“Show me!” Ian took the invitation from Ace in doubt.Ace was careless. After handing over the invitation, he began to munch again. Lorraine and Elena looked at him with a smile, only thinking that the young Master Ian has such a funny friend.
Since Ian became the boss, Lorraine and Elena only felt that this period was the best they ever had after getting kidnapped from their family. Although the young Master Ian has been away from home lately, he has not forgotten to find their relatives for them. The news came a few days ago, and it is said that they have some signs of a positive outcome, which made Lorraine and Elena respect and appreciated Ian more and more. They loved living in this stronghold just because Ian was in it. And now, they even treated his friend Ace very well, desperately adding food to his plate.
Ian was frowning at this time, looking at this Shichibukai invitation letter.
The invitation letter was indeed genuine. The stamp of World Government and Marines above can"t be faked.
After reading it repeatedly for a while, Ian closed the invitation and asked him, “Ace, has your bounty increased again?”
He was focusing on his training with Rayleigh during this time, so he didn"t pay much attention to the news. After hearing his questions, Ace turned around and swallowed the food in his mouth and said, “Yeah, it had just increased once a while ago. Now it"s 140 million Berries!”
Lorraine and Elena whispered in amazement, “That"s awesome! 140 million Berries! “
Ace laughed, he was actually quite proud of himself, what he didn"t expect was that Lorraine and Elena continued to look at Ian with admiration and said, “Our Master is really powerful. He has such friends with high bounties!”
Ace suddenly became very depressed…
In fact, the two of them didn"t know much about the bounty of Pirates, and Ace was not the kind of person who looked fierce, so Lorraine and Elena were not afraid of him at all. They extremely admired Ian. They don"t even think about why Ian, a pirate hunter, would make friends with pirates.
Ian didn"t notice the scene, his fingers were tapping swiftly on his leg, and he was lost in his thoughts.
Ace"s bounty has increased, which is expected. Naturally, the Logia Devil Fruit Users were generally be valued. Moreover, Ace estimated that since the recent period, the only newcomer who has a bounty with more than a hundred million. From these two points of view, it was natural for Ace to be invited to join the Shichibukai.
He also knows that Boa Hanc.o.c.k, the Pirate Empress, who has a bounty of 80 million Berries, was invited to join the Shichibukai. It is obvious that the amount of the bounty was not the judgment standard of Shichibukai. The key points were strength and fame.
Currently, Ace was probably not that famous, but his potential is absolutely sufficient, and indeed he has the strength to become a Shichibukai.
However, Ian felt that there was something odd about it.
It"s very simple, because the current seven members of the Shichibukai were full, and there were no vacancies!
“Desert King” Sir Crocodile, “Strongest Swordsman in the World” Dracule Mihawk, “Knight of the Sea” Jinbe, Gecko Moria, “Heavenly Yaksha” Donquixote Doflamingo, “Pirate Empress” Boa Hanc.o.c.k, and “Tyrant” Bartholomew k.u.ma, these seven people, the Shichibukai, who were currently in position. If there is no vacancy, why would they invite Ace to join the Shichibukai? What does this mean?
It"s impossible for them to add the eighth person in the Shichibukai (Because the Literal Meaning of the Shichibukai is: Seven Warriors of the Sea! Shichi is the old seven and Hachi = 8). It"s needless to say. Otherwise, why don"t they call it Hachibukai directly… (Not my joke)
So, the meaning of this is somewhat intriguing.
In the first case, the World Government and the Marines deliberately want to deprive a Shichibukai of the position, so they want to find a replacement.
And the second situation is that there is a Shichibukai who wants to quit!
But, the second case does not seem to be too likely. Generally, no one is willing to take the initiative to withdraw from his rank as a Shichibukai, because becoming a Shichibukai is a kind of privilege. For pirates, doing whatever they desire without the worry of being chased by the Marines is the dream, the only thing they have to keep in mind is that they need to heed the call whenever they were summoned and to stay away from anything that interferes with the World Government Interests.
However, the first case was very possible. Perhaps some behavior of a certain Shichibukai caused the dissatisfaction of the World Government and the Marines, so they were preparing to deprive him of his t.i.tle.
After thinking about this possibility, Ian figured out who might be that person.
The first one that came to his mind was Gecko Moria. For no other reason, in the original story, Moria was attacked by Doflamingo after the Great War. The reason the World Government finally deemed Moria to be far too weak to continue as a Shichibukai and decided to annul his pact and eliminate him
But… even if Moria was weak, he should be slightly stronger than the current Ace!? After all, Ace was a newcomer who has not debuted for a long time. How can the World Government and the Marines give up a quite strong Shichibukai like Moria for Ace?
Ian had a headache (Me too). He understood the reason why Ace came to him. Maybe he had discovered something wrong with the invitation, so he came here to discuss the matter with Ian.
“What do you think, Ace?” Ian turned his head and planned to ask Ace.
