Brandon was exceptional—by any measure, for Dragon Kingdom and for the world entire.
The world always favors certain people. They had assumed Skyler Quinn and Chris Frost had already reached the outer limits of what that meant. They'd been wrong. Brandon White was the one the world truly cherished above all others.
Yet every gift from fate comes with a price tag, written in invisible ink somewhere in the fine print.
He had always suspected Brandon had paid for something.
His future seemed already bound, irreversibly, to the fate of the Earth itself.
Then again—weren't all of them?
But what he couldn't stop thinking about, the part that still felt impossible no matter how many times he turned it over, was this: Devil Fruits. Clow Cards. Five-Element Armor. Imperial Arms. Things that had no business existing in the real world. Brandon White had made them. All of them.
As the current wielder of the Sword Clow Card, he understood its power better than anyone in that room.
The Flame Dragon Armor alone had given Skyler Quinn crushing dominance over every other First Sequence fighter on Earth—everyone except Brandon.
And the Devil Fruits had generated an entire class of warriors with extraordinary abilities, many of whom would only grow stronger as they developed their powers further.
Reality was not an anime, however.
In One Piece, a character's lifespan and incomplete understanding of their own abilities limited how far they could take their powers. In reality, those limits didn't exist.
"Brandon White?" Chu Han gave a rueful smile. "He's a freak. Don't bother comparing yourself to him."
Firewing just flicked her hand dismissively at the observation.
Out of everyone in the room, she was the one who had taken the hardest hit to her confidence. She spent the most time around Brandon. She knew the most about him.
The more you knew, the more clearly you saw just how strong he was.
You could stack every human being on Earth on top of each other and it still wouldn't be enough to match him. Humanity was simply one component of nature—and Brandon's Authority of Nature encompassed elemental forces, plant life, wild creatures, and even technology. What he held was the full power of the Earth.
Even if only partially accessed, that was beyond imagination.
And given how much the world clearly adored Brandon, who could say when "part" might quietly become "all"?
Firewing pursed her lips and turned the compass over in her hands, examining it from different angles.
The device had been called a compass, but it looked for all the world like an energy detector—or perhaps a fusion of both.
Still.
"This can only locate Clow Cards, right?"
"It's not going to tell us which card matches which person's abilities. So how do we find who's actually compatible?"
"That's why we brought him."
Ethan Yates clapped Zhang Hai on the shoulder.
"Leave a spatial mark, find the card, and if it hasn't awakened yet, retrieve it immediately. If it's already awoken—observe whatever ability it shows, then decide whether to retrieve it or contact someone else."
"It's a bit more work, but ability compatibility really is better when it's a natural fit."
Not only was it easier to tame a compatible card—the power it would express in the right hands would be significantly greater.
Take Skyler Quinn and Firewing, both fire-affinity cultivators. They could wield a water-element Clow Card and still be formidable with it. But "formidable" wasn't the same as watching Chris Frost handle that same card—the effect would be entirely different.
"Once retrieved, it's ours? We don't have to submit it upward?"
"Of course."
Firewing's mood brightened considerably at the confirmation. If they had to hand over a captured Clow Card, the whole enterprise would lose its appeal entirely.
She wouldn't be angry about it—but annoyed, absolutely. That would be a different feeling from finding something and keeping it for yourself entirely.
"Actually, early on there were people higher up who proposed having us handle the retrieval differently—find people in the Second or Third Sequence whose abilities were compatible with specific cards, let them become stronger, maybe even get recognized as First Sequence the way Chu Han was."
Ethan put his hands behind his head and said it lightly, without any particular edge.
"The idea would be finding compatible candidates? Sounds reasonable on paper."
"But those people definitely had certain... connections to whoever they were planning to nominate."
Charles Longfellow's eyes held undisguised contempt.
They all knew exactly what that proposal had actually been. Those officials wanted to groom their own descendants and proteges. The idea was that the First Sequence cultivators here would do the dangerous work of tracking and capturing the cards—and then those others would hand the prizes to their chosen people.
If the higher-ups had approved it, they'd have had no formal grounds for complaint.
Just a great deal of frustration.
But would the top brass ever approve something like that?
That would be burning the loyalty and goodwill of Dragon Kingdom's most powerful fighters over something deeply not worth it.
Not a chance.
As for letting those Second and Third Sequence candidates go find and tame the cards themselves?
That meant accepting a serious risk of death.
In the anime, a young girl who hadn't even graduated middle school could tame Clow Cards. But that was the anime.
This was reality.
Reality was far more brutal than fiction.
Chu Han had earned First Sequence designation from a single Sword Clow Card. The amplification those cards provided needed no further elaboration.
An out-of-control elemental Clow Card would be a catastrophe for every human being within range.
And the Clow Cards only recognized the one who had tamed them—the anime made that much clear. Unlike Devil Fruits, they were not tradeable commodities.
Better to let the strongest fighters handle it. It eliminated the death risk and kept those cards as Dragon Kingdom's power regardless.
"Some things can't be avoided."
"People will always have their biases. Who's ever truly impartial?"
"Even Brandon," Ethan added, shrugging easily. "He's pretty biased toward us, don't you think?"
A country that spoke with only one voice was a fiction. It had never existed and never would.
"Biased?" Chu Han heard the word and looked at Ethan with a slight frown. "How do you mean?"
"Sure. Biased."
"On the surface, the Devil Fruits, Imperial Arms, Five-Element Armor, Sacred Beast Companions, and Clow Cards all went to every nation and civilization on Earth."
"But look at the actual distribution and Dragon Kingdom got the most. By a significant margin."
"Check the Clow Card count alone. Fifty-two cards total. How many did Dragon Kingdom get?"
"Thirty-two. Thirty-three counting the Sword."
"More than half."
"Then look at us individually—almost everyone here has something. Skyler's Flame Dragon Armor. Ethan's Imperial Arms, Crown of Life. Chris Frost's Imperial Arms, Devil God Manifestation—Demonic Essence. William Mecham's Imperial Arms, God's Helping Hand. My Flare-Flare Fruit. Your Clow Card. Nathaniel's Smoke-Smoke Fruit."
"Show me one other country that got that kind of treatment."
Firewing said it as a plain matter of fact, then glanced around the room with a puzzled look—first at Zhang Hai, then at Charles Longfellow—before settling her gaze on the latter.
"How come I've never heard about you having anything?"
"Because I don't."
Charles Longfellow responded with weary patience.
"And I don't need any of those things."
His ability was Longevity—it granted him a lifespan several times that of an ordinary human. Under normal circumstances, he could live ten thousand years without issue. He could also transfer portions of his lifespan to other people.
That was in the past, of course.
With the second Spiritual Energy Tide, his ability had gone through a metamorphosis—evolving into something new: Eternal Life. The post-evolution version was considerably more powerful than what it had replaced.
(End of Chapter 279)