The Great Voyage Begins with the Celestial Dragons

Usopp usually stands on the lookout tower, keeping watch and jotting things down in a book with a pen and paper in his hand.

Every time he went up to ask, Usopp would say that he was keeping a sailor's log and that he would show it to Kaya and Usopp's mother in the future.

He didn't know who Kaya was, but the happiness on Usopp's face every time he mentioned her name made him realize that she was someone very important to Usopp.

As for Nami, although she spends most of her time in the ship's cabin, she is extremely busy every day, needing to observe the weather and draw nautical charts.

Even he knew that Nami's dream was to draw a map of the entire world, and that she was working hard towards that goal every moment.

No, perhaps it's not just Nami.

Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and even himself are all striving towards their dreams.

He joined the Straw Hat Pirates because he wanted to learn better medical skills. He would spend a lot of time reading various medical books every day and visit local clinics on different islands.

It's been almost ten days since he left the Drum Kingdom, and he's had a very fulfilling time, feeling great about making progress every day.

But there's one thing that Chopper still finds very puzzling.

Everyone else is working hard, but Luffy, as the captain, seems to have never done anything.

He's always laughing and joking, not at all like someone with leadership qualities.

While others were training to pursue their dreams, Luffy was either eating or gazing at the sea with a silly grin, making him seem like an innocent child in comparison.

"Hehe, it's Chopper! What's the training like?"

Luffy greeted Chopper with a grin and invited him to sit next to him.

Looking at the cramped bow of the Going Merry, Chopper shook his head in refusal and explained:

"Training is about making yourself stronger."

"Ah! But I'm already very good! Zoro and the others can usually solve all the problems without me even lifting a finger."

Luffy revealed his arms, and with the activation of the Gum-Gum Fruit, both hands extended forward for dozens of meters.

"But you're not as good as them, are you?"

Chopper hesitated for a moment, but still spoke his mind.

No matter how you look at it, Luffy's strength cannot possibly be higher than Zoro's and others.

It can't be that Luffy gets a power boost just because he's the captain.

But to be honest, he has never seen Luffy take action. Whenever a situation arises, everyone else rushes to solve it.

What if...Luffy is really strong?

"I'm the captain, of course I'm amazing!"

Luffy proudly raised his head; he didn't think he was weak at all.

Although they haven't actually used their fists, apart from that old man Garp's punches, nothing else can cause any damage to rubber.

"All right..."

Chopper opened his mouth, but then realized that Luffy must have his reasons for saying that, and as a newcomer, he shouldn't say too much, so he wisely remained silent.

The rest of the crew were all quite strong, and they naturally overheard Chopper and Luffy's conversation.

Although Zoro and the others were in different places, they all smiled in almost the same way.

They know Luffy inside and out; you could say that Luffy's strength hasn't changed since he met Zoro.

Since setting sail, apart from his natural physical growth, Luffy's strength has not increased by the slightest.

When faced with real combat situations, they all intentionally or unintentionally took on all the tasks.

They're here to infiltrate, so keeping the captain in his initial state with no growth is a good thing no matter how you look at it.

The plan went so smoothly that even Zoro and the others were surprised.

When a normal person sees their peers working hard, they'd probably have to work just as hard for a few days.

On the contrary, Luffy keeps saying he wants to become the Pirate King, but he has never trained properly and spends his days eating, drinking, playing, and sleeping.

In addition, Sanji intentionally or unintentionally controls Luffy's nutritional intake, ensuring that Luffy can eat his fill every day while keeping the level of nutrition intake to a minimum.

This resulted in everyone on the ship making progress, except for Luffy, who remained stagnant.

"Hey, there's a battle ahead! Be careful!"

From the lookout tower came Usopp's shout.

Upon hearing Usopp's voice, everyone paused and gathered on the deck, except for Luffy, who remained sitting at the bow, still laughing and joking.

Five or six ships were clustered together on the sea ahead of the Merry.

Upon closer inspection, several pirate ships with identical flags surrounded a merchant ship flying the Alabasta flag.

“It’s a pirate, let me handle this one!” Sanji said eagerly.

Controlling Luffy's growth through food was just a minor maneuver for him; his true goal was to become the actual leader of the pirate crew.

Coincidentally, there are many people who share similar thoughts.

“This kind of thing should definitely be left to our combat personnel, not to you, the cook.”

Usopp, lounging on the lookout tower, said lazily that he had long seen through Sanji's ulterior motives and wouldn't miss any opportunity.

Before the ship could even approach that direction, Zoro completely ignored their conversation and, at Nami's urging, quickly swam towards that spot.

