like mad dogs over territory, so naturally they had no time to return to the Grand Line.

Moreover, Marine Headquarters was located nearby; they just needed to station personnel in the New World to keep an eye on the pirates' movements.

After Roger ushered in the Great Pirate Era, the Grand Line and the Four Seas began to fall into chaos. The Marines had to send more people to guard the Four Seas and the first half of the Grand Line.

Under these circumstances, having Dawn's father, Abraham Gaius, a combatant roughly at the level of a Commodore, stationed in the North Sea was basically no problem for security.

And he could also help with training, making him a very good choice. After all, although he also held a Marine identity, his primary identity was still a country's king; it was impossible to order him to go abroad.

Now, because Roger had schemed against the Marines before his death, people all over the world were constantly setting out to sea to become pirates.

Sengoku had already sent Aokiji to lead a team to guard the North Sea. They would prioritize eliminating the more capable pirates, and the miscellaneous small fry they didn't have time to deal with could be left for Dawn and the others to train on.

This arrangement was a helpless move. After all, the distances between islands were too great, often requiring ships for transport.

Even if Kuzan could ride a bicycle all over the sea and operate separately from the warships to suppress pirates, it was still impossible to suppress all pirates in a sea area.

Therefore, to avoid causing major disturbances and uproar, they had to sacrifice the small for the big, prioritizing the elimination of pirates with potential.

As for the miscellaneous cannon-fodder types, the Marine branches on each island would handle them.

Sending Dawn and the others to be stationed in the Ishtar Kingdom was also to let them train by dealing with these pirates.

After all, they were still too young. As the future backbone, they needed someone to ensure their safety.

And Dawn's convenient father, being a king, not only had a close relationship with the Marines but was also quite capable himself. He also had the Royal Guard, who could be responsible for guiding and training them while ensuring their safety.

It was a win-win situation: they did him a favor, solved the problem of arranging for Dawn and the others, and deepened ties with the Ishtar Kingdom—killing multiple birds with one stone.

On the warship, Hina and the others, knowing they would be stationed for a long time for actual combat training, mostly celebrated with each other.

After all, staying cooped up in the training camp was boring. Plus, they were going to Dawn's country, so everyone was curious about Dawn's parents.

Most importantly, the Ishtar Kingdom also had the nickname "Gourmet Island," which made everyone extremely excited.

Watching the others frolicking nearby, a gentle breeze gradually stirred the calm surface of Dawn's inner sea.

At this moment, he couldn't quite describe the feeling in his heart, but facing Roger's death, he felt as if he had undergone some kind of transformation.