"Motherf... Giolla! Giolla! Giolla!"
En route to the inevitable passing point for World Government affiliated nations transporting Heavenly Tribute in the New World, provided by Spandine, Doflamingo hadn't been idle. He was busy indulging in his recent obsession with medicine. He occasionally looked up, and his eyes nearly popped out. He was speechless, disgusted, and a little amused, letting out a rare, uncharacteristic roar.
Giolla poked her head out from the kitchen. "Oh~ hohoho~~ What's your command, Young Master?"
"Never! Remember, never! Never tie a bow on Weevil's hair again! And don't ever use your taste to dress him up!" Doflamingo covered his forehead, unable to bear the sight.
Weevil, munching on snacks on a nearby sofa, instinctively glanced at Doflamingo, a premonition of trouble. This spurred him to cleverly, imperceptibly, inch his butt towards the door... to avoid Doflamingo suddenly erupting and beating him.
Unlike his usual look, Weevil wasn't wearing a headscarf. Instead, the deranged Giolla had given him a strange hairstyle and a pink bow. If he were handsome, it wouldn't be a big deal, perhaps just overly flamboyant. But the problem was his truly idiotic appearance, which made the sight horrifying.
Giolla blinked, hand to her ear, suffering from her habitual intermittent auditory hallucinations. "What? Did you say I'm a princess? Oh~ hohoho~ Oh, you're too much, absolutely too much!"
"..." Doflamingo.
Doflamingo put down his book, stood up, and slowly approached Weevil. "I think you could be like Urouge and be a good monk, three times over."
"Momma!!!"
Bang bang bang!!!
Ignoring his snacks, Weevil scurried away, tumbling and crawling, disappearing into the lounge in a blink.
"Oh~ hohoho~ If you don't like it, you don't like it, but why scare Weevil-chan, Young Master?" Giolla complained.
Doflamingo sighed, silently returning to his seat.
"Behehehe~ What's wrong, Doffy?" Trebol, who loved to watch a good show, slid down from the crow's nest and asked.
Doflamingo calmed himself, then spoke in a roundabout, serious tone. "It's mainly Giolla's sense of fashion, yes! Her sense of fashion is truly epoch-making. I was completely shaken."
"..." Trebol, Giolla.
Doflamingo closed his medical book. "How far are we from our destination?"
"Behehehe~ We should arrive around evening," Trebol, not understanding what had happened, could only answer Doflamingo directly.
Doflamingo pondered for a moment. "Giolla. Help me clean up a room, the one at the stern. A secluded one, so as not to disturb you all. Then, move the medical equipment I got from Drum Kingdom from the warehouse over there. Don't worry about the specific installation; I'll handle it, fufufufu~ Theoretical learning is almost done; it's time for experiments."
Doflamingo had always felt an immense sense of urgency, which drove him to constantly strive to become stronger. Therefore, he had relentlessly pushed his physical conditioning and devised a ten-year plan for developing his String-String Fruit abilities.
But plans are meant to be broken.
Especially after recruiting Weevil and for a long time afterward, Doflamingo was in a state of suppressed irritability.
He realized that sometimes, diligent people truly couldn't compare to geniuses. He had spent six or seven years honing his physical strength, combined with considerable Armament Haki, and what was the result? He was only slightly stronger than Weevil's naturally steel-like, formidable physique, making him feel as though his efforts had been in vain.
People like Weevil are extremely rare, even rarer than those with Conqueror's Haki, which is said to be one in a million. However, Doflamingo knew that among those similar to Weevil but even stronger, there was one confirmed individual, Big Mom, and one unconfirmed suspect, Kaido.
Doflamingo knew his own body wasn't extraordinarily gifted. If he wanted to join the ranks of the top monsters, he first had to abandon the path of solely increasing physical strength. Of course, he still had to relentlessly temper his body, at least to a degree where he wouldn't be easily defeated.
Physical techniques are an extension of physical strength. Doflamingo knew nothing about swordsmanship. The only remaining paths to becoming stronger were the three types of Haki and the development of the String-String Fruit. The three types of Haki don't yield results overnight, but Devil Fruit abilities seem to have boundless potential.
During his previous String-String Fruit development, Doflamingo had almost entirely copied a "template" and even set a ten-year deadline for complete mastery.
Seven years had passed, and it was almost the eighth. He had progressed quite smoothly and was nearing the end, only lacking "Devil Fruit Awakening." Weevil's existence, coupled with this, reminded him that it was time to develop his String-String Fruit more meticulously, more precisely, and with greater focus.
While developing the String-String Fruit according to the "template," Doflamingo also tried to incorporate some of his past wild ideas. It proved to be impossible. The String-String Fruit couldn't borrow from and achieve the miraculous, almost ethereal development methods of the Paw-Paw Fruit...
Devil Fruits are divided into three categories: Logia, Zoan, and Paramecia. The Zoan and Paramecia categories each have several subcategories. While both the String-String Fruit and the Paw-Paw Fruit belong to the broader Paramecia category, they differ in finer detail.
The Paw-Paw Fruit grants unreasonable superpowers, whereas the String-String Fruit is about realistic creation. There are also Paramecia users who can alter their own bodies. The three are vastly different.
Although Devil Fruit abilities are developed quite subjectively, the String-String Fruit, being a realistic creation, has significant constraints in this subjective aspect. Thus, Doflamingo once considered, "Can any concept related to 'strings' be incorporated into the development of the String-String Fruit? Such as 'life lines, career lines, wisdom lines, marriage lines' from metaphysics... 'longitude lines, latitude lines, tropics' from geography... 'intersecting lines, parallel lines' from mathematics... 'light rays, rays' from optics..."
The answer was no.
Doflamingo wasn't rigid or stubborn. So, he changed his approach, contemplating the raw essence and symbolic meaning of strings.
What were strings originally invented for? Tying, fixing, mending, and so on. They all symbolized one thing—control!
Controlling objects, controlling creatures, controlling people—this greatly appealed to Doflamingo's strong desire for control.
So, he began to explore how to control everything he wanted to control, primarily people. The medical knowledge he had acquired from Crocus and Dr. Kureha, originally intended for training a ship's doctor, became his main focus of study. He had to understand everything about the human body.
Doflamingo also re-examined the variable characteristics of strings made from different materials: their softness, sharpness, elasticity, thinness...
He suddenly realized that if he developed one or several of these characteristics to their extreme, complemented by the three types of Haki, and deployed through means of "control," he already possessed the capital to join the ranks of the top monsters.
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