"Heheh~"
Ace immediately grinned, then sat down at the table without the slightest hesitation.
"From the look of you, you trained properly with the Haki and Six Powers manuals I left you. Your physical strength is pretty good."
"Of course! Though later on, my grandpa found out and forced me to tell him where I got those manuals. I kept my mouth shut no matter what. Even though he was furious, he still gave me pointers from time to time, which is why I improved so quickly."
"Your grandpa?" Roy asked, pretending not to know.
"Yeah. My grandpa is Garp, the Marine Hero Garp. Before my old man died, he entrusted me to Grandpa."
Because Roy had influenced him during his childhood, the current Ace did not hold too much hatred toward Roger. He spoke about it very openly.
"Oh, right, Roy nii-san. Besides training myself, I also gave those two manuals to my little brother so he could train with them too. That shouldn't be a problem, right?"
"Your little brother?"
"His name is Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy. He's Grandpa's biological grandson and my sworn little brother. He spends every day shouting that he wants to become the Pirate King too."
"Is that so? They're just two manuals. It's nothing important. But if that little brother of yours shouts every day that he wants to become the Pirate King, I imagine he hasn't had an easy life. After all, he's the grandson of the Marine Hero Garp. The grandson of the Marine Hero actually wants to become the Pirate King."
"Hahaha! Roy nii-san, you're right. Luffy has definitely taken plenty of Grandpa's Fist of Love."
"You're the same, aren't you? You wanted to go out to sea and become a pirate, so that guy Garp must have beaten you quite a bit too."
"Hehehe~"
That day, Ace and Roy talked for a very long time.
They talked about Roger and Whitebeard. They talked about Roy and Ace.
They talked about the bond the two of them had formed when Ace was young, as well as the promise between Shanks and Luffy, and many other things.
In the end, Ace still left Raijin Island with his crew.
In his own words, "First, I'm going to find Red-Hair and thank him for saving Luffy's life. Then I'm going to find Whitebeard and see exactly what kind of person someone who stood on equal footing with my dead old man really is."
Roy respected Ace's choice. Besides, he had long since used Observation Haki to see that distant future.
The Spade Pirates arrived silently and left plainly, without stirring up much of a wave on Raijin Island.
Aside from the crew members learning that this Super Rookie had known their captain since childhood, there was not much of a reaction.
As for Roy, he once again devoted himself to training.
During these seven years, he had already overcome the obstacle in his bloodline and successfully reached the realm of Super Saiyan 4.
However, he was still not satisfied, and continued advancing toward the realm of Ultra Instinct beyond Super Saiyan 4.
The members of the Thunder God Pirates had long since grown used to their captain's obsessive and fanatical attitude toward training, and they no longer found it strange.
Although Roy spent most of the year in seclusion, the members of the Thunder God Pirates did not slack off.
That was because, during the few times Roy came out of seclusion, he had vaguely revealed something to them:
"The day of our official war with the World Government is not far away."
While the Thunder God Pirates actively trained and prepared for war, Ace also led his Spade Pirates and officially began making a name for themselves in the New World.
Because Jinbe was no longer there to stop him like in the original version, the person who fought Ace became Jozu instead.
One of them possessed the hardest defense in the world, while the other was a Logia user known as practically invincible.
The two of them could be said to have fought back and forth evenly. In the end, the battle only stopped after Whitebeard intervened.
Then, after a series of adjustments and gradual acceptance, Ace, just like in the original version, eventually bore Whitebeard's mark on his back.
As for the other two major events, both were related to the Marines and the World Government.
The second event was that, after the World Government truly could not find a suitable candidate for the Seven Warlords of the Sea, they finally extended an olive branch to a pirate who had once caused the Marines tremendous harm: Whitebeard Jr., Edward Weevil.
When the World Government made this decision, one could imagine what an intense wave of opposition it caused within the Marines.
Whether it was the current Admiral Aokiji, former Admiral Zephyr, or the majority of Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals, all of them clearly expressed their opposition to this decision.
However, at this stage, the Revolutionary Army was carrying out resistance movements across the world on a grand and fiery scale. Pirates were also appearing endlessly, and the World Government still had to satisfy the personal desires of those Celestial Dragons.
The World Government simply could not spare any extra manpower to suppress pirates.
So they forcefully rejected the Marines' protests. They did not even hand the duty of bestowing the Warlord title to the Marines anymore. Instead, they had a specialized Cipher Pol organization go find Edward Weevil and carry out the appointment ceremony.
And so, the consequence of this decision was that it directly led to the third major event.
Former Marine Admiral Zephyr, after learning that Edward Weevil, the man who had severed his arm, was about to join the Marines as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, began to feel intense doubt and distrust toward the World Government and the internal structure of the Marines. He resolutely withdrew from the Marines and established the "Neo Marines" with the goal of annihilating every pirate in the world.
At the same time, some Marine officers who, like him, were completely unable to understand this decision, also threw themselves into Zephyr's Neo Marines.
A former Marine Admiral had defected from the Marines. This incident caused quite a stir across the sea.
Moreover, the "Black Arm" Zephyr who had once been known as "Non-Killing," after founding the Neo Marines, began killing any pirates he encountered without the slightest hesitation.
For a time, he stirred up no small amount of turmoil across the sea.
However, neither the Marines nor the World Government made any statement about Zephyr's defection, let alone issued a bounty poster for him.
Within the Marines, there were many disciples Zephyr had personally taught. On top of that, Sengoku, Garp, and the others were comrades-in-arms from the same era as Zephyr. Seeing Zephyr become like this left them feeling extremely uneasy.
As for the World Government, seeing that Zephyr was only hunting pirates with all his strength and even helping reduce their pressure, they were more than happy to let it happen.
Although Zephyr had left the Marines and was hunting pirates on a massive scale, the overlords of the New World made no statement at all.
There was no other reason.
Zephyr was too old.
He was already sixty-nine years old this year. On top of that, the enormous blow brought about by the deaths of his family members had caused him to neglect maintaining his body.
(End of Chapter)
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