Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Garp intercepts Adrian at sea and declares that he will send him to Impel Down. Adrian keeps his distance, intent on completing their fight rather than charging recklessly into Marine Headquarters.
• Garp launches a surprise attack, but Adrian avoids it by swapping places with a White Ghost. Garp’s fist destroys the ghost, revealing that his strength can harm Adrian’s apparently intangible constructs.
• Adrian uses Dragon Power to wield a Ghost Energy Sword and unleash Ikoku Sovereignty, a giant shockwave inspired by Big Mom’s technique. Garp counters with Armament Haki-coated punches, and the two clash in a brief stalemate.
• When Dragon Power wears off, Adrian stops using the technique and reveals a new ability: fully opened Spiritual Pressure. Its overwhelming force knocks out the Marine soldiers nearby.
• Adrian and Garp resume their fight. Adrian’s Spiritual Pressure and Haki-enhanced lightsaber improve his power, but Garp still overpowers him in a direct clash and sends him flying.

Character developments

• Adrian remains composed and strategic, avoiding reckless confrontation while revealing increasingly powerful abilities. His Spiritual Pressure appears to enhance him broadly, but Garp’s raw physical strength remains superior.
• Garp is unfazed by Adrian’s unusual powers and enjoys the challenge. He demonstrates extraordinary strength and Haki, while recognizing that Adrian’s abilities and Haki mastery exceed what Marine intelligence has reported.

Significant themes

• Power and adaptation: Adrian’s varied abilities let him challenge an opponent whose basic physical strength far exceeds his own.
• Uncertainty and discovery: Garp struggles to understand the source and limits of Adrian’s powers, while Adrian’s “game panel” grants abilities beyond conventional explanations.
• Strength versus strategy: Adrian relies on tricks, techniques, and enhancements; Garp answers with overwhelming combat skill and force.

Character interactions

• Adrian and Garp exchange taunts and familiar greetings, then meet each other’s attacks with mutual confidence.
• Garp’s curiosity about Adrian’s powers mixes with his enjoyment of the fight; Adrian gives only a brief explanation of Spiritual Pressure before pressing the battle onward.
• Their clash establishes a respectful but fiercely competitive dynamic, with Garp testing Adrian and Adrian continuing to reveal what he can do.

Plot points and events

• Garp recognizes something familiar in Adrian’s Armament Haki and asks about his connection to Chinjao. Adrian admits he killed the defeated old fighter in the Flower Country, then refuses to answer further.
• Adrian changes tactics, sending attacks from his White Thousand-Hand Buddha at Garp from all directions. Garp effortlessly counters them with Haki-coated fists, impressing Adrian with his mastery and stamina.
• Adrian unleashes Azure Dragon Turnabout, concentrating nearly all his Spiritual Pressure and Armament Haki into a massive pale dragon. Garp stops its charge with an immense burst of strength, but the dragon’s fragments explode, severely injuring him.
• Garp survives, searches for Adrian, then returns to his Navy ship. Adrian, exhausted but pleased, concludes the attack revealed the current limit of his power.
• After completing the challenge, Adrian receives 2.33 billion experience points and must choose one of five abilities drawn from Garp. He dismisses Giant Iron Ball and Sleep King, leaving three punch-related abilities for consideration.

Character developments

• Adrian gains a new respect for Garp’s strength, especially his ability to fight without a Devil Fruit or weapon. His dragon attack demonstrates that he can briefly reach the highest level of combat power, though he cannot sustain it.
• Garp proves remarkably resourceful and resilient. He pushes beyond his limits to break Adrian’s attack, but its explosion leaves him wounded. He also recognizes that Adrian’s strength is continuing to grow.

Significant themes

• Strength without special powers: Garp’s mastery of martial arts and Haki shows how formidable a fighter can become without a Devil Fruit.
• Growth and limits: Adrian’s strongest attack reveals both his immense potential and the cost of reaching it.
• Combat as a test of respect: Though opponents, Adrian admires Garp’s skill, while Garp acknowledges Adrian’s increasing power.

Character interactions

• Garp questions Adrian about Chinjao, but Adrian offers only a brief, blunt explanation before turning back to the fight.
• Their battle becomes a contest between Adrian’s varied Spiritual Pressure techniques and Garp’s economical, precisely timed Haki punches.
• Afterward, Garp returns to his ship, while Adrian privately evaluates the rewards associated with his victory and weighs which of Garp’s abilities to claim.

Key plot points and events

• Adrian acquires [Marine Iron Fist], a free passive ability that adds true damage to his attacks. He celebrates the power as worthy of the legendary Marine Hero Garp.
• In Brivor Village, a young, straw-hatted Shanks sets off on his first voyage in a borrowed fishing boat. The villagers laugh as he teases Kado Gen, the boat’s owner, who protests that Shanks has stolen it.
• At sea, Shanks encounters the Lord of the Coast. He protects his new clothes from the beast’s spit with sword slashes, then kills it with a single “Divine Departure.”
• As Shanks begins declaring his ambition to find trustworthy crewmates and become Pirate King, Adrian descends from the sky and interrupts him. Adrian warns that drawing his sword will mean death.
• Shanks recognizes Adrian as the White Ghost, the rookie pirate whose actions during Ohara’s Buster Call drew the Marines’ attention. Shanks had postponed his own departure amid the resulting military activity.

Character developments

• Adrian is newly empowered by Marine Iron Fist and arrives with a menacing, controlled presence. His interest is fixed on the young Shanks.
• Shanks is already formidable and self-assured: he dispatches a Sea King with ease, yet handles Adrian’s threat with cautious defiance. Rather than reach for his sword, he puts his hands in his pockets to avoid appearing intimidated.
• Kado Gen is shown as a comic village figure—admired for his courage but teased for his boastful claim to be a noble knight.

