The Road

More than a month flew by amid the roar of metal and the sweat of countless people.

When the final connection in the Supercapacitor Matrix's vast underground chamber was securely sealed, Copperhammer Augustine could no longer contain his excitement.

The stocky designer rushed over to Boer, practically dancing with excitement, and pushed him without further ado toward the center of the Energy Hub, onto the specially reserved metal platform connected to countless thick cables.

"Quick! Quick! Boer, my boy, it's time! Pour your divine power into it!" Copperhammer's voice was slightly distorted with excitement. He even imitated the movements of a sacrificial ritual, spreading his arms in an exaggerated, comical gesture of "summoning" that made several young assistants nearby chuckle.

Even Hunter Winster, who was always steady as a mountain and never showed his emotions, could not help stroking his carefully groomed short white beard, a clearly visible smile of anticipation forming at the corners of his mouth.

In those eyes that had seen all the vicissitudes of life, the pure flame of a scholar and creator now burned.

Over the past month, not only had the factory's physical facilities risen from the ground, but a technical team carefully selected and organized by Hunter and Copperhammer had also begun to take shape.

Among them were professors obsessed with electromagnetic theory who had been "poached" from Kingdom University, old craftsmen who had languished in obscurity despite their astonishing intuition for mechanical structures, and young apprentices sent by the nobles, their eyes filled with bewilderment and curiosity after preliminary training.

Now, everyone had gathered in the observation area on the Energy Hub's upper level. Through specially made thick glass windows, they focused their almost burning gazes of anticipation on the white-haired figure standing on the isolated platform below.

Feeling the countless heated gazes behind him, Boer nodded to Copperhammer and calmly stepped into the small metal compartment that had room for only one person to stand.

The heavy metal door, inscribed with shock-dampening and energy-channeling runes, slowly closed behind him with a muffled hum, separating the inside and outside into two worlds.

With his extraordinary perception, he confirmed that the last person had left the lower core area. Only he and the cold capacitor matrix, like a great beast waiting to be awakened, remained in the entire underground chamber.

Silence. Absolute silence.

Boer closed his eyes and stirred his own magnetic field on a deeper level. In his unique vision, the world changed.

The solid ground beneath his feet became translucent. Countless magnetic field lines representing the planet's magnetic field, like pulsing red ribbons of light, steadily penetrated the rock from deep within the core. They wove and darted around him before extending endlessly into the distance, forming an incomparably magnificent, energy-filled web that covered the entire planet.

It's time... he murmured inwardly.

Aboveground, outside the factory.

Some busy workers and guards were the first to notice something unusual.

"Huh? What's that in the sky?" A worker carrying a steel ingot raised his head in confusion.

At first, only a few faint blue-white sparks occasionally flashed through the air, making soft crackling sounds like static electricity on a sunny day.

But the phenomenon soon intensified. Light began to distort, and everything in sight seemed to lie behind a layer of rippling, invisible water, inducing dizziness.

Then, under countless horrified gazes, several enormous ribbons of energy radiating magnificent rainbow light appeared out of thin air high above the factory, particularly over the ground directly above the Energy Hub!

Like living auroras, they wound and swayed across the azure sky, their colors shifting from deep, dark blue to blazing orange-red, interspersed with mysterious violet gleams. Beautiful and eerie, they radiated energy fluctuations that made hearts pound.

This supernatural spectacle immediately drew the attention of the entire Silver Capital.

On a palace terrace, Prince Locke gripped the railing, his gaze grave; in the noble district, countless people pushed open their windows, their faces filled with fear and awe; in the slums, people streamed out of their new homes, pointing at the mythical sight in the sky and whispering, their eyes filled with bewilderment and a trace of inexplicable anticipation.

Inside the underground Energy Hub.

Use my magnetic field to cut through this planet's inherent magnetic field lines and tap into this nearly limitless energy!

Boer roared inwardly, driving the rotation of his magnetic field to its limit! A violent, invisible force field spread wildly outward from him, producing intense interference and friction with the planet's magnetic field!

Hummm-!!!

A deep rumble, seemingly coming from far beneath the earth, shook the entire chamber. The arm-thick superconducting cables connecting his platform to the capacitor matrix instantly became scorching hot. Even wrapped in insulation, the air above their surfaces visibly warped with heat.

Vast electrical currents were forcibly "drawn" from the void, becoming torrents of azure energy visible to the naked eye. They surged wildly along the cables toward the fifty-four enormous cylindrical containers arranged in three rings-upper, middle, and lower-the capacitor units holding the special ionic electrolyte!

Amid this electromagnetic tempest, the gray, dormant capacitor units began lighting up one after another, slowly but with absolute certainty, like beacons being lit in sequence!

Luminous green light shone from within, faint at first, then growing stronger and stronger, until it steadily radiated a cool, powerful glow, illuminating the once-dim underground chamber like an alchemical workshop out of legend.

At the very center of the energy storm, Boer endured unimaginable pressure and the scouring force of the energy. The terrifying energy spilling out had disintegrated all his clothes at the very outset, exposing his lean, well-proportioned body.

At that moment, his body seemed no longer to be flesh and blood, but a pure conductor of energy.

