Above the White Sea

White Sea.

Altitude: 7,000 meters.

Amid the mist, ripples spread in every direction... Sitting at the bow, Reg stared entranced at everything before him, so overwhelmed that he forgot to rejoice, forgot to cheer: he had actually, truly, reached the White Sea!

The white ocean shrouded in clouds and mist before his eyes... was dreamlike, unreal yet tangible, so beautiful that it defied words.

Though the sudden ascent into the sky had left him somewhat short of breath, drenched in sweat, and physically exhausted... Reg's sturdy body, tempered through long-term training, recovered quickly nonetheless.

This was the One Piece World. This truly was a world where anything was possible... The memories of his past life could serve as reference, but they could not be copied wholesale.

If those scientists found out about this scene of sailing atop a sea of clouds... even their coffin lids would not be able to hold them down.

After a long while, Reg woke from that immense, unreal "illusion" and tugged at his own face... It hurt. This really was not a dream.

The next moment, his heart was filled with a sense of "achievement"... Man could prevail!

"Hehehe, hehehe..."

His silly laughter rang out from the ship. Even while immersed in his own world, Reg did not forget to spread his Observation Haki again... He did not want his joy to turn into sorrow.

As expected, many creatures existed within this vast white sea of clouds as well...

It was just that those large creatures had yet to pay any attention to someone as tiny as him.

After his foolish grin faded, he still had to keep working... Reg took out the Log Pose and glanced at it. As expected, the needle embedded within the glass sphere had begun swaying irregularly within a certain range.

Chirp, chirp... The two South Birds cried out joyfully at having escaped death.

Reg glanced at the two of them... Those two fellows sure knew to hide in the storage room where he kept his food whenever danger struck.

"The frequency of its swings... up to 5?"

After muttering to himself, Reg began dismantling the wings beside the ship, which were already on the verge of falling apart... The faster the Log Pose swung, the more magnetic force it had gathered, and the shorter the time needed for it to lock onto a destination.

If he were at "Garden" on the Grand Line right now, he would probably be crying his eyes out: there, it took a full year for a Log Pose to set.

Who knew what sort of accidents might happen if he drifted across the White Sea for a year.

A few minutes later, Reg removed the damaged wings and inspected the ship... As expected of something made by Tom. Even after facing a natural disaster like the Knock Up Stream, the ship itself had not suffered much damage, and it would not have much impact on the voyage ahead.

"I wonder whether the 'skyfish' here taste good."

Drooling, Reg wiped his mouth and tied a rope around his waist... He knew that the White Sea had a bottom.

Usopp had once nearly fallen into the "Blue Sea" below because he had been fooling around.

This was 7,000 meters in the air... Even if Reg could use Moon Walk, he did not dare guarantee that he would survive.

Blue Sea was the Sky Islanders' collective term for the land and ocean below. A tourist like him would collectively be called a "Blue Sea person"... Though Sky Island had become a legend in many places, this world was so vast that plenty of people still knew it truly existed.

Splash... There was no sound of waves breaking. It was like diving into cotton candy.

Reg did not dive into the sea of clouds at full speed. Instead, he carefully observed his surroundings with his eyes... Visibility was not very high, only about a few meters.

A long, flat unknown monster fish resembling a centipede spotted Reg... and fled into the distance in fright.

There were also some flat fish, leisurely swimming through the clouds with their tail fins swaying... These were the skyfish Reg remembered.

"Hm?"

Reg's entire body tensed as he suddenly looked behind him... A sea serpent comparable to a Sea King, its black-and-white body stretching farther and farther, gradually headed in another direction.

"100 meters, or... 00 meters... 500 meters?!"

A sea beast of this level... No, calling it a "cloud beast" would be more appropriate.

A cloud beast of this level... was not something he could handle right now.

Fortunately, it could not even be bothered to glance at a shrimp like him... Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare of a disaster.

Despite being mentally prepared, Reg's face still darkened... Since the White Sea had a "bottom," its depth was undoubtedly far less than that of the Blue Sea.

The result was... a chaotic mix of fish and dragons.

Even in an area like the Grand Line, where Sea Kings appeared frequently... sea beasts of this level did not show up easily.

At most, they would be around 00 meters... Anything above 500 meters was far too exaggerated.

Sea beasts of this kind normally lived beneath several thousand meters of deep sea, or in the Sea King nests of the Calm Belt.

After casually catching several skyfish, Reg quickly returned to the ship... The situation was even more serious than he had imagined.

Luffy's group had possessed a Log Pose back then... So they had reached the relatively safe Messenger Island on the White-White Sea in less than a day.

As Reg set up a grill, he worked while considering what to do next... There did not seem to be any especially good solution.

The only thing he could do now... was use the traits of the South Birds to estimate the general direction of Messenger Island.

Gan Fall had said... Birka lay southeast of Messenger Island.

Then by deduction... Messenger Island would be northwest of Birka.

It was unrealistic to determine that direction in one go using the South Birds... But he could still accurately reach north.

At the very least, once the Log Pose was set, he would not end up heading in the complete opposite direction from Messenger Island.

Chirp, chirp... The two South Birds called out one after the other.

Reg glanced at the nearly grilled skyfish. "Don't make such a fuss. I won't forget about you two."

Naturally, Reg would not be so harsh on the two fellows who had helped him so much... Skyfish did not have many bones; he only needed to scrape off the scales and remove the innards.

"Here..."

After breaking the skyfish in half, Reg placed it before them... Chirp chirp!

Watching the two birds eat so happily, Reg's appetite was stirred as well... No matter how worried he was, he still had to eat.

On this White Sea, limited in depth but endless in width... danger certainly existed, but it was not absolute.

If they were treated as an after-dinner dessert by those colossal creatures, with no way to resist... then he could only abandon the Empty Number.

"Sorry, buddy..."

Reg felt somewhat guilty as he stroked the main mast... After witnessing so many strange and bizarre things, he firmly believed in the existence of ship spirits as well. Though they had only been together for a few months, it was unlikely that the Empty Number had developed one.

Now, Reg actually hoped those Shandian sky warriors would show up... At the very least, he would not need to drift through this unknown stretch of the White Sea.

As for the danger that fighting them might bring... Reg was not worried.

When it came to "aerial combat," Reg believed he had some understanding of it... Most warriors on Sky Island fought using various kinds of Dials.

For example, the "Impact Dial": it absorbed the impact generated by attacks, then released it again. The user would also suffer recoil from the force, so sky warriors often strapped them to their palms or arms.

The "Slash Dial": it absorbed slashes and reflected slash damage... His Tempest Kick could be absorbed by this kind of Dial. In his memories, only Enel's divine soldiers had used them.

The "Flash Dial": it produced an effect similar to a flashbang.

The "Flame Dial": it could spray flames.

Then there were Heat Dials, Reject Dials, and so on... These were Dials used for combat and support.

Non-combat Dials included Wind Dials, Water Dials, Sound Dials, Cloud Dials, Flavor Dials... Dial civilization supported life and combat on Sky Island.

If it were other people from the Blue Sea, they might be left dizzy and confused when facing sky warriors... But that was not a problem for Reg.

As long as he probed them a few times and figured out what kinds of Dials they carried... with flexible combat, Reg believed he could easily sweep them aside.