Significant themes

• Ambition and beginnings: Shanks’s first voyage marks the start of his pursuit of a crew and the Pirate King’s legacy.
• Power and danger: His effortless victory over the Lord of the Coast contrasts with Adrian’s chilling threat, foreshadowing a more serious test.
• Pride and reputation: Shanks refuses to look beaten, while Adrian’s identity and notoriety shape the encounter before either man acts.

Character interactions

• The villagers share a warm, humorous farewell with Shanks, while Kado Gen protests the loss of his boat.
• Shanks treats the Lord of the Coast as a celebratory first-voyage challenge rather than a reason to retreat.
• Adrian confronts Shanks directly. Shanks answers his lethal warning by claiming ownership of the boat and ordering Adrian to leave, leaving their tense encounter unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• While flying back toward Paradise to resume his Wind Tamer Profession Upgrade Quest, Adrian spots young Shanks at sea and confronts him about his ambition to finish what Roger could not. Shanks clarifies that he never claimed he would become Pirate King.
• Adrian summons his ship, the Nether Abyss, and brings Shanks aboard. He reveals that Roger had a wife and demonstrates how much he knows about the Roger Pirates.
• Adrian introduces Lumi, the Oro Jackson’s Ship Spirit. Lumi recognizes Shanks and proves his identity by recounting embarrassing memories of Shanks and Buggy as children.
• Once Shanks is distracted and mortified, Adrian secretly triggers his game panel to inspect Shanks’s abilities. He discovers that Shanks is level 71 and possesses the rare Advanced Luck Halo (Pseudo).
• Seeing Shanks as a future major figure—and an opportunity to cultivate—Adrian decides he wants to recruit or otherwise “trim and care for” him. He draws Nidai Kitetsu as Shanks guesses that Adrian is inviting him aboard.

Character developments

• Adrian shifts from questioning Shanks to recognizing his unusual potential. His interest is less in Shanks’s current strength than in his luck halo and future prospects.
• Shanks appears brash and ambitious but is still young, comparatively inexperienced, and easily embarrassed by his past. He is also quick to defend his friendship with Buggy.
• Lumi emerges as a lively, affectionate Ship Spirit with an exceptionally detailed memory of the Roger Pirates’ private history.

Significant themes

• Inherited will and destiny: Shanks frames his goal as completing what Roger could not, while Adrian sees Shanks as a future protagonist-like figure.
• Luck and potential: The discovery of Shanks’s pseudo luck halo makes his future promise more important to Adrian than his present abilities.
• Memory, friendship, and humiliation: Lumi’s recollections reveal the intimate, playful—and sometimes painful—bonds formed among Roger’s crew.
• Power and recruitment: Adrian’s overwhelming strength gives him control of the encounter, and he views Shanks’s potential as something to cultivate.

Character interactions

• Adrian uses intimidation and probing questions to challenge Shanks’s ambitions, then impresses him with the Nether Abyss.
• Lumi’s revelations turn the encounter comic and embarrassing, especially when he recalls Shanks and Buggy’s childhood antics.
• Adrian teases Shanks over his past with Buggy, then quietly studies him through the panel while Shanks is still reeling.
• Shanks recognizes Adrian’s intentions and suspects an invitation, but Adrian’s drawn sword leaves the nature of his offer uncertain.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Adrian/White Ghost tests Shanks in a sword fight after telling him that he should first serve as a deckhand before becoming a pirate captain.
• Shanks initially resists, insisting that he has already spent over ten years as an apprentice sailor and is ready to lead his own crew.
• Adrian easily dominates the duel with the Cursed Sword Kitetsu. Shanks is forced onto the defensive and eventually loses his Sailor’s Cutlass.
• When Shanks drops his weapon, Adrian punishes him with a Spiritual Pressure Whip, which injures both his body and mind. Adrian then orders him to retrieve his sword and try again.
• Angered especially because Adrian tears the new shirt Meg made for him, Shanks becomes serious. He coats his cutlass in Armament Haki and launches a stronger attack.
• Shanks attempts a powerful strike, calling out “Divine Departure,” but Adrian counters effortlessly by pinning the sword with his Haki-coated foot and kicking Shanks in the face.
• The brutal training-fight continues repeatedly. Shanks is defeated forty-four times, suffering numerous whip marks, cuts, bruises, and exhaustion.
• Eventually, Shanks asks Adrian what he sees in him and offers to change, effectively signaling that he is willing to accept the position of deckhand.
• The chapter reveals Adrian’s

C-Rank Random Mission: “Red-Haired.”

• Later that night, Shanks lies battered and exhausted in the lower cabin, reflecting on how he invited Adrian first because he wanted a lifelong partner, yet somehow became the one constantly being beaten.
• Louf brings Shanks food at Adrian’s request. She remains jealous and hostile toward Shanks, accusing him of trying to steal Adrian from her.

Character Developments

• Shanks: Demonstrates impressive strength, Observation Haki, Armament Haki, resilience, and determination despite being much weaker than Adrian. His anger over his damaged shirt and sword reveals his emotional attachment to the gifts and tools associated with his life. After dozens of defeats, his stubborn pride begins to give way to practical submission.
• Adrian: Establishes himself as overwhelmingly stronger and more experienced than Shanks. He treats the fight as both punishment and recruitment, using repeated defeats to force Shanks into accepting a lower position. His calm, teasing attitude contrasts with the severity of his methods.
• Louf: Shows loyalty and possessiveness toward Adrian. Although she dislikes Shanks, she follows Adrian’s orders and brings him food, suggesting that her hostility is mixed with concern and obedience.

Significant Themes

• Strength and hierarchy: The chapter frames crew recruitment as a struggle for dominance. Adrian believes Shanks must be beaten into acknowledging his place before joining.
• Persistence and endurance: Shanks repeatedly rises after defeat, emphasizing his extraordinary willpower and foreshadowing his future greatness.
• Pride versus compromise: Shanks wants to be a captain and equal partner, but his defeats force him to reconsider his immediate role as a deckhand.
• Cruelty mixed with mentorship: Adrian’s treatment is harsh and violent, yet it is also presented as a test intended to shape or recruit Shanks.
• Possessiveness and loyalty: Louf’s jealousy creates comic tension while highlighting her attachment to Adrian and her suspicion of Shanks.

