Chapter Summaries

Boer and Locke Hohen arrived at the Steel Club, where artisans’ families confronted them over the forced recruitment of their masters. Boer calmed the crowd, revealed his industrial plans, and began recruiting the artisans into Bernia’s Steel Feast.

• Baron Caffia welcomed Boer and Locke Hohen to the Steel Club and explained that the smiths and other artisans had been brought there.
• Tock Augustine blocked the entrance and demanded to know why his master had been arrested, so Boer apologized and invited him and the families inside.
• Tock reunited with Copperhammer Augustine, while Boer addressed the gathered artisans and revealed plans to build industries across the Kingdom of Bernia.
• Copperhammer Augustine mentioned Uranus and space-based weapons, prompting Boer to question whether he could build them.
• Boer promised the artisans leadership roles, wealth, and status in the Bernia Steel Heavy Industry Consortium, then asked Locke to negotiate the details.

Boer demonstrated his ability to shape five military sabers at once, inspiring master smith Copperhammer Augustine and master mechanic Hunter Winster to envision a new industrial program. The chapter ended with Copperhammer taking over Locke Hohen’s presentation to rally the craftsmen around building machine tools and industrial foundations.

• Boer used his electromagnetic power to forge five identical military sabers simultaneously, testing the limits of his precision and control.
• Copperhammer Augustine watched Tock offer a pastry to Beryl Winster while Hunter Winster looked on jealously.
• Copperhammer and Hunter saw Boer’s demonstration and recognized its potential for precision manufacturing.
• Hunter declared that they should build machine tools first, and he and Copperhammer excitedly listed the machines and equipment they could produce.
• Copperhammer and Hunter rushed onto the platform, displaced Locke Hohen, and Copperhammer called on the craftsmen to begin building mother machines.

Boer met with Steel Club designers Copperhammer and Hunter, who revealed that the kingdom’s industrial project was stalled by delayed planning, scarce materials, poor roads, unworkable sites, a shortage of trained workers, and interference from nobles. Boer promised to address the obstacles personally, while Hunter worried that a powerful industrial kingdom under Boer could threaten Bernia and draw the World Government’s attention.

• Elena told Boer that Copperhammer and Hunter had urgently summoned him to the Steel Club, where Thatch and Roland were also waiting.
• Boer arrived at the club, ordered food and drinks, and used his powers to serve rum to Copperhammer and hot milk to Hunter.
• Hunter and Copperhammer explained that the project was blocked by City Hall delays, inadequate sites and roads, limited steel supplies, a lack of skilled labor, and nobles pushing unsuitable appointees onto the project.
• Boer assured the designers that he would personally resolve the problems and urged everyone to eat and return to their families afterward.
• Hunter doubted whether Boer could overcome the resistance and feared that an industrial kingdom under his control might provoke the World Government.

After Copperhammer and Hunter left, Boer heard Thatch and Roland describe the corruption, infighting, and noble interference obstructing their work. He reaffirmed his support and ordered Roland to prepare a map of the kingdom’s iron and coal deposits by morning.

• Boer bid farewell to Copperhammer and Hunter after their dinner, while Hunter warned that great creations took time and lamented the nobles.
• Thatch told Boer that city guards and former gang leaders were undermining his force, while his attempt to punish a protection racket had worsened divisions and damaged public trust.
• Roland reported that nobles controlled the weapons’ sales channels and accounts, leaving him unable to verify the falling prices or reports.
• Boer told Thatch and Roland that Locke had questioned their abilities, but Boer had refused requests to replace them and promised to resolve their problems.
• Boer ordered Roland to bring him a kingdom map marking confirmed and suspected mineral deposits, especially iron and coal, before morning.

Boer summoned Chloe to learn why the Steel Heavy Industry Consortium could not obtain ore despite the northern mines’ abundant deposits. After Chloe explained the mining revolt and political obstruction, Boer recruited the Kent Family to help audit the consortium’s accounts and left to address the supply crisis directly.

• Boer summoned Chloe and asked her to explain why the northern mineral deposits could not supply his consortium.
• Chloe explained that miners had rebelled against the Mountain Viscount’s abuses, formed the Mine Protection Squad, and kept control of the mines while some nobles benefited from the consortium’s shortages.
• Chloe sat on Boer’s lap and offered her information, but Boer resisted temptation and lifted her onto the desk instead.
• Boer tasked Chloe with sending reliable Kent Family members to assist Roland and learn the consortium’s rules, binding the family’s prospects to his undertaking.
• Chloe pledged the Kent Family’s loyalty, and Boer left the study to resolve the mineral supply problem directly.

