The talks with Pande Lia went very smoothly. After Lind asked her to help hold down the fort, she agreed without much hesitation.
She even turned down Lind's offer to restore her family to the throne of the Yinglan Kingdom.
The Pande Family truly intended to remain on Oran Island as an ordinary small family and engage in some business ventures.
The talks with Roger went just as smoothly. Roger readily agreed to Lind's request and said they would head to Oran Island after picking up a new crewmate.
With their top-tier fighters secured, the rest was easy to arrange.
Of the eleven elite squads, six would remain to defend the Oran Sea, while five would accompany Lind on his expedition to the West Blue.
The entire Kunpeng Squad would deploy. With Pande Lia there, Zhang Liang could join Lind on the expedition.
Unfortunately, even with a powerful fighter holding down the fort, they still needed someone to serve as their public leader. Axel would have to miss this chance to return to the West Blue.
Old man Zhang Yang had also sought out Lind beforehand, hoping to accompany him to the West Blue.
That made Lind suspect he might get to witness some juicy drama this time. All sorts of melodramatic family feuds flashed through his mind.
After a phone call with Rocks, Lind made no further moves and led his enormous fleet straight toward the West Blue.
The vast number of scientists Lind had recruited had hardly been idle over the past year.
With Lind's generous funding, they had achieved breakthroughs in many important technologies, including techniques for embedding seastone into ships and various propulsion systems.
And with Lind's knowledge of the original story, secretly going to Wano Country to obtain some seastone was relatively easy.
As a