Character Interactions

• Adrian and Shanks’s confrontation shifts from an argument over rank into an extended combat-based recruitment.
• Adrian repeatedly provokes and disciplines Shanks, while Shanks responds with defiance, increasingly powerful attacks, and refusal to stay down.
• Shanks’s declaration that he will change functions as an informal acceptance of Adrian’s terms and may satisfy the mission.
• Louf’s interaction with Shanks adds humor after the violent duel: she insults him as a rival for Adrian’s attention but still delivers the food Adrian ordered for him.

Plot points and events

• After being badly injured in repeated fights with Adrian, Shanks rushes to eat and then treats himself with medicine Lumi brings from the castle.
• Louf questions why Adrian is helping Shanks, since Shanks had invited Adrian to join him. Lumi explains that Shanks merely made an invitation—and that Adrian intends to keep Shanks aboard as the ship travels toward Little Sky Island, Visalia.
• Shanks asks Lumi about Roger’s wife and child, learning that Roger had a family. He also asks about Bullet, but Lumi knows little about him.
• Shanks wants to leave the ship and form his own crew. Lumi suggests defeating Adrian; Louf darkly jokes that Shanks could leave by dying. Shanks rejects both ideas, frustrated that his dream seems increasingly distant.
• The next morning, Shanks resumes challenging Adrian. Adrian easily counters his attacks and uses a Bad Luck Hollow to make the encounter more than a test of physical strength. Shanks initially thinks the curse has done nothing—until a mangrove bubble forms underfoot, making him slip and sending his sword tumbling away.

Character developments and interactions

• Shanks shows his resilience by recovering through food and basic first aid, and his determination by continuing to fight Adrian despite repeated losses. Learning that Roger had a wife and child unsettles his assumptions about the captain he once regarded as alone.
• Adrian continues to help and train Shanks while effortlessly controlling their sparring matches, aiming to toughen Shanks mentally as well as physically.
• Lumi is warmly helpful, providing medicine and explaining what she knows about Roger’s family and the crew’s route.
• Louf remains suspicious and possessive of Adrian, but quickly revises her opinion of Shanks once she learns he may be traveling with them. She and Lumi also agree that Adrian is overwhelmingly powerful.
• The chapter highlights the group’s playful, teasing dynamic, especially in Louf’s blunt remarks and Shanks’s exasperated responses.

Significant themes

• Persistence and mentorship: Adrian’s repeated challenges push Shanks to grow, even as Shanks resists being drawn into Adrian’s orbit.
• Identity and ambition: The news about Roger’s family complicates Shanks’s understanding of his former captain, while his desire to become a captain of his own remains strong.
• Power and perspective: Shanks is formidable by ordinary standards, but Adrian’s exceptional strength makes him appear comparatively weak.
• Physical and psychological resilience: Recovery, combat, and Adrian’s bad-luck abilities all test Shanks beyond his injuries alone.

Chapter 167 Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shanks suffers a disastrous series of accidents caused by Adrian’s Bad Luck Hollow. He lands on the Sailor’s Cutlass, injures himself, then slips on the blood and falls again.
• Adrian receives a panel notification announcing that he has defeated Shanks forty-nine times, triggering the C-Rank Random Mission [Red-Haired].
  • Objective: Defeat Shanks for the fiftieth time.
  • Reward: Randomly obtain one of Shanks’s skills or specialties.
• Adrian postpones the final fight until Shanks recovers, partly because he does not want to kill him accidentally and partly because he hopes to obtain a valuable ability such as Shanks’s Advanced Luck Aura.
• Lumi takes Shanks to the cabin for medical treatment, while Little Fox is ordered to clean the blood from the deck. Adrian jokingly reminds Shanks that he must clean it himself after recovering.
• The Nether Abyss sails southeast toward the Razor Gang’s base in the West Blue. Adrian had returned from the Grand Line after answering the gang’s call for help and dealing with several hostile criminal groups.
• At the Razor Gang’s island, Tommy reports that although the gang has suffered losses, its rivals suffered even worse casualties. He believes the Razor Gang can unify the West Blue’s underworld within two years.
• Doctor Moe asks to leave the Razor Gang. Tommy explains that Moe is a capable doctor but is uncomfortable with the gang’s increasingly violent lifestyle and cannot contribute much during battles.
• Adrian agrees to take Doctor Moe with him, noting that the Nether Abyss needs a doctor and that Moe can eventually become a permanent resident of Little Sky Island/Visalia.
• After two days of treatment, Shanks fully recovers. Adrian and Shanks meet again on a deserted island near Reverse Mountain for the fiftieth challenge.

Character Developments

• Adrian: Remains amused and calculating throughout Shanks’s misfortune. He values the possibility of obtaining Shanks’s abilities but shows restraint by allowing Shanks to heal first. He also demonstrates practical leadership by recruiting Doctor Moe to fill the crew’s medical vacancy.
• Shanks: Despite severe injuries and repeated humiliating defeats, he continues challenging Adrian and refuses to give up. His persistence and determination are emphasized as he prepares for the fiftieth battle.
• Doctor Moe: Reveals that he is unsuited to the Razor Gang’s violent environment. Though timid and socially anxious, he is a skilled doctor and chooses to follow Adrian instead.
• Tommy: Acts as the Razor Gang’s confident representative, outlining its plans for dominance in the West Blue. He also helps explain Doctor Moe’s situation.
• Little Fox/Louf: Provides comic relief when Adrian orders her to clean the deck despite her insisting that she is only a cook.
• Lumi: Continues assisting Adrian as the ship spirit, transporting Shanks and piloting the Nether Abyss.