Boer formed a giant Iron Serpent from metal ingots and guided it on a terrifying tour over the Silver Capital, alarming the city’s rulers and residents. Seeing the impoverished children in the slums, he began questioning his ambitions and felt a new responsibility take root.

• Locke woke to an emergency call reporting that Boer had created a huge flying snake.
• Boer shaped the metal ingots at the riding grounds into a nearly hundred-meter Iron Serpent and rode on its head.
• Boer guided the Iron Serpent over the docks, Thatch’s security company, the nobles’ district, and the palace, frightening residents and exposing the limits of the kingdom’s authority.
• Boer took the Iron Serpent over the slums, where children chased its shadow instead of fleeing from it.
• Watching the slum children made Boer reflect on his past and decide that he ought to do something for people beyond the nobles and his own ambitions.

Boer cleared and prepared a vast factory site with his metal powers, then revealed that he could generate and store electricity. Hunter realized the factory could be redesigned around electromagnetic power, leaving the industrial project poised for a major change.

• Boer used a metal serpent to clear a rectangular site in the forest, alarming the nobles who watched from the city.
• Copperhammer and Hunter arrived to inspect the clearing, and Hunter predicted that Boer’s deterrence would help establish his Iron Kingdom.
• Boer transformed the serpent into an engineering machine that dug, compacted, and reinforced a forty-thousand-square-meter factory foundation.
• Copperhammer presented plans for a metal smelting and processing center, and Boer trusted the designers to build it as they saw fit.
• Boer revealed his ability to generate electricity and showed Hunter the energy cores that stored it.
• Hunter realized the factory could use electromagnetic power instead of steam and mechanical systems, and declared that its design would need to be redone.

Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont learned that weapons traced to the Kingdom of Bernia could conduct and retain Armament Haki exceptionally well, and that they were being produced in large numbers. He connected them to the Steel Snake and Aaron Boer and decided the Navy needed to contact him.

• Rear Admiral Raymont reviewed intelligence about a giant metal snake appearing over the Kingdom of Bernia.
• Carl Valentine delivered Commander Strawberry’s report and a sword taken from a smuggling shipment, explaining that the blades had cut through pirates’ weapons with ease.
• Raymont coated the sword with Armament Haki and discovered that it absorbed the Haki smoothly and retained it far better than ordinary weapons.
• Valentine reported that all twenty swords in the crate had similar qualities and that the merchant ship’s cargo hold had contained many more.
• Valentine revealed that the weapons came from the Kingdom of Bernia and had appeared around the same time as the Steel Snake.
• Raymont connected the weapons to Aaron Boer and decided to make formal contact with him.

Boer established plans for a factory, recruiting craftsmen and assigning the Commonwealth nobles to provide literate workers and supplies. Using his metal-shaping ability and the expertise of Copperhammer and Hunter Winster, he rapidly built the factory’s industrial areas and energy center, leaving a steel complex nearing operation.

• Boer told Roland to recruit craftsmen and ordered the Commonwealth nobles, led by Baron Caffia, to send literate young people and supply the construction site.
• Boer instructed Roland to increase purchases of raw ore and said he would visit the northern mining district and build a road there.
• Boer used his powers to construct a large warehouse and logistics area in one afternoon, astonishing the watching nobles and arriving craftsmen.
• Boer worked with Copperhammer Augustine and Hunter Winster to build the smelting, refining, processing, and forming areas, relying on their advanced designs.
• Boer constructed an underground capacitor matrix to store and distribute his electrical energy as craftsmen and specialists joined the project, bringing the factory close to completion.

Boer activated the Supercapacitor Matrix by drawing on the planet’s magnetic field, triggering a spectacular surge of energy and a profound evolution in his abilities. As the project reached its climax, the chapter also revealed the Commonwealth’s corruption and the small improvements ordinary people had experienced under Boer’s rule.

• Copperhammer Augustine urged Boer to power the completed Supercapacitor Matrix, and Boer entered the isolated chamber to begin.
• Boer tapped into the planet’s magnetic field, sending visible energy into the capacitor units as rainbow ribbons appeared over the Silver Capital.
• The energy transformed Boer’s body, removed a bottleneck in his abilities, and strengthened his control over magnetic fields and electricity.
• Baron Caffia and other Commonwealth members had exploited their influence to seize posts and property and divert profits, while Roland and the remnants of the Kent Family audited their accounts.
• The Commonwealth’s crackdown on gangs and lower customs tariffs had improved trade and given Silver Capital’s ordinary citizens a little more security and hope.

