The God Valley—any place with "God" in its name usually has something to do with the Celestial Dragons. After asking around in this world, he learned that the God Valley was more like a transfer point for the Celestial Dragons in the New World. But since very few of them actually traveled there, the place wasn't really that important.
Especially now, with pirate forces growing stronger and stronger. In the past, even the seas of the New World didn't have many pirates who could threaten the World Government. But in recent years, the rise of the Rocks Pirates had already brought serious pressure to the giant machine that was the World Government.
And decades later, when Roger's Great Pirate Era began, things would only get worse. The rise of the Four Emperors and the spread of the Revolutionary Army left the World Government completely overwhelmed. You could almost say the World Government had already lost its absolute control over the world.
In the past, the Marines could chase Roger or Whitebeard and fight them. But later on, when the Four Emperors settled into their own territories, no Marine dared attack them anymore. And unlike heroes who could be persuaded, the Four Emperors would never accept an offer of pardon from the World Government.
As for Roger starting such an era, Genichi's attitude was pretty vague—neither agreeing nor denying its worth.
The World Government was just a bunch of fools ruling over others. For rebel forces to grow stronger than these fools, Roger was without a doubt successful. But it was also true that the Great Pirate Era put countless ordinary people under the threat of death.
Toguro had no intention of changing that era. At least, not before Luffy was born. He needed Luffy, the child of destiny in this world, to help him gather emotional energy. By then, he would have a method even better than Roger's.
As long as he collected one hundred million emotion points, he could rely on his own power alone to surpass the World Government and everyone else. That would be the time when he could reshape the world however he wanted.
Toguro stood on a small island, not in the God Valley itself, but on a nearby islet. After all, the God Valley still had a Marine base stationed there. The right time for him to appear would be when Rocks and the others arrived and the battle began.
He had already shaken off the Marines tracking him. The reason was simple: he still carried spatial miasma with him. Since his true self, Genichi, naturally had that ability, it wasn't needed as much once he reached a safe place.
At this moment, he was quietly thinking about his next move—how to gather the emotions of as many of the world's strongest pirates as possible.
"Rocks wants to start a world war… then he must be after the Shikon Jewel too…"
He hesitated for a moment, then glanced again at his current reserves.
"Positive emotion points: 112354"
"Negative emotion points: 2654812"
About ten days had passed. His positive points had built back up to over a hundred thousand, and his negative points had already passed two million. Clearly, a lot of people around the world were excited to see the Celestial Dragons being attacked. But most of those people weren't very strong. On top of that, many were apathetic, while some of the ones benefiting from the Celestial Dragons' rule hated Genichi instead.
It seemed his positive points had stabilized around the hundred-thousand level, while the negative ones were growing very slowly. Reaching ten million probably wasn't going to happen.
"I wonder if this time in the God Valley I can push my positives to a million, and my negatives to ten million."
The sea breeze brushed past him. He slowly pressed his right hand against his chest—then pushed it straight inside!
What looked like pure suicide to an ordinary person meant nothing to Toguro. His hand reached into his heart, and when he pulled it out, he was holding a glowing shard.
He remembered the message: when drawing cards, holding a shard of the Shikon Jewel would increase the chance of pulling another shard.
And right now, he needed more shards of the Shikon Jewel.
One hundred thousand positive emotion points—draw!
Four Shikon Jewel Shards ×4: From the world of Inuyasha. These are fragments created after the complete Shikon Jewel was shattered. They can boost the user's power—the more shards, the more strength one gains. The complete Shikon Jewel can even grant the user's wishes. (When drawing cards, holding a shard increases the chance of drawing another shard.)
Toguro now had four shards in his hand, though surprisingly, only four. Last time he had five. It seemed his luck wasn't as good this time…
He placed the shard he had before back into his heart, then thought for a moment about the four new ones and finally merged one into his head.
He could clearly feel himself getting stronger again, but…
"Eighty percent."
He tried releasing his power. His muscles swelled as immense strength surged through his body. When he punched the ground, a black crack stretched straight across the small island to the other side!
"Just as I thought… The stronger your base power is, the less your transformation or change in form will boost your fighting strength. In other words, your normal state becomes much stronger, but after transforming, you don't gain as much as before."
Of course, he was still stronger than before, but not as much as in his normal state.
It was like the power he used to gain only after transforming had now been shifted into his normal state. This way, he didn't need to bear the burden of transforming anymore. Without a doubt, this was still a huge improvement. Maybe one day, his normal state would already be the "hundred percent of a hundred percent"!
Looking at the three remaining shards in his hand, he smiled faintly.
"You can't catch a wolf without risking the sheep. But the only 'sheep' I can offer are these three shards."
The Shikon Jewel was indeed an amazing item, but honestly, just one or two shards weren't that useful for a top-level fighter. Using these three shards as bait wasn't really a big loss.
Even though gathering more shards made the jewel more complete and its power greater, right now, the value of three shards was far less than the possible gain ahead.
And with the jewel's energy inside his body, he felt his Haki training progress quickly. There was even a faint sense that his Haki was blending with his demonic aura. Maybe one day, the aura would completely turn into Haki—or perhaps merge with it.
So, he kept training on the island. He didn't know how much time had passed—maybe a few days, maybe more than ten—but within a month, Toguro suddenly stopped his training.
He walked to the edge of the tiny island, looked at the fleet on the sea, and said quietly:
"They've arrived…"