Skypiea

"Captain… are you sure about this?" Monet asked, not wanting to experience death by oversized drinking fountain. "Why don't we send a test ship up first?"

Rex shook his head. "It would take months to build a ship that could withstand the knock-up stream. The King Gucci is durable enough, I say we go for it!"

Kid also frowns, not wanting to risk his precious ship for such a risky mission. "Why don't we send a Goayu Bird up to scout first?"

"Why Kid, I'm ashamed of you? Where's your sense of adventure!?" Rex asks with a faux-astonished look. "Why look at Thatch over there, he seems positively giddy with excitement? You should be more li-"

"Captain, I also think we should send a scout." Thatch says, shooting down Rex's speech mid-sentence.

"Et tu, Thatch?" Rex says with a heartbroken expression. "But surely Hawkins must predict an excellent future for us if we ascend the knock-up stream!"

"The cards are inconclusive." Hawkins states. "Though I have concluded that if we ascend the Knock-Up stream, one member of the crew will endure extreme bodily harm. I advise that we wait until we are more prepared."

"NO! We are kings, and real kings rush right into danger, risking themselves without abandon, right Rose!?"

"Actually, real Kings have many guards, taste testers and scouts to ensure their continued survival. It would be a rather unwise tactic if Kings were to recklessly sacrif-" Rose starts but Rex gives her a menacing glare.

"So, everybody is agreed! Hawkins, take us up to the location of the next knock-up stream. It's time for an adventure!"

(Three Minutes Later)

"AHH! I take it back!" Rex shouts out, the ship soaring up at insane speeds. "Kid, keep the ship together!"

Rex hated Luffy. In fact, he wanted to go to the East Blue and pummel his ugly rubber face right now.

It had never made sense to Rex how the island of Jaya, which was much stronger and sturdier than any ship could have been destroyed by the knock-up stream while the Going Merry survived. Now, it made perfect sense.

Luffy's luck must have been god-tier or something causing the knock-up stream to be much weaker for him. Knowing Luffy's luck, a sea king coincidentally passed the vent from which the stream originated, taking the brunt of the blow for him.

Rex had no such luck.

If Rex had to describe what the knock-up stream felt like to him, it would be simple. It was like riding an elevator… that goes up at 600 kilometers per hour and has no stabilizers.

What's worse, the ship was constantly trembling and creaking making Rex fear that the King Gucci would meet the same fate as the St. Briss. Only pure grit and Kid's magnetism were keeping the ship together now.

"Captain!" Monet roars with a vicious expression. "If we make it out of this alive, I'm going to kill you!"

"If we make it out of this alive, I might just let you!" Rex shouts back, trying desperately to sturdy the ship.

The entire crew watched in dread as the clouds approached. The only person who seemed to be enjoying this was Sugar, that sadistic little brat. Rex swore it was almost like she was happy.

"Here comes the cloud line!" Hawkins shouts, creating a roof for the ship out of Straw. "Prediction… I will kill the captain when this is over. Probability 100%."

SPLASH!

The King Gucci soars up arcing up a hundred meters over the cloud line and splashing down again on the white sea. Rex grinned, regaining his composure once more.

"Let's do it again!" Rex says with a smile.

The crew members all look at Rex simultaneously, punching their fists together expectantly. Several minute's later, Rex is covered from head to toe in bruises, croaking out for mercy. The crew members just grin, getting out their weapons for round 2.

However, before they have a chance to an elderly woman's voice croaks out.

"Oh, we have travelers?" The old woman with angelic wings says. "I am Amazon, the keeper of heaven's gate. All travelers must pay a fee of 1 Billion Extol in order to enter Sky Island."

Everyone looks at the old lady with their jaws dropped. While Rex had explained the appearance of Skypieans, he hadn't explained their currency.

"Hey old lady, that's highway robbery! What does a shriveled-up bat like you even do with all that money?" Kureha shouts out, causing Rex to snigger. Kureha calling someone half her age 'old' was just hilarious.

"Oh, you don't need to pay the fee." Amazon says, snapping a photo of the crew with her Vision Dial. "You can just go on ahead and go right through to the island. The speedy shrimps will take you."

The King Pirates are astonished, seeing that Amazon has seemingly waived the fee but Rex shakes his head. This crafty old lady wasn't nice, she was a vicious viper.

"No worries lady Amazon, we will pay the fee freely." Rex says, whistling as some crew men retrieve a single barrel of goods. "This should be sufficient."

Amazon frowns, wondering what could be valuable enough to pay off the entrance fee of dozens of people only to widen her eyes at what was inside.

"You may enter. Consider your fee paid." The old Skypiean says, quickly regaining her composure.

Rex smiles, urging the King Gucci to move forwards.

Then, an immense red creature tries to pick up the King Gucci, only to find the massive metal ship too heavy for it. While the King Gucci was buoyant enough to float, the speedy shrimp was too weak to carry it.

Eventually, a whole pod of ten speedy shrimps arrive, carrying the ship together under the astonished eyes of the crew. Dozens of multicolored birds fly through the air as odd fish leap through the water.

"Captain, why did you pay the fee?" Kid asks after taking a few minutes to gather himself. In Kid's eyes there was no reason to refuse the old lady's generous offer.

"You realize she said you don't 'need' to pay the fee and you 'can' go on ahead. While we were able to do those things, if we did, she would place on a list of criminals and Skypiea would attempt to arrest us and confiscate all our belongings."

"That conniving old witch!" Kureha shouts. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, being so scheming at her age."