Boer successfully powered the Steel Heavy Industry Consortium’s factory, and Copperhammer Augustine and Hunter Winster began preparing it for operation. After Boer promised to seek ore in the northern mining district, the story shifted to Blake’s rebel mining camp, where winter shortages and rumors from the capital left him fearing a coming upheaval.

• Boer completed a three-hour energy output session, charging the factory’s capacitors and bringing its machinery online.
• Copperhammer Augustine and Hunter Winster organized inspections and training as Consortium nobles concealed their resentment toward Boer.
• Boer told the two masters he would travel to the northern mining district to secure ore and promised to recharge the factory regularly.
• Blake’s past emerged: after the Mountain Viscount threatened the miners, the miners killed him, and Babo helped them connect with the Revolutionary Army and escape into the mountains.
• Blake worried that winter shortages and reports of Boer, the Steel Heavy Industry Consortium, and a metal serpent signaled an upheaval threatening the mining camp.

Boer summoned the Steel Heavy Industry Consortium’s shareholders and exposed their embezzlement of roughly 870 million Beli. He ordered them to choose and kill one scapegoat, transfer that person’s shares to Ethan Kent, and warned that next time they would all die.

• Boer summoned the consortium’s core members to the former Marquis Kent’s residence, where Roland, Thatch, Elena, Prince Locke, and Ethan Kent arrived.
• The twenty-one shareholders entered the conference room in fear, and Boer had Ethan read aloud the secret audit conducted by Ethan and Roland.
• Ethan revealed that the shareholders had embezzled approximately 870 million Beli, and Boer restrained a panicking baron with metal rings.
• Boer ordered the shareholders to choose someone to kill and transfer that person’s shares to Ethan, warning that they would all die if they betrayed him again.
• Boer left with Roland, Prince Locke, and Ethan, while Locke reminded the shareholders to dispose of the body without making a mess.

Boer confronted the emptiness of his wealth, authority, and overwhelming power, then asked Elena about his finances and his household’s wages. Left alone in his study, he broke down over his longing for the homeland he could never return to.

• Boer recalled using his electromagnetic power to kill pirate leaders from five kilometers away and felt no satisfaction afterward.
• Boer realized that his servants feared and obeyed him but could not see the person beneath his identity as a powerful lord.
• Boer summoned Elena and asked how much money he had, and she reported his vast cash holdings and other assets.
• Boer asked whether his household workers earned enough to live on, and Elena described their wages and the expenses for the two Kent Family ladies.
• Boer dismissed Elena and the attendants, then wept alone as he blamed the world for his oppressive position and mourned his lost homeland.

Boer began building free sheet-metal homes for every household in the slums, earning the residents’ trust while agents from the Mine Protection Squad and Navy watched. Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont and Captain Carl Valentine sailed toward Bernia with reports on the Steel Snake and the Aaron Ball dossier.

• Boer flew to the slums with a massive metal cube and offered to build residents homes that could withstand the cold and rain.
• A brave child asked for a sturdier house, and Boer gave him a small metal snake before constructing a new home for him and his grandfather.
• Residents emerged from hiding to ask for homes, and Boer promised to build one free for every household in the slums.
• Agents from the Mine Protection Squad and the Navy observed Boer’s actions and wondered what kind of person he was.
• Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont and Captain Carl Valentine approached Bernia aboard a naval warship, carrying reports on the Steel Snake and the Aaron Ball dossier.

Boer learned that Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont had arrived in Bernia with Marines seeking him over his security company, the death of Bar Kent, and weapons sales. After Boer and Locke met the officers at the Steel Club, Bastille challenged Boer to spar, and Boer eagerly accepted.

• Boer promised the slum residents he would return the next morning, then flew with Locke toward the Steel Club after learning Marines had arrived.
• Locke warned Boer that Marine attention could threaten their arms trade and preparations for the Heavenly Tribute, but Boer welcomed the chance to test his strength.
• Bastille Raymont and Carl Valentine reviewed Aaron Ball's file and discussed his abilities, violent history, and possible recruitment.
• Boer and Locke entered the conference room, where Bastille accused Boer of leading former pirates, murdering Bar Kent, and selling blades that had killed Marines.
• Boer offered evasive explanations for the accusations, then dropped his feigned innocence when Bastille challenged him to spar.
• Boer accepted Bastille's challenge to fight at the riding grounds below.

Boer fought Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont in the Steel Club arena, first trading blows with him and then using his magnetic powers to overwhelm him. After defeating Raymont with a storm of metal arrows and lightning, Boer brought him to the conference room and offered him rum so they could talk.

