Grand Line, Skypiea.
Wild winds howled over the White Sea, churning up scattered clouds all over the sky.
Amidst the thick clouds, a cloud carrying a youth sped swiftly across.
The White Sea churned violently as a Sky Shark suddenly burst through the cloud curtain, opening its sharp-fanged mouth gleaming with a cold light, and lunged to bite the speeding youth.
The cloud beneath the youth’s feet instantly twisted its trajectory, nimbly dodging the Sky Shark’s attack.
This cloud had a pair of big, round eyes, two pink blushes pasted on both sides of its cheeks, and wore a red-and-white vertical-striped yellow-brimmed hat.
It was none other than Thunder Cloud Zeus, one of the three major Homies under Big Mom.
The youth on Zeus’s back had lustrous, translucent silver-white long hair that gently fluttered in the oncoming sea breeze.
He had a refined and handsome appearance, his face still carried a bit of childishness, yet his temperament exuded a cold aloofness.
Pensive expressions flowed within his light golden eyes, and he wore simple-styled silver earrings on his earlobes.
He draped a loose white windbreaker over his body, its neat hem swaying constantly with the airflow, revealing tight, muscular arms full of a sense of power.
A thick black belt was tied around his waist, paired with light gray trousers on his lower body, and a pair of high-top black leather boots on his feet.
Big Mom’s eldest son — Charlotte Rector.
(Rector Picture)
Rector looked at the White Sea and let out a long sigh.
Crossing over was one thing, but he actually became the eldest son of “Popcorn Machine” Big Mom.
Half of his hanging heart grew cold.
As a Four Emperors-level powerhouse, Big Mom’s life or death became unknown after being knocked into a volcano by Kid and Law.
Successfully promoted to a roadside stray of the Four Emperors level, it was simply absurd, and his own future was pitch black.
Not only did he have to face his constantly born younger brothers and sisters, but he also had to manage the territory.
As the eldest son, all the affairs of the pirate crew weighed on him, not to mention having to deal with Big Mom who went crazy from time to time.
Fortunately, not only did he inherit Big Mom’s Iron Balloon physique, but he was also naturally born with three hearts, allowing him to eat three Devil Fruits.
Naturally possessing the Observation Haki that could listen to the voices of hearts, no one had any secrets in front of him.
Relying on these conditions of his own, Rector would be at least at the Emperor-level battle strength even without training.
In order not to become a roadside stray of the Four Emperors level, over the past five years he constantly persuaded Big Mom that when looking for partners, she must choose powerful ones.
If the fathers were crooked melons and split dates with weak strength, the children born would also be very weak.
With himself as the top-tier template, Big Mom’s eye for selecting partners was now much higher, and Rector would still screen Big Mom’s husbands according to the timeline.
Except for the Four Sweet Commanders and some relatively strong people, those with weak potential and almost zero presence didn’t need to appear.
With this problem solved, the next problem came: the overall strength of the Big Mom Pirates was ridiculously poor, relying entirely on Katakuri to prop up the face of the Four Emperors.
Snag, one of the Four Sweet Commanders, was defeated by the “Mad Monk” Urouge who had just set out to sea.
Cracker was afraid of pain, using biscuit clones in every battle, and only Smoothie could help Katakuri manage the pirate crew.
The quality of the Devil Fruits of the Big Mom Pirates was worse than that of the other Four Emperors’ pirate crews by a Mariana Trench; the Whitebeard Pirates possessed Zoan Mythical Zoan and top-tier Paramecia Devil Fruits.
The Beasts Pirates possessed a large number of Zoan Devil Fruits, with quite a few Ancient Zoan Devil Fruits, and even Mythical Zoan Devil Fruits.
The Red Hair Pirates were all Haki masters, and every single member was a top-tier existence among users of all kinds of weapons.
Their side only had trash fruits like the Cream-Cream Fruit and Butter-Butter Fruit, and the ones with slightly better quality were only the Heat-Heat Fruit and Squeeze-Squeeze Fruit.
As the only special Paramecia Devil Fruit, the Mochi-Mochi Fruit relied on Katakuri’s Observation Haki that could foresee the future to display its specialty.
If Katakuri didn’t have the advanced Observation Haki to foresee the future, the Mochi-Mochi Fruit would be a trash fruit.
The entire Big Mom Pirates was the bottom-dwelling existence among the Four Emperors’ crews, which was just like how Luffy felt when he learned about the existence of the Shichibukai “Desert King” Crocodile at Little Garden back then.
When first learning of their existence, their strength was despairingly strong, but when they actually fought, they weren’t as strong as imagined!
The quality of the Devil Fruits was too poor, and the Haki talent was insufficient; the Big Mom Pirates was completely a roadside stray of the Four Emperors level.
