Bottom Line

Dawn continued "chopping trees" with hand chops. Relying on his inhuman strength and formidable physique, each rise and fall of his palm sent trees crashing down as though severed by a blade, while every sound was perfectly confined within this cage.

Before long, he had gathered enough lumber to build a simple wooden cabin.

"Stella, take care of these."

Little White Fox understood. She leaped backward, and a dreamlike cloud of pink smoke burst around her. When the smoke cleared, a Nine-Tailed White Fox over five meters long stood in her place, snow-white from head to tail, graceful and sacred in bearing!

Moonlight spilled over her glossy, silky fur as though coating it in silver. Whether intentionally or not, she had kept the white color Dawn preferred rather than her original fur color.

Stella extended her incredibly hard forepaws and skillfully began stripping away bark, cutting the logs into the needed planks and support beams.

Thanks to the practiced knife skills she had developed from often handling meals, she processed the lumber with equal ease and astonishing speed.

Watching her busy yet elegant figure, Dawn seemed to think of something, and a glint flashed through his eyes.

"Stella, keep working on these for now. I'll use the night to check out the Tree of Knowledge and see if I can get the part of the sea chart we need directly."

The moment he finished giving the instruction, he felt a chilling killing intent lock onto him. Stella turned her enormous fox head toward him and raised a massive paw, its sharp claws gleaming coldly. She looked ready to scratch up his handsome face if he said one more wrong thing.

Her golden vertical pupils narrowed dangerously. The meaning was obvious—so you're saying I worked for nothing?

"Don't worry, we're definitely still building the cabin! I'm just scouting the place out. Even if I get the sea charts, we won't leave right away. We need to rest here. I'm about at my limit from constantly drifting around at sea."

Ever since setting sail, Dawn had spent most of his time aboard a rocking ship. For a landlubber with absolutely no previous sailing experience, he had long since become exhausted.

He considered himself fairly adaptable, but if this continued, both his mind and body would give out. Ohara's relatively isolated environment was the ideal place to recuperate.

The first half nearly earned him a swipe from Stella's claw. Only after hearing the latter half did she give a cold snort, withdraw her killing intent, and continue processing the wood.

"Come back early. Don't get caught."

Dawn nodded and said no more. He controlled the darkness around him, making it cover his entire body like a living thing. It not only perfectly concealed his figure, but completely absorbed even the faintest sounds he might make while moving.

Like a true ghost, he blended into the night and sped toward the Tree of Knowledge.

Several minutes later, inside the Tree of Knowledge library.

Although it was already nighttime, the place remained brightly lit. Many scholars had forgotten food and sleep in pursuit of their research. The heavy doors suddenly opened a crack under an invisible force, yet no one stood outside.

A young scholar near the entrance looked up, pushed up his glasses, and muttered in confusion:

"Strange, there wasn't such a strong wind tonight..."

As he spoke, he stood up and casually shut the doors tightly again.

Wrapped in darkness, Dawn surveyed the interior of this legendary library. Massive bookshelves stood like a forest, reaching all the way to the ceiling, packed densely with books and scrolls from all over the world. The air carried the distinctive fragrance of old paper and ink.

Even at this late hour, dozens of scholars remained scattered throughout the library. Some bent over desks, writing furiously; some discussed matters in low voices; others climbed tall ladders in search of ancient texts.

"What... astonishing thirst for knowledge. But what a hassle, too. With this many people around, finding something without making a sound won't be easy."

After sighing over it, Dawn carefully controlled the extent of the darkness covering him. Like a true shadow, he avoided every scholar's line of sight and headed toward the towering bookshelves.

Arriving beneath one of them, Dawn activated his ability and absorbed his own gravity. His body floated gently upward like a feather.

He moved slowly along the shelves, his gaze sharp as lightning as he rapidly scanned the titles on row after row of book spines. History, literature, biology, geography, astronomy...

It contained everything imaginable, including many rare copies long lost to the outside world. Yet the sea charts he cared about most remained nowhere to be found.

Just as he had nearly searched all the visible shelves and was preparing to give up and leave, the corner of his eye caught an inconspicuous book high up on a shelf. Its cover was ancient and plain, and its title in the common language read, "A Detailed Explanation of Life Return."

"Life Return? Could this be..."

He was uncertain, unsure whether it was the same Life Return he understood it to be.

After glancing around and confirming that no one had noticed this secluded corner, he carefully used a finger covered in darkness to silently pull out the book. He swiftly wrapped it completely in denser darkness, rendering it "invisible."

The entire movement flowed without pause and caused no disturbance in the air, as though the book had simply vanished into thin air.

Dawn drifted down into a more concealed corner and, under the shadow of the shelves, quickly flipped through the invisible book in his hands.

Every sound of turning pages was absorbed by the darkness enveloping the book. As he read, delighted light appeared in his eyes. This book not only explained the principles of Life Return in detail, but also recorded a systematic and complete method of training.

