But those pirates were futile as well. Poneglyphs weren't that easy to research. Besides, now that the World Government was so wary of anyone studying them, anyone caught researching Poneglyphs would likely face swift and brutal punishment.
But to be fair, Ren couldn't understand the World Government's logic. If they were so worried about people researching Poneglyphs, why didn't they just collect all the stones and hide them?
Not even putting them on the Red Line — even just dumping them into the deep sea of the Calm Belt would ensure nobody could ever find those stones.
And it wasn't just the Poneglyphs either. There was also the Gum-Gum Fruit they were so afraid of.
They already had the method to make an inanimate object eat a Zoan-type Devil Fruit. Why not just find some object and transfer the Nika Fruit's consciousness into it?
Since it would be an object, there'd be no question of it dying.
But the World Government insisted on doing things their own way. Even after going through the trouble of finding the Nika Fruit, they wouldn't even assign admirals strong enough to escort it. Instead, they handed it off to the mediocre nobodies in CP9.
Could those CP9 people actually handle it?
They didn't have the skill, that's for sure!
They lost to Shanks, then lost to Luffy. Keep this up and they'll all become background extras. They've lost all sense of shame!
But regardless of what the World Government was up to, none of it had anything to do with Ren. He had finally finished fixing the pipes, then rested for a few days at the Tenshukaku in the Flower Capital.
Only then did he leave Inazuma.
During this period, the Red Hair Pirates and the Buggy Pirates had been growing more and more famous. The Marines and reporters were starting to suggest they could stand alongside massive powers like the Whitebeard Pirates and Inazuma.
But in reality, the gap between them was still very clear.
First of all, in terms of the captains' strength, the two sides weren't on the same level. Buggy and the others had defeated Big Mom, but that had taken several of them joining forces and giving it everything they had.
In a one-on-one fight, they stood no chance against Big Mom.
And Whitebeard's strength was even greater than that woman who never trained a day in her life.
Beyond that, there was a considerable gap in territory, influence, and crew strength. Buggy's side was better off — he had Enel, who was on par with him, holding things down, plus Furaese, a monster with Lunarian Tribe lineage factors.
Shanks's side was comparatively thin.
But at the end of the day, they were all key members of the pirate alliance that had defeated the Big Mom Pirates. They were the talk of the seas right now. Even Whitebeard had immediately recognized Shanks's identity and sighed with emotion.
The kid who used to trail behind Roger's back had grown up.
But that didn't mean things had been easy for them lately. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Their reputation had ballooned overnight, but without the prestige to back it up, plenty of pirates looking to make a name for themselves had set their sights on them.
They had faced quite a few challengers during this time.
Someone like Shanks would beat his opponents in a challenge but wouldn't necessarily take their lives. Buggy and his crew were a completely different story.
To them, anyone challenging them to climb over their reputation had better be prepared to lose their life. Every single enemy they defeated was killed without mercy.
But out on the sea, there was another group of people also enduring challenges from other pirates.
That was the newly announced Seven Warlords of the Sea!
Pirates absolutely despised these seven "lackeys." Pirates had never really cared about betrayal — they were never on the same path to begin with. But defecting to the Marines was an entirely different matter.
Not to mention these guys had so much power after joining the Marines — they could even plunder legally!
Was that fair?
To be honest, everyone was a pirate. Each crew ate by their own skill — whoever grabbed more or less, no one else had a right to complain. But you few getting together and enjoying special privileges? That was just wrong!
What was even more outrageous was that you got special privileges without inviting us!
That's right — a lot of pirates on the sea who despised the Seven Warlords weren't so much disgusted by their "betrayal" as they were jealous.
We're all pirates, so why do we have to scramble and run from the Marines while you get to cozy up to them?
Just because you're stronger?
Fine, then we'll prove we're stronger than you!
But those pirates who recklessly challenged the Seven Warlords soon learned why the Marines had chosen these particular people.
It wasn't that they were strong because they were Warlords — they were chosen as Warlords because they were strong enough!
One could imagine that this farce would take a while to die down, and a few of this first batch of Warlords might get weeded out.
Whether through challenges from newcomers, or through the arrogance that came with becoming a Warlord — some people were bound to be eliminated.
And over the following twenty years, the seas would gradually stabilize, until the next storm slowly began to gather.
…
Sea Circle Calendar, year 1504. Eighteen years remained before a certain third-generation official set sail wearing a straw hat. It was also the year in which Kozuki Oden was defeated by Kaido in the original story.
It should have been an unremarkable year, but it was shattered by a single headline from the World Economy News.
"Ranking the Pirates Who Rule the Seas Like Emperors!"
Good grief, the World Economy News was doing rankings too?
In any case, in a world where the Seven Warlords system had been established roughly ten years early, the title of Four Emperors seemed to be arriving ahead of schedule as well.
In the article, Morgans first mentioned the forces of Inazuma and the Whitebeard Pirates.
If you were truly going to talk about emperors who ruled the seas, of course it had to be Inazuma's invincible Raiden Shogun and the world's strongest — Whitebeard!
Ren noticed that this world's World Economy News was just like the tabloids from his past life — whenever someone was impressive, they were always "the strongest," "number one," "unprecedented," "the biggest in history"…
When it came to actually ranking them, things got vague and wishy-washy, sparking endless arguments among the sea's power-level fanatics. The newspaper's sales went way up!
Come to think of it, this kind of marketing tactic was something Morgans had discovered years ago, when the debate was about who was the world's greatest swordsman. But that topic had gradually gone stale.
Now the acknowledged world's greatest swordsman was the Raiden Shogun!
A blade that could cleave the heavens and cut through space itself — utterly beyond reach!
After those two undisputed uncrowned kings, the article moved on to the Buggy Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates.
These two crews didn't yet have clear bases of operations and seemed far from ruling anything, but as the pirate newcomers who had defeated the Big Mom Pirates, they naturally deserved a mention.
But it was only a mention. Whether they could truly become Emperors depended on whether they could go the distance.
As for someone like Doflamingo — although he had also participated in that battle and had even become the king of Dressrosa — since he had become a Warlord, a nominal "lackey" of the World Government, he was naturally out of the running for the title of Emperor.
[
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