After returning to the manor, Lind wanted to hold a banquet to celebrate his breakthrough.
He also wanted to hand out some perks to support the tournament in a few days and fire up his subordinates.
This time, Lind planned to offer a hundred and fifty bottles of Tiger Soul Wine as incentives. A hundred would be earned through strength, with arena matches used to select a hundred champions.
The remaining fifty bottles would go to fifty lucky winners chosen by drawing lots. This might turn quite a few ordinary pirates into elite pirates.
If someone had both the strength and luck to win Tiger Soul Wine twice, Lind would simply give them two bottles.
In any world, the strong grew stronger while the weak grew weaker, and Lind was more than happy to concentrate resources on such talented people.
Three days passed in a flash, bringing them to the start of the tournament.
Although Lind now commanded a sizable force, it was still little different from a makeshift outfit.
For now, he lacked the means to hold a formal competition like those in his previous life, with complex formats involving qualifiers, elimination rounds, finals, repechage rounds, and so on.
This tournament's format suited the pirate world perfectly. The preliminary round followed the same approach as the earlier selection on Hachinosu.
Several thousand pirates would simply fight in a free-for-all, and the few hundred left standing would become members of the elite squads.
The only difference from Hachinosu was that Lind forbade killing. He and several officers would also step in to save anyone whose life was in danger.
After the preliminary round came the main competition. The remaining few hundred would draw lots for one-on-one matches until the top three were decided.
Compared with competitions in his previous life, this tournament placed more weight on luck and tactical thinking.
With an incredible run of luck, someone might scrape through the preliminary round, then find that every opponent in the main competition was either weaker than them or too injured to compete.
They could coast all the way to the finals and win a Devil Fruit.
Unfortunately, Lind had no such child of destiny among his subordinates. The tournament's final standings were largely determined by strength.
The three Devil Fruits were all won by squad captains under Lind.
Notably, both Phil and Kite displayed the strength of a Marine Rear Admiral during the finals.
Lind believed that once the two ate their Devil Fruits and trained a little, they should reach the level of a Marine Vice Admiral.
Then there was the tournament's third-place finisher, a pirate who had recently joined the Seventh Division-White Wolf Holt.
He was a pirate who had only just made it through the first half of the Grand Line and entered the New World, a standard zoan White Wolf Fruit user with a bounty of fifty-two million.
In this era, that already put him at the threshold for the Supernovas. Axel had brought him back from his earlier voyage.
(It's a little difficult to judge the strength of the Supernovas against Marine Vice Admirals, so I'm using Drake as a reference. Drake was a Marine Rear Admiral before he became a pirate.
But Drake also ranked fairly high among the Supernovas in strength, so I think the minimum standard for a Supernova should be the strength of a Rear Admiral or Commodore.)
After some persuasion from several officers, Huo Te had "voluntarily" joined Lind's division.
Since Axel was a Devil Fruit user, his prize went to Saide, who had finished fourth.
As for Huo Te himself, Lind took inspiration from Wolverine's weapons in his previous life and forged him a pair of Wolf Claws that met the standard of a Great Grade Sword.
Considering Huo Te's strength, Lind gave him two options.
He could form a new squad around his original crew, or become Axel's deputy captain.
Clearly, most pirates in this world still cared deeply about their bonds.
Upon hearing Lind's options, Huo Te chose the former without hesitation, forming a new squad with his old companions.
"Hahahaha! You have my support. Valuing your companions is a precious quality. But do you need me to give you some more men? Your current subordinates are still a little lacking in both numbers and strength."
On the training grounds, Lind smiled as he spoke to the young man before him, who was about his own age.
As a pirate who had only been at sea for a year and had come from the Four Blues, Huo Te had a crew that was clearly lacking in strength.
His entire ship had fewer than fifty people, most of them ordinary sailors. There were fewer than ten respectable fighters among them, with bounties of a million.
"Hahahaha! Thanks, Boss. I've made quite a few friends during this month of training on Oran Island. Can I invite them to join my squad?"
"Besides, all of us have improved a lot during this month of training on Oran Island. With the people I plan to invite, I'm sure we'll have enough to form the Eleventh Squad!"
Huo Te's eyes lit up as he responded to Lind.
He made no attempt to hide anything. Fortunately, most people in this world were fairly straightforward, and Lind was not particularly suspicious either. He also had complete confidence in his own strength.
With a different boss, those words alone might have made Huo Te a target of suspicion and petty retaliation.
"Hahahaha! As long as you're confident. I'll grant your request, so don't let me down!"
Lind laughed and patted Huo Te on the shoulder, then sent him off to choose his own people and form the Eleventh Squad.
With the tournament over, the structure of Lind's division was essentially in place.
The elite squads, regular pirate troops, and Security Force had all been formed, together making up the armed forces under Lind's command.
The Seventh Division's pirate promotion system was also largely settled, aside from powerful individuals who received direct invitations.
After joining the Seventh Division, most pirates would first enter the regular troops. Those who distinguished themselves would then be recruited into the elite squads by the officers.
Alternatively, they would be recruited into the Security Force when it needed to expand.
Once their strength reached a certain level, they could become officers or join a super-elite unit similar to a Special Operations Team, which Lind might establish later.
The forces under Lind had not stopped expanding. Recruitment continued and would only slow once they had enough personnel to garrison the vast waters Lind intended to hold.
Pirates who joined later would be assigned according to this system. There would be no more special events like the tournament for the foreseeable future.
After the tournament, newly recruited pirates would receive different training according to their respective positions.
There would be no more uniform training like before. Pirates of different ranks would receive different levels of resources and development.
For instance, when it came to fruits such as Dragon Bananas, the elite squads would certainly receive more high-quality fruit than ordinary pirates.
Likewise, training guidance from Lind and the officers would naturally focus on the elite squads. Ordinary pirates might only get a few pointers now and then when Lind or the others were in a good mood.
The same principle applied to the officers. Whether it was Devil Fruits, various miraculous fruits, or Lind's guidance, these top-tier resources would naturally go to the officers first. Only once their needs were met would the ordinary elite pirates get a turn.
It truly proved the saying: the strong grew stronger, while the weak grew weaker.
Before you continue