Significant Themes

• Persistence despite defeat: Shanks’s willingness to challenge Adrian for the fiftieth time highlights his stubbornness and determination.
• Luck and misfortune: The Bad Luck Hollow turns ordinary circumstances into painful disasters, contrasting with Adrian’s interest in acquiring Shanks’s exceptional luck-related abilities.
• Found family and recruitment: Doctor Moe’s transfer from the Razor Gang to Adrian’s group shows the formation and expansion of Adrian’s own organization.
• Individual suitability and belonging: Moe’s departure suggests that people function best in environments suited to their personalities and abilities rather than being forced into roles they dislike.
• Comedy amid danger: Shanks’s painful accidents, Moe’s awkward communication, and Louf’s protests create humor despite the chapter’s violent and criminal setting.

Character Interactions

• Adrian repeatedly teases Shanks about his injuries and assigns him the responsibility of cleaning the deck.
• Adrian and Louf share a playful exchange when she objects to being treated as a cleaner rather than a cook.
• Tommy discusses the Razor Gang’s future with Adrian and explains why Moe wants to leave.
• Adrian questions Moe directly, then accepts him into his crew despite criticizing his combat weakness.
• The chapter ends with Adrian confronting Shanks before their fiftieth duel, asking whether the young pirate is finally ready to give up.

Plot points and events

• Shanks refuses Adrian’s offer to join another crew, insisting he will captain his own. Adrian answers by unleashing overwhelming Spiritual Pressure.
• Shanks resists with Conqueror’s Haki and charges with Roger’s Divine Departure, but Adrian counters with One Sword Style: Great Shock. The clash shatters Shanks’s cutlass, and Adrian’s strike leaves him gravely wounded.
• Though barely able to move, Shanks tries to keep fighting. Adrian praises his courage, then uses Dream Ghost: Sleeping Curse to put him unconscious.
• Adrian receives the mission reward: a choice among five of Shanks’s abilities. He selects Balanced Physique, then merges it with his existing Well-Built specialty.
• The merge produces Golden Physique, boosting Adrian’s Strength, Agility, Stamina, resistances, and attribute gains per level. His Strength rises to 1,017.
• As Adrian prepares to check on Shanks, the island begins shaking violently. Laughter comes from the sky, suggesting a new threat or event.

Character development and interactions

• Shanks demonstrates fierce independence, courage, and determination, refusing to surrender even when hopelessly outmatched. He draws on both Conqueror’s Haki and a move inherited from Roger, but ultimately collapses from his injuries and exhaustion.
• Adrian remains firmly in control, yet respects Shanks’s tenacity. He is also pragmatic and opportunistic: he values Shanks’s displayed abilities as potential rewards, weighs the options carefully, and takes a calculated chance by merging specialties.
• Their encounter is defined by Shanks’s defiance and Adrian’s overwhelming power; Adrian defeats him but stops him from worsening his injuries.

Significant themes

• Independence and ambition: Shanks would rather suffer defeat than abandon his goal of leading his own crew.
• Courage against overwhelming odds: Shanks keeps resisting despite knowing the vast difference in strength.
• Power and growth: Adrian’s victory leads directly to a reward and a major improvement to his abilities, while the panel’s merge system makes advancement partly dependent on risk and luck.
• Respect amid conflict: Adrian acknowledges Shanks’s resolve even as he incapacitates him.

Key plot points and events

• A massive island appears overhead, revealing that the approaching pirate is Golden Lion Shiki, recently escaped from Impel Down.
• Adrian destroys the falling island with Dragon Power: Spiritual Pressure: Ikoku Sovereignty. Shiki mistakes the technique for Charlotte Linlin’s and thinks Adrian is her.
• Shiki attacks Adrian with Flying Slashes, but Adrian keeps countering with Ikoku Sovereignty. Shiki recognizes Adrian’s strength and invites him to join his crew.
• Adrian responds that he would only be interested if Shiki paid him with the Float-Float Fruit.
• After a prolonged, exhausting battle, Shiki dies, his body crumbling to ash. His last word is “Roger,” revealing that he remained fixated on his old rival.
• Adrian pulls Shiki’s soul from the air. Shiki awakens as a ghost, realizes he is still in the world of the living, and wonders whether Roger might also still exist.

Character developments

• Adrian demonstrates greatly increased power, destroying an island and holding his own against a legendary pirate. The fight nevertheless leaves him badly depleted. His irreverent humor—especially his anger at being mistaken for Linlin—continues even in the face of danger.
• Golden Lion Shiki is introduced as a formidable, proud old-era pirate, but his final moments reveal his lingering longing for Roger. His death is not the end of his presence: Adrian’s ghost-related ability brings him back as a soul.

Significant themes

• Legacy and unresolved attachment: Shiki’s final thought is Roger, showing how the past still defines him.
• Life after death: The chapter confirms that souls can remain in the physical world and raises the possibility that Roger, too, may persist.
• Power and its cost: Adrian’s strength lets him challenge Shiki, but the battle nearly exhausts him.
• Humor amid danger: Adrian’s commentary and the mistaken identity undercut the otherwise epic confrontation.

Character interactions

• Shiki initially treats Adrian as Linlin, addressing him as an old acquaintance and asking why she is in the West Blue.
• Once he realizes Adrian is a stranger, Shiki acknowledges his strength and offers him a place in the Flying Pirates.
• Adrian rejects the offer unless Shiki can provide the Float-Float Fruit.
• After Shiki dies, Adrian directly engages with his soul, prompting Shiki’s bewildered reflections on death and Roger.

