Keiko took Robin on a tour through the laboratories. The enormous research facility left Robin dazzled — she had never seen anything like it before. Everything was completely new to her.
Even her books had never described scenes like this.
By the time Robin returned to the ancient text research room, her emotions still hadn't fully settled. She was buzzing with excitement.
The Ohara scholars were just as thrilled. These people were sitting on top of an enormous treasure, constantly researching. Although the vast collection from the Tree of Knowledge hadn't been fully organized yet, the documents Keiko brought from the Kozuki Clan's legacy filled in some of the gaps from the Tree of Knowledge. Their research hadn't stagnated at all — if anything, it had made great strides right away.
"This research room might not be big enough." Iris watched as over thirty scholars bustled about, clutching reports and moving back and forth, pages of notes fluttering everywhere.
"There's no way this space could hold all the documents from the Tree of Knowledge anyway. Once Lord Ren restores the Tree of Knowledge, we can just plant that big tree on the surface of Enkanomiya," Keiko said.
Enkanomiya was originally the Sky Island sacred ground of Apado, placed by Ren into a pocket dimension created with the Door-Door Fruit.
This dimension was actually located beneath the sea of Inazuma's inner ocean. Since it was a pocket dimension, seawater naturally couldn't get in. But precisely because of that, Enkanomiya had no natural light of its own.
Standing on the surface of Enkanomiya and looking up, one could only see a hazy gray mist.
But that didn't mean Enkanomiya had no light sources at all.
At the site of the original Shandora ruins, leaning against that enormous vine, Ren had built the Dainichi Mikoshi using the power of technology, recreating it from memory.
However, the cold light of technology couldn't truly replicate the radiance of the sun. So that part was actually achieved through the Moon Tree and the Sunlight Tree Eve.
As a result, even Enkanomiya now had a normal day-night cycle, and vegetation could grow normally.
Therefore, planting the Tree of Knowledge on the surface of Enkanomiya was entirely feasible.
But that wasn't urgent. What was truly urgent was Keiko.
The pipes in her laboratory seemed to be clogged, and they kept leaking. She really needed Ren the repairman to come help clear them out.
Thinking of this, Keiko and Iris left the research space to the scholars and headed toward Keiko's own office instead. It had better soundproofing — when fixing the pipes made noise, it wouldn't disturb anyone.
Iris was planning to leave since Keiko was in such a hurry, but she got grabbed by this overconfident little chicken who was all talk.
"Sis Keiko, I still want to go back to the Flower Capital to see Mom…"
"Oh, don't be in such a rush. If you leave, I can't handle it on my own." Keiko grabbed Iris's arm, clinging to her shamelessly with none of the dignity of an elder.
Then again, her physique really couldn't match the endurance Iris had built up since childhood.
She never lasted long before she had to open the floodgates.
"Isn't that Stussy around too? I think that woman looks pretty good as well." Iris had been out at sea for a long time and was actually missing her mother quite a bit.
Besides, unlike Keiko who stayed in Enkanomiya, Iris now served as Lord Ren's guard. She might not be much use in a fight, but she was certainly useful in other ways.
Eat as much as you want, never go hungry!
"Even with her it's not enough! Oh, just stay! We can have Sis Ayame come over too, and have Sis Yuriko join as well. It's been ages since they had their pipes maintained," Keiko said, steeling her resolve.
"Come on, my office is pretty big…"
And so when Ren arrived at Enkanomiya with a skewer of tri-color dango, he was immediately stunned by the scene before him.
"What are you all doing…"
Ren stared at the row of "M"s in front of him. His innocent soul was profoundly shaken.
Is this something I get to see for free?
Heh heh, not only can I look — I can also do it!
…
The Ohara scholars settled into their research in Inazuma just like that, but the overseas impact of this matter went far beyond this.
Over the past few days, Sengoku had also found a sufficient number of actors to play the roles of Ohara's civilians. And so a battle of public opinion began.
But honestly, apart from scholars around the world, most people weren't particularly interested in the destruction of Ohara.
At the end of the day, that island was far too distant from ordinary people's lives.
Countless people lived in this world, struggling just to survive — let alone scholars. Most couldn't even read. They naturally didn't have much empathy for those academics.
On the contrary, quite a few pirates became interested in the "ancient weapons capable of destroying the world" that the World Government had mentioned in the news.
Crocodile was one of them.
"Ancient weapons? Something even the World Government fears — if I could get my hands on that, then taking down that man shouldn't be out of the question, right?"
He sneered and tossed the newspaper aside.
Although he had joined the alliance with Buggy and the others to take down the Big Mom Pirates, he hadn't contributed much to that fight. It could even be said that his absence wouldn't have made a significant difference.
That made him feel deeply unsatisfied.
It was the feeling that glory didn't truly belong to him.
What Crocodile wanted now was to bring down another legend. And this time, he wanted to do better than Buggy and the rest — he wanted to accomplish it with his own strength alone.
And the target he set his sights on was Whitebeard!
"If I had a weapon like that, Whitebeard would be no problem either. But unfortunately, Ohara has been destroyed. I'm afraid there's no one left in this world who knows the secrets of the ancient weapons."
He felt a hint of regret, but since he hadn't yet had his spirit crushed by Whitebeard, he wasn't particularly bothered.
It would probably only be after he truly understood the gap between himself and the top-tier powers, after experiencing that sense of helplessness at being unable to reach them, that he would pin all his hopes on the elusive ancient weapons.
As for the Ohara scholars being "dead" — so what? Ohara wasn't the only place in the world with scholars. If Ohara's scholars could research Poneglyphs, then other scholars could do the same.
It was just that the World Government's act of killing the chicken to scare the monkey had made those people too afraid to continue their research.
Crocodile could still resist the temptation of the ancient weapons at this point, but more and more pirates were beginning to take notice of those stone blocks they had chanced upon during their voyages.
Harboring other plans in their hearts.
[
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