"Well, that's it for my questions. We will leave you to your drinking and sulking, McKinley. Goodbye." Cherry said, standing up to leave.
They left McKinley's home and Robin released the hands binding McKinley after they had moved a fair distance away.
They find a quiet spot to talk where people wouldn't overhear their conversation. It would be troublesome if they were overheard and God Gan Fall was warned about them.
"Is it okay not to silence McKinley? Won't he go tell Gan Fall everything?" Serene expressed her doubts.
"Stop saying such blood thirsty stuff, you are just a masseuse now, not a member of a brutal criminal organization." Cherry reprimanded.
"Oh? I was also a member of Baroque Works. So what does that make me, then?" Robin asked with a grin.
"Eye candy." Cherry replied without hesitation.
"..." Robin was stunned silent, a light blush coming to her cheeks.
"I'm just messing with you, Robin. You're an archaeologist, are you not?" Cherry said.
"Anyways..." Cherry changed the subject. "I need to do some reconnaissance of God Gan Fall's shrine. However, I don't know how good his Mantra, or Observation Haki, is. So, I'll be going alone and hope not to get caught."
Robin also wanted to explore Upper Yard, but she could always do so later, so she let Cherry go alone as she asked this time.
Cherry parted ways with the group and made her way to the docks.
She stowed away onto one of the boats going across the milky road bridge into Upper Yard. It was quite easy to do so as these soldiers didn't have Mantra to detect her with.
'Now comes the tricky part. I have no idea what the range and sensitivity of Gan Fall's mantra is. There is a way I should be able to avoid his detection, but it's very risky and pretty stupid too.' Cherry thought.
The method Cherry was thinking to use was to enter a meditative state of selflessness. This should enable her to go unnoticed by Observation Haki as she would have no will to sense, no intent to read. The problem lay in the fact that she would have to give up conscious control over her body to maintain this state.
She waited, hidden amongst the cargo of the boat, for them to arrive in Upper Yard. Once they were over the bridge, she stealthily disembarked.
Now on solid land, she started to enter in her meditative state of selflessness. It did not take too long.
Cherry started to walk unconsciously, similar to the way one might sleep walk. Unlike sleep walking, she would remember the events that occur in perfect detail and can snap out of the trance at will.
With some luck, she managed to avoid anything that would force her to take action, such as coming across a predator.
She stumbled through the jungle in this way for an hour or so before she clambered up some island clouds. When she reached the top she could see the base of a giant stalk of twisted vines that extended high into the sky.
Cherry continued forward, step by step, towards the stalk. Then she accidentally slipped into a space between island clouds and fell.
Cherry was forced to end her meditative state of selflessness here, lest she might get injured. She wouldn't have much hope of getting back out without a conscious effort in any case.
What she saw before her eyes as she landed was quite shocking however.
A city that looked to be made of gold.
'Well, I bet Robin would love to see this. Nami would probably die on the spot seeing this much gold.' Cherry observed.
Cherry quickly stripped a bunch of gold off of some of the buildings and compressed it down to a manageable volume. She wouldn't leave empty handed, that was for sure.
With a quick scan of her Life Sense, she confirmed she was the only one here, aside from a gigantic snake within the central building.
She made her way to the edge of the city of gold and dug her way through the wall of island cloud.
Once outside, she sealed the way she made back up and went to do the same with the small crevasse she fell through.
She didn't want anyone else stumbling upon the city before she could loot it properly.
Looting it was only natural, after all. She was a cultivator, there was no grave or ruin too sacred to rob.
Looking up, she saw what she presumed to be God's Shrine on a cloud a ways up above attached to the beanstalk.
'No real way to sneak up onto that except to climb, huh? Well, barging in is always an option too.' Cherry thought.
She turned around and left towards Angel Island to meet back up with her companions and tell them what she found.
...
God Gan Fall suddenly opened his eyes.
"An intruder in Upper Yard? How did they get so close without me sensing them? Is it the Shandians? Or maybe Enel?! No, it shouldn't be Enel and there is only one so it shouldn't be Shandians." He thought out loud.
God Gan Fall approached the window of his study and opened it. He looked down at a cluster of soldiers that were always on standby to carry out any of his sudden orders.