Chapter summary

Key events

• After dying in battle, Golden Lion Shiki discovers that he has returned as a spirit. He can fly, has his legs back, and no longer feels the Float-Float Fruit’s power. Excited by the prospect of meeting Roger in the afterlife, he ignores Adrian at first.
• Adrian reveals that he can see Shiki and uses Ghost Domination to restrain him. He falsely claims to have pulled Shiki back from the Underworld; in reality, Spiritual Pressure, Adrian’s Ghost Domination ability, and Shiki’s Conqueror’s Haki enabled him to recover and preserve Shiki’s soul.
• When Shiki refuses to cooperate, Adrian fires Ghost Energy Cannons at both of his legs. The attacks cause intense spiritual pain and erase some of his memories, leaving him silent and immobilized.
• Adrian retrieves Shiki’s swords, Oto and Kogarashi, then returns to the island where he fought Shanks. Three days later, he finds Shanks alive but gravely wounded and untreated.
• Adrian summons Lumi, Louf, and Doctor Moe. Moe begins treating Shanks while Lumi and Louf fetch fruit. Adrian eats an apple, hoping the Float-Float Fruit will have reincarnated nearby after Shiki’s death.
• Shiki recognizes Adrian’s plan and mocks him, arguing that Devil Fruits do not simply reappear wherever someone happens to look. Lumi and Shanks are shocked to see Shiki’s ghost; Louf is merely puzzled by the “bald old man” with no legs.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian remains practical and controlling: he exploits Shiki’s ignorance, uses force to curb his arrogance, secures the swords, and turns immediately to caring for Shanks and pursuing Shiki’s Devil Fruit. He also briefly apologizes for being unable to protect Shanks during the battle.
• Shiki shifts from exhilaration at his apparent second chance to furious helplessness under Adrian’s control. Despite his anger, his awareness and memories remain unusually intact because of his Conqueror’s Haki.
• Shanks is barely able to speak after surviving three days with a near-fatal wound, but he is still alive. Adrian’s relief underscores his value to Adrian.
• Lumi, Louf, and Doctor Moe respond to Adrian’s orders: the first two fetch supplies, while Moe takes charge of Shanks’s treatment.

Significant themes

• Power and control: Even death does not free Shiki from Adrian’s abilities.
• Identity and memory: Spiritual attacks can damage not only a ghost’s body but also its memories, threatening to erase who it is.
• Ambition beyond death: Shiki’s plans to meet Roger show that his old rivalries and ambitions survive his death.
• Pragmatism amid danger: Adrian moves quickly from battle to securing valuable weapons, saving Shanks, and seeking the Float-Float Fruit.

Plot and key events

• Adrian forces the resurrected Golden Lion Shiki to help identify which of a pile of ordinary fruits resembles the Float-Float Fruit.
• Shiki points out a yellow peach. When starving Shanks is about to eat it, the fruit transforms into the real Float-Float Fruit. Adrian takes it from him before he can bite it, and Shanks faints from hunger and exhaustion.
• Shiki confirms the fruit’s identity, though he is astonished by how it appeared.
• Adrian weighs the fruit’s strategic value but decides not to use his Devil Fruit Fusion Card on it. He also rules out giving it to Lumi, who already has the Castle-Castle Fruit, or Louf, whose role is noncombat support. He keeps the fruit for a more suitable recipient.
• Doctor Moe reports that Shanks is in critical condition from an untreated sword wound and prolonged starvation, and cannot be treated aboard ship. Adrian decides to take him to Crocus, the former Roger Pirates’ ship doctor, near Reverse Mountain.
• Shiki notices Shanks’s straw hat and realizes it belonged to Roger.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian maintains complete control over Shiki, threatening him into cooperation. He treats the fruit’s sudden appearance as evidence of Shanks’s extraordinary luck and sees him as a valuable “test” for his Devil Fruit-generating ability.
• Shiki remains defiant and resentful, but obeys under Adrian’s power. His shock at the Float-Float Fruit’s return gives way to recognition of Roger’s hat.
• Shanks is too weak and hungry to understand what is happening. He briefly hopes to eat the peach, but Adrian takes it away; he then collapses. His connection to Roger becomes apparent through the hat.
• Doctor Moe communicates through text made from his bandages and delivers a grim assessment of Shanks’s health.
• Louf and Lumi are discussed mainly in terms of their roles aboard Adrian’s crew: Lumi is already a spatial-support specialist, while Louf handles domestic and cooking duties.

Significant themes

• Power and coercion: Adrian’s strength lets him compel even a legendary pirate’s ghost to serve him.
• Luck and fate: Shanks’s apparent luck turns an ordinary fruit into the rare Float-Float Fruit.
• Utility versus raw power: Adrian values the fruit’s strategic potential but judges it poorly suited to his own fighting style.
• Legacy and recognition: Shanks’s straw hat links him to Roger and prompts Shiki’s dramatic realization.

Chapter 172 Summary

Key events

• Adrian explains to Golden Lion Shiki that Shanks was a member of Roger’s crew and that Roger personally gave him the Straw Hat. He presents Shanks as Roger’s chosen successor, emphasizing his inherited ideals and dream of becoming the freest person at sea.
• Shiki accepts the explanation, treating Shanks as Roger’s successor. Adrian privately finds Shiki’s reasoning amusing and suspects the old pirate has elevated Shanks’s personal ambitions into a grander legacy.
• Aboard the Nether Abyss, Adrian reviews the rewards for defeating Shiki and reflects that he could not have beaten Shiki at his peak. Shiki’s failing condition—especially the loss of life force after his helm was removed—was crucial to Adrian’s victory.
• Adrian settles the S-rank challenge. The panel awards him nearly 47 billion experience points in total, 300 Trial Points, and advances his Limit Trial progress to 930/1000. It also triggers and completes the related Skyfaring Pirate challenge.
• The panel offers Adrian four abilities to choose from a randomized list. The options shown include Conqueror’s Haki, Shiki’s Skyfaring Pirate specialty, powerful sword techniques, combat and recovery boosts, and mobility skills. Adrian has not yet chosen.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian shows respect for the strength of legendary fighters, candidly recognizing that he has only managed to stalemate top figures such as Garp, Sengoku, Whitebeard, and Big Mom. Despite his victory, he understands that circumstances—not simply superior strength—made Shiki defeatable.
• Shiki shifts from indignation over Shanks wearing Roger’s hat to solemnly accepting him as Roger’s successor. His reverence for Roger shapes how he interprets Shanks’s plans.
• Adrian and Shanks are linked through Adrian’s playful claim that Shanks helped him create the Float-Float Fruit, prompting him to repay the favor by directing Shiki’s attention toward Shanks’s Roger connection.

