51 Chapter 51 - Mysterious Island 5.
[Chapter Size: 2712 Words.]
Third Person POV
On island in the sea, East Blue.
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*Crack!*
The sound of a lock echoed from the door, and it began to move slowly, but with a sound revealing its weight as it opened.
"Finally, treasures!" Nami exclaimed as they started walking towards the entrance, unfolding in front of them.
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As the doors opened, Nami was ready to rush inside at her highest speed.
"Wait, Nami, we don't know what we might find in there. Be careful; it's better if everyone stays together." Luffy warned her with a stern look at the cat burglar. He didn't want to have to keep saving her from any trap in this place due to her recklessness.
"I guess you're right..." Nami sighed and admitted, approaching the group again.
"Let's stick together; if anything unusual happens, let us know." Luffy said and went ahead, leading the group.
The first thing they saw after passing the doors was a dark corridor. Luffy raised the palm of his hand, and a purple flame emerged from it in the form of a fireball, floating and fixing above his head, providing light to his surroundings.
The now illuminated corridor proved to be made of the same material as the gate, making Luffy even more intrigued about what lay inside this place.
But the place had no secrets beyond being hidden on a random island and requiring a key to open, as they hadn't encountered any traps so far. The group continued to the end of the corridor without problems.
Once they reached the end, Luffy began to see what looked like a large hall opening in front of the crew, with a staircase leading down to a slightly lower level.
Luffy's surprise came when he increased the intensity of his flame, quickly illuminating the entire place. He threw other flames at the ceiling, which was 15 meters high.
It was a spacious area with at least 50 meters, a kind of ancient cave or grotto. This time, without all that external material, only natural stone structures and rocks were found here, but Luffy wouldn't be surprised if there was a layer around this chamber, protecting it from any external invaders.
As the intensity of Luffy's flame increased, the location revealed its secrets with extraordinary splendor. The light danced on the walls of a vast cave, highlighting the marks of an ancient battle echoing in the atmosphere. Natural stone formations and majestic rock structures composed the environment, giving it a sacred aura.
In the center of this monumental chamber, two Poneglyphs rested silently, silent witnesses of a long-buried history. Next to them, a pillar stood with dignity, supporting a box that seemed to guard mysteries yet to be revealed. Distant, almost like a vision from another time, was an old and broken ship, whose remnants resembled the legendary Flying Dutchman, evoking an atmosphere of myth and antiquity.
With this thought, Luffy turned his face and instinctively looked at Shirahoshi.
'Shirahoshi is now out of the clutches of Vander Decken IX, but I'll make sure to kill him when we go to the New World.' Luffy thought and returned his attention to the ship.
The golden glow escaping from a hole in the side of the ship, a result of centuries of decay, captured the group's attention. The shining gold, now illuminated by Luffy's light, cascaded into a dazzling shower of sparkling sparks, dazzling everyone. The discoveries in the heart of the cave triggered a feeling of awe, as the group found themselves facing an unexplored chapter of history, waiting to be unveiled.
"That..." Kuina said.
"Gold... a lot of gold..." Usopp murmured beside her.
"Sharky!"
"No, you can't eat that, Megalo!" Shirahoshi warned her friend.
"I've never seen such a quantity before..." Yamato argued, but she didn't seem very interested.
"Are we dreaming, brother?" Jhonny asked his companion.
"We must be, brother," Yosaku replied.
"I never imagined that so much gold could be in just one place..." Reiju said with quite a surprise as well.
"Tsk. Is it just gold?" Zoro mocked, uninterested.
"Au!"
"Chouchou agrees with you, Zoro. But I'm surprised too. I expected this on the Sky Island, but I never thought we'd find so much gold in the East Blue," Luffy said. People didn't even wonder about what he said about the Sky Island, as their sole focus was on the gold reflecting the purple fireballs on the ceiling. However, Luffy didn't mind and turned his face to see the reaction of the person among them who loves gold the most, with interest.
"Isn't that right, Nami?" Luffy smiled at a Nami who stared at all that gold with lifeless eyes.
"Luffy... Is this real?" Nami asked calmly, with the same eyes, and continued.
"Aren't we dead and come to some kind of heaven for our good deeds?" She continued to muse in a trance.
"Nonsense, silly girl. Go ahead and pick out some pieces for yourself, take whatever you can." Luffy said. He was quite surprised by the gold, but he was more curious about the mysterious box and Poneglyphs. He took his first steps towards the chest on the pillar and the stone with ancient inscriptions.