"Go and capture the intruder and bring them here. Failure will not be tolerated!" He commanded.
The soldiers saluted and immediately went to climb down the beanstalk.
...
Enel and his men lying in wait, hidden not too far away from Upper Yard so they could observe most of it with Mantra. They also detected Cherry's sudden appearance at the base of the giant beanstalk.
"Is it starting?" Asked a rotund fellow with long red hair.
"Not yet, Gan Fall just sent some soldiers to deal with the intruder." Enel said, focusing on his mantra.
He was surprised by how quickly Cherry was moving away from the beanstalk, he thought perhaps he had slightly underestimated her ability.
...
Cherry noticed the soldiers climb down the beanstalk and head in the direction she had gone.
'Should I just evade or take them out now? If I evade they'll end up searching Angel Island for me, and likely hear about the strangers in town, meaning us. Alright, I'll deal with them now.' Cherry thought.
She went a little further, then found a place to lie in ambush.
The contingent of soldiers caught up to her location and she leapt out at them.
It was not so much a fight than a one sided beat down.
Once they were dealt with, Cherry quickly made her way back to Angel Island. They would need to act quickly now.
Back on Angel Island, Cherry found the others enjoying some deserts in a nice restaurant.
"Hey, time to get moving gals. We're going to be late." Cherry said. The group understood what she really meant, except Cabernet who thought they were really late for something.
"By the way, Robin. I found some nifty ruins you'd be interested in. A whole city plated in gold." Cherry said as they moved.
"Really? I am rather interested." Robin said.
Reaching the edge of town, Cabernet directly flew the three other women over to Upper Yard.
As the group of four moved quickly through the jungle of enormous trees, Cherry passed the time by examining the flora and fauna in more detail with her Life Sense.
Her Life Sense stretched over the jungle, easily encompassing the entire island due to the particular thick and vibrant plant life.
Most everything was pretty standard fare, aside from the enormous size of it, but there was one trees species that caught Cherry's eye.
"We're making a detour." Cherry told the others as she changed directions.
It didn't take too long to arrive at the destination she had honed in on.
See the trees she had targeted, Cherry was practically shaking with excitement.
'These are Soul Snaring Trees!' The thought made her mind tremble.
Soul Snaring Trees were an exceptionally rare resource even in the myriad worlds of her last life. Though, in fairness, their rarity was largely due to the fact that cultivators would harvest them on sight.
"What about these trees has you so excited?" Robin asked.
Cherry carefully considered about how much to say about them. She was itching to go on a rant, but she wasn't sure how much Robin would believe. She didn't want Robin to think she was a quack, like somebody who sells common stones to gullible people as 'alternative healing' methods.
"This is no ordinary tree. It is very rare and extremely useful as a medical reagent." Cherry summarized, feeling dissatisfied.
"Oh? Tell me more." Robin motioned for her to continue.
Cherry opened her mouth to say more, but stopped. She looked at Robin suspiciously. "Are you just doing this so I have to listen to you ramble about your archaeology stuff later?"
Robin said nothing, but gave her a sly smile.
"Fine then. It's not like I'm not at all interested in history or anything." Cherry acquiesced.
"These are called Soul Snaring Trees, on account of the fact that they ensnare the souls of the recently deceased to feed off of the excess spiritual energy the souls release before leaving the world." Cherry explained.
When Robin gave her a funny look, Cherry said. "Don't look at me like that, there are devil fruit that deal with souls like Big Mom's Soul Soul Fruit or the Revive Revive fruit. The existence of souls is not in question, it is an empirical fact."
"In any case, the spiritual energy that a Soul Snaring Tree accumulates is stored within its taproot. I just need a little bit of time to collect them." Cherry said.
"Isn't that going to take a long time-" Serene's words were cut short when Cherry cleaved a tree down at the base and swiftly pulled the taproot out within 10 seconds. Serene touched the scar on her face and shivered, remembering how close she'd been to ending up the same way as that tree.
Cherry collected a few dozen taproots and stored them on Cabernet in her ship form, then they moved on towards the giant beanstalk.