Significant themes

• Legacy and inherited ideals: Roger’s hat and Shanks’s connection to him symbolize how a person’s spirit and ambitions can be passed on.
• Victory and circumstance: Adrian’s win is significant, but he recognizes that Shiki’s decline and loss of life force were decisive factors.
• Power, growth, and limits: The enormous experience reward excites Adrian, yet his stalled advancement quest reminds him that numerical progress alone does not guarantee advancement.

Plot points and events

• After defeating Golden Lion Shiki in an S-Rank Challenge, Adrian receives ten reward options instead of five, apparently as a bonus for meeting a hidden requirement.
• He weighs the rewards and rejects Shiki’s version of Conqueror’s Haki, deciding it is less valuable to him than other choices. He also passes on a redundant slashing technique and the unpredictable Sword Aura Penetration.
• Adrian selects four Specialties: Skyfaring Pirate, Lionheart, Lion Cut, and Peerless Swordsman. The new abilities greatly improve his agility and swordsmanship; with existing bonuses, his agility rises above 1,000.
• The next day, the Abyss reaches Twin Capes. Adrian, Louf, Shanks, and Doctor Moe go ashore to meet Crocus, the former ship doctor of Shanks’s crew.
• Crocus recognizes Shanks, who is embarrassed to explain that Adrian beat him. Adrian wonders whether Crocus might be the “second old man” involved in his plan to “save Shanks.”
• The chapter ends with an unrelated author’s note explaining that updates have become irregular: the usual morning chapter is moving to around noon, with later updates after 3 p.m.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian shows a pragmatic approach to choosing rewards, favoring dependable, complementary bonuses over an ability he considers unnecessary. He also remains curious about how the panel’s powers relate to their original owners.
• Shanks is visibly pale and awkward when reunited with Crocus, while privately worrying that his crew and ambition to become a captain are slipping away.
• Crocus warmly recognizes Shanks and immediately asks what happened to him.
• Louf notices the resemblance between Crocus’s flower-like hair and Dr. Clover’s grass-like hairstyle, prompting a brief joke from Adrian.

Significant themes

• Power and strategic choice: More abilities do not automatically make the best build; Adrian prioritizes synergy and reliability.
• Growth and potential: Adrian considers whether certain abilities could become stronger with their owners, and speculates that other figures may offer better versions.
• Shanks’s uncertain future: His reunion with Crocus underscores his anxiety about losing his crew and captaincy dream.

Chapter Summary

• Adrian wonders whether Crocus is the “old man” who has come to help, and briefly imagines what reward he might gain by defeating him. He rejects the idea: Crocus is a decent, retired doctor whose reasons for sailing with Roger included helping the sick captain and supporting Laboon’s search for the Rumbar Pirates.
• Adrian is less restrained about the other surviving Roger Pirates. He considers challenging Rayleigh—and perhaps Gaban—to gain points toward his Limit Trial, jokingly treating Shanks as a valuable recruit he intends to keep for his own crew.
• Crocus examines Shanks and quickly devises a treatment plan. Adrian summons Lumi to retrieve the medicines stored in her spatial fortress, giving Crocus a wide selection of supplies.
• Crocus estimates that Shanks’s large slash wound will take at least a week to heal enough not to hinder him. Adrian says he would not make a seriously injured patient fight.
• Crocus asks whether Shanks is now part of Adrian’s crew. Adrian admits Shanks is reluctant, but jokes that pirates do not necessarily need someone’s consent to recruit them. Crocus considers asking Adrian to release Shanks, but holds back. Adrian makes clear that he wants Shanks for his own potential, not because of his connection to Roger.
• After choosing the medicines, Crocus answers Adrian’s next question: whether any pirate crews from the Four Blues will soon cross Reverse Mountain. Crocus guesses that Adrian is looking for new crewmates, but the chapter ends before Adrian explains further.

Character Developments and Interactions

• Adrian shows a mix of ruthless ambition and personal limits: he wants to recruit Shanks and pursue powerful Roger Pirates for advancement, but refuses to target Crocus and insists he would not exploit Shanks’s injury.
• Crocus acts as a highly capable and considerate physician. Though he is protective of Shanks and considers appealing to Adrian on his behalf, he ultimately respects Adrian’s position and focuses on treatment.
• Shanks remains injured and largely passive in the chapter, but his former connection to Roger’s crew is central to Crocus’s concern and Adrian’s interest in recruiting him.
• Adrian and Crocus exchange guarded but civil remarks: Crocus probes Adrian’s intentions, while Adrian openly distinguishes between Shanks’s inherited ties and the personal potential he sees in him.

Significant Themes

• Ambition versus principle: Adrian pursues power and valuable recruits, yet draws a line at harming Crocus.
• Recruitment and consent: The chapter treats pirate “recruitment” as potentially coercive, while Adrian’s joking attitude contrasts with Crocus’s concern.
• Legacy and individual potential: Shanks’s ties to Roger matter, but Adrian claims he values Shanks for who he may become.
• Care amid a pirate world: Crocus’s medical skill and Adrian’s provision of supplies offer a more compassionate counterpoint to the violence surrounding them.