Fortunately, in his past life he was a One Piece fan, and now it was the Rocks era; there were still many high-quality Devil Fruits that hadn’t appeared yet.
Since his younger brothers and sisters lacked potential, he would win over people with strong potential and have them marry his younger brothers and sisters; then they would also be his own people!
King of the Lunarian Tribe, Douglas Bullet known as the Demon Heir, and Shamrock, Shanks’ twin brother.
Teach, the son of Rocks—these were all potential stocks for Emperor-level battle strength!
As for setting out to sea to roam and recruit partners himself, forget it.
In his past life, he was backstabbed and killed by subordinates he had cultivated.
He wasn’t the protagonist; wanting to find a 100% trustworthy companion in the pirate world had a lower probability than winning the lottery.
Betrayal was synonymous with pirates; blood-related family members were more reliable, and at least they wouldn’t betray him.
“Lord Rector!
We are about to arrive at Birka!” Zeus looked up at the island whose outline was slowly revealing itself in the distant sea of clouds, and spoke up to remind Rector on its back.
“Ah, I know.”
Rector withdrew his chaotic thoughts and looked at Birka, which was enveloped by layers of thick, dense seas of clouds.
Fine cloudlets drifted leisurely to the edge of the island.
The first thing he came to Skypiea for was the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, and the second was gold.
The gold reserves hoarded in Skypiea were exaggerated to the extreme.
The giant gold pillar that Luffy missed back then was ten meters in diameter, about sixty meters in height, and weighed a full ninety-plus thousand tons!
In his past life, the reserves of the top three known large gold deposits globally were 5,500 tons, 3,000 tons, and 2,500 tons respectively.
The weight of this single gold pillar alone was equivalent to the sum of the reserves of those three deposits.
As long as he took Skypiea, the gold here would be enough to support his expenses on the open sea for decades; after all, weapons, ships, and food all required money.
The outline of the island appearing before his eyes was none other than Enel’s hometown — Birka.
Enel went to the Skypiea where Gan Fall was located only after destroying his hometown Birka.
Accompanied by the spreading of his Observation Haki that listened to the voices of hearts, the inner thoughts of everyone on Birka island poured into his mind one after another.
“Have you heard?
Quite a few things have been washed up from the Blue Sea along the ocean current again!”
“That’s right!
Not only corpses, but also bizarre-looking fruits we’ve never seen before!”
“That bastard stole my fish; when I catch him, I’ll definitely Teach him a good lesson!”
“Last night above the clouds in the west, thunder kept coming for no reason.”
The inexplicably sounding thunder, the corpses drifting from the Blue Sea along the current, and the strangely-shaped fruits—clues were rapidly pieced together in Rector’s mind.
The three hearts in his chest simultaneously began to beat faster, and the steady heartbeat grew heavier and heavier.
This palpitation was not fear, but irrepressible excitement and anticipation.
“Zeus!
Fly to the west side!”
“Alright!
Lord Rector!”
Rector stared intently at the undulating cloud mountains to the west, gathering all his spread-out Observation Haki into the area on the west side of Birka.
The terrain trend, the sound of the wind in his ears, and even every tiny change in the air appeared in his mind one by one.
Ahead…
it seemed like there was something!
Faint cracking sounds continuously came from the air.
As the distance closed bit by bit, Rector slowly stood up.
His gaze grew sharp, and his hands clenched tightly into fists.
The fierce headwind carrying scattered clouds constantly lashed against his body, and the hem of his white windbreaker rustled noisily in the wind.
The towering cloud mountain was getting closer and closer, and his heartbeat became increasingly rapid along with it.
In the next second, his pupils suddenly constricted.
He saw a patch of brown soil at the top of the cloud mountain, and growing in the soil was an emerald-green sprout, at the end of which hung an exceptionally eye-catching yellow fruit.
(Rumble-Rumble Fruit Picture)
The fruit as a whole was pear-shaped, its skin covered with meandering and twisted lightning patterns, with sharp spikes protruding outward along the patterns, and its surface still lingered with fine electric light.
Even separated by a distance of dozens of meters, one could feel the weak current continuously leaking from inside the fruit.
(Most of Big Mom’s children will not appear, and those who rarely appear or don’t appear in the anime have all been removed!) (Only about 20 will appear!) (Katakuri’s Azure Dragon Fruit, King’s Three-Legged Crow Fruit, and the Devil Fruits for Bullet, Shamrock, Doflamingo, and Teach are not yet determined!) (The remaining twenty children will all eat a Devil Fruit!) (Year 1496!
(45 years ago!
Two years after Luffy sets sail, the time is 1541!))