• Bastille Raymont leaped into the arena, and Boer covered himself in metal armor before attacking with electromagnetic force.
• Boer and Raymont exchanged heavy blows, but Raymont used his Six Powers and Armament Haki to send Boer crashing through a warehouse.
• Thatch arrived intending to help Boer, but Boer ordered him through magnetic vibrations to turn back and wait.
• Boer unleashed a vast magnetic attack, pinning Raymont with metal and shackles before striking at him with thousands of arrows.
• Raymont broke free and charged toward Boer, but Boer used Ten Thousand Thunder Prisons to paralyze and defeat him with lightning.
• Boer carried Raymont to the conference room, offered him rum, and asked if they could talk.

Boer negotiated with Rear Admiral Raymont, offering money and cooperation in exchange for the Marines’ help and protection for his business. Raymont considered Boer’s proposal to end weapon sales, supply the Marines, and share factory profits, leaving the deal undecided.

• Raymont drank the rum Boer provided and agreed to hear his proposal after Boer offered a hundred million Beli to the Marine 101st Branch.
• Raymont agreed to overlook the Greatsword Pirates incident and have records claim the Marines killed the pirates during an operation.
• Boer offered to stop selling his weapons and supply the 101st Branch, while Raymont demonstrated how the weapons conducted Armament Haki and invited Boer to join the Marines; Boer declined.
• Boer promised to stop mass-producing the weapons for the market while continuing to supply the Marines with industrially made and customized weapons.
• Boer proposed sharing factory profits with the 101st Branch in exchange for access to Marine distribution networks and shipping routes, and Locke vouched for Boer’s beneficial rule.
• Raymont and Carl Valentine weighed the proposal in silence, with no agreement yet reached.

Boer built sturdy metal homes for the poor neighborhood and met Bella, who asked him to help the starving and sick residents of the mining district. The chapter ended with Bella offering herself to Boer because she believed that was the price of saving everyone, leaving him stunned by her trauma.

• Boer recalled securing an alliance with Rear Admiral Raymont and planned to aid the mining district with food, freedom, trade, and infrastructure.
• Boer used his magnetic powers to replace the slum's shacks with sturdy sheet-metal houses.
• Bella approached Boer with an urgent message about the mining district, and he carried her to his club on a floating metal disk.
• Bella told Boer that the miners lacked food, medicine, and warm clothing, and offered to trade ore for help.
• When Boer accidentally touched Bella's hair, she panicked and revealed that a noble had abused her and killed her father.
• Bella offered to play the noble's cruel game with Boer if he would save the miners, leaving Boer unable to maintain his composure.

Vice Admiral Tsuru summoned Marine Headquarters’ leaders to discuss Aaron Ball’s mass production of Haki-conductive weapons and the threat they posed. They agreed to approach him with offers of cooperation while placing his operations under surveillance and preparing to eliminate him if necessary.

• Tsuru received Rear Admiral Raymont’s report that Aaron Ball had released at least forty thousand Pseudo-Black Blades, with many already entering the Grand Line.
• Tsuru summoned Kong, Zephyr, and Sengoku to an emergency meeting and showed them the dossier and a sample sword.
• Kong favored arresting or killing Aaron, while Zephyr and Sengoku argued for recruiting him and controlling his weapon production through contracts and a nearby Marine branch.
• Tsuru coated the sample sword in Armament Haki, revealing its exceptional conductivity and convincing Kong that Aaron might be valuable as the Marines’ exclusive bladesmith.
• The Marine leaders agreed to send an envoy to Aaron, expand Marine surveillance near Bernia, and prepare a military contingency if he proved uncontrollable.
• The meeting ended with the Marines’ plan taking shape, while Aaron remained unaware that Headquarters had begun targeting him with both cooperation and force.

Blake feared Bella had been abducted and searched for her with Glass, only to learn she had willingly gone with Aaron Ball, known as the “White Calamity.” Aaron arrived with Bella unharmed and promised help for the mining district, leaving Blake confused but beginning to feel hope.

• Blake found Glass in the slums and begged him to search for Bella.
• Glass learned that Bella had willingly followed Aaron Ball toward the city center, and Blake panicked at the thought that Aaron might harm her.
• Glass urged Blake to stay calm, but their argument was interrupted when Aaron descended into the alley with Bella in a metal chair.
• Blake pulled Bella behind him, but she cheerfully showed him the milk candies Aaron had given her and said Aaron had promised medicine, food, and warm houses for everyone.
• Blake checked Bella for injuries and found her safe, while Aaron invited him to discuss the aid for the mine.