Luffy didn't care about the gold anymore beyond his initial surprise. Of course, it was a very pleasant surprise; it would greatly accelerate his plans with something like this, but he had his thoughts on the contents of that part, as they seemed more important than the treasures.
Yamato decided to follow Luffy instead of the majority of the crew, who chose to run for the gold.
Luffy approached and stood in front of the pillar chest, next to the Poneglyphs.
'Let's see what's inside this box because I'm almost sure that this box must be the most important thing in this chamber.'
"They seem to have died a long time ago..." Yamato commented beside them. In the nearby area, they noticed that there were six long-decomposed skeletons. They wore samurai armor, and there was a complete sword among them.
"It looks like they built this place a long time ago, then fled from something and fought in this same chamber to protect their items, especially this box." Luffy analyzed the place.
"There are also signs of a fight... They could have locked themselves in with the enemy, but how does that explain the ship with gold appearing here, buried in the middle of an island practically?" Yamato asked curiously.
The place had many holes, even the ship looked like it came out of a war before coming here, only adding to the mystery of this place. Luffy couldn't imagine how it ended up in this place, perfectly understanding Yamato's logical thinking...
"Yes, there was a battle in this place. Strange... And no, I have no idea how that ship appeared here." Luffy murmured with all this mystery.
"Anyway, let's see what's in this box. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do with these stones with a strange language..." Luffy said, approaching the chest.
As soon as he opened it, he was surprised by the content inside. The box was fancy and had something peculiar inside, carefully placed.
"A fruit?! What kind of Devil Fruit could it be?" Yamato asked beside him, sounding somewhat surprised as soon as she saw what was inside the box.
"Strange... I don't recognize this fruit, and I don't remember it in the encyclopedia here," Luffy murmured.
Luffy said, taking the book from his pocket and flipping through it to make sure of his doubts.
The fruit was shaped like a canine paw with 3 colors, red on the right, blue in the middle, and white on the left, something quite intriguing for Luffy and Yamato.
"Anyway, I'll save it for later." Luffy took the box after closing it and shrank its size, putting it in his pocket.
His attention turned to the Poneglyphs now.
"These stones are quite hard..." Yamato commented, touching one of them.
"Yes, your father has one of them in particular, somewhere on Onigashima." Luffy commented.
"Really? What are they for?" Yamato asked, a bit curious about their purpose; she didn't know them yet.
"As far as I know, they seem to have 3 functions in my opinion: one, narrate history; two, tell about prophecies and ancient weapons, and three, the red stones give the location of the One Piece..." Luffy commented, leaving Yamato wide-eyed, knowing the value of these stones, especially the last use that Luffy mentioned.
"Really?!" She couldn't help but be surprised now, making Luffy look strangely at her.
"Don't you know? These are called Poneglyphs. I'm sure Oden used to read them in his time..." Luffy spoke.
"Are these things Poneglyphs?! Then I must read them too!" She said with determination after realizing that these are the stones described in Oden's diary that he used to report in his journal. Still, she had never seen one before, so she didn't recognize them.
"I doubt you can; only one person could do that. I really hope she comes to my ship soon." Luffy commented, thinking of Robin.
Of all the characters in One Piece, Robin was the woman he most wanted by his side; he had always been captivated by her for some reason. Her story was quite sad, and that made him very eager to protect her. He stopped summoning her when he had the cards because he knew she wouldn't simply trust him at that moment. So he decided to recruit people more easily and would wait to talk to Robin in Alabasta once they reached the Grand Line.
"I see..." Yamato nodded with Luffy, seeing that she couldn't understand anything about those symbols, no matter how hard she tried.
Luffy touched the Poneglyphs, thinking that his best chances of gaining knowledge were to copy them on paper, but he didn't stop trying to use his fruit to run a test.
To his surprise, it really worked; one of the Poneglyphs he touched began to shrink, getting smaller and smaller.
"Ow! You got one." Yamato said next to him. Zoro approached them with interest, especially in the sword that Luffy was holding now, as he had no interest in gold and was with Chouchou by his side.
"It seems so, although this is a big surprise to me since I thought my Devil Fruit abilities wouldn't work on them..." Luffy commented, still incredulous, as he couldn't even scratch them, but somehow managed to shrink their size.
Now he looked at the small stone in his hand.
'This is really a surprise, but it makes things much easier, giving me the ability to collect the stones. I'm sure the Five Elders would go crazy if they knew someone could do this.' Luffy had a new happy thought with this.
Luffy, opening a satisfying smile, went to the next Poneglyph and shrank it like the last one.
