Scientific Technology to Enhance Potential

Sea Circle Calendar 1521, June.

Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting mottled patterns across the dark, mirror-smooth floor. Dawn sat behind a broad desk, calmly watching the six subordinates who had just returned.

Two men and four women, travel-worn yet unable to conceal their elite bearing. They had spent more than half a year tirelessly traveling throughout the West Blue, finally taking over and absorbing all the businesses once controlled by the Four Bosses of the Underworld.

Lucci stepped forward first, still wearing that cold expression, and casually tossed a thick stack of documents onto the polished desk.

"Captain, the Buffalo Family's arms business has been completely taken over."

Dawn nodded slightly, reached out, picked up the top few documents, and began flipping through them.

There were all kinds of documents, but a large portion of them bore the word "APPROVAL" clearly printed at the top—standard contracts used throughout the Underworld.

His gaze swept over the signatures at the bottom, each belonging to a name that appeared respectable and glamorous on the surface in the West Blue:

Wealthy merchants, small-time Mafia bosses, kings, pirates... and even Marine officers clad in capes of justice.

"Tch, this world really is beyond saving. Better to tear it down and start over."

In Dawn's view, in a civilization built around the sea, merchants needed to guard against pirates, so buying weapons for self-defense was understandable.

It also made sense for kings, Mafia groups, and pirates to require weapons to consolidate their power or carry out raids.

But even the Marines, the public face of the World Government's justice, needed to acquire weapons through Underworld channels?

That could only mean there was a massive problem with the World Government's own military-industrial capacity. A regime that had existed for eight hundred years yet could not