The Door-Door Fruit belongs to the Paramecia type, and its ability is not complicated. One could even say it's very simple.
This Devil Fruit allows the user to open doors at will. Any object they touch, whether living or non-living, they can create various kinds of doors on it.
This includes the air itself.
By opening doors in the air, the Door-Door Fruit can connect to a special dimension. People inside the dimension and those outside may be right next to each other, yet those outside are completely unable to perceive what's happening within the door.
It doesn't provide any obvious direct boost to combat power, but in terms of overall strategic significance, the Door-Door Fruit holds tremendous value.
"Probably planning to take it to auction. Either way, it's ours now."
Nereus took the Devil Fruit Sebastian handed to him and put it away.
Selling a Devil Fruit is a choice many people make.
The negative effect of becoming unable to swim is only one reason; sometimes there's also the issue of uneven distribution of spoils.
After all, only one person can gain the power of a Devil Fruit. Not everyone has enough camaraderie to willingly watch someone else eat it.
Internal strife over a single Devil Fruit is not uncommon. Selling it and splitting the money is instead a decision some pirates choose.
There are also those who, the moment they see a fruit, eat it without a second thought. No matter what the ability is, once it's eaten, there's nothing others can do.
This kind of situation, however, is rarely seen in the Fish-Man Pirates.
Even veteran, stronger officers don't mind handing a Devil Fruit over to a newcomer, since losing the ability to swim has a much greater impact on Fish-Men.
If Nereus himself didn't have a way to isolate himself from water, he would have hesitated longer over whether to eat a Devil Fruit as well.
After a few minor skirmishes, Nereus and his group entered the Calm Belt, which was the most peaceful stage of their journey so far.
The sea beasts they had already tamed were left back at Fishman Island, but that didn't affect Nereus and the others' ability to sail through the Calm Belt.
Nereus had a friendly and amicable with a small Sea King napping on the surface of the sea. Under Nereus's persuasive and emotional reasoning, the Sea King volunteered to help tow their ship out of the Calm Belt.
"Boss, there's a slight error in the direction we are heading. Our course has drifted three degrees east."
After entering the South Blue, the ship's Navigator began recalibrating their direction. Without the magnetic interference of the Grand Line, compasses and other conventional equipment were functioning normally again.
Although the sea charts circulating in the world are incomplete and lack records of many islands, the locations of affiliated nations are not wrong. The position of the Sorbet Kingdom is clearly marked on South Blue's sea chart.
They had already planned a general route before setting sail, but since the Calm Belt lacks reference points, small deviations were only natural.
"What's the impact?"
"According to our original plan, we were supposed to go to the Sorbet Kingdom first to pick someone up, then check on that shipwreck. But with our current position, doing that would be a bit of a detour.
If we reverse the order of these two tasks, we can save quite a bit of time.
This is the re-planned route. We'll pass by some people's homelands. Boss, what do you think we should do?"
"Follow the new route, and see which nearby islands we can resupply at. The ship needs replenishing anyway."
For the Fish-Men, sailing is actually simpler than it is for humans. Relying on the abundance of the sea, they can obtain most necessities locally most of the time.
Fish, shellfish, and seaweed can all be used as food, and even fresh water isn't an absolute necessity for them.
The physical structure of Fish-Men and Merfolk allows them to extract fresh water directly from seawater, without being troubled by the salt it contains.
However, that kind of survival method was more akin to wilderness survival. When conditions allowed, they would still stockpile proper supplies, especially since the other races on the ship also needed adequate supplies.
Compared to the Grand Line, the environment of the South Blue was far more stable.
There were quite a few pirates, but since Roger had not yet ushered in the Great Pirate Era, their goals were not the One Piece, and their obsession with entering the Grand Line was much weaker.
Many of them simply wanted to plunder and rule the nearby seas. Their strength was very low—an ordinary combatant on Nereus's ship could handle an entire enemy crew alone.
After all, these were people who had fought alongside Nereus in the New World for more than a decade. Even if their individual strength was unremarkable, they were still elite forces with at least a rough grasp of Haki.
The number of people aboard the ship gradually decreased, as they were sent back to their respective homelands one by one, and Nereus and his group eventually reached their planned destination.
There might have been errors in that logbook, or perhaps too much time had passed. This time, Nereus and the others did not find the treasures from the sunken ship, but instead discovered a cave on the seafloor.
After a brief exploration, Nereus found that the cave led directly into the interior of a nearby island. Driven by curiosity, he followed the current and swam inside.
Nereus wasn't worried about any dangers within the cave. Even if it collapsed, he had the ability to punch his way through the entire island and get out.
At the same time, inside the island, within a vast space covered in moss and vines, a group of people were studying the murals on the walls.
"Has this entire mountain been hollowed out? There are so many murals left behind… but what are these paintings even depicting? A battle between humans and giants?"
"Doesn't look like it. All the giants in these murals have horns. Judging by their size, they should be Ancient Giants… And over here, in the pool, there seems to be a Poneglyph… What the hell?!"
Near the pool within the mountain's interior, someone had just discovered something resembling a Poneglyph when he suddenly let out a terrified scream, as if he had seen some kind of monster.
"No need to be afraid. I'm not a ghost."
The person swimming up from underwater was naturally Nereus. He hadn't expected the underwater cave to connect all the way here, nor that there would be a Poneglyph in the pool.
"S-sorry… it's just the way you appeared…"
The startled man took a few deep breaths to steady himself, but Nereus's attention had already been drawn to someone else.
The people here seemed to subtly center around that person, making it clear he was their leader, and his hairstyle resembled a three-leaf clover.
He wasn't frightened at all, and had already walked over to the edge of the pool.
"Are you also a scholar here to conduct research?"
"A scholar? No. I originally came here to look for treasures, but there were some small issues with the records, Professor Clover."
This was their first meeting, but judging from that hairstyle and his manner of speech, identifying the other man's identity was easy.
That also meant this group was from Ohara.
And when the other scholars saw that Clover's identity had been recognized at a glance by a stranger, they grew visibly flustered.
"Don't tell me… this guy is a Marine sent to hunt us down?!"
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