However, with this turn, Ian found that the guy, Ace, was sleeping with food in his mouth!
Immediately some blue veins appeared in his forehead, then Ian directly punched Ace on the head. "The Heck, I"m having a headache here for your invitation letter, and you fell asleep! Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, that"s the only thing you have in your big dumb head!"
After receiving Ian"s punch, Ace finally woke up and looked at Ian in a daze.
“I asked for your opinion!” Ian kept hitting his head with the invitation letter, and said, “What are you planning to do about this invitation?”
Ace grinned and said: “I don"t really have any idea. I heard that Shichibukai must be in service whenever the Marines needed it, so I"m not willing to accept this invitation. But Jimmy and the others said that there are many benefits for joining the Shichibukai, and they are trying to persuade me to accept. So I"m not sure. After arriving at the Sabaody Archipelago, I heard that you had established a pirate hunter family, so I thought that I must come to see you and ask you about it!”
“What your crew tells was right! You"re a pirate. Shichibukai"s t.i.tle is good for you!” Ian said: “But I feel that there"s something wrong with this invitation!”
As he said this, suddenly, an idea flashed in Ian"s mind, he thought of the third possibility.
Is this invitation a trap!?
It"s very simple. If Ace agreed to join the Shichibukai, then one of the seven current Shichibukai would be excluded, and if the World Government and the Marines do not disclose in advance of who will be deprived of his t.i.tle, this will make all the inc.u.mbent Shichibukai target Ace!
At that time, Ace may face the wrath of the Seven Warlords!
When Ian thought about it, he only felt a cold sweat sliding down on his forehead. What the f*ck, this is literally the way to murder a person with a borrowed knife! The World Government and the Marines may think that Ace with his Flame-Flame Fruit will threaten them in the future, so they plan to kill him indirectly with the Shichibukai"s hands! (T/N: at first, I thought that they want to kill him because of his lineage, but then I found that they only discovered that when he joined the Whitebeard Pirates, so…)
However, Ian still hasn"t figured it out. "Since they want to kill Ace, why not making the Marines do it themselves? With Ace"s current strength, they could dispatch a Vice Admiral, and he will be arrested? Can"t the Marines even send a Vice Admiral?"
"Information!" Ian was sure that his information was too little now, so he thought of Shakky when he settled down.
“Come with me!” Ian grabbed Ace and went out.
It was about dinner time. Shakky should not be asleep. Ian led Ace all the way to the mangrove No.13 and found Shakky in the bar.
Shakky usually has very few people coming here at this time, so she knew that coming now while bringing someone with him, she was not surprised and asked with a smile: “Ian-san, what is the matter?”
“Shakky, I came here to ask you about something!” Ian said, “Is there anything happening with the Marines recently?”
Shakky asked curiously, “Why are you asking this?”
“Aren"t you working on buying and selling information?” Ian said with a smile: “The people under me are only collecting information on the Sabaody Archipelago, and they can"t do anything about the Marines. That"s why I came to you!”
“There"s indeed a lot going on with the Marines right now!” Shakky said while holding a cigarette. “It doesn"t hurt to tell you…”
So, then Shakky told Ian about all the recent activity of the Marines.
After getting the information from Shakky, Ian finally made the connection.
It turned out that the four-year World Council is about to be held!
More than 170 kings or Queens from all over the world will arrive at the Holy Land Mary Geoise in about three months and hold The Levely “The World Council” there.
At each World Council, due to the safety considerations of the leaders of the partic.i.p.ating nations, the Marines dispatched many warships to escort them. Although there were more than three months before the conference, the Marines have entered the preparatory stage. After all, it will take time for the battleships to go back and forth to all countries.
A large number of warships and Marine soldiers have been sent out. It can be said that the current Marine Headquarters is about to usher in a hard period, and its troops were seriously insufficient.
In order to prevent the pirates from taking advantage of this event, the Marine Headquarters can only leave Admirals and Vice-Admirals to stay in the headquarters as the combat force.
However, this was not over yet. Not long ago, the Marines had a major accident in a research inst.i.tution in the New World, Punk Hazard. A large explosion in a research facility resulted in the spread of toxic gas on the whole island. The Marines had to allocate manpower again to deal with the accident on the island.
It turned out that in this case, coincidentally, Ace, a new pirate with a bounty over a hundred million Berries have just appeared!
As soon as this kind of information was linked, it"s not difficult to understand why Ace received the invitation letter to the Shichibukai. The Marines have no time to take care of Ace, but they can"t let him go. So they thought of using this method to arouse the hostility of all the Shichibukai towards Ace, trying to make them kill Ace, the new pirate.
Once Ian has sorted out the reason, he immediately said to Ace, “Ace, if you don"t want to die, don"t accept this invitation!”
Ian didn"t elaborate on this connection to Ace, but he had a good point: he trusted his friends very much, so he nodded and grinned, “Well, Ian, I"ll listen to you!”
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