"Hey you two, watch yourselves later. Don't sink the ship like last time. A ship can fetch a lot of money, not to mention the treasure that hasn't been looted yet."

Seeing that Sanji and Usopp didn't seem inclined to make a move, Nami said irritably.

You don't know the value of daily necessities until you're in charge of the household; this treasurer of the pirate crew is really going to the extreme.

Zoro's training equipment costs money, Usopp needs money to maintain the ship, Chopper needs money to buy medical books and equipment, Sanji needs money to cook, and Beli spends money like water. If it weren't for her good management of the household, this pirate crew would have been finished sooner or later.

"Yes, yes, we've only just reached the Grand Line. We'll make money by catching a few more pirates," Sanji said nonchalantly, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"That's right, the Grand Line is full of bounty exchange points from the Jaya Kingdom. You can easily catch pirates and exchange them for money; money is no problem," Usopp chuckled.

They had been part of the family since they were young, and listened to the family members discuss business worth tens of billions of dollars every day, so they didn't think making money was that difficult.

"Do you two even realize that we're pirates?!"

Nami glared at the two of them, clearly annoyed. She genuinely felt that this crew hadn't come here to be pirates.

The captain is a simpleton, and the swordsman, cook, sniper, and doctor are all very honest and simple, only doing their assigned tasks and never doing anything related to piracy.

Chapter 350 Commission

"We're professionals at being pirates; aren't we doing double-crossing right now?"

Sanji shrugged and glanced into the distance. Zoro had already arrived at the battlefield and was wreaking havoc on the ship.

He had realized long ago that only Usopp on the ship wanted to seize the right to speak, just like him.

Characters like Zoro, Nami, and Chopper basically do whatever others say makes sense.

So as long as Usopp doesn't move, he's happy to have some peace and quiet.

Usopp had a similar thought, so he just watched Zoro kill from a distance.

Luffy, on the other hand, pursed his lips and turned his head away angrily.

"What? Pirates aren't like that. Pirates are the freest people on the high seas."

He disliked Zoro's killing spree, but Zoro was his comrade, and he didn't want to stop him.

After all, the freedom to kill is also the freedom of pirates.

"Are you all playing house here?" Nami said irritably. "We've been at sea for over a month now, and we haven't even met a single person with a bounty."

Because they haven't done anything excessive, and given Luffy's naval background, they haven't been wanted by the police so far.

"Hey, Nami, it's fine if you don't have a bounty. You can't force it."

Chopper gave an awkward laugh and waved his hands repeatedly at Nami.

The Straw Hat Pirates weren't wanted by the authorities, which is why he was willing to join them.

Although he had a premonition that they would be wanted in the future, since they were still known as a pirate crew, he figured he could postpone it as long as possible, since he didn't really want to be a pirate.

"I really can't do anything with you guys."

Nami curled her lip as she watched the guys whose eyes darted around whenever bounties were mentioned.

"Hey, don't talk about us, you could do something to earn a bounty," Sanji said, quite annoyed.

He didn't want to be put on a bounty before he did something big.

It wasn't that the bounty would cause him inconvenience, but rather that if the bounty was too low, he would likely receive sarcastic phone calls from certain people immediately.

Usopp nodded vigorously and looked at Nami.

He didn't want to be wanted not because he was afraid of losing face, but because he didn't want Banchina to worry. After all, he couldn't tell others about his undercover work. Only Kaya had guessed some of it, and she was currently under the control of her family.

He knew all of this; Stella had made it clear before taking Kaya away, and he had tacitly agreed.

This has nothing to do with trust, but rather it's about the rules that should be followed, which he understands and agrees with.

When Nami heard Sanji's rebuttal, she sneered and snorted twice. She pulled a piece of paper from her small bag and slammed it in front of everyone.

Sanji and the others were slightly taken aback by what they saw, and Chopper was even startled.

"This is... an arrest warrant!?"

Chopper leaned closer and stared wide-eyed at the image of a black cat on the wanted poster.

"Little thief cat, is the bounty... ten... hundred... thousand... ten thousand... 1000 million?"

At the end, Chopper's voice suddenly rose in pitch.

His cute little body slumped to the ground, and he kept shrinking back, looking at Nami in horror.

"Little thief, you're a notorious thief in the East China Sea these past two years. What does this have to do with you?"

Although he had a guess in his heart, Sanji still asked with extreme calmness.

"This is me. You bunch of guys without bounties, can't you just be proper pirates?" Nami snorted.

Over the past few years, as Uta has grown up, besides being a sitting duck in Dragon Park, we always have to find some unlucky guys to mess with.