"Somebody up that beanstalk is able to detect us at the base of it at the very minimum distance, likely this is God Gan Fall's doing. So be prepared for combat. If anyone attacks us on the beanstalk, Robin should try to make them fall. Anyone who comes for us won't be too weak and should survive the fall when they land on the island cloud below." Cherry explained.
Robin and Cabernet nodded, while Serene was feeling quite useless without her devil fruit and wondering why she is even being brought along. She had some confidence in her martial art, but next to these monsters she just couldn't compare.
They reached the mass of island clouds beneath the beanstalk and started hiking up. Then they ran over to the beanstalk and started to climb its giant vines.
Sure enough, they soon noticed people flying out from God Gan Fall's Shrine above them, skating along small streams of clouds created from dials.
Robin fulfilled her role excellently and caused them to drop out of the air like flies, plummeting down into the soft island clouds below.
They either decided to wait for them to reach the Shrine or did not have any more soldiers to spare, because no more pursuers came after them while they climbed up.
After about half an hour of climbing they reached the island cloud God Gan Fall's Shrine was nestled upon.
"Alright, Robin, you and Cabernet go try to find our clues while I distract Gan Fall. You can handle any of his men, I trust." Cherry said. Then they burst through into the Shrine.
...
Enel sensed Cherry and her group enter God's Shrine and that Gan Fall started to move personally with his Mantra.
"It's time. Let's go." He ordered. He and his men moved quickly into Upper Yard.
...
A group of well armed Shandians were racing along the white white sea towards Upper Yard, led by a man named Wyper.
"It won't be long now, prepare for battle!" Wyper commanded.
"Are we sure now is the best time to attack?" One of his men questioned.
"There will never be a 'best' time to attack! If we wait, then we will be waiting forever! Now is the time to take back our homeland from that mad man!" He insisted.
...
A group of pirates just arrived at the white white sea, having been carried up a sea cloud waterfall by a giant shrimp.
"That entrance toll was really ridiculous, what even is an 'Extol'?" Nami complained.
"Why are you complaining, we didn't even pay the toll and still went up just fine." Spoke Usopp.
"Look it's a sky island! An island in the sky! Shishishishi!" Luffy laughed.
The laid anchor on the beach of the cloud island, ready to enjoy themselves at the wonders this land had to offer.
"Heso." A woman greeted them and introduced herself as Conis.
"You're the second strangers I've met today. I'm glad that you made it here safe and sound it seems. The women I met earlier were not so lucky. Their ship was destroyed by the ocean current that brought them here." She told them.
Nami and Usopp paled, thinking about what could have happened to themselves if they hadn't been 'lucky'.
Then a thought occurred to Usopp.
"Among the women you met, was there a tall, dark beauty, an evil looking woman with red eyes, and a blonde with a scar on her face?" He asked, and the others realized what he was asking.
"That's right. Do you know them?" Conis tilted her head.
Chopper started to cry in hysterics. "Their ship was destroyed?! Then Cabernet is dead?!"
The other Straw Hats were also shocked.
"Cabernet was fine when I saw her earlier though?" Conis said.
""""""Eh?"""""" The Straw Hats said in simultaneous confusion.
"Hm?" Conis didn't know why they though Cabernet had died, she didn't think she said so.
"But you said their ship was destroyed?" Nami asked.
"Yes? That's what they told me." Conis couldn't wrap her head around this conversation.
Nami let out a sigh of relief. "So they lied, huh?"
"Eh? Lied?" Conis didn't know what to think anymore.
...
In God's Shrine, Cherry and company faced a large number of guards, undoubtedly experiences warriors in their own right.
Behind them stood an old man with a long white beard and mustache. The crazed, shifty eyes gave him away as Gan Fall immediately.
"What have you come here for, hm? Are you here under Enel's orders to assassinate me?" He spoke frantically and did not seem to expect any answers, as in the next moment he ordered his men to attack.
Cherry charged into the ranks of the soldiers and let loose with a cackling laugh. Every time she swung a fist or kicked with her legs, a man would fall and not get back up. Many of them were clutching their family jewels with tears streaming down their faces.
Gan Fall couldn't take his eyes off of Cherry as she was the primary threat to himself. Robin, Cabernet, and Serene took the chance to sneak away and try to find the dream journal, the cloud iron box, or anything else of relevance to Gan Fall's madness.