Key plot points and events

• Adrian and Crocus discuss the steady stream of pirate crews crossing Reverse Mountain. Adrian plans to test whether a Devil Fruit reappears nearby when its user dies while Shanks’s “Protagonist Halo” is present.
• Though badly injured, Shanks may still be useful: Adrian intends to use his hands—and his supposed extraordinary luck—as a Devil Fruit “generator.” Moe stays with Crocus to help care for Shanks, while Adrian and Louf return to the Nether Abyss and wait at Twin Capes.
• That night, an East Blue crew crosses the mountain, but none of its members has a Devil Fruit. Frustrated that his experiment cannot proceed, Adrian kills the crew and sends its members to another world.
• The next day, Laboon surfaces near the lighthouse. Louf is thrilled by the giant whale but says she wants to eat him; Adrian scolds her and insists Laboon is cute.
• Adrian spots another pirate ship approaching Twin Capes. Its unusual robot figurehead and flag catch his attention. This is the third crew he has seen cross the mountain; the second, from West Blue, also lacked Devil Fruit users, and Adrian sank its ship. The new crew’s identity and whether it can serve his experiment remain unresolved.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian is calculating and curious, treating Shanks’s luck as something he can test through a dangerous experiment. His disappointment at finding no suitable subjects leads to casual, ruthless violence. With Louf, he acts like a stern but familiar captain.
• Shanks remains badly wounded and is receiving Crocus’s care; Adrian rules out making him fight but hopes to exploit his luck indirectly.
• Crocus shares his observations about pirate traffic and tends Shanks, while Moe stays behind to learn from his medical skill.
• Louf is excitable and impulsive: she howls at Laboon, considers eating him, and quickly backs down when challenged to fight him.
• Adrian and Louf exchange playful but forceful banter, with Adrian catching, scolding, and ruffling her head.

Significant themes

• Luck and fate: Adrian hopes to determine whether Shanks’s unusual luck can influence Devil Fruit reincarnation.
• Ambition and danger: Reverse Mountain draws aspiring pirates toward the Grand Line, where weak crews may not survive.
• Power and callousness: Adrian’s experiment reduces people to test subjects, underscoring his ruthless approach.
• Perspective: Laboon appears frightening to Louf despite Adrian’s affectionate view of him.

Key events

• A pirate crew led by Spiral Dure arrives at Twin Capes, where their compass fails. Dure, a Devil Fruit user whose clover-shaped hair spins like a propeller, threatens Crocus and then targets Adrian.
• Adrian disables Dure with a Negative Hollow and catches him with a spectral whip before he can fall into the sea. He takes Dure to Lumi’s Impenetrable Fortress, along with Shanks and Love.
• Adrian reveals that he wants to test whether Dure’s Devil Fruit can be reborn after its user dies—the same phenomenon he previously witnessed with the Float-Float Fruit. He keeps the method secret from Crocus.
• When Dure recovers and refuses to cooperate, Adrian uses Dream Ghost: Phantom Pain to overwhelm him with mental torment. Recognizing Adrian as the notorious “Mr. Ghost,” Dure submits and identifies a red apple among the arranged fruits and vegetables. Adrian tells Shanks to pick it up, beginning the experiment.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian remains casual and controlled, but his curiosity drives him to conduct a potentially lethal experiment. He deliberately keeps the process’s secret from Crocus.
• Shanks is puzzled and skeptical, recalling the Float-Float Fruit’s apparent rebirth and questioning whether it was mere luck. Adrian nevertheless expects him to play a role in the test, invoking Shanks’s supposed “protagonist halo.”
• Spiral Dure shifts from boastful aggression to fear and obedience after Adrian’s powers defeat and torment him.
• Crocus is wary of Adrian’s intentions and remains behind at Twin Capes, wondering what he plans to do.
• Lumi quietly uses her control of the fortress space to gather everyone and arrange the produce for the experiment.

Significant themes

• Secrecy and knowledge: Adrian guards a valuable method from Crocus while allowing Shanks to decide whether to share it.
• Power and control: Adrian neutralizes threats through psychological abilities rather than a prolonged fight.
• Chance versus pattern: The experiment tests whether the Float-Float Fruit’s apparent rebirth was coincidence or a reproducible phenomenon.

Plot points and events

• Adrian tests his theory that a Devil Fruit might reincarnate into a nearby fruit. After killing Spiral Dure, a user who likely ate the Spin-Spin Fruit, he has Shanks hold an apple inside Lumi’s spatial fortress while he monitors the room.
• Nothing changes, even after half an hour. The experiment fails, and Adrian abandons the attempt to obtain the Spin-Spin Fruit.
• Back aboard the ship, Shanks tells Crocus what happened. Crocus suspects Adrian may know something they do not, though Shanks finds the whole experiment baffling.
• Adrian keeps Shanks close, both to watch him and as bait that might draw out former Roger Pirates. The Nether Abyss remains at Reverse Mountain for several more days, but Adrian finds no other Devil Fruit users or worthwhile treasure.
• Once Shanks has recovered, the crew leaves Reverse Mountain. Crocus asks their destination, and Adrian announces they are taking the middle route through Paradise: the Entertainment and Cuisine Route.

Character developments and interactions

• Shanks is uncomfortable with Adrian’s casual killing and dislikes the fruit experiment, but follows orders and keeps his objections mostly to himself. He also privately resolves to avoid ever owing Adrian a Devil Fruit.
• Adrian remains focused on his experiments and treats the failed test pragmatically. He continues to regard Shanks as a useful “golden bait” for locating Roger Pirates.
• Crocus worries about Shanks, questions him about Adrian’s actions, and speculates that Adrian may have hidden knowledge. He and Shanks share a familiar, candid exchange before the departure.

Significant themes

• The chapter contrasts Shanks’s moral hesitation with Adrian’s ruthless pragmatism.
• It highlights the uncertainty and randomness surrounding Devil Fruits, as Adrian’s controlled experiment produces no result.
• Suspicion and incomplete knowledge shape the characters’ relationships: Crocus and Shanks try to interpret Adrian, while Adrian pursues his own goals without explaining them.

