Pirate: It’s not a phantom beast, it’s a phantom god!

Chapter 385 Shortcut
Obe and Osi, carrying the child, strolled leisurely in the square in front of the Palace of Beasts... It was called a square, but it was actually more like a large garden.

Rocks, elegant plants, covered bridges, flowing and still water... it has all the scenery a garden should have. I heard that the chief designer was a master craftsman who had built royal gardens and was invited from the land of flowers.

Strolling through the park in your leisure time, you'll find a beautiful view at every turn, which is very relaxing and has a good soothing effect on physical and mental fatigue.

It is said that this garden was added by Wright, after all, although Kaido is not a simple brute, he is not so refined as to be this elegant.

In Wright's words, he and those young men in the general affairs department had been working overtime for half their lives, so why couldn't they enjoy themselves?

So, with a wave of his hand, Legault approved several hundred million in funding... Anyway, the Beasts have more money than they can spend right now!
.........

Passing by a vermilion arched bridge, the koi swimming around caught the attention of the two children, who stared down with wide, curious eyes.
Seeing this, Ossie and Obe put the two children down, letting them run back and forth across the bridge chasing the koi.
They took the opportunity to chat.

"Speaking of which, Obey~ what brings you out for a walk today?"

"Could it be that you're tired of being in the lab?"

"Well, you young people are just so easily impulsive. I'm not trying to criticize you, but it's good to balance work and rest, but don't..."

"I don't think I've fallen so low as to need to be lectured by someone as lazy and irresponsible as you in the entire pirate crew."

Obe rolled his eyes, then looked at the distant waterfall and said:

"I just hit a creative block and wanted to get away for a bit... just like you said—'work-life balance'."

"After all, inspiration can't be forced out in the lab."

"inspiration?"

"What new project do you have up your sleeve? Or is the long-dormant 'Big Repair Card' project finally being restarted?"

"DaShuka?"

Obe looked at Osi with a puzzled expression; she didn't recall ever seeing such a thing.

"I don't know what you're talking about... and even if I did have some kind of plan, I wouldn't use such an unlucky name."

She has absolutely no interest in 'creating a father'... She has her own biological father, and that's enough for her.

"Oh dear~ I meant that knight belt you made a few years ago~"

"Why did things just fizzle out like that?"

"I was thinking of getting a few to play with!"

"The belt... So that's what you mean?"

"Unfortunately, that's the bottleneck I was referring to."

It's modeled after tokusatsu films from the original world, where transformation is achieved through belts and cards... In short, it's Kamen Rider Manufacturing.

Originally, this thing was only developed at Kaido's request as a substitute for Zoan-type Devil Fruits... plus a little entertainment that was brought about by her own interest.

Ober thought it would be easy to complete with a little effort... and she did indeed create an initial belt in just a few days, which performed quite well in the practical test with Quinn.

Transformation is not a problem, but the cards that carry the power of the Duel Spirits are not stable enough, and the reading limit of the belt is too low.

She initially thought it was just a minor, harmless problem with the prototype, but after returning home, she discovered that things were far more complicated than she had imagined.

"The materials I used to make the cards and belts were the leftover Phantom God Alloy from making the exclusive weapons. After all, there shouldn't be a more perfect material in the world that can bear the power of the spirits."

"But the experimental results were not satisfactory..."

"Neither your red alloy nor my blue alloy can perfectly bear the power of those dueling spirits."

"Once the cards are created, they are in a slow and unstable process of disintegration, and can almost only be used as one-time consumables."

Considering that each time the power of the spirits is infused into those cards, the gate to the spirit world needs to be opened, this defective product that only "transforms once" is simply unacceptable to Obe.

"After that, I made countless simulations and spent a long time before I finally figured it out... It turned out that the problem was actually with those Phantom God Alloys."

Obe squatted down, then made a 'lifting up' motion by holding up a ball of air with both hands.

As the optical camouflage was removed, a round, dark blue creature was revealed—it was the autonomous robot 'Little Watermelon No. 1' created by Obey.

Σ(°Д°;
The little guy's screen showed a clear look of panic.

It now possesses considerable intelligence. Because it was once lent by Ossie to Jack and Yamato to play with as a ball for a long time, it now automatically activates optical camouflage and hides whenever it sees the two children around.

