Blake's attitude towards Law was completely different from when he met Hawkins in the Tarot Kingdom.
This, of course, wasn't due to any original work filter, but because Law's potential was higher.
Regardless of how Law and Kid fought against Big Mom, they ultimately won.
Whether or not they broke her defenses wasn't important; what mattered was that they eventually sent Charlotte Linlin into the magma.
Among all the Supernovas, aside from the protagonist's crew, Law and Kid had the highest potential.
However, Kid wasn't the type to be subservient, so Law was the only one Blake could recruit.
On another note, there was a saying in his previous life that Devil Fruits autonomously choose their hosts.
Whether this saying was true or false, the importance of the Ope-Ope no Mi was enough for Blake to make a special trip.
Deep down, Blake didn't want to achieve immortality through the Ope-Ope no Mi's eternal youth surgery.
It was like how he disliked those solitary immortal cultivation novels in his previous life.
Immortality without companionship had essentially become a curse.
Of course, this was also based on the premise that other possibilities for immortality existed.
Blake was more interested in finding the Anglerfish from the original story and achieving immortality through pure gold.
Judging from Olga's situation, two centuries had barely left any trace on her, even less change than Luffy's two years of training.
This indicated that pure gold could at least grant immortality for tens of thousands of years.
Moreover, compared to others, Law's personality was more mature; he wouldn't be noisy and annoying after joining the crew.
Blake sat in the living room, drinking tea, listening to the quarrels and cries coming from a nearby room, his face unmoved.
To gain something, one must lose something; this was fair.
Besides, compared to the lives of their family of four, what Blake asked for was actually not much.
Half an hour later, Viktor, along with his wife Arya and their two children, walked out of the room.
"It seems you have made your decision."
Viktor nodded:
"Yes, Saint Black, we accept your terms."
Blake stood up:
"In that case, pack your things and come with us."
"This damn place makes me quite uncomfortable."
...After leaving Flevance, the group did not travel around anymore but returned directly to the sanctuary.
The border patrol soldiers naturally dared not obstruct the World Government's party, so there were no incidents on the way back.
Pionbino Island was not far from Reverse Mountain, and Blake had no intention of taking them back to Mary Geoise first; that was too far.
The sanctuary's next stop was to cross the Calm Belt.
As mentioned before, the Grand Line and the Red Line intersect perpendicularly along meridians and the equator, dividing the world into four seas.
Therefore, by directly crossing the Calm Belt from the North Blue, one could enter the New World.
When Blake's ship was built, the possibility of crossing the Calm Belt was considered, so the bottom of the ship was naturally inlaid with Sea Stone.
It was unknown whether Vegapunk had invented Sea Stone ship bottoms at this time, but this wasn't a technical problem, but a conceptual one.
As long as one could think of inlaying Sea Stone at the bottom of the ship to block the perception of Sea Kings, it wasn't difficult to achieve technically.
In fact, for powerful individuals, especially those with Conqueror's Haki, the Calm Belt was not really a dangerous place.
However, what Celestial Dragons traveled by paving their own way?
After instructing Stella to take the Trafalgar family to rest, Blake returned to his long-missed reclining chair.
His card space still had a Young Hawkeye card left from last month that he hadn't dealt with.
He had played on the island for a month before, and then drew a mob Swordsman card.
Blake decided to deal with the mob Swordsman first, and then challenge Hawkeye.
The mob Swordsman couldn't even withstand Blake's Conqueror's Haki imbued with Ghost Qi.
Although he didn't faint, he stood rooted to the spot, trembling all over and unable to move.
Blake casually swung his sword and directly cut off his head.
Looking at the Swordsmanship ability card in his hand, Blake hesitated for a moment.
"Forget it, I'll save it for now."
"Once I defeat Hawkeye, this level of ability card probably won't be of much use to me anymore."
"At the end of this voyage, it will be time to send Mandy back to the Wobkandin Kingdom."
"Her strength cannot be too weak by then."
After making up his mind, Blake put away the ability card.
The battle against the mob Swordsman wasn't even a warm-up; he reached out and clicked on the Young Hawkeye card.
"System! Enter battle!"
Entering the battle space, Blake looked around:
"Is it on a ship this time?"
He stood on the deck, with the endless sea before him; only the ship beneath his feet offered a place to stand.
Blake looked up and saw Hawkeye standing on the tilted mast.
Yoru, the Blake Blade, was strapped to his back like a cross, and the reflected sunlight formed a vertical golden line, pinning his shadow to the deck.
With a clang, the Blake Blade was drawn, and the moment the sword energy cut through the morning mist, the entire merchant ship split in two from the keel.
"Are you swordsmen part of the demolition crew?"
Blake casually complained, and his Conqueror's Haki erupted with a roar.
At the same time, a slightly weaker Conqueror's Haki also rose from Hawkeye.
Blake didn't find this surprising.
If Hawkeye didn't have Conqueror's Haki, how could he be considered by many to be the strongest among the Shichibukai?
While the rankings of other Shichibukai might be debatable, Hawkeye being the strongest and Moriah being the weakest should be undisputed.
Facing Hawkeye's slash, Blake did not dodge, pressing one hand on the hilt of his sword.
A terrifying aura gathered around him, instantly indenting the entire sea into a bowl-shaped pit with a diameter of a hundred meters.
Blake stepped onto the broken ship railing and leaped up, delivering a powerful overhead slash towards Hawkeye.
His swordsmanship had no distinct style, yet each strike precisely aimed at the offset center of gravity of Yoru, the Blake Blade.
This was the result of the efforts of dozens of swordsmen from the card space.
Hawkeye silently unleashed three slashes, and as the sword energy cut through the waves, it also shaved the mast fragments Blake was standing on into thin slices.
Blake flipped and landed on a floating cargo box, then suddenly exerted force, kicking the entire box of rum towards Hawkeye.
The bottles burst in mid-air, and the alcohol vapor was ignited by the sparks from Yoru, the Blake Blade, forming a temporary wall of fire.
Hawkeye attacked rapidly with both hands on his sword.
In the shadow of the collapsing mast, twelve slashes suddenly changed trajectory, blocking all escape routes.
Blake tried his best to parry but was still grazed on his calf by a sword strike.
With a clang.
Blake's pant leg ripped, but it made a sound of metal clashing.
Looking down, a white mark had been cut into his calf.
Blake grinned:
"This is the quality of Iron Balloon!"
People in this world generally disliked training.
And among all those who disliked training, Charlotte Linlin was one of the foremost.
Even so, she still became one of the Four Emperors, which showed how strong her talent was.
Blake had possessed this talent for nearly two years.
With the natural growth of his physique, this level of slash was already difficult to harm him.
Blake stood on a floating wooden plank, facing Hawkeye from a distance.
"My swordsmanship has been honed enough."
"Round two, begins now!"