Chapter 250: The Golden Opportunity and the Brewing Storm

Karl was preoccupied with something else entirely. The trump card of the Celestial Dragons, the Heavenly King Uranus, was now destroyed by his hand. Still, he had no idea just how damaged it truly was. Could it still attack, or was it down for the count?

But even if Uranus was badly damaged and couldn’t attack right now, with the World Government’s resources, they’d have it fixed in no time. For all he knew, there might even be more than one Uranus.

He had to seize this window to grow his own power, recruit more admiral-level allies, and strike to bring down the Celestial Dragons for good.

But how long would it actually take to repair Uranus? Would he have enough time to strengthen his forces before it came back online?

People might think destroying Uranus looked easy, but that was only because he’d used the Superman Experience Card—power that vastly surpassed this world’s limits. Blowing up an alien ship was nothing for Superman, after all.

What worried him was that by the time he’d gathered all his forces for an assault on the World Government, Heavenly King Uranus might be fully repaired and ready. His side would be wiped out before they even got started.

If that happened, taking down the Celestial Dragons would be the least of his problems—he’d be lucky to escape with his life.

Sure, he could go head-to-head with Uranus himself a few times, but his other allies might not survive more than a few attacks. He couldn’t protect everyone.

“Maybe I’ll get lucky and win something as good as Superman’s Underpants in the next lottery,” Karl muttered. “I just can’t shake this feeling of insecurity.”

“Looks like I need to plant someone inside the World Government,” he said to himself.

“Ideally, they’d be someone high-ranking, able to discreetly gather intel on the Uranus repairs.”

“And I need to call all my forces together. Once I have enough admiral-level strength to match the World Government, it’ll be time to make my move.”

“There’s no time to waste.”

Once he’d worked out his plans, Karl stretched lazily and was about to head out when inspiration struck. He clapped his fists together. “Wait, I haven’t checked out the Pure Gold yet!”

“I never got to take a look at the Pure Gold.”

Pure Gold was a top priority—this whole trip to the North Blue was about getting it. He wondered just what kind of surprise the Lanternfish had in store for him.

Karl focused his mind, diving into his System Space. In here, he was like a god; anything inside could be manipulated, broken down, or fused at will. He’d stumbled on this secret by accident.

From his experiments, though, breaking something down only yielded its component materials. Combining items just made a new, higher-level material—but what the results actually did, he still didn’t know. Beyond that, he hadn’t found any other uses for the feature.

Karl glanced at the lantern. With a single thought, he broke down the Lanternfish’s lantern, peeling off the outer skin and clearing away the mucus.

Underneath was a massive spherical core, thirty meters across—an enormous golden orb, gleaming steadily with a gentle glow from the Pure Gold within.

It lit up the entire storage space. For the first time, Karl could actually see the far end of it.

The storage space resembled an enormous cube. At its far end was a void, glowing with a mysterious blue light that flowed like liquid and rippled around the edges.

Karl let out a sigh. “Shame my real body can’t come here. I have no idea if that blue liquid is dangerous or not.”

“Is the System Space’s power to break things down and combine them because of that blue liquid?” he wondered.

He turned his attention back to the Pure Gold, and in the next second a string of data popped up in front of him.

“Kilograms!”

The massive number stunned Karl. He’d expected the Lanternfish’s lantern to weigh maybe a few hundred kilograms at most, but this was on another level.

Olga barely had a single gram of Pure Gold, yet that tiny bit alone kept her age frozen in childhood for over a hundred years. It was basically immortality in another form.

Roughly speaking, if each adult only needed one gram of Pure Gold to keep their body from aging, this haul could grant eternal youth to over 273.1 billion people.

There might not even be that many people in the entire One Piece World. He had more wealth than he could comprehend—enough to blind his 24k-carat Pure Gold dog eyes.

With a number like that, he could distribute it to everyone in Huaxia if he wanted.

“Heh, I’m set! Even my dog at home gets a nugget of Pure Gold now.”

“I could use them, toss them, and still never run out—there’s just too much!”

The fist-sized Pure Gold Olga made seemed worthless by comparison. With the Lanternfish haul, that little gold lump didn’t matter in the slightest.

No doubt about it, Karl had the mentality of a lottery winner now.

Then another thought hit him. “Pure Gold plus gene clones—that would let me mass-produce soldiers with no end!”

If Vegapunk could just engineer superpowered gene soldiers, even with only a one- or five-year lifespan, the Pure Gold could vastly extend their lives. They’d make the perfect war machines.

He pictured it in his mind: hundreds of millions, even billions of admiral-level gene clones storming the Celestial Dragons’ holy land, Mariejois. He bet Im’s face would be priceless.

Of course, if the enemy ever managed to steal some Pure Gold, that could be a huge loss. But when you had this much, who cared? How much could they actually take, anyway?

With each possibility, Karl grew more excited. He hurriedly pulled his consciousness out of the System Space.

He reached into his shirt and pulled out his Den Den Mushi. “Brrr-brrr!”

“Krell?”

A calm voice drifted from the transponder. “Lord Karl, do you have instructions for me?”

Krell had just returned from Elbaf to Cake Island and finished organizing supplies, but soon he’d be leading another team out.

The deals with the Giant Tribe were too important. Charlotte Linlin couldn’t trust anyone but her most loyal followers, so, until the trade was stable, Krell had to make the runs himself.

“Gather all our forces. I’m hosting a tea party on Cake Island. No one under my banner is allowed to skip it.”

“If anyone fails to show, put their names on a list.”

“Yes, Lord Karl.”

Receiving Karl’s orders, Krell called in Long Yi, Long Er, and White Tiger. They’d be delivering goods to Elbaf this time, taking over that mission.

As for Krell, he sprinted to the communications room to pass on Karl’s orders, instructing every faction to head for Cake Island to attend the tea party.

After dispatching the commands, he met with Perospero to discuss how to host the event on Cake Island.

After hanging up, Karl walked to the edge of the platform, gazing out at the endless sea. He clenched his right fist with determination. “Sooner or later, this world will be mine.”

The rest of the journey went smoothly. After a day on the road, Cake Island was almost in sight.