Inside the Captain's cabin of the st. freya.
"So, the coating should be fine this time, right?" Charlotte Linlin murmured to herself with a hint of worry.
At this moment, she was surrounded by feathers imbued with a mysterious purple glow, and her slender fingers precisely drew a shimmering Tarot card from the ring of cards encircling her.
On the card, an angel stood upon the clouds, holding two cups and pouring the water of life into the chalice representing consciousness. The scene was peaceful and stable—it was the "Ace of Cups (Upright)."
This card usually symbolizes a new emotional journey, inner peace, a flow of inspiration, and... a blessed, safe beginning.
"Phew..." Charlotte Linlin let out a long sigh of relief as the purple glow and spectral feathers around her slowly dissipated. "It finally shows safety this time."
It had been three full months since they arrived at this Huck Narcissus Island, and most of that time had been wasted on repeated coating projects.
Besides the st. freya's massive size, which naturally required a longer coating period, the primary reason was that the coating technology on this island was truly worrisome.
Perhaps because the mandatory Yarman Sweet Potato Resin had to be transported from the Sabaody Archipelago, the coating quality here was extremely poor and the fees were outrageously high.
Charlotte Linlin even suspected that the scarcity of New World pirates in the first half of the Grand Line was inseparable from this frustrating coating process.
Every time a coating was completed, Charlotte Linlin would perform a divination.
After all, traveling to Fish-Man Island required diving ten thousand meters into the deep sea; in that pitch-black, high-pressure extreme environment, she didn't feel the same sense of total control she had on land or at sea.
Under the deep sea, if the coating were to rupture, even with her Current strength, she couldn't guarantee her absolute survival, let alone protect her entire crew. Therefore, she could only place her hopes on her divination ability.
So far, this was already the fifth coating for the st. freya. If it weren't for the fact that there were only a few barely qualified coating masters on the island, she would have wanted to replace them immediately.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Linlin? What's the divination result? Can we set off this time?"
A knock sounded at the door, and Ripley's voice came from outside.
Charlotte Linlin deactivated her "black swan" form. For now, she didn't want anyone to know she had consumed a second Devil Fruit. This wasn't out of distrust for her crew, but because the ability system of this world was too strange; there were peculiar abilities capable of peeking into or reading memories.
Moreover, those ubiquitous "News Coos" and potential secret photographers had already penetrated every corner of the ocean along with the expansion of the World Economic Journal's influence.
Sometimes even Charlotte Linlin herself wondered—she clearly tried her best to tie up loose ends, sinking ships and drowning people to eliminate future trouble, so how were there still photos of her circulating? One could only say that professional "paparazzi" were truly impossible to guard against.
She pushed open the heavy door to see a solitary giant head floating outside. Charlotte Linlin was long accustomed to this and said calmly:
"Yes, everything is ready. Let's set off."
"Tch~ How boring." Ripley curled her lips in boredom when she saw that Charlotte Linlin didn't show the slightest surprise or teasing expression.
As she spoke, the invisible smoke covering most of the ship's hull quickly gathered and condensed, transforming back into Ripley's twenty-meter-tall, beautiful body. This was the Devil Fruit they had obtained during the Punk Hazard incident—the Logia-type Gas-Gas Fruit.
Now, Ripley also possessed the ability to fly, which was one of the important reasons she chose to eat this Devil Fruit. Even though her development of the fruit's ability was still in the early stages, combined with the cooperation of her "child," the magma Homie "Red Star," the power of her sudden outbursts was already enough to easily destroy an island.
In fact, Charlotte Linlin privately felt that this fruit might be more appropriately named the "Gas Fruit." Because shortly after Ripley ate the fruit, she demonstrated the ability to control the oxygen concentration in the surrounding air to some extent, in addition to controlling gas.
Charlotte Linlin had a premonition that the potential of this fruit was far more than this, and she might be able to control more types of gases in the future.
Toot—!
A while later, all Crew members were in their positions, and the st. freya's siren let out a long and loud blast, announcing that the moment of departure had arrived.
"Is everyone here?" Charlotte Linlin asked loudly, standing at the bow.
"All present, Captain," Lilith, standing beside her, immediately replied.
"Then, set sail! Depart!" Charlotte Linlin turned her gaze to Ripley at her side.
"Understood, understood. After eating this Devil Fruit, I feel like I've become a full-time tool person." Ripley grumbled, but her hands didn't pause for a second.
She manipulated her ability, and the air inside the special airbags hanging all over the st. freya's hull to provide extra buoyancy was rapidly extracted and gathered, finally being "swallowed" into Ripley's body like an invisible stream of air, much like a whale drawing in water.
Hiccup~
The airbags deflated, and Ripley let out a hiccup as if she had eaten and drunk her fill.
Wait? Does this count as... living on air? And the kind that fills you up?
A somewhat nonsensical thought flashed through Charlotte Linlin's mind.
She reached out and patted Ripley's sturdy thigh, encouraging her:
"Who told this Devil Fruit's ability to be so practical? Work hard on developing it! The potential of this fruit is far more than this! Once you can perfectly master its power, from the boundless starry sky above to the ten-thousand-meter deep sea below, you'll be able to take us back and forth freely!"
I wonder what key technology is needed to make a mature oxygen tank; I'll have to research it when I get the chance.
Why not do it now? Because she and Ripley had already experimented with white mice before—
The result was either the mice exploding from the instant injection of compressed oxygen or the sealing device bursting due to the imbalance of internal and external pressure.
Obviously, a safe oxygen tank is far from as simple as finding a bottle and filling it with air; it requires more professional knowledge and technology.
As the air inside the buoyancy airbags was drained by Ripley, the st. freya gradually submerged, its massive hull sinking steadily into the sea.
Aided by a special Current flowing toward the deep sea, it began to slowly advance toward that legendary dream kingdom located ten thousand meters beneath the sea—the Ryugu Kingdom.
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