Vegapunk glanced at Stella. The current predicament of the Kozuki Mother and daughter truly resembled certain R-rated films... He hadn't expected Stella to get excited over something like this; she truly lived up to her title as the Queen of the Pleasure District.
"We will discuss your matter later. For now, let's return to the base!"
Taking the anxious Kozuki Mother and daughter, along with the captives he had acquired, Vegapunk and the others quickly returned to the Dream Star through the spatial gate.
The original large wooden ship turned directly into a Sealing Scroll with a bang. It must be admitted that with the chakra system, many areas could be completely bypassed using this framework, allowing for the creation of many shocking black technologies.
In any case, if he were relying purely on climbing the technology tree, Vegapunk felt that without thirty to fifty years, he wouldn't be able to develop such advanced spatial miniaturization scrolls.
The Devil Fruits of the One Piece World and the Chakra of the Naruto World were both excellent aids in his technological development. Although this meant that many technological black boxes were unclear even to Vegapunk himself, the results were indeed astonishing.
Take the Dream Star, for example. It was originally just an artificial satellite the size of a small island. Even with ecological pods installed inside, under normal circumstances, it could only sustain biological resources for a few hundred people at most.
But with the help of Chakra technology, although the exterior of the entire Dream Star looks unchanged, its internal space has been expanded several thousand times, making it even larger than Wano Country in the One Piece World.
Though it is called an artificial satellite, it can actually be considered a self-sufficient medium-sized country, or even a large country within the One Piece World!
Previously, because Kozuki Hiyori was only an external member, she had only visited Vegapunk's Egghead Island. Only today did she arrive at Vegapunk's true headquarters, the Dream Star.
Although Kozuki Hiyori was currently wearing Sea Stone handcuffs, it did not prevent her from marveling at the entire Dream Star. Especially after learning that it was located in outer space, far from the pirate planet, she felt immense awe for Vegapunk's technological inventions.
As for Gekko Moriah, Perona, and the others, knowing they were now millions of meters above the sea in outer space, they were already dizzy and disoriented.
"Is this where Lord Vegapunk has been living in seclusion? If you've been living here all along, no wonder the World Government Marines could never find you!"
"Oh, the World Government looked for me?"
Hearing Kozuki Hiyori's words, Vegapunk looked at Stella with some surprise.
Stella shrugged and spoke casually:
"Of course, Boss. Although you made your death look flawless and left no witnesses, to the Marines and the World Government, your death seemed a little too easy!"
"You must remember that the trap you set up killed more than a dozen Marine Vice Admirals, and even took out the most aggressive Admiral at the time, Akainu, leaving only Aokiji to escape..."
"In this situation, both the World Government and the Marines would naturally be suspicious of you dying so easily!"
"However, they only investigated for a year or two. Having found no clues, they now officially assume you are dead."
Vegapunk nodded. So Akainu had died... Thinking about it, it wasn't surprising. After all, that was tens of thousands of meters deep underwater. The water pressure alone would be unbearable, let alone the fact that Akainu had already been injured by the various traps he had set beforehand.
Furthermore, he was a Magma-Magma Fruit user, naturally suffering greater suppression from the sea. Dying like that wasn't too shocking.
As for Aokiji, who was with Akainu, as an Ice-Ice Fruit user, ice blocks would float even if they landed on the seabed... This small difference was the reason Aokiji ultimately escaped unharmed while Akainu perished without a burial place.
However, it was precisely because an Admiral died that the World Government and the Marines suspected his feigned death. Simply committing suicide was too far removed from the image of someone who had successfully trapped and killed an Admiral.
"I wasn't living on the Dream Star at that time... but that's not important. Little Hiyori, it seems we should settle the score between us, shouldn't we?"
Kozuki Hiyori looked nervous, and Kozuki Toki wore a pleading expression. Vegapunk glanced at the two of them and continued:
"I can overlook your attack on me, but you stole the Artificial Devil Fruit I meticulously created... You should know that even I only managed to produce one Paramecia-type Artificial Devil Fruit!"
"That Devil Fruit itself was a unique experimental product, not to mention that it originated from Mama of the Four Emperors!"
"Little Hiyori, how do you plan to compensate me for this Devil Fruit?"
Kozuki Hiyori's expression was solemn as she gently bit her lip:
"Anything is fine... I will do whatever Lord Vegapunk asks of me!"
"So... please let my Mother go!"
"No, Little Hiyori..."
"Mother, this was my fault to begin with! It has nothing to do with you!"
Kozuki Hiyori's solemn face left Kozuki Toki speechless with distress. She still had some maternal shame; she couldn't possibly reveal everything that had happened!
Vegapunk was no gentleman, let alone with Stella, the Queen of the Pleasure District, around. She had already been handed over; could it be that she couldn't even protect her own daughter now?
Vegapunk ignored the interaction between the Mother and daughter and simply nodded:
"Very well. From now on, you will be my experimental subject, receiving the same treatment as your Mother."
"Don't worry, I won't conduct any overly extreme research on you. At most, I'll collect some blood and other samples to see if we can advance the breakthrough in decoding the abilities of Paramecia-type Devil Fruits and create a truly perfect Paramecia-type Artificial Devil Fruit!"
As he spoke, Vegapunk formed hand signs. Half a minute later, the new Kotoamatsukami Ninjutsu was branded onto Kozuki Hiyori's brain.
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