July 15, Year 1511 — Sea Circle Calendar
After obtaining the Shichiseiken, losing it almost immediately, and awakening his Asura-infused Conqueror's Haki, the four finally ended their two-plus months of constant travel and returned to Water 7.
For the next half month, none of them felt like going anywhere.
They simply wanted to stay in this holy land of shipbuilding, rest properly, and adjust their condition while waiting for their new ship to leave the dock.
While staying in the luxurious hotel suite, the four once again took out the shopping list they had used two months earlier—and started writing a new one.
As one of the most prosperous islands in the first half of the Grand Line, Water 7 had everything imaginable.
Unfortunately, the three girls weren't interested in "ordinary" goods.
They wanted everything custom-made.
So they began placing orders half a month in advance.
Faced with massive sums of Belly—and two Supernovas whose combined bounties were already approaching 400 million Belly—the merchants of Water 7 didn't dare show the slightest negligence.
Every shop promised the same thing:
Production would start immediately, and all custom items would be delivered within half a month.
It took three full days for the four to roam Water 7's main street and side streets, visiting large and small shops alike, until everything on the list was either purchased or ordered.
Whether the items were in stock or custom-made, all payments were settled on the spot.
In just those three days, they spent 500 million Belly.
Including the 1.6 billion Belly paid earlier for their custom-made ship—their future home—their total expenditure had already reached 2.1 billion Belly.
Adding the travel expenses from the past two months, the 2.5 billion Belly they had cashed out from part of the City of Gold was completely gone—and they had even overspent by several hundred million.
After all, before the age of eighteen, the Nutritional Supplement was a terrifying money-devouring monster.
El alone required three bottles per day—and he had just celebrated his birthday not long ago.
Carina, nine years old this year, needed two bottles per day
Kuina, after mastering lightning-based electrotherapy through her Devil Fruit, required three bottles per day
Nami needed one bottle per day
That made nine bottles every single day.
Each bottle's price fluctuated between 2 and 2.5 million Belly, depending on the market price of medicinal herbs.
While sailing, they spent 18–20 million Belly per day just on supplements.
Even during the ten days they stayed on the island—when training intensity dropped—the remaining days of the month still cost them 300–400 million Belly.
In other words, hundreds of millions of Belly per month were burned purely on nutritional supplements.
Without the City of Gold as backing, this kind of expenditure would have been completely unsustainable.
Fortunately, during those two months of travel, the four had never stopped their main business—
Hunting pirates.
Although they couldn't officially exchange pirate heads for bounties with the Navy, they could still sell them on the black market. The bounty itself was merely a bonus.
The real profits came from:
Treasure stored on pirate ships
Private funds hidden by captains
Illicit stashes uncovered through memory reading
These were the true windfalls.
Throughout their journey, they earned hundreds of millions of Belly this way.
Even so, they were still short on cash and deliberately avoided exchanging more gold.
Instead, they focused on pirates who came to Water 7 to buy or repair ships.
Although the Great Pirate Era had not yet reached its peak, pirates were still everywhere.
In the eyes of the four, any pirate who appeared before them was no different from a humanoid money-printing machine.
For ordinary people, tracking pirate treasure and hidden wealth would be extremely difficult.
But for El, as long as the target was a pirate, their valuables were already as good as his.
With electric-field teleportation, it took only an instant to reach the pirate's ship and clean it out—unless the opponent was truly destitute.
Before awakening Conqueror's Haki, the four still needed to fight occasionally, and the unlucky ones might even be killed by Kuina.
Now, however—
El only needed a single glance.
Weak enemies would collapse instantly.
There was no bloodshed.
Yet the scene was somehow even more terrifying.
Such moments were inevitably captured by paparazzi in Water 7 and sent straight to the headquarters of the World Economy News Paper.
Although El was clearly the captain, his fame had long been overshadowed by Kuina.
But this time—
He finally surpassed her.
For the first time, El appeared on the front page of the World Economy News Paper as the main headline.
As the most famous Supernova of the year, the world was already familiar with these two underage monsters.
Yet this time, El's headline caused an uproar in the New World, second only to the reappearance of the Goro Goro no Mi.
"This has to be a joke, right?"
"For real? That kid actually has the qualities of a king?!"
"I'm not surprised he has them—but isn't he only eight or nine years old?!"
"Awakening Conqueror's Haki at that age… is that why he was able to suppress the Goro Goro no Mi user so early?"
"Flying Slashes at eight. Conqueror's Haki at nine. What kind of monster is this little devil?!"
People in the Four Seas and much of the first half of the Grand Line didn't truly understand what Conqueror's Haki meant.
Even those who had heard of it rarely grasped its significance.
But the major forces of the New World, as well as Marine Headquarters, did.
As a result, the threat level of "Young Swordsman" El—who had long been overshadowed by his crew—was re-evaluated once more.
Almost immediately after El's headline appearance—
Marine Headquarters issued a new bounty order.
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