Plot points and events

• Adrian’s final three destinations on the Entertainment and Cuisine Route also happen to be the remaining targets of his [Wind Tamer] quest. After dropping Shanks and Doctor Moe at Little Sky Island, he intends to head to the New World and continue his trial—but Crocus’s mention of the route raises his hopes that its islands may offer enjoyable rewards, perhaps even a specialty from Rayleigh.
• The group’s first stop is Ballywood Kingdom, a modern, Hollywood-like island famous for its film industry.
• A director approaches Adrian, praising his looks and asking him to star in a romance. Adrian questions the story, then suggests a deliberately crude, adult-film-style production. The director is appalled and eventually gives up.
• Louf asks whether she could play the leading lady. Adrian’s dismissive reaction offends her, reviving her urge to attack him.
• Shanks points out that the group has already spent two days on the island and asks when they will leave, noting that Doctor Moe has been left aboard the Nether Abyss.
• Adrian had expected members of the Roger Pirates to appear, since he told Crocus where they were going and left the ship visible in the harbor. After two days, however, no one has shown up, and Shanks has given no sign of recognizing anyone.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian enjoys the director’s flattery but quickly turns the pitch into a joke, revealing his irreverent, provocative sense of humor. He also seems to be lingering in hopes of encountering the Roger Pirates.
• Shanks is entertained by Adrian’s antics but grows concerned about the group’s delay and Doctor Moe’s solitude aboard ship.
• Louf is fascinated by filmmaking and eager to participate, but Adrian’s silent judgment of her appearance irritates her.
• The director’s enthusiasm for recruiting Adrian gives way to confusion and disgust as Adrian pushes his unconventional film concept.

Significant themes

• Expectation versus reality: Adrian anticipates a meaningful encounter with the Roger Pirates, but the island visit yields only an awkward movie pitch.
• Entertainment and performance: Ballywood’s film culture provides the setting for a comic clash between conventional filmmaking and Adrian’s deliberately outrageous ideas.
• Teasing and strained camaraderie: Adrian’s humor entertains some companions while insulting others, particularly Louf.

Plot and key events

• Adrian, Shanks, and Louf agree to spend one final day in the Ballywood Kingdom. Shanks goes looking for wine, Louf returns to her fortress and kitchen, and Adrian explores the city.
• Adrian unexpectedly meets Elizabeth Arden, a singer he grew close to during their time in Dressrosa. They flirt, then sit down for coffee.
• Elizabeth explains that she is in Ballywood for a solo recital, accompanied by a violinist—not because of a film offer. She gives Adrian a ticket to the afternoon performance.
• Inspired by the entertainment capital and Elizabeth’s profession, Adrian asks whether he could become a musician. He admits he has no training or instrument experience and has only listened to “Binks’ Sake.” Elizabeth gently advises him to stick with piracy.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian is curious about Ballywood’s entertainment scene and briefly revives his old ambition to gain the [Musician] profession. His confidence and charm are clear, but his musical qualifications are nonexistent.
• Elizabeth is pleased to see Adrian and remains attracted to him, though she sets a playful boundary when he tries to move their reunion toward intimacy. She is also candid and teasing about his lack of musical experience.
• Their reunion is affectionate and flirtatious, with Adrian’s familiar boldness balanced by Elizabeth’s amused restraint.
• Shanks and Louf each pursue their own interests during the day, while Doctor Moe is content to be left alone guarding the Nether Abyss.

Significant themes

• Old connections rekindled: Adrian and Elizabeth’s shared past quickly restores their warmth and attraction.
• Ambition versus ability: Adrian’s sudden musical aspiration contrasts with his complete lack of training.
• Identity and recognition: Despite being far from the New World, Adrian is readily recognized because of his fame and clear wanted-poster images.
• Humor and self-awareness: The chapter plays Adrian’s grand ambitions against Elizabeth’s practical, gently mocking assessment.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Adrian hopes to unlock the Musician secondary profession, but discovers that he needs a quest to appear. He asks Elizabeth for books on music theory and instruments.
• Elizabeth invites him to her hotel room, apparently expecting something other than a study session. Adrian instead spends the visit reading her books, leaving her frustrated and departing before he does.
• Thanks to his extraordinary intelligence and Theoretical Research specialty, Adrian absorbs the material in less than half a day—though his knowledge is still largely theoretical.
• He attends Elizabeth’s performance at a shopping-center concert in the Ballywood Kingdom. Her singing is technically excellent, and the audience applauds enthusiastically.
• Elizabeth unexpectedly invites Adrian onstage, claiming that she heard him perform an original étude and considers him a musical genius. In reality, she has arranged the surprise to test and embarrass him after he ignored her flirtatious advances.
• Adrian adopts the dignified air of a learned scholar, even using a little Spiritual Pressure to impress the audience. But when he presses a piano key, the first sound is a wrong note.
• That mistake triggers the desired quest: he must use the hall’s piano to perform a piece that gets at least 90 percent of the audience standing and applauding. Confident that his knowledge of Earth’s music library will help, Adrian begins trying the keys.

Character developments and interactions

• Adrian remains focused on unlocking his profession, prioritizing study over Elizabeth’s romantic hints. He is a fast learner and skilled at projecting an authoritative persona, but his actual musical ability remains unproven.
• Elizabeth moves from flirtation to irritation when Adrian ignores her costume and reads instead. She then turns his concert appearance into a playful public challenge, wagering her reputation on his supposed talent.
• Their relationship is teasing and competitive: Elizabeth tries to make Adrian perform under pressure, while he quietly promises to demonstrate his power as a Great Pirate. Neither knows what the other is truly thinking as he takes the stage.

Significant themes

• Knowledge versus practical skill: Adrian quickly masters music theory, but the chapter leaves open whether book learning will translate into a successful performance.
• Performance and appearance: Adrian’s scholarly demeanor and Spiritual Pressure persuade the audience he is a master before he has played a proper note.
• Flirtation and rivalry: Elizabeth’s staged challenge grows out of her frustration with Adrian, turning attraction into a contest.
• Ambition and opportunity: Adrian’s chance to pursue a new profession arrives unexpectedly, but the quest’s demanding audience requirement raises the stakes.