Begin Forging Exclusive Weapon

In the Marine Calendar year 1510, Kizaru, who had been pursuing the Donquixote Family for nearly five months, finally departed from the North Blue.

The members of the Donquixote Family returned to their base after a long absence.

After resting at the base for two days, Gray, accompanied by Shark Chili and Baby-5—who had come along to learn—followed Diamante to the island housing the family's secret weapons workshop.

The rare ores Gray had pre-ordered had already arrived.

The workshop craftsmen were prepared, waiting only for Gray to finalize the blueprints and melt down the materials for his own weapon.

After a week of sailing, they arrived at a remote island near the Calm Belt, the location of the Donquixote Family's secret weapons workshop in the North Blue.

"Alright! We'll be staying here for a while." Diamante led the way off the ship, and the group began walking toward the island.

Hearing this, Gray and Baby-5 followed Diamante's lead while observing the rows of weapons workshops scattered across the distant island.

"How's the food on this island?" In a strange place, good food was the only thing that could truly attract Gray right now.

Diamante replied, "You can rest easy on that front. Since these are important craftsmen for the family, their food isn't much worse than what the executives get."

"More importantly, we're near the Calm Belt, so catching Sea Kings is much easier."

"Soka!" After nodding to show he understood, Gray stopped worrying about that and asked, "So, where are the ores and craftsmen the family prepared for me?"

"I want to go see them first and discuss the design blueprints."

"That's simple, follow me!"

"Fufufu... So that's how it is. Admiral Kizaru only left because he had to escort the Heavenly Tribute?" Through internal intelligence, Doflamingo had obtained the route for the member nations' Heavenly Tribute.

However, with Kizaru tagging along to escort the shipment, Doflamingo was forced to avoid a direct confrontation.

"Given the family's current situation, if we miss this opportunity, can we afford to wait for the next one?" Thinking of how Tsuru had led the Marines straight to the Donquixote Family twice, Doflamingo knew clearly that their family was already marked by the Navy.

"We might get lucky once or twice, but can we escape the Navy's pursuit a third or fourth time?" For the sake of the family's future, Doflamingo had to prepare for the worst.

If they couldn't become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, even if it meant damaging their business and falling into a slump, they would have to head to the New World as soon as possible to save their own skins.

"Fufufu... The Donquixote Family must not fall here!"

"To keep moving forward, what's a little risk?" Doflamingo planned to implement a "hidden in plain sight" strategy.

In the North Blue, there were so many member nations that, due to distance, the routes and speeds of the ships carrying the Heavenly Tribute varied.

More importantly, not every country was wealthy. Most nations squeezed their citizens to the very last drop just to scrape together the Heavenly Tribute.

This meant that the departure times for the tribute ships were inconsistent.

Kizaru's return to headquarters involved only the vanguard—the ships carrying the tribute from the majority of the member nations.

As for the small remainder, they didn't require an Admiral's escort, nor did they need CP0; personnel from CP1 through CP9 were more than enough to complete the task.

And this was Doflamingo's target.

Even if it was only a small portion of the member nations, Doflamingo estimated the value of that Heavenly Tribute to be no less than 30 billion Beli.

If he intercepted this shipment, Doflamingo was confident that, combined with the information he possessed, he could threaten the Five Elders and force them to grant him a position among the Seven Warlords of the Sea.

"It seems I have no choice but to use Vergo!" After more than a year of development, and given that his strength was essentially a dimension-crushing force in the North Blue, Vergo had quickly captured enough pirates to be promoted to the rank of Major.

At their base, with Doflamingo secretly bribing the base commander, Vergo's career path was smooth sailing.

With the base commander sharing information and the Donquixote Family's long-established intelligence network in the North Blue, Doflamingo was confident he could track down the final shipment of the Heavenly Tribute.

Brrr-brrr!

After opening a secure line to instruct Vergo to contact him later, Doflamingo began preparing for the heist.

After all, he was stealing money from the World Government. Knowing the power of the Celestial Dragons, Doflamingo felt that no amount of caution was excessive.

"Subarashii!"

Watching Gray's method of rapidly melting the ores, the family craftsmen exclaimed in awe.

Gray said, "The ores are melted. I'll leave the rest to you masters!"

"No problem, leave it to us!"

"Having witnessed your ability, we are confident we can forge a weapon that will allow you to attack without restraint."

"That's right!" The group chimed in. In this world, a craftsman's dream was essentially to forge a Skillful Grade Sword or a Great Grade Sword and have it made famous by its wielder.

Not only would this give them a sense of immense accomplishment, but if others learned the identity of the weapon's creator, their skills would naturally be recognized. This was why they loved forging so much.

When it came down to it, the reason everyone in this world had so much ambition was nothing more than these four things: fame, power, authority, and beauty!

"I hope this time, I can get a satisfactory weapon. It doesn't need to be perfect, as long as its durability reaches the level of a Skillful Grade Sword." Watching the craftsmen busy at work, Gray began to look forward to the final product.

This forging process abandoned his previous idea of using ice-attribute ores, opting instead for ores that had been tempered by volcanic heat for years.

Not only that, but he had also added a mineral as hard as Seastone: Adamant.

Volcanic stone, Adamant, and a bit of Seastone—by combining these three rare materials, he was determined to forge a weapon he could use for a lifetime.

With Gray's help, melting the ores was the simplest stage. The real challenge lay in perfectly combining these three types of ore to achieve a final result where 1+1+1 > 3.

This—this was the stage that truly tested a craftsman's skill!

A month had passed since Gray first arrived here.

He had spent the entire time running simulated experiments, all for the sake of this final moment.

After all, the three ores alone had already cost a total of one hundred million Beli.

If the forging failed, the money would be a minor issue, but the process of collecting the ores all over again would take far too long.

That was certainly not something Gray wanted to see!

The sooner the weapon was forged, the sooner he could begin tempering it with Armament Haki, allowing it to reach the level of a Black Blade, a status equal to that of a Supreme Grade Sword.