"Then, what was the thing inside the barrel that was worth tens of billions?" Rose asked, knowing that even if they sold the crew and all its contents, they wouldn't come out to more than a few billion berries.

"It was something that is dirt cheap in the Blue Seas but as valuable to the Skypieans as gold is to us." Rex says enigmatically.

The crew just look at him with a frustrated look, hating the constant mystery in Rex's words.

"Also, Extol doesn't convert one to one with Berries." Rex brings up. "It's around 10,000 Extol to one Berry, so it's more like a few million."

This brings about a look of realization across the eyes of the crew. After all, even a World Noble would struggle to pay billions of berries to enter an island.

"How odd." Rose notes. "What kind of economy would function on such an inflated currency system. You can't buy anything with just one Berry and that's the smallest denomination of our currency. What could you even do with one Extol?"

"Maybe they eat their Extols?" Thatch offers. "It could be a sort of swap thing. Where our money is named after food, but we can't eat it, but theirs is named after something else but they can eat it."

Rex gets a good chuckle out of that before shaking his head. In his past life there was the same trend in global economics with currencies like the Venezuelan bolivar being worth less than a thousandth of a cent. Currency was just weird like that.

"Ok, when we make it to Angel Island, make sure to travel together. Gold and Berries aren't worth anything here, so I'll go sell some loot to get together and make some Extol for us to spend." Rex explains as the ship docks in the Angel Island port.

Rex then goes to a few rather high class shops selling some 'precious Vearth' in exchange for dials and Extol. When he explains the various functions of the dials, the eyes of his crew almost bulge out of their skulls.

"You're telling me that this seashell can release a Flying Slash?" Killer asks, holding a 'hatchet dial', a weaker version of the axe dial, up with awe. "And these people use it to dice their vegetables!?"

"And these things can artificially induce a wind current?" Rose says looking around a small breath dial searching for fan or some other contraption. "That's completely illogical!"

Rex grins, loving the functionality of dials. While combat-class dials were not sold here, he was sure he could find a way to get his hands on some with some persuasion.

Rex had all sorts of ideas for dials. For one, he was going to use dials on Rouge like Shura did with his bird. The ability to breathe fire reliably would sell his whole 'fire tiger' gimmick more and it would be useful for Chimera mode.

Other dials like the Jet Dial and Heat Dial would also be useful for Rouge. Not to mention Water Dials for portable fish-man Karate, Flavor Dials for gas bombs, Flash Dials for flashbangs, Reject Dials for pure power, Thunder Dials to strengthen Electro and so much more.

Rex was planning to be a dial maniac that would put Usopp to shame. He would alter his jackets to incorporate dials, alter his weaponry, everything would incorporate dials.

"Where do these 'dials' come from captain?" Rose asks curiously, confirming that each of the dials do indeed have the effect that Rex indicated they would. "They must surely be some sort of advanced technology created by a race that was eons ahead of our time! Even Germa's technology pales in comparison to the portable power of these dials."

"They're seashells. They can be picked up on any beach in Sky Island." Rex says, before spotting a nice shiny red seashell on a beach not far away. "There's one right over there."

Rose visibly deflates upon learning that the dials were so common.

"However…" Rex starts, explaining the rare and extinct dials to the crew. While Jet dials hadn't yet gone extinct because Enel hadn't stolen them all yet, Reject Dials and other 'amplified' dials were still in great shortage.

"I see." Rose said. "So you want me to research these dials and see if I can reproduce them, maybe even strengthen them? I see, it's a rather difficult task but I don't see why it would be impossible. I'll get to work right away captain!"

Rose then quickly returns to the ship with Rex's bag of dials, laughing like a mad woman. Rex frowns, never having even asked her a question.

"So, what else is worth doing on this old ball of clouds?" Sugar asked.

Rex smiles. As with most places, the most interesting thing to do in Skypiea was…

"Mmm! Delicious!" Bonney cried out, patting her comically rotund belly. "Sky Lobster tastes way better than boring old land lobster! We should collect some of them for stuffing our-research purposes!"

Kid and Sugar similarly devour their sky fish dishes, petitioning for an entire research ecosystem.

"Wow, this is my first time seeing people so excited over Sky Seafood. Do they not have anything like this where you come from?" A blonde Skypiean says, placing down a full table's worth of food with a smile.

Bonney and Kid nod, mournfully. While Thatch's cuisine was delicious, eating the same kind of food for days would make even the most exotic dishes taste bland. Rex would occasionally splurge on food, but most of the time, the crew ate the most nutritionally optimized dishes.

"If you like it so much, I can wrap some up for you to-go." The woman smiles.

Rex sighs, seeing the looks of longing on Kid and Bonney's faces then nods. After that, Thatch asks some questions about how to cook sky seafood, to which the woman, Marsa, sold Rex a cookbook.

Rex smiled. He felt that the pace hear on Sky Island was markedly different from his life down in the blue seas.

Rex much preferred this peaceful life as opposed to down below where Rex was constantly being pursued by Marines, Shichibukai and Cipher Pol agents. Where he had to fight each day like it could be his last and struggle to survive.

Still, Rex knows that a peace like this is a false peace. As proven when Enel shattered this peace in a few years from the current time, the only true constant in the world is strength. Anything else will fail at some point.

However, Rex made a mental note to settle down on a nice Sky Island when he became an Emperor of the Sea. If he could find the Golden Lion Shiki and get his devil fruit power, maybe Rex could create an entire sky territory.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?