025 Big tail rat?
Above the endless sea of the Grand Line, Lin Mu was shirtless as he twisted his rain-soaked clothes dry, muscles clearly outlined under the sunlight, while Zhizhi stood nearby using his two small claws to tightly grab his own big furry tail and block his eyes. Although he deliberately acted as if he was not looking at all, he still couldn't help but secretly peek at Lin Mu through the gaps in his tail, and his eyes were soon filled with unmistakable shyness.
Lin Mu did not notice Zhizhi's strange reaction at all. At this moment, he was simply shaking his head and sighing helplessly.
Not long after officially entering the Grand Line, the island-like weather and abnormal climate had already left him completely speechless.
Back when he watched the anime, he thought this kind of climate setting was quite interesting and even amusing, but after personally experiencing it, Lin Mu finally realized just how painful and unreasonable it actually was.
Just a minute ago the sky had been clear and cloudless, sunlight blazing down like on the seas near Reverse Mountain, and the next minute dark clouds rolled in and heavy rain poured down without warning.
And now, although the sun was shining brightly and the weather appeared calm and pleasant, who could have imagined that it had still been raining violently only half a minute ago.
After wringing out his clothes soaked by the sudden rain, Lin Mu put them back on again, then lifted his head and looked toward the distant horizon of the Grand Line.
He had already roughly figured out what stage of the timeline he was currently in. In simple terms, Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates had already entered the Grand Line, but they had not yet reached the point of overthrowing Crocodile in Alabasta.
Lin Mu's current destination was naturally Alabasta. Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea officially recognized by the World Government, was a top-tier pirate who ruled the underground organization Baroque Works, and the experience he could provide was absolutely massive. Lin Mu was extremely interested in this.
As a Logia-type Devil Fruit user who possessed a clear and well-known Achilles' heel, as long as Lin Mu prepared enough water, combined with Quicksilver-level speed and Hulk-level brute strength, he believed he had more than enough power to directly defeat Crocodile!
The only thing Lin Mu was worried about now was that this huge walking bundle of experience might be snatched away by Luffy first, so he urged his boat forward nonstop and rushed straight toward Alabasta.
A few days later, the massive outline of Santin Island, where the Kingdom of Alabasta was located, gradually appeared in the distance. This was an extremely huge island, carrying an entire desert kingdom upon it, completely incomparable to the small islands Lin Mu had encountered before in the four seas.
After the boat docked safely at the port, Lin Mu took Squeak ashore and officially stepped onto the land of Santin Island.
His bounty had clearly not spread to this place yet, so most of the civilians and merchants on the island did not recognize Lin Mu at all, let alone know that his bounty had already jumped to a terrifying 60 million Berry.
After making some inquiries, Lin Mu finally confirmed that this was the largest port city of Alabasta, the famous Rainbase Flower Port, and naturally, Crocodile himself could not be found in a place like this.
Crocodile was either staying in Albana, the royal capital of the Kingdom of Alabasta where King Cobra ruled, or hiding deep within the Rainbase casino city, the rainy fields that served as his true headquarters.
However, Lin Mu decided to first have a full meal before thinking about anything else!
During the past few days of sailing across the sea toward Alabasta, he had basically eaten nothing but fish he caught himself. Although he had prepared some simple seasonings in advance, Nai He's cooking skills were far too poor, and the repetitive taste almost made his mouth go numb.
After walking into a restaurant that looked quite decent and was clearly popular among locals, Lin Mu went inside and enjoyed a hearty meal. When they finally walked out of the restaurant, both Lin Mu and Zhizhi subconsciously patted their stomachs with satisfied expressions.
As he looked at the pedestrians coming and going on both sides of the street, Lin Mu's eyes narrowed slightly.
Normally, in his field of vision, there would be no numbers floating above the heads of ordinary civilians, but at this moment, he could clearly see many pedestrians on the street with numbers hovering above their heads.
Although most of them were small values such as 1, 2, or 3, there were quite a lot of such people scattered throughout the port city!
Judging from their clothing and behavior, these people did not look like pirates at all, so their identities were almost ready to be exposed. The only possibility was that they were members of Baroque Works, the underground organization secretly controlled by Crocodile.
Thinking of this, Lin Mu could not help but think to himself: "It's said that there are more than two thousand low-level members in Baroque Works alone. If I could wipe these people out in one go, I'd probably gain a huge amount of experience. Unfortunately, these guys are scattered all over Alabasta, and it's almost impossible to gather them together in one place."
After letting out a helpless sigh, Lin Mu could only reluctantly give up this tempting idea. He then followed the map he had just bought and walked toward Crocodile's true base of operations—the Rainbase area.
However, what Lin Mu did not expect was that although he had no intention of dealing with the bottom-level members of Baroque Works, these people actually had ideas about dealing with him instead.
It didn't take long after he left the bustling streets for Lin Mu to realize that he was being followed by a group of people.
"One, two, three… thirteen, fourteen. Fourteen people in total," Lin Mu murmured softly as he counted in his heart. With the keen perception ability derived from Wolverine's genes, even these low-level operatives with minimal presence were completely unable to hide from him.
But Lin Mu didn't mind this at all. There was no reason to refuse experience points that came knocking on his own door. Even if the amount was small, no matter how tiny a mosquito was, it was still meat!
So Lin Mu pretended not to notice anything at all and continued walking forward, allowing the dozen or so people behind him to follow freely. When they gradually approached the edge of the port city of Rainbase Flower, there were already very few civilians around.
At this moment, the bottom-level agents of Baroque Works finally couldn't hold back anymore and jumped out!
"Kid, stop right there!"
With a loud shout, the group of people completely abandoned their concealment and blocked Lin Mu's path with vicious expressions on their faces.
"Hmph, brat, if you want to live, hand over that pet you're holding!"
Lin Mu was stunned for a brief moment when he heard these words. He didn't expect that the target of this group was actually Zhizhi in his arms.
Zhizhi was also stunned. Since following Lin Mu, this was the first time he had encountered such a situation, and he blinked his small eyes in confusion, clearly not understanding what was going on.
"Do you know what species it is?" Lin Mu asked calmly but curiously.
He had always been curious about what kind of creature Zhizhi truly was. Not only could Zhizhi understand human speech, but Lin Mu's keen perception couldn't detect Zhizhi's presence at all, which alone proved that Zhizhi was far from ordinary.
"Isn't it just a big-tailed rat that looks a bit prettier than usual? Noble ladies love this kind of thing the most. If we sell it, we'll definitely make a fortune!"
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