Skypiea was made of cloud, gold, and the most unusual energy field that Kael had ever experienced in either of his lifetimes.
Kael spent the first hour after landing by just standing by the Going Merry’s railing and reading it.
The crew did their part and maneuvered the ship fast in a marina that couldn’t really be called marina by anyone’s standards except for Kael’s.
He was reading.
The energy field of Skypiea resonated with him at a peculiar frequency.
While the Grand Line surface chakra was sea thick, sluggish, and patient, Skypiea’s chakra was more vibrant and articulated.
It was light and fast, and somehow had its preferences and favored certain pathways and accumulation spots.
Kael met Conis, who came to meet them to the docks, being the first Skypiean he ever had the pleasure of reading.
The chakra in her body felt as light as air — in a way different from sea-level people’s chakra.
She was one of those people who had adapted to living on Skypiea.
He observed her closely while listening to her explanation of the Dials.
Dials were the part of Skypiea he had been looking forward to the most.
These were small shells containing different kinds of natural phenomenon — Breath, Flash, Impact, or Tone Dials depending on which phenomenon had been stored inside them.
The Breath Dials were storing wind, Flash — light, Impact — kinetic power, and Tone — sounds.
Kael was fascinated by the technology, because each of those Dials was an organic technology — nature that had been tamed into performing natural phenomenon storage and discharge.
Conis demonstrated a Breath Dial to the crew by pressing its surface and releasing stored wind that slightly ruffled Chopper’s fur.
The reindeer gave an expression that said “what?!” in the clearest possible way.
Usopp’s eyes bulged, and for a good reason, because he recognized something in the Dials that seemed to kill the ideas for three of his inventions.
Kael kept his sense in check deliberately, wanting to feel the Dial without his chakra first, as if he was a normal person.
He picked up an Impact Dial.
The dial shell felt unusually warm in his hands, although lighter than his smallest Truth-Seeking Orb.
Holding it in his palm, Kael let his chakra touch it.
And that was the moment he found himself sitting on the edge of the docks in order not to collapse.
Because the chakra signature felt familiar.
The dial was containing the chakra of the phenomenon it was supposed to store.
The kinetic force captured at some distant moment, presumably, in order to store it in a dial, was still there.
Dormant, compressed, but still present.
This opened up a whole new set of possibilities.
As Kael could sense chakra signatures and manipulate his own natural phenomenon at will, his own releases could be put in the Dial. The source of this chapter is g.com.
And stored there.
The Lightning Release, the Wind Release, or the Fire Release.
His chakra could be stored.
He looked up, and caught Robin’s gaze.
She had noticed his move, having probably read his mind.
The girl inclined her head: what?
“It stores chakra, the Dial.
It is holding chakra.”
“Then we might store ours.”
“In principle, yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She tilted her head, contemplating the implications of the new discovery.
It wouldn’t be easy, though; developing this technology and understanding its full potential would take at least several weeks.
But they didn’t pursue the matter further on the docks.
Kael set the Impact Dial down.
Conis and her father invited the Straw Hats for dinner in their Angel Island residence.
It was an interesting sight indeed — the cloud layer was layered, allowing people to live on it at various heights, and Conis and Pagaya had a house at the topmost layer, from where the sky seemed unrealistically blue.
They were offered food, and Sanji helped the cook in the kitchen while Pagaya recognized him as a chef by instinct and they started chatting like old pros — and the rest was excluded from the conversation politely.
While enjoying Pagaya’s fish, Kael felt an alteration in the field.
A wave of energy moved over his head, coming down from some distant part of the clouds above them.
This was a hot and dense energy that could be described as electric, causing a reaction similar to a lightning strike inside the Lightning Release.
Scanning, it passed over them and continued moving further.
Kael put down his plate of food.
“What was it?” Robin asked, knowing that he felt it too.
“Someone was reading me from above.
He scanned us but didn’t pause.”
Conis stopped pouring the water and put the pitcher down.
“That was Enel.”
“He can… he can, apparently, hear what people think.
That’s his technique, and he uses it constantly.”
“He can hear thoughts?”
“He is called a god, the priests say, and he kills people for the wrong thoughts,” Conis stated.
Kael gave it some time to settle down inside his sense, and read the energy signature of it carefully, comparing to the others he met during his lifetime.
“He doesn’t hear thoughts.
Intentions, maybe?
Or chakra signatures of them.
People usually think quite loud, and if someone sensitive enough can read it properly, they may actually translate it into thoughts.
But in order to do it, this god needs people with very simple intentions.”
“He cannot get to my mind,” Robin stated calmly.
He looked at her, then at her face, but she wisely refrained from asking the stupid question.
He put his hand on top of hers for a second, signaling to her that everything was fine.
“Don’t worry, Conis.
He hasn’t read me.
He’s just scanned me and moved on, having realized that he doesn’t need to spend his precious time on me.
So far it works,” he smiled.
“He always finds people interesting eventually.”
“Aha.”
“He’ll come for you.”
“Yes.
He will.”
Nothing more was said; Conis returned to serving dinner.
A slight tremor in her hand betrayed her years-long training to not reveal herself to Enel’s powers.
Kael let her have it, and turned his attention to dinner.
But in his sense, in the upper layer of clouds, somewhere over Skypiea, a self-proclaimed god had just settled down in the chair he considered his own.
And was about to realize that in the skies of Skypiea he would soon hear something he hadn’t expected.