In the banquet hall, the dancers with graceful figures had just finished a routine.
Hiruto Blake sat at the head of the table as the pastry chef, hands shaking, presented a strawberry shortcake before him.
Any strawberry cake offered to a Celestial Dragon had to be perfect, down to each individual strawberry seed facing upward, to satisfy their appreciation for the "beauty of order."
The previous pastry chef had had one of his fingers cut off by the inspector on the spot because the angle of the strawberry seeds was off by fifteen degrees.
Sitting at Blake's side, Stella used a ruby-inlaid silver knife to cut the cake and lifted a slice to his lips.
In the two months since she had been bought, Stella had gradually grown used to her role as a maid. The anxiety in her heart was slowly fading.
As Blake ate, he crooked his finger at the boy from earlier.
"What is your name?"
"Your Highness, my name is Aramaki."
There was no shortage of named powerhouses on the sea, but very few whom Blake could realistically recruit.
The members of the Rocks Pirates were all older now, proud and unruly, and many of them had grudges with the Celestial Dragons.
Back in the day, Rocks had been able to command them easily because they had joined his crew shortly after setting sail, when their strength was not yet overwhelming and their horizons had been narrow.
By the time of the God Valley Incident, the Rocks Pirates were already far from united.
Now, even if another monster appeared who could suppress all of them by sheer power, the emperors of the sea would hardly line up and submit.
Among those of a similar age to Blake, the future Seven Warlords made up the majority.
Those silver medalists were not actually that strong, but their egos were often even bigger than the Four Emperors. They acted like they were invincible.
The Four Emperors, most of the time, would at least weigh pros and cons. The Seven Warlords preferred to draw their weapons first and think later.
They were stubborn to the core. Even after being beaten into the ground, they would still lift their chins and say "kill me if you want" with the air of men beyond persuasion.
The only one with half a brain, Donquixote Doflamingo, happened to have deep, irreconcilable issues with the Celestial Dragons.
As for the remaining named powerhouses from the original story, those were mostly the crewmates Shanks would one day gather.
But if they could get along with Shanks, that was basically proof they would not get along with Blake.
Thinking it through, the only future powerhouse he could pick up easily in this era was the future admiral Green Bull.
"Green Bull" Aramaki was the same age as Doflamingo and a year older than Blake. Right now he was still just a spirited young man, with no "Die for Justice" tattoo on his chest yet.
According to later rumors, that tattoo, and his imprisonment, had something to do with a certain woman, but that was more than twenty years down the line.
Judging from his hairstyle, though, Blake was pretty sure Aramaki had already eaten the Logia-type Woods Woods Fruit.
What Blake appreciated most, however, was Aramaki's outlook.
In his view, humanity had survived by stepping on species weaker than itself. Any nation that was not a World Government member was equivalent to a lower life-form. Only by trampling non-member nations underfoot could people live in peace.
Which was why he fiercely upheld the World Government and the Celestial Dragons and showed enemies no mercy whatsoever.
For Blake, recruiting Aramaki at this point in time came with an extra bonus.
The World Government and the Five Elders were extremely arrogant. Even if someone from the lower world had obvious talent and potential, they would still not be taken seriously.
As long as Blake took Aramaki under his banner early, then even if Aramaki displayed amazing power in the future, the Five Elders would only think Blake had gotten lucky and picked up a fairly strong "slave" while wandering around at sea.
They would not increase their surveillance of Blake just because of that, nor would they consider trying to fold Blake's personal property into the World Government system.
"Now this is the kind of talent a transmigrated Celestial Dragon should be recruiting."
Blake felt rather pleased with himself.
"All those transmigrators who dream of recruiting Zephyr, Moria, Kuma and the like, I really do not know how they intend to talk them into it. Their core personalities are fundamentally incompatible with the Celestial Dragons."
"Even if you preach like a saint and act like a paragon, they will just assume you are scheming something behind the scenes. That is the impression eight hundred years of Celestial Dragons have left on this world."
"That is what we call reputation."
Besides, Blake was not the kind of transmigrator who wanted to save the world. He only wanted to swap out the person sitting on top of it.
With that thought, Blake rose to his feet, walked over to the kneeling Aramaki, and patted him on the shoulder.
"Stand up. From now on, as my retainer, you do not need to kneel all the time. Right, are you a Devil Fruit user?"
Aramaki scrambled upright, his whole body trembling with excitement.
"Your Highness, I am a Logia-type Woods Woods Fruit user."
Blake nodded.
"Starting tomorrow, these two CP agents will train you. I am very interested to see how far you can grow."
"Yes, Lord Saint Blake. I will not disappoint your expectations."
Seeing Aramaki look like he had just injected pure adrenaline, Blake felt very satisfied.
In the original story, Zephyr had once criticized Kizaru for relying too much on his Devil Fruit.
In truth, Kizaru's swordsmanship and close combat were both top tier in the world.
If anything, Blake thought Kizaru still fought too head-on. With a fruit like his, he could be far more slippery and creative.
Out of all the admirals we have seen, Green Bull Aramaki was by far the one who leaned most heavily on his Devil Fruit, and probably the weakest of them.
Whether at Mary Geoise or on Onigashima, he mainly fought through the bizarre powers of his fruit, rarely using close combat at all.
He was basically a supersized Smoker.
Having Aramaki train under CP while forbidding him from using his fruit would, to some extent, raise his overall power.
Blake stayed in the Taya Kingdom for three days, got a proper taste of the "specialty queens" and "specialty princesses" the king provided, and decided to pack them all up and take them with him before he left.
He really did eat and take.
The Sanctum continued to drift leisurely around the South Blue. Because of Blake's identity and the escorting Marine warship nearby, no blind pirate had yet come knocking to cause trouble.
Blake lay beneath a parasol. On the deck beside him, Aramaki was sparring with the two CP agents.
Aramaki's base physique was not weak. It was just that the power of his fruit was so overwhelming it had made him neglect training his body and Haki.
Now, at just seventeen, he was right in the middle of his growth spurt. With Blake pushing him, the heights Aramaki could eventually reach would definitely be higher than in the original timeline.
In the last few days, Blake's own progress had slowed a bit.
Maybe finding Aramaki had gone too smoothly and used up his luck, because his last draw had landed him some no-name pirate who had been one-shot, leaving Blake to grind his Haki manually.
That kind of improvement was better than nothing, but if he wanted his two Haki types to reach the second stage, he would either have to defeat large numbers of Haki-using mobs or hit the jackpot and draw a real powerhouse.
Lately, Blake had been challenging young Borsalino once every day.
The younger Kizaru was not outrageously strong yet, and with Iron Balloon, Blake was not weaker than he was.
The problem was that even as a youth, Kizaru already showed all the traits of a seasoned fox. It was incredibly difficult for Blake to catch him in a clean, decisive opening.
Right now, taking the advantage against Kizaru was easy.
Finishing him was the hard part.