Ignoring the constantly refreshing "Request to activate optical camouflage" message on the little watermelon screen, Obe pressed another button instead, and a holographic projection immediately appeared in front of Oce.

The three cubes of 'gold, red, and blue' were clearly visible on the projection. "Do you remember? When we were making the alloy, we didn't have enough power, so we took a shortcut and mixed our own divine power into the finished divine metal made by our eldest sister. That's how we created the so-called 'Illusionary God Alloy'."

"But in reality, it was a completely unfinished product, a product of compromise."

"Ah."

Ossie nodded in agreement.

The weapon that was created with great effort was actually used very few times.

On the one hand, he has fought less in recent years and has not encountered many opponents who require him to draw his weapon... On the other hand, after his powers were awakened, Ossi, like Ra, liked to directly materialize weapons with his divine power.

Those randomly formed, red crystal-like divine powers were truly at her fingertips.

Osei is currently considering whether to have Obey install an auto-processing chip on his own weapon and turn it into a 'Little Watermelon II'.
"This incomplete alloy is fine under normal circumstances, since our energy and Ra's energy are essentially from the same source... but once a third elven power is mixed in, the original stable balance will be immediately broken."

"And those cards will inevitably break down quickly as a result."

"So after that I stopped using alloys and switched to a single metal, and sure enough, the card stabilized."

"However, a single divine metal has limited capacity. Your 'crystal' can only support dueling spirits of level four or lower, and Sister La's 'gold' can only support level five at most."

"The same goes for belts. Imperfect alloys can only read ordinary dueling Pokémon below four stars. They cannot read Pokémon of higher levels or with special abilities."

"We want to support higher-level spirits, or we want to use 'alloy'—or rather, the real 'god-level alloy'."

"The real 'Phantom God Alloy'?"

"Yes."

"A truly complete 'divine alloy' should be formed by fusing three divine metals with the same energy density..."

"To give an analogy, the alloy we created before was like using Sister La's high-density energy as the skeleton, while our low-density energy was used as the muscles to achieve the 'punching' action."

"A true perfect alloy should be like T1000, which uses two or even three types of energy to be completely fused together, giving birth to a brand new energy metal, namely the perfect phantom alloy."

The gold, red, and blue cubes in the holographic image continuously rotated and merged... eventually transforming into a dazzling white-gold color.

According to Aube's conjecture, to drive the power of high-level spirits or to drive multiple spirits simultaneously, performing tricks such as 'fusion,' 'synchronization,' 'Xyz,' or even 'link,' one would need a carrier of the corresponding level of Phantom Alloy.

At most, a single divine power can only summon an axe king and then engage in combat.

"So the bottleneck you're talking about is...?"

As Obi chattered on and on about "perfect alloy" and "imperfect alloy," Osi's clever brain automatically simplified the conversation.

It's simply a matter of arranging the stars. Ra is five stars, I am four stars... Obera is estimated to be three stars across the board, for a total of twelve stars at max level.

Then it's just simple addition. Together, I estimate we can summon a seven-star [Red-Eyes], while Rascal and I can probably summon a [Blue-Eyes].

"The bottleneck is... I originally planned to use a method similar to a superior summoning to forcibly activate my powers directly using the energy of the Three-Body Duel Spirits."

"That way I can be like you and Sister La, creating things from nothing and compressing divine power into a stable solid."

Although [Phantom God] is a ten-star character, three sacrifices are required to perform an advanced summon.

"But to drive three cards at the same time, I need a driver made of a perfect alloy formed by the fusion of the solid divine power of you, me, and Sister La."

In other words, Obey was trapped in that famous vicious cycle.

[I need to compress divine power into a solid form.]
[Understood. Please awaken your powers first.]
[Once I solidify my divine power, I will be able to awaken my authority.]
[Sorry, you must first awaken your powers before you can compress divine power into a solid form.]
……

Nice loop!
"Um... so what are you planning to do now?"

Looking at Obey, who was clinging to the railing and scratching his head, Osi asked cautiously.

"what to do……"

"Whoo~"

Obe's small body hung on the wooden bridge railing, his eyes looking in the distance.

"I originally wanted to take a shortcut, but I ended up getting stuck in a maze."

"So this time, I plan to take a long detour and go back to the starting point first."

After all, taking the long way is the shortest shortcut.

(End of this chapter)