Pirates: Martial Arts Masters on the Straw Hat Ship

Twin Capes, beneath the lighthouse.

The sea breeze became somewhat strange, shifting from left to right without any discernible pattern.

The clouds in the sky moved extremely fast, as if an invisible giant hand was arbitrarily manipulating the celestial phenomena.

Crocus sat on a stone bench, holding a cup of hot tea, his eyes scanning the group of young pirates in front of him with a questioning look.

"It seems... you know absolutely nothing and recklessly barged in here!"

Krocas sighed, his tone becoming more serious: "It's unbearable! You're not here to take risks, you're here to die!"

Nami gripped the ordinary compass, which was still spinning wildly, tightly in her hand, her face pale.

As an excellent navigator, what she was most proud of was her perception and control of the sea.

But here, she felt like a baby who had just learned to walk, facing a desolate wilderness filled with mist.

"All common sense no longer applies to this sea." Crocus pointed to the compass in Nami's hand. "That compass isn't broken."

"Could it be... a magnetic field?" Nami suddenly looked up, as if she had realized something.

"That's right."

Crocus nodded: "Because every island in the Grand Line is rich in minerals."

"This causes the magnetic field along the entire route to be in an extremely chaotic state. Ordinary magnetic compasses would be subject to countless interferences and completely malfunction here."

"Since you're a navigator, you should understand how terrifying this is, right?"

The compass in Nami's hand fell onto the table with a "clatter".

"Indeed..." Nami's voice trembled, and fine beads of cold sweat appeared on her forehead.

"If we can't determine our direction, if we don't even know whether our next step is east or west... then we're just a bunch of blind people on the high seas."

"That is... utter despair."

"Feeding...isn't this really bad!"

Usopp broke out in a cold sweat and his legs trembled.

"Hmph, that's why I called you newbies."

Crocus put down his teacup and held up one finger:

"To sail the Grand Line, ordinary methods won't work. You need a special item—the Log Pose!"

"Log Pose?" A hint of confusion flashed in Nami's eyes. "Never heard of it."

"That's a special compass that can record magnetic fields," Crocus explained.

Just as everyone was worrying about not having this crucial item, a figure silently walked towards the two prisoners who had been thrown into the corner.

It was Ronan.

He walked straight up to Princess Vivi, who was bound hand and foot.

Although Weiwei was covered in dust and looked somewhat disheveled, her blue eyes still showed a stubbornness.

"What...what do you want to do?!"

Looking at the man with a calm face but piercing eyes, Weiwei felt a sense of foreboding and desperately tried to crawl backward.

"Excuse me, can I borrow something?"

Without saying a word, Ronan squatted down and reached into Vivi's pockets to rummage around.

"ah--!!!"

Vivi instantly bristled, her face turning bright red, and she screamed in utter shame and indignation:

"You...you filthy pervert!! Stop! Where are you touching?! You pervert! You lecher!!"

Sanji, who was standing nearby, nearly popped his eyes out when he saw this:

"That bastard Ronan... how dare he do this to such a beautiful lady! Let her go! Let me... no, let me stop you!"

Ronan completely ignored Vivi's curses and Sanji's noise.

His hand precisely slipped into a hidden pocket at Weiwei's waist, touching a cold, hard object.

"Found it."

Ronan smiled slightly and withdrew his hand.

In his hand appeared a strange device that looked like a watch, but with a small glass ball suspended in the middle.

In the center of the glass sphere, a red magnetic needle points steadily in a certain direction, completely unaffected by the chaotic magnetic field around it.

As a time traveler, Ronan naturally knew that the two Baroque Works agents possessed a log pointer; otherwise, they would have been unable to return to Whiskey Peak.

Instead of going through the trouble of figuring out how to get one, it's better to just "borrow" it.

"Give it back!! That's mine!!" Vivi stared at the stolen Log Pose, tears welling in her eyes. "You robber!"

Ronan weighed the pointer in his hand, then turned to Crocus: "Is this it, sir?"

Crocus glanced at Ronan with some surprise, seemingly taken aback by the young man's keen insight.

He nodded: "Yes, that's it! Without the Log Pose, it's impossible to advance even half a step on the Grand Line."

"marvelous!!"

Nami's eyes lit up instantly, as if she had seen a rare treasure.

She snatched the record pointer from Ronan's hand, her despair vanishing in an instant, replaced by ecstasy:

"Ronan! Well done! We're saved!"

She placed the recording pointer on her slender wrist and carefully observed the floating sphere:

"So this is the record pointer... There's nothing on the character plate except this floating pointer... How amazing."

With the navigation problem resolved, Crocus's expression eased somewhat.

He looked at the group of energetic young people, a fleeting hint of nostalgia flashing in his eyes.

"Listen up, Miss Navigator."

Crocus pointed to the pointer on Nami's wrist and began his final lesson:

"The countless islands that are currently known and scattered along the Grand Line are linked together by some special magnetic force."

"There is a magnetic flow between the islands."

"The pointer in your hand can capture and record the island's magnetism."

"Once the magnetic field of one island is fully recorded, it will automatically point to the next island."

"In other words..." Crocus's voice turned serious:

"In the waters of the Grand Line, the only thing we can rely on is the magnetic record shown by the Log Pose!"

"Believe in it, even if it points to hell, it is the only way out."

Ronan stood quietly to the side, watching the seemingly eccentric but actually profound old man before him.

He knew in his heart that it was only Luffy and his group that Crocus would go to such lengths to explain things to them.

From the moment Luffy appeared at Twin Cape wearing his iconic straw hat, from the moment he drew that clumsy yet heartwarming mark on the whale's head for Laboon...

Crocus saw in this boy the shadow of Roger, the old captain who had died many years ago.

This is a legacy and care that transcends time.