"Well, this part is done; let's see the gold now..." Luffy said, approaching most of the crew, who were circling that whole mountain of gold, looking for something that interested them everywhere.
He could see Nami adorned with jewels all over her body, carrying three huge bags behind her, still searching for something valuable.
"I bet it's only three bags because that's all she has. I wouldn't be surprised if she built another mountain of bags to take from here," Luffy muttered to himself.
Most were happy, putting jewelry on their arms, earrings, and even crowns.
"Kuina!" Luffy called.
Kuina looked surprised at Luffy and saw him smile at the sight of her, after she adorned herself with gold, putting on bracelets, necklaces, and earrings.
"Don't look at me like that; I'm a girl!" Kuina shouted at Luffy's teasing glances.
"Feel free; you look beautiful like this." Luffy showed appreciation for the girl and continued to speak.
"But I intend to interrupt you because I have something for you." He said, showing the sword he found among the skeletons.
"?!" Zoro next to Luffy couldn't help but be surprised by this, just like Kuina.
"This? What kind of sword is it?" Kuina couldn't help but be surprised as she hurried towards Luffy.
"It's Tensa Zangetsu, a sword on the same level as your old Wado Ichimonji. It's cursed, so its rank isn't higher, but it could be among the top 12. Its last user appeared 300 years ago, and it was lost since then. Now it's yours. I believe it will help, and if you master it, it will be among the main legendary weapons." Luffy said the description he read in the weapons encyclopedia as soon as he saw the weapon and smiled at Kuina, who looked strangely at him.
"You should have this weapon; your saber was destroyed by Mihawk..." Kuina commented, trying to deny.
"That's not important to me; I'll soon have my own sword shortly after we reach the Grand Line, so I'll simply discard any weapon I have on hand. That's why I prefer to give you the sword." Luffy spoke sincerely, gaining some admiration from the people around him who heard it.
"I... don't know what to say... Thank you, but this won't make me join your crew for this reason!" Kuina stuck her tongue out at Luffy and took the sword from his hands but thanked him with a look to the man in the straw hat.
She wasted no time and pulled the blade out of the sheath to admire the sharpness of the blade, which didn't seem to be affected despite centuries locked in a cave.
Luffy smiled at this; he didn't expect anything more from Kuina, but he always liked the way the girl acted tough. He left her with the sword and went to the gold right after.
He looked at the whole group dressed in gold and found it amusing. Shiahoshi seemed to be adorning Megalo while laughing at him with amusement, and Megalo didn't seem to like it much.
Usopp, Jhonny, and Yosaku thought they were in a pool of gold as they swam among the treasures with happiness.
Reiju was next to them, patiently choosing an earring and a kitchen knife made of gold.
"Have you taken what interested you? I'll take the rest of the gold." Luffy simply said, approaching.
"Hm?"
"?
"Luffy-Sama?"
"No...no...NO!" Nami, seeing what Luffy was going to do, had a premonition that appeared even in the worst nightmares.
"STOP HIM! DON'T LET HIM TOUCH THE GOLD FOR ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD!" Nami shouted, running to Luffy, trying to prevent him from making that witchcraft of making money and gold disappear.
But it was too late; the gold began to be sucked as soon as he touched it with his hands, like a black hole, and only large amounts of gold were pulled into Luffy's hand as if he had opened a portal, leaving everyone who had the gold unharmed and unaffected as they watched the gold flow into Luffy's hand.
Everyone was surprised by this because tons of gold disappeared into Luffy's hands in a few seconds under everyone's gaze, leaving only the gold that everyone was carrying and adorning themselves with.
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[Shop Money: 7,920,000,000 Berries.] Luffy looked with satisfaction at the nearly 8 billion he now possessed.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Nami's scream was so loud that it passed through the camera barrier and even startled the cannibals in their tribe at that moment, wondering what kind of creature had been hurt so much to let out such a lamentable scream.
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Author's note:
* Yamato didn't have contact with Poneglyphs, right? I don't remember that, but I added it here.
* I always believed that only two Devil Fruit powers could affect Poneglyphs, which are someone who can shrink things and the Darkness Logia, which could suck them into a separate space, so I apologize if you find it quite absurd.
* I added Ichigo's sword; it's a good weapon for Kuina to develop in the future. She may not be a shinigami, but she can unleash many attacks like in Bleach once she develops her fencing skills. The cursed part can be like Hollow energy. I don't have much knowledge about One Piece swords, so I decided to include a Zanpakuto there, with a little background story.
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