North Blue, evening.
Ten massive warships from Headquarters had gathered at an island before the entrance to Reverse Mountain, while ships from the local North Blue branches had begun heading back one by one.
At the harbor, Sakazuki glanced at the sky and said to Bullet and Enel beside him:
"Take two days off."
"We've been on the move for months. Let the soldiers unwind properly."
Enel stretched.
"Nice!"
"I've got something to take care of anyway."
Bullet called over his men to pass down the order, and tremendous cheers immediately rang through the harbor.
Amid the deafening cheers, Sakazuki asked curiously:
"Oh?"
"Where are you going?"
Enel grinned.
"Old man, remember when we first met Professor Vegapunk?"
"He said a few of the scientists were away."
"So we didn't catch them back then."
Sakazuki understood.
"Vinsmoke Judge."
Enel nodded.
"Yeah. I spotted him during the Court-Plowing Operation."
"I snuck over to observe him."
"He's been replicating and modifying the Lineage Factor."
"Ninety-nine percent of his entire country is male, and they're all Cloning soldiers."
"The technology's already quite mature."
Sakazuki raised an eyebrow.
"You're thinking...?"
Enel said:
"Exactly."
"The professor's research has hit a bottleneck."
"Some outside technology to give him inspiration would be perfect."
Sakazuki nodded.
"True."
"But after all this time, he's still researching the Lineage Factor?"
Enel sighed.
"Yeah."
"The government's done plenty of those experiments... over the years."
"But the people doing them before were all too stupid."
"They were just wasting materials."
"Now that they've finally got the professor..."
"How could they let him go so easily?"
"All the cellular samples they've collected from Oni, Giants, Lunarians, and so on, from races they could name and races they couldn't..."
"They sent them all to the professor."
"They wanted him to analyze them, but he's