"As expected of the Tree of Knowledge, where the wisdom of the entire world gathers! It even has something like this!"

Dawn praised it inwardly. To him, this was undoubtedly an enormous treasure, one that could greatly make up for his shortcomings in pure physical combat and bodily control.

He forcefully suppressed the urge to begin training immediately, closed the book, and carefully tucked it into the canvas bag he carried with him.

Even now, he still could not fully control the Yami Yami no Mi's powerful innate trait of compression and annihilation within its extradimensional space. Anything placed inside would be crushed by an invisible force, making it utterly unusable for storage. This often left him helpless.

Shaking his head and pushing down his regret, Dawn concealed himself again and began searching even more carefully for the sea charts.

He spent several full hours looking through nearly every bookshelf in all the publicly accessible areas of the Tree of Knowledge, but never found anything resembling a sea chart collection. Even now, the number of scholars in the library had not noticeably decreased.

Could it be that Ohara had no interest in sea charts, or that they simply were not stored in this main hall?

Just as Dawn was thinking this, an elderly scholar emerged from a side door he had previously overlooked, half-hidden by bookshelves. The scholar held a large roll of yellowed material that was clearly a blueprint.

Dawn's heart stirred, and he immediately drifted in that direction. Upon reaching it, he discovered that behind the side door was a fairly small storage room, and inside... were thousands upon thousands of scrolls and blueprints piled up like mountains!

That was no figure of speech. They were actual sea charts, stacked together like a small hill!

"So many!"

Even though Dawn had been mentally prepared, his scalp still tingled.

Finding precisely what he wanted among that vast sea of maps was no different from searching for a needle in the ocean.

He couldn't possibly take them all...

Dawn sighed inwardly, feeling powerless.

Indeed, with his current strength and the strange nature of the Yami Yami no Mi, he could completely kill every scholar here without anyone noticing, then calmly take all the sea charts away.

These Ohara scholars valued knowledge and history more than their own lives. Trying to take them by force would inevitably provoke desperate resistance. To take the sea charts, killing them all would be the only option.

But the thought merely flashed through Dawn's mind before he extinguished it himself.

He had gone to sea to take revenge on those high-and-mighty pigs of the World Government, who treated human lives as worthless—not to become like those pigs, freely trampling upon life and dignity.

His pride and his bottom line would not allow him to do that.

Of course, his bottom line only applied to those he had not listed as enemies. If he had found these things in a pirate stronghold, a Marine Base, or a World Government institution, then as long as he was certain of victory, he would strike immediately.

The Marines and the World Government had practically become an inseparable whole, so they were naturally enemies. As for pirates, although Dawn had not formally established a pirate crew yet, he certainly would in the future. From a pirate's standpoint, everyone except his own companions was an enemy.

Shaking his head to scatter his wandering thoughts, Dawn took one final deep look at that mountain of sea charts. He forcibly suppressed the restlessness in his heart and moved toward the entrance.

Given the existence of Life Return, he even deliberately searched for books related to Haki before leaving. In the end, however, he found only books introducing the relevant concepts, with none explaining how to train it. He could only leave with regret.

By the time Dawn returned to the coastal woods, the night had grown late. Stella had already finished processing all the lumber, and the cut planks and support beams were neatly stacked together.

The moment she saw Dawn dispel his invisibility and reveal himself, Stella immediately ran over and lifted her little head.

"How was it? Did you find them?"

Dawn gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

"I found where they're stored, but there are too many—far more than I imagined. There's no way to quietly take the portion I need without alerting anyone. It seems we can only follow the original plan, stay here for a while, and take it slowly."

He had already made up his mind. He needed to build a sufficiently strong relationship of trust with Robin, then use her familiarity with the Tree of Knowledge to have her help him locate the specific sea charts he needed.

In any case, there was still plenty of time. It had only been around a year since Pirate King Roger's execution, the Great Pirate Era had only just begun, and many figures who would one day dominate the seas had yet to emerge. Many events that would shape the world's balance had not yet occurred. He had ample time to prepare and wait.

Stella swished her tail and feigned regret.

"Is that so? Then there's nothing we can do. Looks like we'll have to stay on this island for a while."

Dawn stepped forward and looked at the processed lumber.

"Never mind that for now. Change back first. We'll work together and get the cabin built as quickly as possible. At least then we'll have somewhere to shelter from the wind and rain."

Stella nodded, and that signature cloud of pink smoke burst around her once more. When the smoke cleared, she clapped her hands and looked at the blond youth.

"Fine, let's get to work! But let's be clear—the roof is mine. I don't trust your taste!"

Dawn smiled without arguing. Under the hazy moonlight and the darkness that had yet to fully disperse around them, the two began building their temporary home on Ohara together.

TO BE CONTINUED