Fine arcs of electricity danced across his skin. His entire body was like a humanoid light source growing steadily brighter, radiating a dazzling, white-hot light from within!

Amid this intense fusion of electricity and magnetism, an invisible, deeper transformation was taking place inside Boer's body.

His body, already transformed by the Magnet-Magnet Fruit, underwent a second, even more thorough wave of evolution!

Deep within his cells, the nuclear membranes became denser and tougher, as though coated with an invisible layer of energy. They could better protect the core genetic material within the rapidly rotating magnetic field, and capture and utilize electrical energy more efficiently.

The nerve bundles throughout his body seemed to have been replaced with superconducting fibers, their signal transmission speed soaring exponentially. The density and toughness of his muscle fibers, the strength of his bones, and even the vitality and self-repair capabilities of his organs all received significant, comprehensive enhancements!

The invisible bottleneck that had previously troubled him in further developing his abilities quietly melted away beneath the scouring torrent of violent energy, like ice and snow in sunlight.

That's right... this is it! Boer reached an understanding amid the cleansing torrent of energy. The lightning-shaped markings on the Devil Fruit, the Magnet-Magnet Fruit, pointed the way forward all along... magnetic fields and electricity are two sides of the same coin! Control the rotation of magnetic fields to generate the ultimate electrical current... this is my broad road ahead!

He felt his connection to the magnetic field of the planet beneath his feet grow closer. Controlling it became more effortless, and the upper limit of his abilities expanded significantly once again.

Aboveground, in the observation area.

The rainbow light in the sky still flickered and swayed, casting shifting light and shadow over everyone's faces. They watched the tightly closed metal door below and the capacitor units, more than half of which now shone with a steady luminous green glow, with tense attention.

They had invested too much over the past month. Some were driven by the prospect of immeasurable future wealth-like Baron Caffia, whose clenched fists were slick with sweat;

Some were driven by the ideal kindled in their hearts of creating a new world-like Hunter and the scholars he had recruited, their gazes focused and reverent;

Others were simply following their families' orders and watching from here-some young noble apprentices, their faces filled with tension and curiosity.

Whatever their original intentions, after pouring in countless hours of painstaking effort and witnessing a miracle emerge from nothing, all of them involuntarily felt their hearts rise into their throats. They held their breath and concentrated, waiting for the final result.

Yet beneath this appearance of unity and shared endeavor, the undercurrents in the Silver Capital had never stopped flowing.

It had been nearly half a year since Boer arrived in the kingdom. Before him, the Commonwealth members led by Baron Caffia were unfailingly respectful and obedient.

But these men, most of whom held low titles, had territories bordering the Silver Capital, and were ambitious to their very bones, had swiftly turned into jackals once Boer used his absolute military strength to lead the Commonwealth's formation and secured the royal family's tacit approval and even open backing. They viciously tore into the long-established nobles who had lost their influence in this political reshuffle.

They used the Commonwealth's influence to forcibly seize Council seats at City Hall; they installed their confidants in key customs posts; relying on the Commonwealth's near monopoly on the steel trade, they brazenly suppressed other merchants; exploiting information gaps and threats of force, they forcibly bought private docks and warehouses at low prices. They even went behind Boer's back to sign ten-year leases with certain merchants on grossly one-sided terms, pocketing most of the advance payments.

This was also why the overall plan for the docks had still not been finalized-the benefits had already been carved up and eaten away by them.

They even clung to the hope that, should Boer discover it afterward, he would either have to swallow his displeasure and accept the established facts, or simply use force to seize things from those "unlucky" merchants. Either way, they had already made a fortune.

The enormous profits from the arms trade, which should have belonged to Boer, were instead siphoned off layer by layer through all manner of falsified accounts and fraudulent quotations, swelling their private fortunes like inflated bubbles.

Only when Roland and the remnants of the Kent Family began auditing the accounts with Boer's tacit approval, and Boer rode the Iron Serpent on a patrol through the city, its cold metallic shadow hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles, did they abruptly realize that their feast of greed might soon be coming to an end.

But for the ordinary citizens and small and medium-sized merchants of the Silver Capital, these past several months had seemed to let a long-absent glimmer of light into their lives.

The gangsters who had once been everywhere, clinging like an incurable disease, had either been absorbed and brought into line by Thatch's security company or ruthlessly executed and purged. The suppressed vitality of the populace had been unleashed as never before.

After the Commonwealth took control of customs, it set lower tariff rates than before, attracting more seagoing ships to trade and greatly increasing the number of dockworkers and porters needed. In the domestic market, the circulation costs of imported and exported goods fell, making prices slightly more affordable as well.

Spread among each poor person struggling to survive, these changes might amount to no more than an extra piece of black bread at dinner or another thick secondhand garment in the depths of winter. More importantly, however, an unprecedentedly fairer and more orderly environment allowed those at the bottom, living gray and burdensome lives, to glimpse the possibility of hope.

In the end, the arrival of Boer, the "White Monster," had, in his incomparably forceful way, pried open the iron curtain that had long solidified over the kingdom's upper echelons, letting a faint glimmer shine into the world below and allowing its people a little room to breathe.