Shanks looks quite comical right now.
People often joke that Marco always has bandages on his head, and that he's been injured for almost half the time he's appeared.
However, Marco usually only has a single layer wrapped under his pineapple hair. Shanks looks much worse; half his face is wrapped up.
The Red Hair Pirates heard Shanks and remembered the purpose of this trip, so they hurriedly looked around, searching for the Devil Fruit.
Finally, Benn stared blankly at the half-eaten Devil Fruit in Uta's arms.
The others noticed Benn's gaze, looked over, and fell into a similarly dazed state.
Lucky Roux even mumbled to himself, whispering:
"I heard Devil Fruits taste terrible. How did little Uta eat so much without changing her expression?"
Everyone turned their gaze to Lucky Roux.
You're not acting right either, kid.
Is now the time to worry about whether the Devil Fruit tastes good?
Wait? Come to think of it, it's one thing for Uta to pull on Monster until he howls when she's nervous, but why would she subconsciously eat a Devil Fruit? Doesn't she think it tastes bad?
Shanks, with one eye visible outside the bandages, also saw the half-eaten sing-sing fruit and sighed helplessly.
This battle was fought in vain.
He hadn't originally planned to cut ties with the God's Knights so early. After all, he hadn't yet figured out the methods Imu had left on him.
But now that the sing-sing fruit had been eaten by Uta, he couldn't exactly send her back to Mary Geoise to report, could he?
Scratching his head, Shanks wondered if there was any way to bluff his way through it.
In reality, Shanks was overestimating the World Government's efficiency.
Isn't it just a failed mission? This is nothing!
The World Government's missions rarely succeed anyway; they're used to it.
It's just like how the Indian Air Force can still receive commendations after bombing their own airport—you get used to it after bombing enough.
Seeing Shanks' expression, tears began to well up in Uta's eyes, and she said timidly:
"Did... did I cause trouble?"
"I shouldn't have eaten this fruit... wah..."
Great! Uta, who had just been coaxed, started crying again.
Shanks hurriedly squatted down to comfort her:
"It's okay. This fruit was meant for you to eat anyway; we were just worried it had gone missing."
The others nodded hurriedly:
"That's right! That's right!"
Uta finally stopped crying, looked up, and looked at everyone with suspicion, carefully observing their expressions, ready to cry again at the slightest provocation:
"Re... really?"
All the members of the Red Hair Pirates, including the monkey Monster, nodded in unison:
"Of course it's true!"
Uta, being a Little girl, naturally couldn't tell anything was amiss from the expressions on the faces of these old foxes, and she finally broke into a smile.
The Red Hair Pirates finally breathed a sigh of relief; they had finally managed to coax this little ancestor.
Shanks looked around at the destroyed environment and felt a bit guilty.
For most pirates, fighting and destroying the environment is normal, right? If anyone runs into them, it's just their bad luck.
Even Hawkeye during his time as a Shichibukai had a similar mindset.
But Shanks was different; he was a relatively reasonable pirate, so he was very afraid that the island's residents would come looking for compensation.
Don't look at the Red Hair Pirates' impressive strength now; their finances aren't exactly flush.
As for letting the island's residents go find Teach? Shanks couldn't bring himself to say something so shameless.
Thinking of this, he hurriedly ordered his crew:
"Let's leave this island first. Hurry, let's go!"
That's right, the method Shanks finally thought of was to run away.
As the saying goes, "When friends and family in Luoyang ask about me, the boat has already passed ten thousand mountains."
As long as I run fast enough, the debt can't catch up to me!
...
Just as the Red Hair Pirates were hurriedly packing up to leave, Blake had also finished watching this movie.
He turned and looked at the Battle Maids, his gaze lingering a moment longer on Hancock and Kalifa:
"How is it? You should recognize the gap between yourselves and the strong in the great sea now, right?"
Hancock replied, full of fighting spirit:
"Saint Blake, don't worry. I will definitely train hard and my strength will soon surpass theirs!"
Kalifa nodded seriously:
"I will resolve all troubles for Your Highness!"
Blake nodded with satisfaction, while also reminding them:
"The two people you saw are merely strong members of the younger generation on the great sea; they are still far from reaching the level of top-tier powerhouses."
"Just like that old man who ran into our estate last time—it took both Mandy and Koala working together to barely handle him."
"So the road you have to walk is still very long. Work hard, little Maids!"
"Yes! Your Highness!"
After this dose of motivation, the Battle Maids were all fired up and entered the training ground, their training state clearly much more serious than usual.
Blake was happy to see this.
The more the Maids trained themselves, the fewer ability cards he would have to use.
Especially now that the number of Battle Maids was increasing, he was still a bit short on low-level ability cards.
As for the three types of ability cards—Observation Haki, Armament Haki, and Haoshoku—Blake had to prioritize using them on himself. Only when he had maxed them out would it be the little Maids' turn.
Stimulated by Blake, even Perona's group, who had barely trained before, snuck into the training ground, though they ran out sticking their tongues out in less than half an hour:
"Huff... huff... I'm exhausted. As expected, I'm just not suited for training."
Perona lay on the ground without a shred of dignity, her eyes listless.
Blake looked at her with disdain:
"You're the most hopeless of them all!"
Perona was unconvinced:
"You're even lazier than me, so how do you have such strong power?"
She looked at Blake suspiciously, suspecting that the other party had some special training method, otherwise, there was no way to explain how this guy, who spent all day either lying on a lounge chair reading the newspaper or bickering and messing around with them, had become so strong.
Truth be told, Perona's guess was pretty close. That's right, Blake did use a special training method.
He relied on 97% talent, 2% effort, and 1% help from the Card Space to possess his current strength.
Among these, the 2% effort was the most important; talent and the system were simply not worth mentioning.
Looking at the scene in the training ground, Blake showed a gratified smile.
Today, even Kalifa and Hancock hadn't caused any trouble, and both had made improving their strength their top priority.
Although he didn't know how long they could maintain this state, having a movie and a few words make them serious for a while was already a huge profit.
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