Seeing Link's confidence, and having complete faith in his strength, Carina and the other girls no longer felt any fear or awe towards the infamous Florian Triangle or the Warlord stationed there.
Nami, who was at the helm, even began to search for traces of the Thriller Bark.
With a hint from Link, Nami quickly found the world's largest pirate ship—the Thriller Bark.
Link, with his sensory jutsu, had located the Thriller Bark the moment he entered the Florian Triangle.
Unlike Observation Haki, which sharpens the five senses, allows one to perceive the presence of living beings and emotional changes, and predict an enemy's next move, the sensory jutsu has only one ability: to sense the location of an enemy's chakra.
In the world of One Piece, it could only sense the strength of one's physical energy.
Link hadn't encountered a Haki master yet, so he wasn't sure if the sensory jutsu could also sense the strength of an enemy's Haki.
The range of the sensory jutsu was astonishing.
In the original story, Tobirama Senju's sensory jutsu could even sense the final battlefield of the Fourth Great Ninja War from Konoha.
By touching his finger to the ground, he could sense the life force and chakra intensity of enemies thousands of miles away, which was ridiculously overpowered.
After unlocking 30% of the Hashirama Senju template, Link's sensory jutsu had also been astonishingly enhanced.
As long as a being's physical energy stood out from the crowd, Link could accurately locate them even from a great distance.
Although Gecko Moria was the weakest of the Seven Warlords, as a modified human, his physical constitution was among the top tier of the Warlords.
In this sea, he was as dazzling as the sun.
The Thriller Bark was an island ship, with a circular wall around the perimeter and a giant mouth for a front gate.
On both sides of the gate, surveillance Den Den Mushi were installed.
So when the sailboat approached, the zombies—or perhaps humans—in the control room immediately pressed the button to open the gate and then notified the officer in charge of hunting outsiders.
The giant mouth slowly opened.
Nami, without any fear, steered the sailboat inside.
After mooring the sailboat at a spiderweb-covered dock, Link's group disembarked and headed straight for the castle in the center of the island.
With Link by their side, the girls were not afraid of the eerie surroundings at all, instead looking around with great interest.
"Roar..."
As they reached a ravine they had to cross, the mixed roar of a wolf and a dog immediately reached their ears.
From the shadows ahead, a massive, three-headed Cerberus, covered in stitches and bandages, slowly emerged.
The Cerberus stared fiercely at Link's group, its ferocious expression and sharp fangs would have surely scared Carina, Nami, and Vivi pale if Link hadn't been there.
But now, the girls were looking at the Cerberus with great interest, discussing:
"Is that a real Cerberus?"
"Definitely not. Look at the stitches and bandages on its body; they must have been sewn on."
"To have its heads sewn on and not die, it's probably not just ordinary surgery. There must be a Devil Fruit ability involved."
"Could it be that the Warlord's ability is to stitch living creatures' bodies together?"
"..."
Looking at the enthusiastic girls, the Cerberus showed a human-like expression of confusion.
Then, as if provoked, it let out another mixed roar of a wolf and a dog and lunged at Link's group.
However, in the next second, it saw the only male in the group suddenly raise his palm and shoot out an arrow-like wooden spike.
The wooden spike was extremely fast, and with the Cerberus in mid-air, it was hit with pinpoint accuracy like a target.
Pshhhh...
Several huge wooden spikes immediately branched out from within the Cerberus's body.
Its massive body fell directly to the ground.
Miraculously, the Cerberus, whose body had been destroyed both inside and out, did not die.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Link followed up with a fireball, burning the Cerberus to ashes.
Hashirama Senju's chakra natures were Yang, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, and Lightning—six in total.
Before fusing or awakening his Wood Style, Hashirama Senju was very proficient in elemental ninjutsu. This was a conclusion Link had reached when he received the feedback.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why Hashirama Senju knew so many elemental ninjutsu.
Of course, it was also possible that he learned and developed them out of boredom after becoming Hokage.
Seeing Link spit a fireball from his mouth, the girls were not surprised.
In the Alabasta Kingdom, Link had confessed to them that the special energy in his body could be transformed into the elemental powers of wind, fire, water, earth, and lightning.
Not just water and fire, Link even had wind, earth, and lightning abilities.
Looking at the burning Cerberus, Link seemed to be waiting for something, a hint of anticipation on his face.
When a black shadow flew out from the flames, the anticipation on Link's face was instantly replaced by disappointment. He then spat out a stream of water, extinguishing the flames on the Cerberus.
Immediately after, Link led the girls across the Cerberus's corpse and continued forward.
As expected, killing these zombies did not grant Link any experience.
Link was very certain that it wasn't because the Cerberus was too weak for the system to grant experience, but that zombies, as undead creatures, would absolutely not provide experience.
Only by killing the owner of the shadow implanted in the zombie would Link gain experience.
Within Link's perception, in a certain part of the island, a considerable number of living people were gathered.
But their physical energy was too weak, similar to the pirates who had lost their dreams in Mock Town.
Now that the difficulty of gaining experience had increased again, even if Link wiped them all out, he probably wouldn't get much experience, or even any at all.
At this stage, probably only modified humans or elite monsters who had eaten a Devil Fruit could provide Link with experience.
At this thought, Link, who had led the girls out of the ravine, suddenly raised his hand and shot out another wooden spike.
Pfft!
The wooden spike had just flown a few meters when it stopped in mid-air, as if it had hit an invisible wall.
Under the astonished gazes of the girls, a man with a lion's face and wearing a suit suddenly appeared in the air not far away.
An arrow-like wooden spike was embedded in his chest, and several thick, branching wooden spikes grew out from his body. He looked at Link with disbelief, then fell to the ground without a sound.
Link, as if he knew what he was thinking before he died, said faintly, "Too conspicuous!"
With his powerful sensory jutsu, he could even sense the Second Tsuchikage, Mū, who was using the Dustless Bewildering Cover.
The Clear-Clear Fruit, which couldn't even hide scent and sound, was simply not worth mentioning.
"Ding! Killed an enemy, gained 0.15% experience."
Hearing this prompt, Link, who had been posturing, suddenly's face darkened.
Although he knew that after the difficulty of gaining experience increased by another stage, the experience provided by enemies like Arlong would also decrease, he didn't expect it to decrease by so much!
Even though Absalom was weak, he was at the level of a senior agent of Baroque Works, a prisoner who would be on the third level of Impel Down. Yet, he only provided Link with 0.15% experience.
If the third stage was nerfed like this, then after the template was half unlocked, probably none of the elite monsters in the Four Seas and the first half of the Grand Line would provide Link with any experience.
But this was a common problem with leveling up in games: easy in the early stages, difficult in the later stages