Since Noah couldn't guarantee a 100% success rate in transforming Golden Lion into an apostle just yet, he had to settle for a more cautious backup plan.
Noah activated a previously prepared secret base.
Sixis Island.
Ari opened a teleportation wormhole, transferring part of the IQ Grass and the bird-people villagers to Sixis Island. Meanwhile, the ferocious beasts modified by Indigo were sealed away by Noah using his cards. The floating islands themselves were also sealed in cards.
Some of the larger floating islands had to be split into several pieces before they could be sealed individually.
At this point, Noah's card space had expanded to the size of a 3-kilometer cube, providing a total capacity of 27 cubic kilometers. This was just enough to hold a few of the smaller islands.
As for the seawater and freshwater that Golden Lion had taken to the islands, Noah let it drain back into the ocean after sealing him away.
On Sixis Island.
The more than 2,000 bird-people villagers accepted the rule of the Noah family. After all, compared to Golden Lion's ruthless cruelty, Noah at least wouldn't force them to do anything. He simply required them to help cultivate IQ Grass and allow some of their tribe to become peripheral members of the Noah family. In exchange, Noah guaranteed their safety on Sixis Island.
Although Sixis Island was barren, this wasn't entirely a bad thing, nor was it beyond transformation.
Lilith and Mary busied themselves managing affairs on the island while also capturing the island's strange birds. Sixis Island had a sizeable population of these creatures—over 1,300 in total. The adult birds were massive, with considerable attack power, capable of instantly killing an unprepared person.
Lilith used her abilities to concoct a special toxin that, once ingested by the birds, created a mild addiction. Of course, the addictive effect wasn't very strong, roughly equivalent to how catnip affects cats.
Additionally, Lilith prepared substances that caused itching in the birds and their corresponding antidotes. The strategy was simple: secretly poison the birds and have the bird-people administer the antidotes. This fostered a bond between the birds and the villagers.
Lilith then organized a squad of 200 airborne cavalry, centered around the strange birds and bird-people.
In the world of pirates, where vast ocean expanses make up the majority of the terrain, aerial forces offer unmatched flexibility and mobility compared to land or sea units.
Although an adult bird's maximum carrying capacity was around 600 kilograms, this wasn't an unchangeable limitation.
For instance, IQ Grass had the potential to gigantify and enrage animals, significantly boosting their strength.
To be precise, IQ Grass contained components that could trigger biological evolution.
While the Noah family had no interest in Golden Lion's berserk beast army, the gigantification potential was a promising research direction for the strange birds.
In the future, the Noah family planned to recruit scientists specializing in biology and pharmacology, ensuring the study of IQ Grass progressed smoothly.
For example, Drum Kingdom had many excellent doctors and pharmaceutical researchers.
However, it was still too early to target the doctors of Drum Kingdom.
At this time, the king of Drum Kingdom was still Wapol's father, and Wapol wouldn't ascend the throne until around 1510 of the Sea Calendar.
Noah deduced this based on Princess Vivi's memories. In 1512, Vivi accompanied Cobra to the World Government conference in Mary Geoise, during which Wapol slapped her.
The conflict between them arose because Cobra had publicly criticized Wapol's "Exterminate the Doctors" plan.
Given Wapol's personality, it was obvious he would implement this plan soon after ascending the throne, which led Noah to speculate that Wapol likely took the throne around 1510.
Of course, Noah wouldn't wait until 1510 to make his move. Drum Kingdom had several valuable Devil Fruits, such as the Munch-Munch Fruit, Fungus-Fungus Fruit, and the Human-Human Fruit (basic human form)—all of which were worth obtaining in advance.
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Aside from forming the airborne cavalry, Lilith also used a special toxin-based pheromone to successfully tame some of the black ants living underground on Sixis Island.
The reason for subduing the hellish black ants wasn't their combat strength but rather their ecological role. On Sixis Island, they were more akin to cultivators than predators.
After all, apart from the flying strange birds, the only other notable life forms on the island were poisonous yams and bitter oleander trees. There were very few large animals, so the thumb-sized black ants couldn't sustain themselves by hunting.
Instead, the hellish black ants dug underground tunnels, collecting oleander leaves and poisonous yam vines to use as a substrate for cultivating various edible mushrooms.
These mushrooms were the black ants' primary food source, allowing them to maintain their population.
Lilith's younger sister, Lilian, had previously discovered many delicious mushrooms on Sixis Island, including "Cream Mushrooms," "Honey Mushrooms," "Beef Mushrooms," and "Cilantro Mushrooms."
These mushrooms were not only delicious but also highly nutritious.
Lilith planned to have the hellish black ants provide mushrooms to the bird-people village in exchange for sea beast meat.
The reason the black ants needed sea beast meat was that a diet of only mushrooms would lead to malnourishment in their larvae.
To obtain sea beast meat, the black ants would dig small ponds along the rocky coastal cliffs, utilizing the tides to trap sea beasts and fish. During high tide, the ponds filled with water, attracting sea creatures, and when the tide receded, some of these creatures would be left behind in the ponds.
However, this method only yielded a small amount of sea beast meat, which limited the black ants' population growth.
Through this arrangement, the bird-people and black ants could establish a symbiotic relationship.
This setup would allow Sixis Island to achieve a basic level of self-sufficiency, preventing food shortages in the event of an unexpected crisis.
Of course, to prevent any unwanted visitors from entering Sixis Island, Lilith, under Noah's orders, set up numerous hidden sentries to monitor the surrounding seas.
Additionally, with Ari's Hole-Hole Fruit, they transformed Sixis Island's underground caverns into a true labyrinth, rigging it with plenty of traps.
Noah also intervened, selecting a portion of the ordinary islands from Golden Lion's floating archipelago. He cut these islands into pieces and filled in Sixis Island's small beaches to ensure there were no open shorelines for outsiders to land on.
With the addition of the airborne cavalry, Sixis Island's defensive system was starting to take shape.
However, this wasn't the final version.
For now, Sixis Island remained fixed in one location. As long as it stayed immobile, it would be vulnerable to the World Government's forces in the future.
The island's ultimate form would be a floating fortress, hovering high in the sky, untouchable by the World Government's reach.
As the initial transformation of Sixis Island came to a close, Anthony and Vic, stationed on the Dominis Archipelago, finally found the Glue-Glue Fruit growing on a desolate island.
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