East Blue, Loguetown.
Roger’s Bar was hidden deep in an alley, two turns away from the town’s bustling commercial street.
The only reason it bore Roger’s name was that more than twenty years ago, before the Pirate King set sail for the Grand Line, he had once spent an entire night here drinking rum.
At the wooden bar, a man with hair as messy as a bird’s nest lay sprawled across the counter, mumbling, “Boss, another drink.”
The bar owner, Raoul, wiped a glass and snapped back irritably, “Lubin, pay off last month’s tab first!”
“When I catch Beelzebub…”
The man’s words were still hanging in the air when his head sank.
He collapsed onto the bar and began snoring, drool soaking the tabletop.
Raoul sighed helplessly.
His voice was not loud, but a nearby customer still heard it.
“Another poor soul driven mad by pirates.”
“Boss, what happened to this guy?”
Someone immediately leaned closer to the bar.
“When I came here two years ago, didn’t he still look like a proper person?”
“He sure did,” Raoul said, putting down the glass and lowering his voice.
“Back then, he worked for the World Government, so naturally he had money.”
“Then how did he end up so miserable?”
Under the customers’ eager questions, Raoul muttered an explanation.
“There used to be eleven people in their squad.
During a mission, they ran into a Roger Pirates member.
Ten of his colleagues died.
He only survived because he didn’t go.”
“Hahahaha!”
Laughter exploded through the bar.
Someone slapped the table and mocked him.
“Boss, you’re bragging again.
How could there be that many members of Roger’s crew?
They were probably just petty thieves using the Pirate King’s name!”
Raoul snorted coldly.
“It was printed clearly in the newspapers two years ago.
Thunder God Beelzebub Seven attacked CP9 agents and abducted a serious criminal of the World Government!”
The moment those words fell, Lubin, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly jerked up as if stabbed by a needle and shouted like a madman.
“Where is Beelzebub?!”
…
“Seven, where the hell are you?”
Jaya, Mock Town.
Two years ago, Buggy had followed the clues from the East Blue all the way to Jaya, only to find nothing.
For the next two years, he drifted through taverns and alleys like a homeless ghost for more than seven hundred days and nights.
All Buggy had left as emotional support were treasure maps, treasure, and his good brother Seven.
But Seven had vanished from the world as if he had evaporated, leaving no news behind.
Every day, Buggy would clutch a crumpled handful of berries and buy a newspaper without fail, hoping to see that familiar face in the news.
For two full years, hope had ignited more than seven hundred times.
And every time, it had been ruthlessly extinguished.
“Seven, do you remember Bullet, the guy who fought Vice Captain Rayleigh to a draw?
The Marines caught him.”
A bleak wind swept past, rolling scraps of paper across the ground.
Buggy tightened his cloak and looked toward the East Blue, his voice filled with melancholy.
“Seven, I’m going back to the East Blue.”
“The Grand Line is way too dangerous.
The East Blue suits me better for treasure hunting.”
…
Before anyone realized it, the execution of Pirate King Roger in Loguetown had already become old news from two years ago.
Roger’s final words about the great treasure had opened the Great Pirate Era, throwing the entire sea into turmoil.
To find the great treasure, more and more people set out to sea.
Many things had happened on the sea over those two years.
The posthumous son of Pirate King Roger, Portgas D.
Ace, was born in Garp’s old house in Foosha Village.
Kozuki Oden was still dancing naked.
Because many pirates had been wreaking havoc on Fish-Man Island, Whitebeard, Edward Newgate, planted his flag there and claimed Fish-Man Island as territory of the Whitebeard Pirates.
Tom, the shipwright of Water 7, was targeted by the World Government for building the Oro Jackson, the ship of the Roger Pirates, and was sentenced to death.
However, Tom proposed the concept of a sea train to the judge and received a ten-year stay of execution.
Then he and his apprentices, Iceburg and Cutty Flam, devoted themselves to designing and building the sea train.
A pirate uprising broke out in Wano Country.
The Beasts Pirates and the Moria Pirates fought a great battle in Ringo.
Moria lost all his companions.
When fleeing Wano, he turned into a grave robber, dug up Shimotsuki Ryuma’s tomb, and took Ryuma’s corpse along with the famous sword Shusui.
The people of Wano erected a grave for the hero who resisted Kaido: Kozuki Moria.
To capture Bullet, Marine Admiral Sengoku and Marine Hero Garp signed off on a Buster Call.
Former Roger Pirates member, Demon Heir Douglas Bullet, was defeated by Marine Vice Admiral Sakazuki and imprisoned in Level Six of Impel Down, the Eternal Hell.
Hawkeye Dracule Mihawk traveled everywhere to train his swordsmanship, faintly showing signs of becoming the World’s Greatest Swordsman.
The World Government searched everywhere for the Op-Op Fruit.
…
Skypiea, the golden city of Shandora.
A tall figure, roughly two meters sixty in height, stood among the ruins.
His silver hair was like snow, and his black training outfit clung to his muscles, outlining smooth lines of strength.
At his waist hung a tachi glowing with cold purple light, matching the black cloak dancing behind him in the wind.
“Haa…”
Seven took a deep breath and focused all his attention on the gold coin resting on his left thumb.
His fingertip turned faintly pale from the intensity of his concentration.
“Test number 2,688.”
The instant his low murmur fell, Seven’s left thumb snapped upward, launching the gold coin like a bullet from a barrel.
At the same time, the electromagnetic field around Seven intensified with a roar.
Blue patterns of electricity crawled and spread along his arm as his thunderous shout rang out.
“Super Railgun!”
In that instant, with his left hand as the core, invisible electromagnetic force violently emerged from nothing and surged to its limit.
A blue-white torrent of electromagnetism gathered into a thick cylinder three meters across.
Electric currents crackled as it poured toward the gold coin with world-destroying force.
The air ionized into scorching plasma.
Golden buildings trembled violently under the powerful magnetic field.
Broken stone and gold dust were swept up by electromagnetic force, transforming into a howling storm.
Where it passed, space shook.
It tore through the clouds and pierced the sky.
“Perfect!”
Having successfully recreated the Super Railgun through his own efforts, Seven’s mood soared.
Over seven hundred days and nights.
Seven’s greatest gain was not awakening Armament Haki.
Nor was it awakening Observation Haki, which, with the enhancement of electromagnetic waves, now covered all of Skypiea.
It was not his development of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit either.
Nor was it partially integrating the Musou no Hitotachi Training Experience, allowing him to casually slash mountains and split seas with a single stroke.
Rather, it was the triple blessing of Bottomless Appetite, Innate Monstrous Strength, and Iron Balloon.
Like catalysts, those three passive abilities had reshaped his body.
Not only had his height shot up to two meters sixty, his strength had also grown increasingly terrifying.
The sword aura produced by swinging his blade with brute force alone could split clouds apart.
His endurance had become monstrous as well.
As long as he had something to eat, he would not fall.
In the world of One Piece, a strong and lasting physique was the upper limit for all combat power.
Whether it was Devil Fruit awakening, the extreme mastery of the three types of Haki, or a great swordsman’s flying slash, every release of power had only one prerequisite: stamina remaining.
Plenty of people had been captured because they ran out of strength.
Garp on Hachinosu.
Golden Lion rampaging through Marineford.
Bullet under the Marines’ Buster Call.
And the Red Count, who fought Fleet Admiral Kong for ten days and ten nights before being exhausted and picked off by Garp.
No matter how strong you were, without stamina, it meant nothing.
A powerful, enduring physique was Seven’s greatest gain over more than seven hundred days and nights.
It was the solid foundation upon which he would climb to become the strongest in the world.